People think these problems are intractable. People think that if they find the wrong thing on police or education they're going to be called a racist. That's selfish though. It's not about us. I'll close with one story. During the second time I got kicked out New York City, I lamented this fact to the Joel Klein. He looked me in the eyes and he said if it ever becomes about us,. Let's quit. Right. This is about the very fabric, in my opinion, of what the American dream is about. This is I'm a patriot. So that based on their own merit, kids can rise and I won't rest until that's true.
The good news about educational reform, says Harvard economist Roland Fryer, is that we know what it takes to turn a school around. The bad news is that it's hard work--and implementing it won't win you any popularity contests. Listen as the MacArthur Genius Award Winner and John Bates Clark medalist speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how pizza parties revealed the potential of incentives to improve students' test scores, and why he's far more concerned about closing the racial achievement gap than keeping the love of learning pure. He also discusses the five best practices of successful schools, and why it's his failures far more than his successes that keep him in this fight.