Is There a McDonald's Metaphor?

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Jeffrey Canada, who started the Harlem Children's Zone, is an American hero. The goal can't be to get more of him and put them in the principal position,. A little old nerd from Harvard can run 20 schools and have the same effects. There's tons of principles who are way better than I am at doing this work as well.

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.