How Nikole Hannah-Jones Gets School Choice All Wrong
Robert Pondiscio discusses the competence crisis in public schools, the limits of school choice, and the importance of parental involvement in education.
In the recent New York Times article "In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?" 1619 Project creator and MacArthur "genius grant" winner Nikole Hannah-Jones second-guesses her decision to send her daughter to a mediocre public school in New York City.
While Hannah-Jones has received plaudits for honesty and frankness, today's guest, the education scholar Robert Pondiscio, says she fundamentally misunderstands the failure of today's public school system. Rather than confronting basic and urgent issues of competence on the part of teachers and administrators, he writes, she blames racism, poverty, and per-pupil funding issues that are simply not central to education reform. Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, author of How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice, and a former public school teacher. His Substack, The Next 30 Years, focuses on education reform.
He talks with Nick Gillespie about how the school choice movement has lost its way over the past decade, how wide-scale adoption of education savings accounts is already radically altering K-12 education, and why Mayor Zohran Mamdani's decision to keep an effective reading program in New York City's public schools is a good thing.
Past appearances:
- "Why did schools stop teaching kids how to read?" January 26, 2023
- "Charter Schools Don't Cater To All Parents. Robert Pondiscio Explains Why That's Good," October 16, 2019
- "Is It 'Morally Disturbing' When Charter Schools Skim Highly Motivated Families?" October 16, 2019
- "Should Charter Schools Be Allowed to Push Out Difficult Kids?" January 25, 2016
0:00—Challenging the presumption of competence
8:48—Are teachers held accountable?
11:40—Why aren't there more teachers?
14:51—Charter schools and the achievement gap
21:24—Success Academy and parental involvement
26:22—Standardized testing and student anxiety
29:58—Education savings accounts and teachers unions
34:38—Parental agency
37:29—Mamdani and NYC education policy
44:02—Curriculum reform
Mentioned in the podcast:
"In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?" by Nikole Hannah-Jones
"The Lessons We're Not Learning from Nikole Hannah-Jones," by Robert Pondiscio