America’s Education Problem

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2019

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For decades, the U.S. spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap with the rest of the world. New data shows that all that money made little difference. Today, we investigate how that could be. Guest: Dana Goldstein, a national correspondent for The New York Times who covers education. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:The past three American presidents have tried to help the U.S. education system compete with other countries. Test scores haven’t improved.The “Nation’s Report Card” came out this fall. It indicated that two-thirds of children in the U.S. are not proficient readers.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro.
0:02.4	This is The Daily.
0:04.0	[♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
0:08.6	Today, for decades, the US has spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap
0:17.0	with the rest of the world.
0:19.2	New data shows that all that money made no difference.
0:24.9	Dana Goldstein, on how that could be.
0:32.4	It's Thursday, December 5.
0:37.6	The United States, when did the United States start to feel a sense of anxiety around the education
0:42.8	levels of our children in relation to the rest of the world?
0:46.4	Well, I think back to 1957.
0:50.4	But the biggest news to come out of Russia was the story of the year, perhaps of our generation.
0:55.1	And that was the year that the Russians beat us to space.
0:58.1	They're radio beep signaling, not merely a red scientific triumph, but the launching of mankind
1:03.0	into a new era, the dawn of the age of space.
1:06.5	Sputnik and mutnik, they were called.
1:08.8	With their sputnik satellite.
1:10.6	And this triggered a sort of national conversation and anxiety in the United States among our political
1:16.4	leaders and the public, we were the country that beat back tyranny and saved the world
1:22.2	in World War I and World War II.
1:24.6	What did it mean that this other nation could outperform us in this new frontier of space?
1:31.8	And that was the start of a conversation about our schools and if they were preparing
	...

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