Thomas Sowell on School Choice and the Price Our Children Pay for Bad Ideas | Peter Robinson | Thomas Sowell | Hoover Institution

Uncommon Knowledge

Hoover Institution

Politics, History, News, News:politics, Science

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thomas Sowell delivers a sweeping critique of American education, affirmative action, and modern universities, drawing on his own life story—from Harlem classrooms to Ivy League institutions—decades of research, and hard data. Sowell argues that ideology has replaced knowledge and that well-intentioned policies often harm the very people they are meant to help. He explores intersecting issues of race, charter schools, universities, AI, and the future of American institutions—with his usual clarity, candor, and unmistakable intellectual force. Recorded on September 30, 2025. Subscribe to Uncommon Knowledge at hoover.org/uk

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tom Sol and I have recorded some 20 shows over the last couple of decades.
0:05.0	Shall we make it 21?
0:07.0	Yeah.
0:08.0	Thomas Soul on Uncommon Knowledge Now.
0:11.0	Tom a Soul on Uncommon Knowledge.
0:40.7	I'm Peter Robinson.
0:42.6	Thomas Sol lived as a boy in a house without plumbing in Gastonia, North Carolina,
0:47.7	spent his teen years in Harlem, tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers,
0:51.9	how history might have been different, served in in the United States Marine Corps holds degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago,
1:01.0	taught at Douglas College, Cornell, Howard, Brandeis, Amherst, and UCLA, has published at least 40 books.
1:10.0	There are different ways to count them, depending on revised editions, new editions,
1:13.6	reprints and so forth, and has served for 48 years now as a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
1:21.6	Tom, you and I talked about the conversation we're about to have today,
1:26.6	and you said you wanted to devote it to
1:28.6	one topic, not economics, not race, not sociology or culture. You want to talk about education.
1:37.5	Yes.
1:38.5	Why?
1:39.5	The reason I have such a focus on education is one that it is one of the major institutions
1:52.2	of our society that is failing more so, I think, than most of the other major institutes
1:58.6	of our society.
2:00.4	And it's failing in two different ways.
2:02.6	It's failing to teach students how to think.
	...

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