HUFFINGTON POST: Robert Reich Sounds Off On How America Has Failed Its Students

Career College Central Summary:

It’s no secret that former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich has some misgivings about the direction of the American economy. But the prolific writer, radio commentator and longtime University of California, Berkeley professor isn’t thrilled about how we are educating our kids, either.
As part of a new project with the activist group MoveOn.org, Reich recently released a video that described our education system as “squashing passion for learning, eroding the love of teaching and grinding up generations of young people.” The critique is accompanied by a set of proposals to reinvent American education – one of 10 planks in a broader agenda titled “10 Ideas to Save the Economy.”
Reich has addressed the nation’s education challenges in his books, including 2011’s Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, as well as in his 2013 film Inequality for All (available on NetFlix, iTunes and DVD). But rarely has he been so blunt in his assessment or his prescriptions.
Capital & Main spoke last week with Reich about his views on how the country has failed its kids, and what it must do to right the ship.
Capital & Main: Have we bought into a collective myth that the answer to economic inequality is better education, when in fact there may be more immediate solutions that could help tens of millions Americans struggling today?
Robert Reich: Education is not the only answer and it’s certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it’s a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality…
C&M: In the MoveOn email that accompanies your video you say that powerful special interests see schools as sources of potential profit. Who are these special interests and how do they profit from public education?
Reich: I think you are referring to the part of the video that talks about for-profit higher education. That’s really become a racket. What we need to do is move toward a system of free public higher education. There are also a lot of profits in the financial services industry that is now charging students an arm and a leg for student loans at exorbitant interest rates — far higher than prevailing interest rates — because students and their families are so desperate. So I would criticize those two profit-making industries who are really making a pay on the backs of working students, working families, poor students, poor families.

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HUFFINGTON POST