KAI RYSSDAL: Like so many presidents before him, President Obama has talked a lot about the importance of education. He’s talked about the need for arts in schools. The need for teacher training. Good ideas, but ones that cost money — money that we’re in short supply of these days.
Harvard researcher Susan Eaton’s most recent book is called “The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial.” We got her on the line to talk about education, the Obama administration, and the economy. Welcome to the program.
SUSAN EATON: Hi, great to be here.
RYSSDAL: You, in the course of writing your book, spent a lot of time in and out of public school classrooms in the United States. What’s your take on the biggest problems that are out there?
EATON: Well, I think that the biggest problem is the fact that huge shares of our children in the United States — disproportionately, children of color; Latino and African American children — are simply not connected to mainstream opportunities. And our schools are really . . . have not, at least in the last eight years or so — and probably even more than that — been trying to connect them to those opportunities.
RYSSDAL: But it does, in a lot of measure, come down to money. Doesn’t it?