As a retired teacher, Rahm’s stump speech about “fixing” education made my blood boil. Not one word about teacher pay being raised (I will ALWAYS believe it is because we are majority women). He repeated himself over and over with statistics HE was certainly proud of from his Chicago years. For the love of education, TEACHING IS ONLY PARTIALLY MEASURABLE BY DATA. It is an ART just as much science. The testing companies make SO. MUCH. MONEY. on the idea that you can tell how well a student is doing with numbers only. And it’s just not true.
Also, I’m not sure what Rahm’s early ed background indicated, but children of 4,5,6 need play and socialization more than ABCs and 123s. If 4K’s purpose is to set kids up for socialization and learning through play, that is great. Kids who learn to read at 4 are not any better, or “smarter” than kids for whom it clicks at 6. And many children are not developmentally ready to learn ABC’s at 4. It’s called meeting them where they are, That is the ART of teaching. And politicians don’t like intangibles, but they are the stuff of which life is made.
Not once in anything he said did I hear that he sought opinions of actual, in-the-trenches teachers. Until everyday, working teachers whose number one interest is WHAT IS BEST FOR CHILDREN are consulted, his message falls flat.
From my perspective, this episode was indistinguishable from a MAGA republican telling the American people “how it’s gonna be.”
I love this podcast! Y’all do great work! Just not my favorite guest…. By far.
I love how he went through all his credentials in Chicago & didn’t once mention the phrase “charter schools.” Rahm closed a historic number of (largely Black) neighborhood schools and opened over 40 charter schools. To me, it’s a total paradox to support democratic institutions while at the same time weakening public education; Rahm will never be my candidate. There’s a reason teachers went on strike while he was mayor.
I came to these comments thinking about this bc Philadelphia public schools is doing a similar thing for a similar reason. He’s gotta have a position on charter schools if he’s going to take on education!
I enjoyed this conversation even though I don't think I want a President Emanuel myself, and I don't know about Rahm's viability as a presidential candidate generally. But, I'm glad he's out here doing the discourse on education. To me, this is the point of a primary -- get a bunch of different candidates talking about a bunch of different ideas and policies and only the strongest ideas move on and are adopted by the strongest candidate (ideally). I can sympathize with the criticisms that he's just a bunch of talking points but he has come a long way in finessing his public speaking since he started putting his feelers out last year. He was on Bill Maher at some point in 2025 and was cringe. He has since pinned down a few narratives and sounded a lot stronger (he has also since reappeared on Bill Maher and was more compelling this time around). He also said recently (I think on this recent Bill Maher stint) that he won't sign any bills that aren't bipartisan, which is quite the take to have.
I appreciated the interview for sure and would have loved a longer one, but agree with the too "politiciany," too many catchphrases/talking points critique. I wanted to be excited about him, but I wasn't.
The comment thread did make me listen to the Graham Platner/Jon Stewart interview so I'm currently listening to that. Pantsuit Politics and this community always leads me places I want to go.
OK, I just have one more thing to get off my chest. He kept talking about wasting money on detention centers and all also mentioned supporting the Dignity Act. I looked up the Dignity Act and according to the Law Immigrant Law Center the bill would increase the number of detention centers.
Great episode! I really enjoyed hearing about a good issue that is not centered around Trump. It will be so nice when he doesn’t take up so much oxygen.
It seems one of the challenges with math proficiency stems from a pervasive idea that "I'm never going to need to know this." I think the attitude is reinforced from parents who scoff at math homework.
Math is for sure one of those 'no shortcuts' subjects. Skills build on skills and if you miss one, you may end up completely derailed. If I could go back and have a do over, I would take much more higher level math and I think the U.S. has really dropped the ball on teaching statistics and probability to both high school and college students.
100% talk about this all the time with my husband that stats is so useful and we wish it was a bigger focus of our math education instead of calculus (as non engineering folk)
Statistics and probability! Such a blind spot in our education system.
I was talking with a math professor and he pointed out that we side eye people who can’t read, but it is perfectly socially acceptable to be loud and proud about not being able to do high school level math.
I tried really hard to be open-minded about this conversation but I just can't get behind Rahm. His constant emphasis on college and career-readiness has always left me feeling like he accelerated the transactional nature in which education has become. As a teacher of almost twenty years, the mission statement of American public education should be to make good citizens, not just little worker-bees. Nothing about his ideas felt inspiring or aspirational. They felt like "How can we make our kids good for business?"
Thank you for this, Beth. I understand he had talking points with his college or career readiness, but there are complexities that needs supports before everyone can take college classes. ELL students. Disabled students. I agree when he said this could be multiple podcast episodes! I would enjoy hearing Beth Silvers talk to him again to ask how he incorporated these groups into his plan. Perhaps sharing with him her more to says about special education?
Very much agree. The Atlantic had an excellent article recently about our country's support (or like thereof) of liberal arts and I've really been pondering this. I do think the US overall needs to place greater value on vocational education, but I don't think it needs to be either/or
First, I want to say that 20 years ago I was working at a very traditional highly-ranked community college and as I recall, 2/3 of incoming students were required to take remedial reading, math, or both. I doubt it was terribly different at the 4-year university up the road. That statistic doesn't sound like it has budged much, if at all.
Second, I spent some time poking through sites that aggregate literacy data and I don't know what's what. There are a lot of sites saying adult literacy in the United States was 99% by 1970 and now it's like, 79%. So I listened to a podcast from Harvard Gazette. I didn't hear anything ground breaking. How "literate" should we expect people to be? The most avid readers I know were raised by readers; IOW they saw their parents or grandparents reading and it was understood that reading was something to be enjoyed. Others found that a subject that interested them and kind of took off from there. I'm not sure literacy challenges can be solved solely by schools, teachers, and cycling through curricula.
re: dual credit
I support this, to a point. I'm not sure how dual credit is handled across the board, but I do know of people whose kids are graduating from high school with full AAS degrees. To me that indicates a real lack of rigor. Nine to 12 credits seems reasonable because the college course should be college level. (Even up to 24, if some are taken during the summer.)
To me all of this adds up to hurrying through to what? Saving money on post-secondary education? Maybe. Getting random college credits that may or may not apply to what you actually end up studying? Probably.
I taught remedial math for a year at the University of Wyoming. It was an interesting program where I was employed by the local community college but teaching UWyo students. The students enrolled through UWyo, and the university paid the community college to administer the program. Those classrooms were so interesting. Such an eclectic mix of students who clearly had been left behind in some way by their K-12 education. I’m glad we have these kind of programs to bring these students up to speed. It takes a lot of patience to teach though. I learned a lot in those classrooms.
Instead of dual enrollment, could we have remedial math and reading offered to high school students through community college partnerships? It ends up giving them experience functioning in a college class setting, but instead of gathering credits that may or may not be useful, they can fill in gaps that appeared in their earlier education. Not sure how this would work in practice though.
Since he mentioned Race to the top, did we actually like that initiative? Wasn’t it more of the same of high stakes testing with schools competing for funding?
I sent this episode to my conservative father because I felt like he would be friends with Rahm! I did find him a little pushy with his statistics but I appreciated that he was emphasizing what was clearly important to him. He also brought in critique without being divisive which made it feel like I could share it with someone with different views in a way that might generate some good conversations!
It was an interesting conversation. Honestly I did not like many of his policy ideas (have to have a letter of acceptance to graduate, 10 hours of college credit, I think there was one more) but honestly it was refreshing to hear of someone who had a plan just to try something.
Enjoyed this deeply. I am ALL for a candidate who is serious about the power of education, investing in it and rigorously focusing on the outcomes of those investments.
That said I’m afraid I also agree with previous comments that it was a little too transparent that he has a set of talking points he wants to hit— not that that’s so terrible but I don’t think most of America will tune in and pay attention long enough 😣
I find this very interesting because my children are 5 years apart and their educational experiences have been wildly different and not for the better.
As a retired teacher, Rahm’s stump speech about “fixing” education made my blood boil. Not one word about teacher pay being raised (I will ALWAYS believe it is because we are majority women). He repeated himself over and over with statistics HE was certainly proud of from his Chicago years. For the love of education, TEACHING IS ONLY PARTIALLY MEASURABLE BY DATA. It is an ART just as much science. The testing companies make SO. MUCH. MONEY. on the idea that you can tell how well a student is doing with numbers only. And it’s just not true.
Also, I’m not sure what Rahm’s early ed background indicated, but children of 4,5,6 need play and socialization more than ABCs and 123s. If 4K’s purpose is to set kids up for socialization and learning through play, that is great. Kids who learn to read at 4 are not any better, or “smarter” than kids for whom it clicks at 6. And many children are not developmentally ready to learn ABC’s at 4. It’s called meeting them where they are, That is the ART of teaching. And politicians don’t like intangibles, but they are the stuff of which life is made.
Not once in anything he said did I hear that he sought opinions of actual, in-the-trenches teachers. Until everyday, working teachers whose number one interest is WHAT IS BEST FOR CHILDREN are consulted, his message falls flat.
From my perspective, this episode was indistinguishable from a MAGA republican telling the American people “how it’s gonna be.”
I love this podcast! Y’all do great work! Just not my favorite guest…. By far.
I love how he went through all his credentials in Chicago & didn’t once mention the phrase “charter schools.” Rahm closed a historic number of (largely Black) neighborhood schools and opened over 40 charter schools. To me, it’s a total paradox to support democratic institutions while at the same time weakening public education; Rahm will never be my candidate. There’s a reason teachers went on strike while he was mayor.
I came to these comments thinking about this bc Philadelphia public schools is doing a similar thing for a similar reason. He’s gotta have a position on charter schools if he’s going to take on education!
I enjoyed this conversation even though I don't think I want a President Emanuel myself, and I don't know about Rahm's viability as a presidential candidate generally. But, I'm glad he's out here doing the discourse on education. To me, this is the point of a primary -- get a bunch of different candidates talking about a bunch of different ideas and policies and only the strongest ideas move on and are adopted by the strongest candidate (ideally). I can sympathize with the criticisms that he's just a bunch of talking points but he has come a long way in finessing his public speaking since he started putting his feelers out last year. He was on Bill Maher at some point in 2025 and was cringe. He has since pinned down a few narratives and sounded a lot stronger (he has also since reappeared on Bill Maher and was more compelling this time around). He also said recently (I think on this recent Bill Maher stint) that he won't sign any bills that aren't bipartisan, which is quite the take to have.
I appreciated the interview for sure and would have loved a longer one, but agree with the too "politiciany," too many catchphrases/talking points critique. I wanted to be excited about him, but I wasn't.
The comment thread did make me listen to the Graham Platner/Jon Stewart interview so I'm currently listening to that. Pantsuit Politics and this community always leads me places I want to go.
OK, I just have one more thing to get off my chest. He kept talking about wasting money on detention centers and all also mentioned supporting the Dignity Act. I looked up the Dignity Act and according to the Law Immigrant Law Center the bill would increase the number of detention centers.
Great episode! I really enjoyed hearing about a good issue that is not centered around Trump. It will be so nice when he doesn’t take up so much oxygen.
It seems one of the challenges with math proficiency stems from a pervasive idea that "I'm never going to need to know this." I think the attitude is reinforced from parents who scoff at math homework.
Math is for sure one of those 'no shortcuts' subjects. Skills build on skills and if you miss one, you may end up completely derailed. If I could go back and have a do over, I would take much more higher level math and I think the U.S. has really dropped the ball on teaching statistics and probability to both high school and college students.
100% talk about this all the time with my husband that stats is so useful and we wish it was a bigger focus of our math education instead of calculus (as non engineering folk)
Statistics and probability! Such a blind spot in our education system.
I was talking with a math professor and he pointed out that we side eye people who can’t read, but it is perfectly socially acceptable to be loud and proud about not being able to do high school level math.
I tried really hard to be open-minded about this conversation but I just can't get behind Rahm. His constant emphasis on college and career-readiness has always left me feeling like he accelerated the transactional nature in which education has become. As a teacher of almost twenty years, the mission statement of American public education should be to make good citizens, not just little worker-bees. Nothing about his ideas felt inspiring or aspirational. They felt like "How can we make our kids good for business?"
Thank you for this, Beth. I understand he had talking points with his college or career readiness, but there are complexities that needs supports before everyone can take college classes. ELL students. Disabled students. I agree when he said this could be multiple podcast episodes! I would enjoy hearing Beth Silvers talk to him again to ask how he incorporated these groups into his plan. Perhaps sharing with him her more to says about special education?
Very much agree. The Atlantic had an excellent article recently about our country's support (or like thereof) of liberal arts and I've really been pondering this. I do think the US overall needs to place greater value on vocational education, but I don't think it needs to be either/or
First, I want to say that 20 years ago I was working at a very traditional highly-ranked community college and as I recall, 2/3 of incoming students were required to take remedial reading, math, or both. I doubt it was terribly different at the 4-year university up the road. That statistic doesn't sound like it has budged much, if at all.
Second, I spent some time poking through sites that aggregate literacy data and I don't know what's what. There are a lot of sites saying adult literacy in the United States was 99% by 1970 and now it's like, 79%. So I listened to a podcast from Harvard Gazette. I didn't hear anything ground breaking. How "literate" should we expect people to be? The most avid readers I know were raised by readers; IOW they saw their parents or grandparents reading and it was understood that reading was something to be enjoyed. Others found that a subject that interested them and kind of took off from there. I'm not sure literacy challenges can be solved solely by schools, teachers, and cycling through curricula.
re: dual credit
I support this, to a point. I'm not sure how dual credit is handled across the board, but I do know of people whose kids are graduating from high school with full AAS degrees. To me that indicates a real lack of rigor. Nine to 12 credits seems reasonable because the college course should be college level. (Even up to 24, if some are taken during the summer.)
To me all of this adds up to hurrying through to what? Saving money on post-secondary education? Maybe. Getting random college credits that may or may not apply to what you actually end up studying? Probably.
I taught remedial math for a year at the University of Wyoming. It was an interesting program where I was employed by the local community college but teaching UWyo students. The students enrolled through UWyo, and the university paid the community college to administer the program. Those classrooms were so interesting. Such an eclectic mix of students who clearly had been left behind in some way by their K-12 education. I’m glad we have these kind of programs to bring these students up to speed. It takes a lot of patience to teach though. I learned a lot in those classrooms.
Instead of dual enrollment, could we have remedial math and reading offered to high school students through community college partnerships? It ends up giving them experience functioning in a college class setting, but instead of gathering credits that may or may not be useful, they can fill in gaps that appeared in their earlier education. Not sure how this would work in practice though.
Since he mentioned Race to the top, did we actually like that initiative? Wasn’t it more of the same of high stakes testing with schools competing for funding?
I sent this episode to my conservative father because I felt like he would be friends with Rahm! I did find him a little pushy with his statistics but I appreciated that he was emphasizing what was clearly important to him. He also brought in critique without being divisive which made it feel like I could share it with someone with different views in a way that might generate some good conversations!
It was an interesting conversation. Honestly I did not like many of his policy ideas (have to have a letter of acceptance to graduate, 10 hours of college credit, I think there was one more) but honestly it was refreshing to hear of someone who had a plan just to try something.
Enjoyed this deeply. I am ALL for a candidate who is serious about the power of education, investing in it and rigorously focusing on the outcomes of those investments.
That said I’m afraid I also agree with previous comments that it was a little too transparent that he has a set of talking points he wants to hit— not that that’s so terrible but I don’t think most of America will tune in and pay attention long enough 😣
And my child is going to college in the UK for one of many reasons but also because it’s so much more affordable!
I find this very interesting because my children are 5 years apart and their educational experiences have been wildly different and not for the better.
I have 3 kids, all six years apart (18, 12, 6), and I couldn’t agree more. Such different educational experiences and not for the better.
My short and extremely non-nuanced take…he still seems as full of shit as ever.