Center of the American Experiment education reform conference

November 20, 1990 - John Chubb, senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution; Robert Maddox, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Nelson Smith of the U.S. Department of Education; and Ray Marshall, former Secretary of Labor in the Carter Administration and now a Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, speaking at an education reform conference sponsored by The Center of the American Experiment. The group provide varying views about education reform. Chubb has written a new book called "Politics, Markets and American Schools", and argued that our system of public education is so dysfunctional that we need to start all over again. Maddox is part of group that opposes using vouchers as a tool for school reform, and that taxpayers should not be required to support specific religious values and beliefs as they are conveyed through parochial schools. Marshall stated the future of our country depends on what we do to improve education for minority students and argued that the U.S. will only be able to compete internationally if we make sure that all our children are well educated. Smith discussed social problems such as fatherless households, drugs and poverty that some people think prevent the public-school system from meeting the educational needs of all children.