Recently, I have been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s (author of books like The Tipping Point ) podcast called Revisionist History. He examines little known or little examined aspects of United States history and pop culture.
The past three episodes have been an examination of Higher Education in the United States and the idea of whether or not our institutions capitalize on the potential of young Americans. It turns out, they really don’t.
I highly recommend listening to these three episodes beginning with “Carlos Doesn’t Know” which, obviously, is about a boy named, “Carlos [who is] is a brilliant student from South Los Angeles. He attends an exclusive private school on a academic scholarship. He is the kind of person the American meritocracy is supposed to reward. But in the hidden details of his life lies a cautionary tale about how hard it is to rise from the bottom to the top—and why the American school system, despite its best efforts, continues to leave an extraordinary amount of talent on the table.”