Esther Duflo: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yes, so it’s not just training an elite. Yes, although I wonder whether, if we look in a generation on the current kids who are in school, will we find the same thing? Because I’ll tell you exactly why: the current PISA and TIMSS results show France exactly at the median in terms of the scores, but with a lot of heterogeneity, with excellent results at the top and really bad results at the bottom. And the second thing that these test scores also show — I think it’s the TIMSS — the math scores are the strongest correlation of the OECD country between your socioeconomic class and your score. This is the place where being in a bottom quintile of socioeconomic class, parental income, is the most predictive of being in the bottom quintile of the math performance. So I do think we, historically, have an excellent system. I do think it has roots in 19th century France and the Republic of the Teachers and the both inclusive and demanding system at once. I think to some extent, I’m the product of that. But I also think that we’ve a little bit let it crumble. I do hope that we can recover it. Does child-rearing in France strike you as more sensible than child-rearing in the United States?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.