March 18, 2017

Income and Education

Are America’s public schools doing a bad job of educating our kids? We’ll hear from a top educator who says the real factor behind student performance is a family’s income level. Then, it seems like millions of people are addicted to technology. A marketing expert says today’s tech products are irresistible to many consumers.

Episode Segments:

More Money, Better Education David C. Berliner, PhD is an education expert, author, and Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizona State University. Dr. Berliner disputed the idea that the nation’s public schools are failing. He said family wealth and income is the greatest predictor of a student’s performance and that many schools perform well. He noted that children attending public schools that serve the wealthy in the U.S. are competitive with any nation in the world. He offered suggestions for how schools, policymakers and parents can help low-income students.
Embed Code
Technology Addiction Adam Alter, PhD, is Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Prof. Alter called this the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. He said Americans spend an average of three hours each day using smartphones, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans. He explained why so many of today's products are irresistible and how consumers can set boundaries between work and play, and mitigate the dark side of technology.
Embed Code
Turn Signal Use Richard Ponziani is a traffic safety researcher and President of RLP Engineering of Dayton, OH. Mr. Ponziani recently conducted a study that found that drivers fail to use turn signals nearly half the time when making a lane change and 25% of the time when turning. He said the failure to use turn signals results in as many as 2 million traffic accidents each year. He explained some possible solutions to the problem.
Embed Code

Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode

Adam Alter Adam Alter is an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, with an affiliated appointment in the New York University Psychology Department. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of two book: Irresistible (March, 2017), which considers why so many people today are addicted to so many behaviors, from incessant smart phone and internet use to video game playing and online shopping, and Drunk Tank Pink (2013), which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Adam has also written for the New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post, Atlantic, WIRED, Slate, Huffington Post, and Popular Science, among other publications. He has shared his ideas on NPR's Fresh Air, at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, and with dozens of companies, including Google, Microsoft, Anheuser Busch, Prudential, and Fidelity, and with several design and ad agencies around the world. Adam’s academic research focuses on judgment and decision-making and social psychology, with a particular interest in the sometimes surprising effects of subtle cues in the environment on human cognition and behavior. His research has been published widely in academic journals, and featured in dozens of TV, radio and print outlets around the world. He received his Bachelor of Science (Honors Class 1, University Medal) in Psychology from the University of New South Wales and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University, where he held the Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Honorific Dissertation Fellowship and a Fellowship in the Woodrow Wilson Society of Scholars Adam's Website

David Berliner David C. Berliner is Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizona State University. He has also taught at the Universities of Arizona and Massachusetts, at Teachers College and Stanford University, and at universities in Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, and Switzerland. He is a member of the National Academy of Education, the International Academy of Education, and a past president of both the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Division of Educational Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA). He is the winner of numerous awards, most notably the Brock award and the AERA award for distinguished contributions to education, the E. L. Thorndike award from the APA for lifetime achievements, and the NEA “Friend of Education” award for his work on behalf of the education profession. An interview with Professor Berliner on Your Education Matters can be found here. Professor Berliner has authored more than 200 published articles, chapters and books. Among his best known works is the book co-authored with B. J. Biddle, The manufactured crisis, and the book co-authored with Sharon Nichols, Collateral damage: How high-stakes testing corrupts American education. He co-edited the first Handbook of educational psychology and the books Talks to teachers, and Perspectives on instructional time. His most recent book, 50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools, was co-authored with Gene V Glass and students, and published in March, 2014. National Policy Education Center