Words & Numbers
Words & Numbers
Free the People
Episode 474: Schoolhouse Farce
1 hour 6 minutes Posted Nov 20, 2025 at 12:00 pm.
Introduction and Overview
The Camino Story and Unexpected Love of Hiking
Walking Ancient Roman Roads with Modern Tech
Criticism, Free Speech, and the Nick Fuentes Debate
Where to Draw the Line on Platforming Extremists
The Difference Between Preference and Censorship
Foolishness of the Week: University of Arizona AI Prompting Class
College Remediation and the Math Skills Crisis
The Collapse of Writing Standards in Higher Education
Why Students Aren’t Being Educated Before College
Public Schools, Property Taxes, and Unequal Outcomes
Why Money and Teacher Quality Don’t Correlate
School Choice, Competition, and Market Incentives
Why Centralized Solutions Don’t Work in Education
Markets, Feedback Loops, and Real Accountability
Closing Thoughts and Listener Send-Off
Aftershow: Khrushchev, Yeltsin, and the Grocery Store Lesson
The Power of Markets: Food, Abundance, and Freedom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Show notes
In this episode, we discuss the rising backlash to last week’s comments about Nick Fuentes, the distinction between personal judgment and deplatforming, and the broader question of what ideas belong in public discourse. We explore the failures of remedial education across major universities, the collapsing academic standards that allow students to advance without basic literacy and numeracy, and the systemic incentives that push institutions to “get students through” rather than educate them. We examine the roots of the public-school crisis, the role of property-tax funding, the constraints of unionized pay structures, and why market incentives and genuine school choice may be the only workable path forward. We also revisit lessons from the Soviet Union, grocery-store abundance, and what markets reveal about human flourishing in ways central planning never can.
53:51 The Power of Markets: Food, Abundance, and Freedom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices