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Nikhil Goyal: Even when I was younger, I didn’t really like going to school. I consider myself to be a self-directed learner and the traditional school environment just didn’t fit well with me. I was told what to do all day. I didn’t have much freedom. And a lot of what was being taught in school, I just wasn’t interested in it.
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I was looking at the Indian system—I’m Indian-American—and if you look at that system, they have longer school days, longer school years, more homework, and I was kind of under the impression that was the right way to go. And then I started to do a lot of research and noticed the psychological problems and the stress that was put on the kids and how much harm that was actually doing to them. And I saw that further when I went to this new school: that my previous opinions and assumptions were just wrong.
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Even that first book I wrote. I’m 19 and I wrote that when I was about 16. And there’s a lot of things in there that now I disagree with. I’ve changed my opinion a lot and I think just reading more and experiencing more of the world has given me a much better perspective on things.

That’s definitely not going to happen. I didn’t read much about capitalism or neoliberalism. I didn’t know as much back then. That’s something I find particularly interesting because I see that many young politically minded people who support the Democratic Party gain their knowledge on issues by reading the opinion pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, which espouse militaristic, neoliberal nonsense. And that's what I did for some time. So I didn’t understand the structural, institutional problems as I do now.How does having a more holistic view of how schools fit in the institution of capitalism informed your critique of schools? I mean, it seems to be why there’s such a focus on math and science test scores and keeping up with India and China.
Even back then, I was very much skeptical of these international comparisons, but I hadn’t understood how it fit into a larger framework and narrative. Now I see that, for example, what’s happening in Chicago and Philadelphia and other cities, there's a neoliberal assault on public education. And I connected the fact that the tenets of capitalism were seeping into the sphere of education. That’s given me a lot more insight into why these so-called “reformers” are making these suggestions.
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Much, much worse.

A lot of my research and reporting over the last two, three years has looked at many unconventional, alternative schools. In the early 1900s, in Spain, there were a lot of schools known as “Anarchist Free Schools.” Many of them later sprung up in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. These types of schools basically shun every principle of traditional education. They believe that children are natural learners. They believe that children should be trusted and have a voice. There should be democratic processes within the school itself. There shouldn't be any of these arbitrary features such as grades and tests; that children should just have freedom.I’ve visited a number of these schools that are outside the framework of traditional education. The problem is that the ones we have today are mainly private schools. They’re not as accessible to low-income kids. But there are a couple of them that are not as radical but are publicly funded. The results have been extraordinary. One of them is a school in Philadelphia called “The Workshop School.” This is a project-based learning school particularly for low-income, minority children.
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I graduated from high school in January 2013, and I’m not in college at the moment, but I’m not ruling it out.Why not? You’re a bright kid. Is it based on your critque of schools?
The primary reason is that I couldn’t go to college as well as continue all the work that I’m doing; I do a lot of speaking and writing, and I’m working on this new book, and I just wouldn’t be able to do both. I think that in the work that I’m doing, a formal credential is not as important as it seems. Having a credential wouldn’t actually be that much of a benefit to me.Kids who are caught up in this public school system that is stifling their creativity—what advice do you have for them? How do you get through the system without being crushed by it?
It’s a question I get a lot from young people. It’s very difficult because, by law, if you’re a certain age you’re forced to attend school. You have no other choice. But the system, as oppressive as it is, there are some loopholes. If your family is affluent enough, you can go to one of these really great free, democratic schools that I mentioned. And there are some school districts, not as many today as there were in the 1970s, which have programs for kids who are failing or who have behavioral issues—it’s funny because these programs are actually so much better than what the other kids have to go through. You could try to graduate early. There’s homeschooling. But it’s very difficult to pursue alternatives within the current confines of the system.A lot of people say charter schools are an alternative.
I don’t support the privatization of education. There are some good charter schools out there, but I’m very wary of them. They often leave out kids with learning disabilities. They expel kids at very high rates. They send out kids who don’t test well. So there’s a lot of discriminatory and just really awful practices that they partake in to maintain a really homogenous population of students who just test well. I live in Woodbury, New York. You’ll never find a charter school trying to make its way into this privileged community. You really only find them in poor black and brown communities.And you’re suggesting they siphon off the best students and artificially inflate their test scores, because they’re for-profit institutions and that’s the best way to secure more contracts.
It’s strings attached, in terms of their funding, for a lot of them. They have to meet certain test scores; it just turns into this ruthless test-preparation factory.Follow Charles Davis on Twitter.