of self blame and people who tell their stories. i see a lot of little things that could be done differently. we have a contributor whose mother couldn't afford hearing aids. this is common in a lot of different programs. a lot of insurance doesn't cover. aids. that little fix would make a huge difference. she couldn't communicate with her mother during covid. when you lived closer to the ground, you have your finger on the pulse of these experiences. that's what we are trying to capture. how do we capture that struggle and get it out? i just saw a recently that it's starting to change. host: the same question to you. guest: the stories that emerge

from our chapters tried to give us a fleshed out look at what's going on among workers facing headwinds at this time. one of our writers became homeless and tells a story about the difficulties of getting a good nights sleep and how that works against you trying to get free housed. one person put themselves through college with hopes of making a career in colleges and universities as an instructor. the academic market fell apart after the 2008 recession. that person works behind the register at a supermarket. one of air contributors was a star reporter for one of america's great old newspapers, the san francisco chronicle. they ended up having to drive uber and do other jobs after the

downdrafts. the mass layoffs in newspapers caught him, even though he was a veteran member of his staff. the stories are as individual as a thumbprint, but talk about broad streams of what's going on in the workforce and some of the challenges workers face. host: is it straight interview? how does it work? guest: it's a mixture. atmospherics, we visit washington heights in the northwest side of manhattan with the daughter of dominican immigrants. it's a chapter on administrative burden, how the challenges for people who are not english proficient have to fall somewhere. she became a social worker as her parents tried to get benefits during the pandemic.

one of our chapters talks about how difficult it is to go to the bathroom when you are living on the street. some of the players that show up even among working-class service employees when challenges come up. there is serious policy and a lot of them. we go to the world these workers inhabit. we talked to experts who can talk about how we could redesign some of these challenges and make these lives a little better.

there is some serious writing about what's they are up against, the challenges they live with. host: i should also add that the nation magazine is also a to serpent in this project. guest: they are our partner. host: this is frank in west virginia. thanks for calling. go ahead with your question. caller: on this infrastructure, one of they let the people vote on it? in north carolina and virginia, their buildings down there that are abandoned that used to be clothing factories. the congress goes in there and they vote on whatever they want. they don't ask the people what

they want. host: that is frank in west virginia. as the producer of these programs, one theme is the industry went away. guest: that's the story we hear over and over again. just because things went away doesn't mean there isn't hope. we do have stories of people who have found second and third chapters. they are not as exalted as their earlier life. they are back on their feet. we see that again and again. these massive transitions have changed. he was a different places from the war correspondent and then laid off to be an uber driver to working in a strip club. these are the cycles people are going through.

host: in this case, this happened directly to you. guest: i've had to reinvent myself. i am now self-employed. a lot of the places that reached out to me after my last employer went deli up, they just stopped calling back. they ghosted me. they acted as if they'd never spoke to me in the first place. it happens. i do ok. i have had to reinvent the way i work and who i work for. those mills he's talking about, it wouldn't just be a question of walking in and bringing her workforce and turning on the lights and going back to work. the equipment was dismantled and shipped to other places where they are making t-shirts and toys and other things. it would take some time to

readjust the last 40 years of reengineering the american economy to get them back in places like north carolina. host: monica is emmett kentucky. hello. -- is in kentucky. caller: i'm in a different situation. i have no job. i have an adult child living at home with a grandchild because the economy is in the toilet. i spent the last 3.5 years living in another state taking care of my grandson while my son served in the military. it's really bit me. the financial situation, we are struggling. everybody says now hiring it, now hiring. there are low wages despite

everybody saying come work for us. that's not the reality we see here. it's really tough. trying to reinvent yourself when you don't have the money, you don't have boots to prolong. that's where i am. guest: childcare in the united states is a crisis. if people are reluctant to go back to the workforce, or if the numbers don't work when you write down what you are going to make for a day versus what you're going to spend on your kids, what's the incentive to go back to work? some people mocked the idea that childcare was in an infrastructure bill when the first version rolled out. it is a crisis. affordable childcare is

distorting the economy. it is distorting the desire to go back to work. it's a big problem. guest: i found when i was reporting. my last book, middle-class life the cost had increased by 30%. with childcare in particular, we have a non-system. the caller has other concerns they are responsible for as well. that's why these payments should be made permanent. a care oriented universal income to help people care for disabled loved ones or the elderly. right now, i think what we see, even if this doesn't get through

. what happened is a window has opened. there is a window where people will not lie back and say paid family leave is an impossibility. that's been accomplished in the last year or so. it's a recognition that we need these things as citizens. kudos to her for doing this. host: critical race theory was one of the hotly debated issues. it became a flashpoint in the virginia governor's race. we discuss -- explored the issue . guest: it's been around for a while. from the 60's in that specific language. it comes out of legal study.

some of the tenants of critical race theory are that we can and should look at racism as normal in the net it states. it points to property issues and property rights. also, looking at the way a counter story can and should be used to combat racist norms or ideologies in all fields. it started in legal studies and has been adopted to all disciplines. to me, one of my favorite -- you can google it. it's available in quite a few places. what that article does in education is helps us understand some of the inequities that

exist and ways to combat them. the way i think of critical race theory and why it matters is it gives us a framework to better understand what exists, ways to analyze current situations. host: in education, nearly one dozen states are looking to ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools. why is this controversial? guest: thank you for having me on. for the purpose of this conversation, i'm coming from the perspective of a tactician. i one schools in the heart of the south bronx, almost exclusively low income kids, almost 2000 students and 5000 on a waitlist.

it's not just a theory, how it plays out in school. a number of states are going after it. in preparation for this conversation, i looked at the data. one thing we can agree on is we look at america through the prism of racial oppression, white supremacy, white dominance. if you look at the national assessment for education, the most recent assessment in 2019, the test is given after fourth grade, eighth grade, 12th grade. only a little over one third of all students in the country

scored proficient in reading. when broken down by race, fourth grade, eighth grade, 12th grade, there were two muesli 3.7 5 million white students who could not read at a proficiency level. there were 1.4 million black students who could not read at proficiency levels. there are more white students in the population overall. the number of white students not reading at proficiency dwarfs that of black students not reading. it says it must be viewed. systemic racism is not the reason for million students from fourth grade -- white students -- are not reading at level. what we have to realize is our country is in the midst of a decades long literacy crisis.

they are due to in school and out of school factors. lack of access to choice to a high-quality schools, lack of teachers who can effectively teach reading. my concern is it's becoming a massive distraction to what the core issue is for kids of all races. i think leaders are trying to stop the spread of critical race theory. we really have to hone in on the fact that only one third of all of our kids are not reading at grade level. you've got to focus in on it literacy as the foundational building block that leads to every thing else. host: i got the sense you wanted to respond to that. guest: thank you. i think that critical race

theory can help us better understand why there -- white children aren't able to read in the way this test assess. it helps us to pinpoint race, also in the ways that i understand it -- it helps us look at interlocking systems of oppression. all of those things work together in the education system to create inequities for many students. it helps us to understand the ways the united states education system was created was for rich white men. that's not the only population it serves. as we are thinking about the founding of this education, all

the other ways that poverty or homelessness or food insecurity, all of those things are working together in the way education is happening. people will look to schools and teachers or standardized tests. it doesn't want us to discount race. in a normalized conversation, people will talk about race because it is something that people in this country don't feel comfortable doing. it wants us to think about everything and make sure that race is at play. if we are thinking about race a play, we have to look at the teaching population.

i have to look at teacher education programs and the way we are serving student teachers who will be going out into the field to be in-service teachers. it helps us understand all of those things, recognizing that race matters in addition to other factors. students don't just come as black students or white students . they come with everything else. everything in the school building is the result of social inequities that are outside. they converge in the space. as educators or people, we expect the education system is a level playing field or common ground. and meritocracy will rule because students have access, outcomes will be pharaoh. that is not true.

host: we have plenty of colors on this. let me ask a basic question. in the news recently, i want you both to answer this, is america a racist country? dr. wilson? guest: america is based in racist ideals. in the ways that this country was founded on unseeded land, european colonizers came. there were millions of people here already. those people were relegated to the term savages. thinking about human beings who are then termed to be subhuman, based not in the language of race, it came soon after as a justification for inequity and

genocide and barbarism. i would say america is a racist country in its founding and ideal. i think that recognizing that's how this country began can help us meet -- move beyond it. if we refuse to recognize that or if we want to whitewash history in a way that makes some people more comfortable, we won't be able to get very far. guest: america has a history of racial discrimination. its founding ideals have been the tools to elevate millions of people of all races and genders from persecution into prosperity. race certainly matters. the issues is it posits that any racial disparity that we see

must be viewed through systemic racism. just looking at the educational progress, since 1992, there is never been a situation less than half of the nation's white students scored proficient in reading. there has never been a case in which a majority of white students are reading at proficiency. this would simply mean that black student outcomes would move from sub-mediocrity to full mediocrity. all of our kids, only one third of all students are reading at grade level. the focus on racial equity close out the ability to understand

all the factors. it's not just about race. there are more dominant factors that are driving why we have so many kids not able to read at grade level, which becomes the basis of all the social issues we are concerned about down the road. host: i want you to jump in on this as well. to bring it down to practice, sometimes examples can be helpful. explain what the 1619 project was and how it fits into this conversation. guest: you want me to do that? thinking about the 1619 project, thinking about the fact that there are students who are not achieving this particular level of achievement, i have issue with standardized test. we don't have to get into that today.

looking at this statistic it keeps come up, that white students are not able to read, if we are thinking about race. it matters the way schools are funded. it matters for who teaches. thinking about this idea of the achievement gap, who sets the benchmark? the achievement gap isn't quite -- it doesn't help us see what opportunities are not met. i frame it more as an opportunity gap. how is education as a system not doing what it needs to do rather than looking at students as the people i might not blame for not achieving. the 1619 project, it is a project that helps to uncover ignored history and ones that

are not taught in school because they are uncomfortable. in my experience as a black woman who went to a traditional program and went into the classroom and did graduate work behind that, i didn't know what culturally relevant pedagogy was. i'm not that old. it's not that long ago. in the ways we think about the 6019 project and what isn't taught, i was raised by women who was an educator. my mother helped my sisters and i and racist to be proud of who we were. those are being supplemented in my home. there are quite a few students whose parents maybe don't have the wherewithal, the knowledge, or the skill to do that work. the project helps to see the way that race matters for the founding of the country.

it's also a project to illuminate things that people don't know about and would not think to research on their own, wouldn't know where to begin. making it something that is documented at a crucial time in american history, i see it as necessary for confronting truth. in the way that education systems often times cherry pick and move around what actually happened and goes along with information. it's not comfortable to talk about slavery or racism. it's not comfortable to talk about genocide. because people who are white have been in power in this country since its founding,

because marginalized people have not been in power, they've not been able to share those stories widely. is there information shared between communities? yes. does it need to be something that everyone reckons with? absolute. the project is one of the ways of doing that. host: why did the project become so much of a focus of concern and controversy? guest: one thing the project did reveal is there is a strong interest in more information about the african-american experience in the united states. the problem is things that are positive, 6019 was when slaves were brought. they claim the american revolution was fought to preserve slavery.

these items have been debunked. many -- kids want to hear the country was determined for their destruction. they have to have an aspiration that they live in a good country with founding ideals for been embraced by millions of black people to move from persecution to prosperity. i joined a group of black scholars. we determined not just to criticize the 1619 curriculum, what to tell a more complete history of the african-american experience. the 1619 project doesn't include any mention of something called the rozen school.

booker t. washington partnered with the founder of sears roebuck. they had a vision for black excellence. even though black kids could not have access to a high-quality education, we are going to build schools. they built nearly 5000 schools throughout the south. there were incredible achievements of lack teachers and students. brown versus the board of education said led to the demise of the schools. that's an amazing story that kids of all races should understand. there is a story of black resilience.

we do need to grapple with that. we need to tell an honest and complete story of how our country will move to this idea of a more perfect union. host: that's it for this christmas day edition of the washington journal. the conversation will continue tomorrow. as we take your phone calls and your comments on social media. our guest is jonathan alter, kicking off authors week. he will be talking about his biography on the 39th president, jimmy carter. that is tomorrow morning at seven clock a.m. eastern time. thank you for joining us. goodbye.

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>> here is what is ahead on christmas day. former political speech writers talk about the impact of presidential rhetoric. ♪