In Kim Strassel’s latest post in “All Things Considered” (WSJ), Kim speaks with Jeanne Allen about the progress made at the Office of Special Education Rehabilitation. Don’t forget, Jeanne reminds Kimberley Strassel, the Dept. of Education is “a check-writing machine.”

I mean, it is extraordinary how many people, even in good administrations that really liked our stuff, would write regulation because there was somebody telling them that’s what you did. Well, when they’re not around, they don’t have that job, they don’t do it. And when you put it in a Department of Labor and you say, workforce, makes sense.

Workforce, technical education, career education, elementary and secondary education, you go and manage that. They’re not spending hours and hours and hours and days creating new stuff. So the idea is right, and it has reduced the amount of oversight that these states are feeling, which is I think the other reason that things are percolating up.

It’s just Congress is not really happy. And so now I think they’re beginning to think about November and so they’re pushing back because they have school boards calling them. And I used to be a school board member and Republicans are as guilty of this sometimes as the Democrats.

Kim Strassel agrees with her guest, “We all need a little bit more courage on this front.” Kim also asks Ms. Allen to give her readers the “flavor” of her book, without revealing the names of the 12 avengers whom Ms. Allen highlights in her book.

The Heart of Human Flourishing

Ms. Allen tells Ms. Strassel that her picks have avenger names: Captain Potential, Captain Character, Lady Thrive, people who are avenging something.

And the reason I took that approach is truly because it’s a whole new crop of heroes. They’re not just creating things they think will make life better.

It turns out that as I started selecting them among many people who are supplying the next generation of students with something, I realized they were doing more than educating in very different ways. They were having an impact on the growth of community and how those students and those young people, and even the adults around them, dealt with life.

Kim and Jeanne also discuss how it’s different than the end of the day.

They were having an impact on the growth of community and how those students and those young people, and even how the adults around them dealt with life. And that is sort of the heart of all the human flourishing work out there. I’ve always been fascinated by the work that’s talking about how really at the end of the day, we create great societies again, great communities, great civic-minded when people have a sense of belonging and are thriving.

Peeling Back the Onion

When Jeanne picked and interviewed these people about why and what they did, she found that they all had their own story.

… how do we influence other people to do the same thing if you don’t know the conditions that will make somebody? By the way, conditions of adversity, a lot, very clear adversity. Conditions of apathy, conditions which were just normal everyday upbringing, that something sparked it. Someone in their life sparked something and they were able to now bring it full circle. And what’s happening in society that we really must wake up to and why it’s so important that kids are worth it. Because it’s scary when you start peeling back the onion, what the kids themselves are experiencing.

… talk about the great charter school, the great private school, the great different technology program, but when you hear people talk about the stuff that’s coming into their schools that those kids and families are fleeing from our kids are not protected anymore.

… what these Avengers are doing is literally assembling to tackle that hydra and the hydra has to go. And so I think they’re capable of doing this in force.

… I wanted to highlight why it is a fight and a battle that if you’re interested in understanding it, you have to understand it’s that serious.

Kim Strassel wraps things up by telling Jeanne Allen that she, KS, can’t wait to read her book when it comes out on 25 August. Kim then tells Jeanne that she is an education avenger before Kim thanks Jeanne Allen for coming on Kim’s show.

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