Buffett on education reform · Transcript · BuffettMungerGPT

WarrenYou know, it takes the interests of parents, and frankly, it takes the interests of the well-to-do in the school system to keep a first-class school system. I've said that to some extent, a good public school system is a lot like virginity. It can be preserved but not restored. If you preserve it by having the parents interested and involved in the public school system, it's probably the, next to the nuclear chemical and biological problem. I mean, it's the number one problem of the country is making sure that the educational system is the best in the world. We've got the resources, and we're not providing it. We're not delivering it, so it's very complicated when you operate through thousands and thousands of school districts, and you work with many, many unions, and you've had. to a great extent, in many areas, the rich opt out of a system and set up a separate system. You know, I am not as concerned about the public golf courses in Omaha as I might be if I played them every day instead of playing at a country club. And if you have a two-tier school system, one for the rich and one for the poor, it's going to be hard to pass bond issues that benefit the people that don't have the money to send their kids to private schools. You know, we've had this great success story in this country, and a lot of it has become, is because of people have had something closer to equality of opportunity in the United States than they've had in most parts of the world. And you do not have equality of opportunity when my kids get to go to some school where I can attract outstanding teachers and where they're in the company of other kids that are also motivated and they're getting encouraged at home and all sorts of other things. and somebody else who is born into a less advantageous family really doesn't have a chance. They go into something that's close maybe to an armed camp and where the teachers are just sort of pushing them through. And there's no stimulus from the other kids except to do things that are counter to the interests of society. And that just isn't a situation that really should be allowed to exist in a country where the GDP is almost $40,000 per capita.