Schools Are Teaching Kids the Wrong Things — with Ted Dintersmith

April 2, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Ted Dintersmith, a former venture capitalist with a Stanford engineering PhD, joins Scott Galloway to critique U.S. K-12 education's outdated focus on rote skills suited for industrial jobs, not today's innovation economy driven by AI and technology. Dintersmith argues the system succeeds at its original goal—producing compliant workers—but fails kids by stifling creativity, curiosity, and agency while chasing irrelevant test scores.

Obsolete Model and Declining Scores

American schools, designed around 1893, equipped generations for factory lines, insurance claims, and simple citizenship through drills that eroded creativity. This fit a rote-job economy (99% of jobs pre-technology boom) and built a strong middle class. Now, with AI handling assigned tasks perfectly, those without boldness or problem-solving struggle.

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What you'll learn

1 (02:40) **Host's Education Passion** - Scott shares personal gratitude for higher ed access and calls for expanding spots over elite debates
2 (06:48) **Ted's Background & Education State** - Ted Dintersmith describes US schools succeeding at wrong goal: rote skills over creativity
3 (09:20) **Declining Test Scores Explained** - Historic lows in math/reading due to drills, boredom, demoralized teachers, not true learning failure
4 (11:13) **High School Math Critique** - Most HS math (e.g., polynomials, chain rule) obsolete for adults, wasted 2500 hours ranking/sorting kids
5 (12:47) **Mississippi Scores Analysis** - Gains from retention gates and reading science, but flatlines; focus yields marginal wins amid national decline
6 (16:03) **Math Reform Proposal** - Replace useless math with practical concepts (e.g., algorithms) via projects exciting 13-year-olds
7 (20:33) **Socioeconomic Divides** - Property tax funding widens gaps; poor schools crumbling vs. rich amenities; boredom amplifies via tutors

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Ted Dintersmith, education advocate and author, joins Scott Galloway to argue that American schools aren't broken, they're just optimized for the wrong century. They discuss why chasing test scores is failing kids, what math we should actually be teaching, the growing gender gap in K-12, and why embracing AI in schools may be the most important thing we can do for the next generation.

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