22 NEWSWEEK.COM NOVEMBER 15, 2019

STEM

we need to make sure curricula actually

reflect the America that children will be entering.

Teaching to tests doesn’t work. Standardized tests

are a very poor measurement of human worth and

potential. You need to stop thinking about our edu-

cation system as a checklist of tests completed, and

start looking at it as an opportunity to set our chil-

dren up for a lifetime of learning and development.

STEM education is a great way to set children

standard by now for any bio of andrewyang,

the 44-year-old New York businessman who is

running a longshot campaign for the Democratic

nomination for president of the United States, to

include a smirking reference to the “Robot Apoca-

lypse.” Yang, however, is definitely not kidding. The

central theme of his campaign is that technology is

going to continue to put more and more Americans

out of work—with devastating social consequences

that we have not prepared for as a nation.

His primary answer to that challenge is a guar-

anteed monthly payment of $1,000 a month, no

strings attached, to every American over 18 years

old, which he calls a “Freedom Dividend,” to be paid

for by new taxes on the companies benefiting most

from automation.

Yang has steadily polled in single digits along with

several other candidates but he has shown fund-

raising strength and his message has proven strong

enough to keep him in the race thus far. Newsweek

recently asked him about his ideas for mitigating the

worst of what he believes will be a huge and inevita-

ble disruption in how Americans work and live. We

were particularly interested in his thoughts about

preparing today’s children for the workforce of the

future, which is also the subject of our ranking of

America’s Best STEM High Schools (see page 26).

His answers on these topics, edited for space:

PREPPING SIXTH

GRADERS FOR A

HIGH-TECH PRESENT

—AND FUTURE

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