Rahm Emanuel: ‘A Lot of Interest Groups’ Want to Ignore Mississippi’s Reading Success

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” CNN Senior Political and Global Affairs Commentator, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, former Obama Chief of Staff, and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that “A lot of interest groups don’t want to talk about” Mississippi’s success on reading and said that “We messed this up in our party. We used to be really great about education.”

Emanuel began by saying, “The Democratic Party, taking 2024, going back to 2020, invited a bunch of culture wars into our kids’ schools, and we lost that war. Here in California, up in San Francisco, they were arguing and voted to take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of a high school, not whether they were worried about whether the kids know why Abraham Lincoln was such an icon and the school was named after him. They lost the plot.”

He added, “Went down to Mississippi, they went from 49th to 9th in reading. A lot of interest groups don’t want to talk about it. We messed this up in our party. We used to be really great about education. We’ve lost it, because we’re not focused on the primary thing. I saw something today, 1 out of 4 children are missing 18% of the school year. And we’re not talking about it. We’re worried about names of schools, bathrooms, locker room access. Get back to what matters.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett