Politics & Power Quote by Tavis Smiley

Smiley’s blunt pivot from “skill” to “will” is a rhetorical slap meant to end a comfortable conversation. “Skill problem” flatters institutions: it suggests we just need better teachers, smarter curricula, shinier tech. “Will problem” indicts the adults in charge. It reframes educational failure as a choice embedded in budgets, zoning maps, labor politics, and the quiet tolerance of unequal outcomes so long as they’re geographically contained.

The line also borrows the cadence of a civic cross-examination: “Does America have the will…?” is less a question than a dare. Smiley is invoking the language of national resolve usually reserved for wars and moonshots, then applying it to classrooms. That’s the subtext: if we can summon urgency for crisis and spectacle, our lack of urgency for schooling is moral, not managerial.

“We know the things that work” tightens the trap. He’s not asking for another pilot program or blue-ribbon commission; he’s calling out a culture addicted to novelty and debate as substitutes for action. The phrase implies evidence is already in hand - early childhood investment, equitable funding, strong community schools, teacher support - and that the real obstacle is political cost: raising taxes, redistributing resources, confronting segregation, and resisting privatization schemes dressed up as innovation.

“Scale up” is a deliberately unglamorous verb. It’s about replication and infrastructure, not hero narratives. Smiley’s intent is to shame a nation that treats education like a talking point and expose how “reform” often functions as theater: constant motion that carefully avoids power.