Patrick Byrne: Geniuses Are Everywhere—But Bad Schools Are Holding Them Back
In this week’s episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone welcome Patrick Byrne—entrepreneur, political activist, and creator of the docu-series The Enemy Within. The conversation dives deep into one of the most overlooked but urgent issues in America today: education.
Together, they spotlight the unlikely success story of Mississippi. Once ranked near the very bottom in national education outcomes, the state has surged into the top 10, achieving the narrowest racial achievement gap in the country. Byrne and the hosts argue this was no accident: it was the result of rejecting union pressure, returning to phonics-based instruction, holding students accountable, and refusing to pass children who hadn’t mastered the basics.
Byrne contends the real tragedy lies in the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” particularly in academia and left-leaning circles that insist certain students cannot succeed. Instead, Mississippi’s turnaround proves that when standards are restored, students of all backgrounds thrive.
The episode asks provocative questions: What’s the long-term cost of under-educating millions of bright minds? How many potential geniuses has America lost to bad schooling? And can other states follow Mississippi’s lead in defying entrenched systems that resist reform?
This is more than a policy debate—it’s a challenge to rethink the future of education in America.
Transcript
Chuck Warren: You have a docu-series out. Oops, I just played in there. The Enemy Within.
Patrick Byrne: Let’s before we move on, let me point something else out about Mississippi.
Chuck Warren: Okay.
Patrick Byrne: The Mississippi not only did its results move from 49th in the country to the top 10. Are we ready to talk about Mississippi specifically?
Chuck Warren: Yes.
Patrick Byrne: But the gap between white and black achievement shrunk so much. Like the most it has shrunk.
Chuck Warren: Yes.
Sam Stone: It’s the lowest gap of any state in the country now. The lowest gap.
Patrick Byrne: And you know that comes from a reversal. It is my belief that deep down the true racists in our society are the left.
Chuck Warren:Yes.
Patricl Byrne: The left the academic left. Behind closed doors the kinds of things get said are the kinds of things that people imagine get said in Republican circles. I can’t ever imagine being in a Republican circle and hearing people say but boy behind closed doors with an academia you’ll hear people basically express their openly an attitude of well, what can you expect? They’re black. And that’s horrible and they’re the racist and it is in fact the what I think of is the Frederick Douglass the Thomas soul thrust in our society is if you actually teach and compete and don’t lower the bars for one side.
We actually discover black people do just fine. They do great I had nothing makes me happier than when I hear about some inner-city chess club, right? Like cleans up on its you know, and it but it’s the left who doesn’t believe that’s possible. Because they don’t really see it fundamentally as possible, they’ve embraced this whole other world of manby-pamby feel-good stuff, which is not education and does nothing, but it’s because they really don’t believe it’s possible to educate black people. And what Mississippi shows is, yes, it is possible. it’s just by, what did Mississippi do to have these remarkable results, fellas?
Chuck Warren: They held people, they did phonics, they held people accountable, they did not advance people, they couldn’t pass the grade. They did all the basic stuff we did back in the 30s and 40s.
Sam Stone: Right. They went back to school circa 1990.
Chuck Warren: I mean, I’d like to say they’re brilliant. They just put their foot down and would not be bullied by the teachers unions. They said, we’re doing this. Now all these other Southern states are doing it. You’ll probably see it go over to other red states and the Democrats will keep fighting tooth and nail.
Sam Stone: Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Alabama. They are all shooting upwards.
Chuck Warren: Well, there was a study I read and a progressive professor says if they don’t know how to learn by the age of 18, they’re not going learn how to learn. So what Governor Reeves in Mississippi has done is he has given a whole generation of black children an opportunity to be their best selves.
Patrick Byrne: Can you imagine the cost to society that we’ve experienced by the under education of all the talent that was there but didn’t get educated?
Chuck Warren: Oh my gosh.
Patrick Byrne: Milton used to say the real real cost of the socialist school system now is the under education of the geniuses in our society and the geniuses are everywhere. Yes, they’re just to read the country in the city and the inner city. They’re everywhere. But if we’re if 90 percent of them are getting garbage education, then that’s a real cost to society. Tell me, Chuck, I remember you did some wonderful work 15, 20 years ago about making sure that union dues could not…
Chuck Warren: That’s gonna be used for politics. Yeah, yeah. And that’s happening across the country too. That’s a little bit slower of a burden, but it is happening and it makes a difference quite a bit.
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