One of America’s most distinguished social scientists, Charles Murray has been at the center of some of our nation’s most significant social policy controversies in recent years, from welfare reform to intelligence and class structure. On September 8, drawing on his newest book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality, Murray will once again challenge conventional wisdom, this time about America’s moribund education system. Murray argues that many students do not have what it takes to do serious college-level work and that too many people are going to college. Everyone should be able to get the basics of a liberal education to pursue their dreams, he says, but the education system should inject new rigor and resources into education for the truly academically gifted.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at AEI. His latest book is Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality (Crown Forum, 2008). Mr. Murray’s first book, Losing Ground (Basic Books), which advanced the claim that the Great Society antipoverty programs were hurting the poor, was widely criticized when it was published in 1984. Twelve years later, it was being credited as the intellectual inspiration for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His 1994 New York Times bestseller, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (Free Press), coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ on life outcomes in America, but it has found support from a growing body of scientific evidence in years since. Mr. Murray has written many books and scores of articles for publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and the Washington Post, and he has been the subject of cover stories by Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine. He was named by National Journal as one of fifty people who make a difference in national policymaking.

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