The fourth segment of Kirsten's dialogue with Marsha Enright, founder of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, finds the two women considering whether we have a stratified, or class-based, education system in the United States, and what may be contributing to such a result.

During the discussion, Enright mentions research published in 1994, which examined the number of words heard by children in lower-class versus middle- and upper-middle-class homes. The study was conducted by researchers Betty Hart (University of Kansas) and Todd R. Risley (University of Alaska, Anchorage), with results originally published in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children (Brookes, 1995). A summary explaining key findings of the research can be found in "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3," in American Educator (Sprint 2003).

As always, we've transcribed the dialogue to make it easy to follow along.