Radio Smart Talk for Tuesday, January 18: Controversial new editions of Mark Twain's classics The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer will replace the N-word with "slave" in order to not offend some school districts that might otherwise not include the books in their libraries. The goal: to encourage more students to read these classic works of literature. But should publishers do this? How does it serve education to offer a less sticky, but inauthentic version of great literature? Is revisionist literature any different than revisionist history?

We'll pose these and other questions to NYU Research Professor of Education and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police, and The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Resource link: Read Twain scholar Alan Gribben's introduction to (and explanation of) - this controversial new edition of Twain's books.