Speaker 1: Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowski. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you all for joining me yet again.
Speaker 1: I have some big news to share. Because of your support,
Speaker 1: many of you have subscribed or you're planning to after
Speaker 1: you hear this episode and giving me a five star
Speaker 1: review on Apple or Spotify, or you're planning to after
Speaker 1: this episode, I can announce that beginning next week, this
Speaker 1: podcast will go to two days a week instead of
Speaker 1: just once. I'm very excited. It's a lot of work,
Speaker 1: but I'm here because I want to bring you all
Speaker 1: the numbers behind the narratives, and I want you to
Speaker 1: be able to form a different opinion than what you're
Speaker 1: just hearing on the news or social media. So I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope that beginning next week, you'll join me twice
Speaker 1: a week beginning in April, and once again, please like
Speaker 1: and subscribe this podcast. It really really means a lot
Speaker 1: to get us out there, and hopefully you will never
Speaker 1: miss an episode twice a week starting the April. The
Speaker 1: April episodes. Speaking of episodes, let's let's get to this one.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, Alice Cooper sang the lyrics of
Speaker 1: his most famous and iconic song schools out for the summer,
Speaker 1: Schools out forever. And on March twentieth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump signed an executive order saying the Department
Speaker 1: of Education is out forever. Yes, President Donald Trump's on
Speaker 1: the executive order directing the Education Secretary Linda McMahon to
Speaker 1: begin dismantling the Department of Education. Now, I was walking
Speaker 1: in the park with my best friend, who's a school
Speaker 1: teacher and a pretty conservative Republican and a Trump supporter,
Speaker 1: and he said that he's nervous over what happens when
Speaker 1: the department ends, What happens when it starts dismantling, what
Speaker 1: happens to the federal money and what's supposed to go
Speaker 1: to districts for things like special education. Who's going to
Speaker 1: be handling student loan debt? And then I have older
Speaker 1: relatives who are very conservative, and they're like, this will
Speaker 1: end far left wocism in our schools and we won't
Speaker 1: be behind other countries in math and reading anymore. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's important in a time of big
Speaker 1: change to take us step back and evaluate the data.
Speaker 1: Where are we, what are we doing, and where are
Speaker 1: we going? I want to remind listeners that in the
Speaker 1: last four years, I founded the nation's largest super pac
Speaker 1: dedicated to electing conservatives to school boards, the seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: six Project Pack. We supported hundreds of people across the country.
Speaker 1: So this is a very important issue that I'm actually
Speaker 1: decently informed on on America's education, and I hate the
Speaker 1: fact that people bring it down to talking points because
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot that we could do
Speaker 1: to improve education if we just really worked on it,
Speaker 1: and I think the first step is to understanding it.
Speaker 1: So first, what is the state of America's education? This
Speaker 1: is an important part of the equation because both people
Speaker 1: on the left and the right of the political ais'll
Speaker 1: say that education and I'm talking about like K through twelve,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about college, but that K through twelve
Speaker 1: education is just blatantly failing our kids, and that we
Speaker 1: spend the most money in the world, and that we're
Speaker 1: way behind everybody else. Are we that's the question, are
Speaker 1: we actually behind the rest of the world. This narrative
Speaker 1: that America is behind the rest of the globe comes
Speaker 1: from an international study called the Program for International Student
Speaker 1: Assessment or PISA. It's run by an intergovernmental organization, the
Speaker 1: Organization for Economic Co Cooperation and Development. If you don't
Speaker 1: need to know that, if you need to know about PISA.
Speaker 1: PISA evaluate six hundred and ninety fifteen year olds on
Speaker 1: their scholastic ability from different participating countries in a two
Speaker 1: hour long test and engages their skills in math, science
Speaker 1: and reading. Now, the important part of that sentence is
Speaker 1: participating countries, because all countries do not participate in the
Speaker 1: PISA and the international studies that sit there and say
Speaker 1: who's up and who's down. For instance, India, the second
Speaker 1: largest nation in the world, does not participate. The last
Speaker 1: time they did was in two thousand and nine and
Speaker 1: they scored second to last. So they chose not to
Speaker 1: do it ever again. And I think it was actually
Speaker 1: just two of their most educated providences the tests, and
Speaker 1: they still scored second to last, I think, behind Kazakhstan.
Speaker 1: Aside from India, almost all of China, I think, except
Speaker 1: for one or two provinces, do not take the exam. Russia,
Speaker 1: North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh, Syria, almost the entire continent
Speaker 1: of Africa, and a lot of South and Central America.
Speaker 1: Pockets of South and Central America also do not participate
Speaker 1: in the test, so when we say it's a global test,
Speaker 1: it's missing most of the world's population. Only eighty one
Speaker 1: of one hundred and ninety five countries in the last
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two tests participated. So according to the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two PISA numbers, the United States ranked ninth in
Speaker 1: the world on reading, just behind Canada and ahead of
Speaker 1: New Zealand. We rank sixteenth in science, ahead of Poland
Speaker 1: and right behind Great Britain. And our worst score was
Speaker 1: a math where we're actually behind international averages for thirty fourth,
Speaker 1: behind Malta and ahead of Slovakia in every category. All
Speaker 1: top ten countries are either from East Asia, Europe, or
Speaker 1: North America, with Singapore coming in first in every category.
Speaker 1: From twenty to twenty twenty two. The best years the
Speaker 1: US scored internationally in reading and science was in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. Like, we's gotten better over this time, but
Speaker 1: we have fallen behind in math pretty significantly. Now, what
Speaker 1: I'm going to say next is extremely politically incorrect and
Speaker 1: very sensitive, but it is a reason, it is a
Speaker 1: very very very important reason why our test scores look
Speaker 1: different than other developed countries, and that is the racial
Speaker 1: gap in outcomes and the racial gap in testing. From
Speaker 1: two thousand and three to twenty fifteen, white and Asian
Speaker 1: students basically scored close to the same number in math
Speaker 1: around five hundred points. Hispanic students scored four forty, and
Speaker 1: black students were close to four fifteen. In reading, once again,
Speaker 1: whites and Asians were close to the same around five
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty points, depending on the year. From two
Speaker 1: thousand and three to twenty fifteen, Hispanics were four sixty
Speaker 1: and climbing. I mean, his span numbers have been getting
Speaker 1: up in that, but they still lag, and so do
Speaker 1: Blacks with around four hundred and forty. The same is
Speaker 1: also true for science. So in the PISA score in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, split the races up Americans races and
Speaker 1: compare them to other countries. Asian Americans outperform all other
Speaker 1: Asian majority nations outside Singapore. White Americans did better than
Speaker 1: every white majority country. Hispanic Americans outperformed all Latin Americans,
Speaker 1: all Latin countries Latino majority countries. Black Americans outperformed all
Speaker 1: Black and Caribbean majority countries. Our diversity brings us down
Speaker 1: though in overall testing when you parse through the data.
Speaker 1: But Americans are not at the bottom of the barrel,
Speaker 1: not by close. Asian Americans score the second highest in
Speaker 1: the world, as I said, only behind Singapore, and white
Speaker 1: Americans are seventh in the world, and one of the
Speaker 1: six ahead of them are Asian am Just Singapore, Japan,
Speaker 1: Taiwan and the one province in China really score ahead
Speaker 1: of them. I think it's important to highlight when discussing
Speaker 1: the United States, how the United States States competes globally.
Speaker 1: It's not that our education system is perfect in any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but we are not ranking low
Speaker 1: globally as some people suggest. It's just not true. But
Speaker 1: let's get to the states. When it comes to ranking
Speaker 1: how individual states performed, We're going to look at something
Speaker 1: called the National Assessment for Educational Progress otherwise known as
Speaker 1: the neap IT test kids in fourth and eighth grade reading,
Speaker 1: and it just came out in January their annual review.
Speaker 1: Our best states were reading a math and both fourth
Speaker 1: and eighth grade is Massachusetts, with Florida, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Utah,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Colorado, Connecticut, and Minnesota all making the top
Speaker 1: five in either fourth or eighth grade reading, which states
Speaker 1: performed the worst though, and that is New Mexico. Mexico
Speaker 1: is in dead last in every category, with other states
Speaker 1: like West Virginia, Alaska, Oregon, Arkansas, Alabama, Delaware, and Oklahoma
Speaker 1: also making the top five worst performing academic states in
Speaker 1: either fourth or eighth grade either reading or math. I
Speaker 1: mentioned Massachusetts was number one in all categories, but what
Speaker 1: does that look like? It means that in the fourth grade,
Speaker 1: forty one percent of Massachusetts fourth graders were reading at
Speaker 1: or above proficiency level, with fifteen percent being advanced. Fifty
Speaker 1: nine percent, though, were behind, with thirty two percent being
Speaker 1: severely behind. That's our best state is where one in
Speaker 1: three are severely behind. And the eighth grade math, thirteen
Speaker 1: percent of students were advanced, but over sixty percent of
Speaker 1: students were either behind or severely behind proficiency. Once again,
Speaker 1: that's our best state. The twenty twenty four NEAP scores
Speaker 1: show us that the COVID lockdowns devastated students. The percentage
Speaker 1: of students base below basic reading levels grew two thirty
Speaker 1: three percent, the highest in thirty years. And while some
Speaker 1: students who are top achievers are still top achieving. Remember
Speaker 1: when they do the math Olympics, the math Olympiads, whatever
Speaker 1: it's called. I was never invited to it. But the
Speaker 1: math Olympics, America is always competing and we're winning a lot.
Speaker 1: So it's not like we don't have high performing students.
Speaker 1: We still do. They're still doing well. It's that kids
Speaker 1: that were on the cusp have fallen behind, and those
Speaker 1: that were already failing are now way behind. They're at
Speaker 1: historic lows. Basically, the median has declined because those on
Speaker 1: the bottom have fallen further from the bottom, while those
Speaker 1: at the top end are still performing. While they're still
Speaker 1: they're still getting the grades. In fourth grade reading, students
Speaker 1: who score below basic and AEP levels proficiency levels cannot
Speaker 1: sequence events from a story or describe the effects of
Speaker 1: a character's actions. In eighth grade, students who score below
Speaker 1: basic can basic comprehension, cannot to determine a main idea
Speaker 1: of a text or identifying differing sides of arguments. And
Speaker 1: while there are some improvements in math, it wasn't enough
Speaker 1: to offset what was lost in reading. Part of what's
Speaker 1: fueling this crisis is the percentage of kids chronically missing
Speaker 1: school has skyrocketed, with nearly a third of kids missing
Speaker 1: at least three days in the last month, and that
Speaker 1: brings me to my original premise with kids falling behind.
Speaker 1: Not in the rest of the world, not as bad
Speaker 1: as people sit there and say, but they are falling
Speaker 1: behind in America, especially since COVID. What does it mean
Speaker 1: for education? As President Trump is preparing to close the
Speaker 1: Department of Education, many parents are worthy that these services
Speaker 1: that provided by the government will be cut and that
Speaker 1: states won't be able to do States will be able
Speaker 1: to do whatever they want, so like blue states will
Speaker 1: be hardcore left wing socialism and red states will teach
Speaker 1: you that dinosaurs and humans walk the earth two thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. I think that in order to take a
Speaker 1: breath and have a break from that kind of rhetoric,
Speaker 1: it's important to realize what the Education Department Education does
Speaker 1: and doesn't do. The doees primary function is to provide
Speaker 1: financial aid to students, collect data on American schools, make
Speaker 1: recommendations on educational form, and enforce anti discrimination laws. The
Speaker 1: Department of Education does not set curricula, it doesn't set
Speaker 1: national standards, and it doesn't make academic standards. Anyone telling
Speaker 1: you that all woke ideologies coming out of this bureaucracy
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC is not telling you the truth. There
Speaker 1: have been suggestions it's made, there's been recommendations that it's made,
Speaker 1: it's attached to some aid. But everything that is primarily
Speaker 1: happening in your kid's school, including standardized testing, is at
Speaker 1: the discretion of the states, the school board, the administrators,
Speaker 1: and the individual teachers. So what's going to happen with
Speaker 1: its shutting down? Secretary McMahon did an interview with Face
Speaker 1: the Nation where she said the department's going to move
Speaker 1: its primary functions to other departments. She said that the
Speaker 1: oversight over special needs education moved to the Department of
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services. Small Business Administration will take over
Speaker 1: federal student loans, she said she believes will actually cut
Speaker 1: red tape and make and make it so schools and
Speaker 1: needy students will get money faster than they had the
Speaker 1: Department of Education. For those who can't imagine a country
Speaker 1: without a Department of Education, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: remember that we didn't have one until nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: when President Carter created it as a gift to the
Speaker 1: teachers union for backing him in the last election. The
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six election. In certain parts of the federal
Speaker 1: government's functions on education predates the creation of the Department
Speaker 1: of Education. Like Title I, Title nine, the Education for
Speaker 1: All Handicapped Children Act, data collection, all that happened way
Speaker 1: before Carter created the Department nineteen seventy nine. While I
Speaker 1: imagine there could be some disruption the immediate change, with
Speaker 1: federal departments shifting gears and different departments taking over new
Speaker 1: roles that were part of the DIE, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's going to be fundamental change that people think someone
Speaker 1: will dole out money for Title I, some department will
Speaker 1: protect Title nine. Most of this issue of education will
Speaker 1: remain local. In all of my experience of the seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy six project packs speaking to literally hundreds of school
Speaker 1: board members and parents and educators and everybody, there's a
Speaker 1: lot to do on education that's essential. We need to
Speaker 1: tackle the accreditation system. We need to have alternative associations
Speaker 1: for school board members. We need to review the technology
Speaker 1: that comes into classrooms and sells your kids data. We
Speaker 1: need to address the safety concerns, and we need to
Speaker 1: focus on the science of reading and math and not
Speaker 1: about teaching that American history is something to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1: That's what's essential. That's not coming out of the Department.
Speaker 1: That's going to be your local swamp, not the swamp
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC. You're listening to It's a numbers game
Speaker 1: with Ryan Grodowsky. We'll be right back with me this week.
Speaker 1: Is my friend and colleague Aidan Bazzetti. He runs the
Speaker 1: nonprofit that I sit on the board of, the seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy sixth Foundation. Aidan, thank you.
Speaker 2: For being here, thank you for having me on run
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: So Aiden, let's start with the Department of Education. It's
Speaker 1: ending or it's closing stores. Trump can't end it by
Speaker 1: executive order, but he's dismantling it. What do you think
Speaker 1: the biggest impact, if any, will have on the local
Speaker 1: school districts.
Speaker 3: I think the majority of the impact on school districts
Speaker 3: in particular will be fairly limited to the grants, with
Speaker 3: a lot of these DEI initiatives attached to them. In
Speaker 3: the first place, a lot of the department's activities focused
Speaker 3: on loans and a state in local funding accounts for
Speaker 3: the vast majority, over eighty percent of funding.
Speaker 2: For school districts.
Speaker 3: So I think as they start winding down certain programs
Speaker 3: in the Department, that we'll see less of an incentive
Speaker 3: for school districts to pursue equity policies and resort of
Speaker 3: justice policies that were tied to federal grants.
Speaker 2: But that's about it.
Speaker 1: What like, can you and if you don't know any
Speaker 1: top of your head, then that's fine, but do you
Speaker 1: know of any equity policies that the government spends on?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Federal prior administration, they listed equity as one of the
Speaker 3: broader requirements for all federal grants coming out of the
Speaker 3: Department and then and some of them had more specific initiatives.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to name all of them, but
Speaker 3: it is not uncommon for the federal fundings to have
Speaker 3: grants focused on equity or reviewing disciplinary practices with a
Speaker 3: focus on resort of justice.
Speaker 2: And things like that. But those are mostly holdovers from
Speaker 2: the Bible.
Speaker 1: That's what happened under Obama, right.
Speaker 3: And a lot of it did begin under the Obama
Speaker 3: administration and then continued with the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: Well, specifically with the restorative justice. There was this old
Speaker 1: liberal notion that there was a pipeline prison to school
Speaker 1: pipeline that basically, you know, like the liberal reddick was
Speaker 1: like a black kid got detention once and now he's
Speaker 1: spending life in jail for smoking marijuana. Like this was
Speaker 1: like the overall all ridiculous narrative they were putting out.
Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly true, but the restorative justice thing that
Speaker 1: you're talking about was they were saying, if a student
Speaker 1: is Hispanic or black, because there's a higher percentage of
Speaker 1: them to their overall population and in prison, to be
Speaker 1: more leanient on them. And this is like the famous
Speaker 1: case now is the was it Sandy Hook shooting? Great, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't Sandy Hook. It was the one in Florida,
Speaker 1: the Stone Stone Douglas Yes Memorial, whatever it was that
Speaker 1: was in Brower County shooting. That was the case where
Speaker 1: the student had multiple, multiple, multiple infractures, including bringing dead
Speaker 1: pets to school, talking about abusing animals, talking about you know,
Speaker 1: attacking other kids, and it was never They had no
Speaker 1: disciplinary records. So when he went to go buy a gun,
Speaker 1: there was no there was nothing for cops. Is that
Speaker 1: they're in flag and say, oh, this kid could be
Speaker 1: a problem because there was all brushed on the rug.
Speaker 1: So that way, if he went on to be arrested
Speaker 1: for something lighter later on, there would be no record
Speaker 1: or that he had a history of problematic behavior or anything.
Speaker 3: And that philosophy, unfortunately happens across hundreds, hopefully not thousands,
Speaker 3: but potentially thousands of school districts where they intentionally decide
Speaker 3: not to punish students oftentimes or due to their ethnicity,
Speaker 3: because they're worried about some kind of disparate impact or
Speaker 3: suspensions leading to a lifetime of them in prison for
Speaker 3: whatever particular reason. And that's one of the problems that
Speaker 3: schools are dealing with now, just these massive disciplinary issues
Speaker 3: with their students. It's something that we found everybody cares about,
Speaker 3: whether they're a parent or a teacher or a student,
Speaker 3: the disciplinary situation, and a lot of schools across the
Speaker 3: US School.
Speaker 2: Of War right now.
Speaker 1: You know, we before Aiden ran the seventeen seventies foundation,
Speaker 1: he worked for me at the seventeen seventy six Project
Speaker 1: Pack and we would Aiden was in charge of like
Speaker 1: meeting all the people who wanted to run for office.
Speaker 1: So he has talked to thousands of people about local education,
Speaker 1: which is he was a godsend for me for taking
Speaker 1: that on for me. But what what what would shock
Speaker 1: us often is how many red states and red districts
Speaker 1: had this problem. There was one in Florida, Super Republican County.
Speaker 1: Now I'm thinking of it Red Red Rivers, Red River
Speaker 1: or something like that River County. I forget Indian River,
Speaker 1: Indian River, Indian River, Florida. Yes, Aiden is also got
Speaker 1: the only part of a brain that's working because mind
Speaker 1: doesn't anymore. Indian River, Florida. They had this. They had
Speaker 1: a desperate, intersperate impact on on students based on the race.
Speaker 1: It wasn't it wasn't that the case, right, Aiden, It
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 2: Was racially based.
Speaker 3: They wanted so if you were, they wanted to do
Speaker 3: a one to one ratio on disciplinary infractions based on
Speaker 3: the race of the students. So and I think that
Speaker 3: that district had a had a higher proportion of minority students,
Speaker 3: so functionally it would mean that they would punish the
Speaker 3: non non minority students more or the minority populations less.
Speaker 1: Overall, it's an Asian specifically more than blacks and Hispanics.
Speaker 1: It was. It was crazy, but it happens in red
Speaker 1: districts too. You know, you talked to I said before
Speaker 1: you talked to thousands of people who running for school
Speaker 1: board to care local education. What's in your opinion, the
Speaker 1: biggest misunderstanding in terms of rhetoric coming from talking heads
Speaker 1: both liberal and conservative, to what actually frustrates teachers and princes,
Speaker 1: bulls and parents at school boards.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think on the conservative side, especially because of
Speaker 3: what a lot of parents saw during the pandemic, they
Speaker 3: have a large scaled mistrust or distrust in teachers and administrators.
Speaker 3: And what we found is that especially in states like Louisiana,
Speaker 3: who I think it was the only state really that
Speaker 3: defied the general decline in education in the United States,
Speaker 3: they actually gave more flexibility to teachers in the classroom.
Speaker 2: So they had they.
Speaker 3: Overhauled their curriculum, but they also allowed the teachers to
Speaker 3: be a little more flexible and how they taught that
Speaker 3: curriculum in addition to providing other services. But a lot
Speaker 3: of teachers rebel on very strict rules, which is fine,
Speaker 3: and a lot of parents don't understand that. But I
Speaker 3: also think that in general, people don't understand just how
Speaker 3: much the school board and the individual member and the
Speaker 3: administrators run the day to day operations and set those policies.
Speaker 3: Just because, for example, President Trump is doing all of
Speaker 3: this action and setting out all these executive orders regarding
Speaker 3: the Department of Education does not mean that the issue
Speaker 3: has gone away. It has always been a local problem,
Speaker 3: and people need to understand that it's going to take
Speaker 3: local solutions to root out a lot of these devisive issues.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that that's you mentioned it before,
Speaker 1: mentioned it in your answer. Administrators and the frustration around
Speaker 1: administrators is what I would always hear the most often
Speaker 1: about people who are unelected, hired by hired by superintendents
Speaker 1: to sit there and make broad decision that really impacts teachers'
Speaker 1: ability to teach in the classroom, and that would seem
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly frustrating that no one really ever talked about. People
Speaker 1: think it's always like the teachers being like the super
Speaker 1: progressive ones when act is I would say nine times
Speaker 1: out of ten administrators making teachers do things they don't
Speaker 1: really want to do.
Speaker 3: That's why having school members who know how to oversee
Speaker 3: the superintendent and the administrators is so important, because the
Speaker 3: superintendent is basically the CEO of a school district. They're
Speaker 3: doing most of the day to day work school members
Speaker 3: in their current form do oversight. They're basically the board
Speaker 3: of directors, right, so they can set the policies and
Speaker 3: make sure the school district is going in the right direction.
Speaker 3: But the superintendent has a lot of flexibility and if
Speaker 3: you have the wrong person then they can lead to
Speaker 3: a lot of damage, all the trickling all the way.
Speaker 2: Through the system.
Speaker 1: I like the way you put that. Yeah, in school districts,
Speaker 1: school boards hire the superintendents or renew their contracts. What
Speaker 1: is from talking to parents, what is the biggest concerns
Speaker 1: in local education today?
Speaker 3: I think the number one The biggest concern that we've
Speaker 3: seen is concern over school safety, not just from outside
Speaker 3: threats but inside threats as well, but also generally students
Speaker 3: can't read, and I think more parents are waking up
Speaker 3: to the fact that their children can't read, and that's concerning.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have to be able to read.
Speaker 3: We're very society and talking earlier about the school to
Speaker 3: prison pipeline. If your kids can't read, they're more likely
Speaker 3: to commit crime and end up in jail. So I
Speaker 3: think there's a broader awareness now with parents that one,
Speaker 3: schools aren't as safe as they used to be.
Speaker 2: Or should be.
Speaker 3: And two that schools by and large are starting to fail,
Speaker 3: that we have had and poor performance.
Speaker 1: And we're not even in a situation where the kids
Speaker 1: are too big to get inside the school. Well, like,
Speaker 1: what is this a school for ants? How can the
Speaker 1: children learn to read if they can't inside the building?
Speaker 1: That's from Zoolander If anyone's under the age of twenty
Speaker 1: five and has never seen the movie anyway, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I can really agree with that. But what are what
Speaker 1: are the obstacles to innovation for most Let's say you
Speaker 1: have a great person who's that wants to run for
Speaker 1: school board, they get elected, what are the biggest obstacles
Speaker 1: in the hurdles that we always see that you're hearing
Speaker 1: now from running the foundation, that that school board members,
Speaker 1: well intentioned ones who want to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: are are dealing with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's an interesting question. I think I would
Speaker 3: say from a structural standpoint, the education community has dealt
Speaker 3: with a lot of fads over the last couple of decades,
Speaker 3: fads that haven't.
Speaker 1: Necessarily talk about some of these fads.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, we used to teach site learning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we used to teach teachers, you know, three queuing
Speaker 3: where they would point out, you know, the word on
Speaker 3: the page and connected with a picture, and we know
Speaker 3: that doesn't work. It was the subject of a lot
Speaker 3: of debates several decades ago, but a lot of teachers
Speaker 3: still use it. So there are parts of the education
Speaker 3: system and teachers colleges that are still using outdated methods.
Speaker 3: But because because those stuff around so long and we're
Speaker 3: so damaging, there's also some resistance in the community or
Speaker 3: the communities that are focused on education reform to looking
Speaker 3: at new opportunities as well.
Speaker 2: So that's a little bit of a wait.
Speaker 1: So what Aiden, wait? Wait, So what Aiden is talking
Speaker 1: about right now is in the two thousands we have
Speaker 1: you said something called phonics and a lot of classrooms
Speaker 1: back in the eighties and nineties, and then in the
Speaker 1: two thousands, Bush was all about phonics, and because Bush
Speaker 1: was evil, you know, to a lot of liberals, a
Speaker 1: lot of liberals embrace and then called site learning, which
Speaker 1: is what Aidan mentioned, and that's basically where kids would
Speaker 1: marize the word and that's how they would apply, but
Speaker 1: they wouldn't actually learn the building blocks of sentence structure
Speaker 1: and word structure. It was a terrible form we put
Speaker 1: it in all the teachers colleges. We've adopted it in
Speaker 1: most of our states. It set kids back tremendously in reading,
Speaker 1: and teachers colleges, as Aiden said, still do it. Teachers
Speaker 1: colleges are the root of so many educational issues, teachers
Speaker 1: colleges and teachers' unions because the teacher's colleges are the
Speaker 1: wild progressive places and the unions are what, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: forward a lot of innovation because unions represent their workers,
Speaker 1: they don't represent their students.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: And you know, Florida's done something interesting that they've started
Speaker 3: to I think they passed the bill that required teachers
Speaker 3: unions to recertify, so it gives the individual teachers and
Speaker 3: the district a little bit more power on whether or
Speaker 3: not they want to affiliate with the union. And then
Speaker 3: if they don't hit a certain threshold, then that you
Speaker 3: and has to dissolve. So that's one way that Florida
Speaker 3: in particular has been pushing back on right teachers unions,
Speaker 3: which has been really interesting to see. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: teachers unions, they defend their interests, which is you know,
Speaker 3: really the union administrators, not necessarily the teachers, which I
Speaker 3: think has been problems with the problem with a lot
Speaker 3: of these.
Speaker 2: Public secuity unions. In the first place.
Speaker 3: They have they haven't really pushed for substantive reform. They
Speaker 3: want to make sure that teachers are protected in their jobs.
Speaker 3: So when conservatives try to fix the system by introducing
Speaker 3: a little bit more personal accountability for teachers, they start
Speaker 3: screaming and fight really hard against it.
Speaker 1: If you were advising a school board, let's say all
Speaker 1: five members were or seven members, whatever the member is,
Speaker 1: were elected and came to you and said, hey, we
Speaker 1: want you to help us change. What are three things
Speaker 1: a local government could do a local school board could
Speaker 1: do to make their education better. And I know everything's
Speaker 1: personalized and different, but an overall thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 3: I think the first thing that we're actually starting to
Speaker 3: see now is I would tell them to do a
Speaker 3: comprehensive overview on what exactly is in their curriculum and
Speaker 3: how much are they paying people to pull it together.
Speaker 3: A lot of these school boards have massive budgets, sometimes
Speaker 3: in billions and billions of dollars, so making sure that
Speaker 3: they know where the money is going and what exactly
Speaker 3: they're paying for is very important.
Speaker 2: When you're looking at the progress of the school district.
Speaker 3: I would also inform them to set up a way
Speaker 3: to track progress with the superintendent and introduce a little
Speaker 3: bit more administrative accountability. Like I said before, the superintendent
Speaker 3: really is the CEO and the board is just there
Speaker 3: to make sure that everything stays on track. But I
Speaker 3: think that they can really introduce a culture of accountability
Speaker 3: and progress that.
Speaker 2: A lot of school districts don't have.
Speaker 3: And the third thing is I would make sure that
Speaker 3: the school board actually engages parents on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: That's not necessarily strictly a policy change, but having printal
Speaker 3: input in the school board is extremely important, especially now
Speaker 3: because so many people don't trust public schools. And if
Speaker 3: you're able to engage parents and see how certain policies
Speaker 3: affect the day to day lives of those families and
Speaker 3: their kids, then you'll be able to get a really
Speaker 3: good handle on what exactly is and isn't working district.
Speaker 1: So what does the seventeen seventy six Foundation do? What
Speaker 1: is your goal from the non.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so our goal on a nonprofit is to really
Speaker 3: form a foundation for the turning school districts around in
Speaker 3: a positive way.
Speaker 2: We have.
Speaker 3: When I was working with the seventeen seventy six Project
Speaker 3: Pack and I was talking with parents and school board
Speaker 3: candidates from coast to coast across the country, we found
Speaker 3: that basically everybody is dealing with the same problems. It differs,
Speaker 3: of course from state to state depending on the laws there,
Speaker 3: but broadly speaking, everyone is dealing with the same issues.
Speaker 3: And so our goal is to get school board members
Speaker 3: from across the country connected. We want to get them
Speaker 3: mentorship and start providing them resources to actually turn their
Speaker 3: school districts around and take that successful model and make
Speaker 3: sure other people.
Speaker 2: Can adopt it as well.
Speaker 1: Aiden, that's great. Where can people go to read more
Speaker 1: about what your stuff and the foundation?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would visit the Foundation's website Foundation seventeen
Speaker 3: seventy six dot org and you can follow me on
Speaker 3: Twitter at Aiden Ai d E N.
Speaker 2: Bizzetti b u z z e t T.
Speaker 1: The great Aiden BEAZETI one of my favorite people I've
Speaker 1: ever worked with. Aiden, Thank you for being on this
Speaker 1: week's podcast. Hey, we'll be right back after this. Now
Speaker 1: it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment of the show,
Speaker 1: where I take questions from my audience about literally Anything,
Speaker 1: and if you want to be part of the Ask
Speaker 1: Me Anything segment, you can email Ryan at Numbers Game
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers Numbers
Speaker 1: gamepodcast dot com And maybe next week I'll be reading
Speaker 1: your question. Our question this week comes from Julie is Hi.
Speaker 3: Ryan.
Speaker 1: I found out about you through your appearances with the
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton Show, which was great leading up to the election.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Julie. I read your article, your article and
Speaker 1: the Spectator about the distantass failed presidential run. My question
Speaker 1: is whether you think he has another shot in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight, What would need to change and do you
Speaker 1: think he can rebound? So what? First of all, Julie,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to podcast. Thank you for reading
Speaker 1: my articles. What I would say what Julie's talking about
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty three, I was invited to a
Speaker 1: meeting with or beginning twenty twenty you know give me
Speaker 1: twenty twenty twenty three, I was invited to a meeting
Speaker 1: in Tallahassee with quote unquote influencers who were thinking about
Speaker 1: supporting disantas. This was in I think March of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three March or early early April, but it was
Speaker 1: one of the two and she was. I was invited
Speaker 1: along with like a dozen or so quote unquote. I
Speaker 1: hate the term influencers. I don't call myself an influencer,
Speaker 1: but they did, so I'll use the term. I was
Speaker 1: invited to Tallahassee with a bunch of influencers to meet
Speaker 1: the governor and meet the team and talk about what
Speaker 1: running for president was like. And it was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a completely off the record meeting. And I went
Speaker 1: there and I was a loud mouth like I always am.
Speaker 1: I can't help myself. I do this for a living,
Speaker 1: running elections and campaigns, and what I have learned from
Speaker 1: being a consultant for the last two decades is that
Speaker 1: you have to be bluntly honest with people. And I
Speaker 1: don't mince words, and I don't have time. And if
Speaker 1: you want someone who will just be a yes man
Speaker 1: and kiss your r end, there's allion people you could hire,
Speaker 1: but I'm not one of them. I would be much
Speaker 1: further along in my career had I done that, but
Speaker 1: I just don't do it. I don't have the time
Speaker 1: or the energy. So anyway, we go to this meeting,
Speaker 1: I meet the team, they sell me on their big
Speaker 1: bag of nonsense. And then we go to meet the
Speaker 1: governor and I was like this second. I told all
Speaker 1: the influencers when we walked in the room, listen, the
Speaker 1: Governor's not where he was in November when he was
Speaker 1: leading in the polls against Trump. You have to be
Speaker 1: very honest with him that things are not going well
Speaker 1: and that he either needs to run like officially run
Speaker 1: and run hard, or not run like. I told him
Speaker 1: that he looks. I used the word pussy. I said,
Speaker 1: you look like a pussy is Trump attacks you and
Speaker 1: you don't say anything back to him. I told him
Speaker 1: that his book was not good because it was not aspirational,
Speaker 1: and I told him that he needed to connect more
Speaker 1: with working class people by talking about his background as
Speaker 1: a working class person. I think I specifically said to him,
Speaker 1: as smart as you are and as good at playing
Speaker 1: baseball as you were when you were younger, you would
Speaker 1: probably not get into an Ivy League school today because
Speaker 1: you're a white trade man, and they are discriminated against
Speaker 1: white straight men at these universities. And you should address
Speaker 1: that by speaking with your own experience. This is pre
Speaker 1: Harvard case. And anyway, we had the meeting. Then we
Speaker 1: had a dinner afterwards with the team the governor. The
Speaker 1: governor was lovely, by the way, his wife was lovely.
Speaker 1: I have nothing bad to say about them. He's a
Speaker 1: great governor. But that was the meeting, and then we
Speaker 1: went to the meeting with the team afterwards. I was
Speaker 1: very unimpressed by what the team was saying. And the
Speaker 1: general consultant said to me, like during the dinner, was like, so,
Speaker 1: what do you think, And I said, I think we're
Speaker 1: at an Irish funeral waiting for the body to drop.
Speaker 1: Like I was not optimistic about what was going on.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is not like I have no dey.
Speaker 1: Anyone's like celebrating right now. So and then I had
Speaker 1: one more call. I never worked for the Santus campaign.
Speaker 1: By the way, I think it's important to say, like
Speaker 1: people have accused me of working for DeSantis, and I
Speaker 1: never did that. I never took a check, I never
Speaker 1: I went to two meetings and I just gave them
Speaker 1: my best advice. That's the only thing I ever done,
Speaker 1: and that's what I think people. And I gave them
Speaker 1: the profession advice I would give anybody. The meeting ends,
Speaker 1: and then I get a call from the reporter several
Speaker 1: months later, basically repeating what I had said during this meeting.
Speaker 1: It was an off the record meeting, and I had
Speaker 1: told by the way, I told all these quote unquote
Speaker 1: influencers who loved as Santas, Hey, you need to be harsh,
Speaker 1: you need to tell them the truth. And the minute
Speaker 1: after I was speaking, I was the second person to speak.
Speaker 1: The minute after I was done speaking, everyone was like,
Speaker 1: You're so great, You're so wonderful. You're so great, You're
Speaker 1: so wonderful. No one was telling the truth, and no
Speaker 1: one was having an honest conversation. One of the influencers
Speaker 1: were like, we need to talk about trans children. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the f are you all talking about? Like immigration, crime,
Speaker 1: the economy, like brin cycle, repeat, AnyWho whatever. Deeply frustrated,
Speaker 1: and the report had called and knew what I had
Speaker 1: said and wanted me to go on records. So I said,
Speaker 1: f this. If everyone's leaking about what I said, and
Speaker 1: I didn't leak anyone's name, I'm going to just tell
Speaker 1: the story from my perspective what I actually said. And
Speaker 1: that's why I wrote the Spectator article. That's a very
Speaker 1: long window way of saying of what happened anyway, we
Speaker 1: do I think he has a chance to run in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. No, because people's window to run for
Speaker 1: president is very, very small. Had Chris Christy not run,
Speaker 1: had Chris Christi run in twenty twelve, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he would have been the party's nominee. He would
Speaker 1: have had a very good shot at being the party's nominee.
Speaker 1: He had virtually no shot by twenty sixteen, and he
Speaker 1: had really no shot by twenty twenty four when he
Speaker 1: ran again. Twenty twenty four, when he ran again, your
Speaker 1: window to be the new kid in town, to be
Speaker 1: the shiny new toy, to be the one who has
Speaker 1: earned it is literally very minimal. You have to know
Speaker 1: when it happens, and you.
Speaker 2: Have to do it.
Speaker 1: Had George W. Bush Way four years or done it
Speaker 1: four years previous, but during Bill Clinton's time, he likely
Speaker 1: would have never become president. You know, it's just if it.
Speaker 1: Had Clinton done it right after he was defeated his
Speaker 1: first gugnatory second good natorial election, he likely wouldn't have
Speaker 1: gotten it. So there are just times you have to
Speaker 1: do it, and you if you don't do it, when
Speaker 1: it's the time. And I think Desantas's time was twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. I don't I think if you wanted to run,
Speaker 1: that was his only time to run. But he ran,
Speaker 1: and he didn't do well. And I think he didn't
Speaker 1: do well because and what I said to his team
Speaker 1: and what I said to him, was your whole message
Speaker 1: is about Florida. I don't ever want to live in Florida.
Speaker 1: I don't like humidity. I really like cold weather. I'm
Speaker 1: a Northeasterner. I talk fast, I'm aggressive, I'm abrasive. I
Speaker 1: am a Northeasterner. That's who I am. It's part of
Speaker 1: my identity. I want to live in the Northeast. What
Speaker 1: are you going to do for me as someone who
Speaker 1: lives somewhere like Pennsylvania or Michigan or New York or whatever.
Speaker 1: You have to sell a national vision for where you're
Speaker 1: taking this country. It can't only be Flora, the freestate
Speaker 1: of Florida, over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: And I think that that was missing. And I think
Speaker 1: that his failure to connect to people in a way
Speaker 1: that made them feel like they knew him. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone says, oh, he's so icy, or he's so smart
Speaker 1: and so he's a little cold. I would have leaned
Speaker 1: more heavily into that when he there was a time
Speaker 1: in the campaign trail where he said to a kid
Speaker 1: like that ice cream is a lot of sugar. People
Speaker 1: were like, oh, you know, look at him, he's so autistic. No,
Speaker 1: I would have leaned into it. I think that's great.
Speaker 1: I think that's actually who he is, and he should
Speaker 1: have leaned into that. But it was very weird and
Speaker 1: he just didn't do well. I mean, Nikki Haley performed him,
Speaker 1: and she her campaign was on just absolutely nowhere in
Speaker 1: the summer in twenty twenty three when she first ran.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that he can rebound. I think
Speaker 1: that history is littered with great men who would have
Speaker 1: been great presidents, and ron de Santas will be one
Speaker 1: of them, because he would have been a great president.
Speaker 1: But I just don't see it that that's possible in
Speaker 1: the future. And from my knowledge, there's only been one
Speaker 1: former vice president who sought out his party's nomination and
Speaker 1: didn't get it, and that was Mike Pence in twenty
Speaker 1: and twenty four. Every other time a vice president has
Speaker 1: sought his party's nomination, he's received it and JD Vance.
Speaker 1: If he pursues his party's nomination, he's most likely going
Speaker 1: to receive it, So that would push the can back
Speaker 1: to at least twenty twenty eight or further. And by then,
Speaker 1: no one's going to remember COVID. No one's going to
Speaker 1: remember any of these things, or the war unwoke or
Speaker 1: you know, there's not it's just time has passed. And
Speaker 1: I wish him well. I wish him the best, and
Speaker 1: I think he'd be, you know, great and almost anything,
Speaker 1: because he's such a fabulous governor. But I just don't
Speaker 1: think being presidents probably in the cards for him, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that he can rebound from that. But
Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I am,
Speaker 1: but that's my best mite. That's my personal take on
Speaker 1: that anyway. Thank you so much for your email, Julie,
Speaker 1: and once again, if you want to be part of
Speaker 1: this segment on this show, please email me ryanat numbers
Speaker 1: gamepodcast dot com. Thank you again for listening this week,
Speaker 1: Like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you to see you
Speaker 1: guys next week.