WEBVTT - Karol Markowicz Show: Empowering Parents in Education with Tommy Schultz 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:09.160 Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:12.920 I got an email from a listener and she wrote 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.960 in this, Hi, Carol, you talk about the importance of 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.959 finding a relationship, but I'm thirty six. I'm not sure 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.759 that's of interest to me anymore. I sustain myself, I 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.160 make myself happy. I can't see what anyone would be 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:28.680 able to add to that. I'm not bitter or angry. 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.120 I haven't had bad men in my history. I just 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.640 don't see the importance of it. I wanted to have children, 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.200 but even that want has waned. What's so good about 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.960 being with someone? Then I heard this interesting exchange between 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.040 podcaster Jen Cohen and professor Scott Galloway. I'll play it 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:47.000 and then discuss it. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.000 If you are a woman who is capable and competent 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.720 and can do all those things on your own, they 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.160 don't want a man because the men out there are 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.760 there's very few few that there are are going to 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.240 be wanted by every single girl, so then they're going 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.319 to go right. So it's like, what do you do? 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.080 And that's basically what's happening. I know more single, great 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.760 girls than I've ever had in my life. And very 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.600 few eligible great guys, very few. And the guys I 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:21.840 know who I'm friends with, they have the pick of 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:23.560 the litter. They can go out with girls who are 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.320 like literally more than half their age, and those girls 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.200 are like buying for them and dying to go out 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:28.600 with them. 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:30.399 So we have. 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:37.280 But both parties are blame. Okay, men young men for 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.520 a variety of reasons, some societal some is on them. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.440 Are economically and emotionally unviable. They're less mature, they literally mature. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.000 The prefrontal cortex matures are the soler rate. They're not 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.400 going to college. They're in there. They've been told by 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.840 the wealthiest, deepest pocketed companies in the world. They can 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.520 have a reasonable facsimile of life online with an algorithm. 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.360 Why go out and make the effort to get friends 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.280 when you can go on discord a reddit. Why get 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.320 a job when you can make money trading crypto on 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.800 coinbase or stocks on Robinhood. Why go through the effort 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.840 and the rejection and the humiliation and establishing the skills 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.600 and getting your mom or your gay friend address you 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.480 working out, taking the risk, going to a place, putting 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.800 up the bullshit in the rejection, of finding a romantic 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.640 or sexual partner when you just have YouPorn and so 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.359 you have an entire code of men who have sequestered 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.000 from society. They don't get those skills. They go down 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.800 a rabbit hole and they become almost sort of just 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:34.040 non viable mates. 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.400 Now, they don't include the age of these people in 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.560 the clip, but if the guys who refers to or 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.720 dating girls more than half their age, I have to 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.200 assume they're at least forty hopefully. So like my letter writer, 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.920 these people are set in their ways and wondering what 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.080 the point of being with someone is. I don't have 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.160 a great answer for that. I can tell you that 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.400 it's a different level of happiness being cared for by 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.359 someone and caring for them rather than not having that 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.640 and all that warmth that comes with it, the family life, 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:12.160 the security. It's all very good. And of course falling 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.480 in love is amazing and magical. And you know, the 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.880 woman who wrote in didn't say whether that's ever happened 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.360 her before. But if it hasn't, it still could it 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.359 should You should try to find it. But if you've 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.320 reached a stage in your life where you think relationships 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.639 just aren't for you anymore. Fine. What I would say 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:36.000 to these people is make sure you're not just using 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.600 a defense mechanism to try to make excuses for why 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.840 you haven't met someone. It's okay to not have met someone. 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.760 There's a lot of luck involved. Like I always say, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.560 don't take your ball and go home. If you really 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.520 are happy, great, But I don't even think the men 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.000 in that clip are happy. If there's a tiny part 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.920 of you that thinks maybe you're not happy, don't give 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.440 up on the idea of meeting someone, and don't assume 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.800 that there was no one out there for you. Thanks 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.280 for listening. I love getting your emails. I love all 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.280 your questions. I'm going to do a few episodes on 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.280 family issues in the next few weeks because I've gotten 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:15.080 several emails about that. If you want something answered, email 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:19.039 me at Carol Markowitz Show at gmail dot com. Or 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.200 I post a form occasionally on x where you can 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.640 email me anonymously. I think people seem to like that, 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.000 so if you catch that form, send in your questions 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.279 there or Carol Markowitz Show at gmail dot com. Coming 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.280 up next and interview with Tommy Schultz. Join us after 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:35.800 the break. 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.640 Welcome back, to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.640 guest today is Tommy Schultz. Tommy is CEO of American 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.160 Federation for Children. Hi, Tommy, so nice to have you on. 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:51.960 Hey, thank you for having me Carol. 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.760 So, did you always want to be the CEO of 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.560 the American Federation for Children? How did you get into that? 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:00.640 Well, that's a funny question. 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.599 I didn't always know, because I didn't know the American 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.520 Federation for Children existed untill probably about ten years ago. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:09.719 It's an interesting story. 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.760 I was, you know, initially, I went to college wanting 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.120 to be a doctor. I had this sort of high 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.440 minded notion that I wanted to help people. Long story short, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.000 that we could maybe get into later. I felt that 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.080 wasn't the right path for me. A lot of challenges 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:25.920 sort of did fall in love with this notion of 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.520 fixing some of these societal problems or things that I 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.279 felt were hindering our ability to be a great country. 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:35.760 There were a few moments in college that really kind 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.400 of woke me up to that. And along that journey 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.840 I was working in politics, and then in between one 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.000 of the political campaign cycles, I had heard that this group, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.080 the American Federation for children was really great. They were 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.920 looking for somebody on the team, and the timing was right, 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:50.840 the location was right. 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:52.039 I said, I'd love to join that. 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.760 And I only had this high minded notion around, you know, 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.120 school choice, school vouchers. I think I had read the 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.160 Builton Friedman essay from back in the nineteen fifty that 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.240 he had written, But it was really this particular moment 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.920 in time where I had suddenly started visiting schools, these 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:13.720 incredibly high performing just jewels of schools that were at 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.640 that time in Memphis, Tennessee, that were high performing but 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.120 with a high poverty kind of student body. And it 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.200 was really crippling to know and understand that, like, gosh, 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.239 if we didn't pass a school choice program, this school 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.080 in particular was really benefiting from anonymous donors who had 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.760 given some gifts that were essentially running out. 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:34.320 And you get to think. 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:38.080 About, how, my goodness, we have this education system that 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.120 we've designed that is designed this way that basically you 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.120 really need this golden ticket to get out and to 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.600 get a good education, or you need to be really 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.800 lucky and born into the quote right zip code to 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.320 go to that quote good school. And so it was 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.479 just this really personally humbling experience that I had that 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:56.599 I said, oh my gosh, like, we have to fix this. 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.039 There is urgency because if we didn't pass that school 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.479 choice program at that time I'm in Tennessee, those kids 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:02.760 would be going to some of the worst schools in 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.799 America just down the road, and you when you multiply 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.080 that at scale across the entire country. I really had 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.320 this almost spiritual awakening that I said, this is my 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.360 life's mission, this is what I want to focus on. 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:16.920 And so that led to me eventually kind of taking 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.800 over the company a couple of years ago, and we've 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.600 had a lot of success since. And I know you've 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.840 been following the school choice issues. Yeah, and you yourself 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:26.720 had a lot of personal experiences with education, so you 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.280 know how important it is, especially at the K through twelve. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.040 K through twelve level can be such a vector change 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.360 for your kid's life. So that's how I again, I 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.760 didn't know I wanted to do this, but I think 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:38.600 God kind of smacked me over the head at some 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:39.480 point in my life. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.160 So you're going to go back and go to medical 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.240 school or absolutely not. 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.239 I mean the story there was you know, I probably 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.680 wasn't thinking too far ahead when I was jumping fully 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.080 into this and didn't realize I mean, and especially at 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.000 this time, they were, you know, Obamacare is being debated, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:57.760 and I talked to so many doctors at that point 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.720 who said, physicians, you name it that were like, look 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.920 the paperwork, the administrative burden it's getting. It's already bad enough, 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.320 and we're quite worried for what's down the road. I 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.240 wasn't liking the you know, the chemistry and the hard 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.240 sciences aspect at the college level with it, especially at Stanford. 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.680 So yeah, not going back to medical school, that's for sure. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.400 I also actually was going to be a doctor, but 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.320 that's only because my parents are from the Soviet Union. 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.600 And you know, that's one of three careers you were 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:24.800 to choose. 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.920 So lawyer, a doctor or something like that. 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.160 You got, you got two out of three. How'd you know? 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.120 So what does the American Federation for Children focus on 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.880 other than school choice? Or is it mostly a school 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:37.800 choice organization? 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.760 We are a singleish organization at least kind of what 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.520 the policies that we pass seek to give families the 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.360 best opportunity to go send their child to the school 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.720 of their choice. So public private charter we're agnostic on that, 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.840 but a real thing that is just needed in the 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.960 marketplace and has been needed for the last forty years 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.600 or more, is that we really do need a vibrant 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.600 kind of diet yamic set of options within each kind 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.520 of local community, and that charter schools took off in 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.160 the nineties and then early two thousands had a lot 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.160 of bipartisan support, but there were only kind of there 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.920 was a slower, longer tail when it comes to know 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.920 the growth of voucher programs, you know, any kind of 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.080 program or mechanism that allows a kid to go to 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.679 a private school. And so our team had been focusing 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.200 on that for quite a long time in various forms, 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.319 and in the last ten twenty years we've really accelerated 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.520 the pace of growth of voucher programs or ESA programs 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.199 or tax credit scholarship programs. These are all different mechanisms 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.000 that allow a student to go to a private school. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.719 AFC is unique in that we do political elections at 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.520 the state level, because that's how you change these laws 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.319 at the state level. That creates a permanent change to 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.200 the education system. Whereas you know, many of our founders, 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.760 board members and many people who are especially in the 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.280 last few years, getting into the world of education, they 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.000 feel the only way to change things is to go 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.199 to your local school board. And that is indeed an 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.240 important factor in all this, but it doesn't do systemic 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.400 change right. You're making changes on the margins to certain 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.480 kind of budgetary decisions or certain kind of curriculum decisions 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.960 here and there. But when you're talking about systemic change, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:10.920 you have to change laws right at the state level 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.400 in particular, because ninety percent of education and K through 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.520 twelve at least in this country, it's really dictated by 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.120 the state level dynamics. And so when you pass these 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.480 laws that allow families to go and take their funding 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.360 to the school their choice, such a difference maker, and 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.360 we've seen that in Florida in particular for the last 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:27.000 twenty years. 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:28.400 You can go in depth about that. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:30.880 But AFC would do the elections to help kind of 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.360 change the makeup of the state legislature. We do the 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.520 lobbying and advocacy during the legislative sessions, and then we 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.320 also help families and role in these programs. 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:39.880 So those are the kind of three legs of the 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:40.960 school How we do our work. 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.439 One of the biggest roadblocks to the kind of systemic 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:45.560 changes you want to make. 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:50.800 Oh, that's usually a pretty easy one. The biggest roadblock really, 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.600 it's the teachers' unions, their power, their money. You know, Carol, 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.800 if you had AFC, we've raised about thirty three million 0:10:57.880 --> 0:10:59.960 dollars last year and deployed that across the country. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.360 Carol, how much do you think the teachers unions brought 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:02.640 in in. 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.920 Terms of their revenue four times that you were close? 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.040 I mean they bring in about three billion dollars in revenues. Yeah, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.760 I mean, yeah, I was gotten by about, you know, 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.520 more than one hundred times. It's that and people just 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.520 don't understand the scale of what that means, right, because 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.920 if they're deducting right out of every teacher's paycheck, right, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.480 hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars a year, you multiply 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.760 that not only to teachers. It's almost a misnomber to 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.400 call them the teachers unions. Schooling unions is probably the 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.120 better term, because they'll take any employee that is part 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.360 of the school system. And that's why you notice when 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.440 they're fighting at the state legislatures and they're lobbying and 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.199 putting so much money, they're always wanting more personnel, right, 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.120 and they'll find any sort of personnel to do it. 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.160 They'll say, you know, during COVID, we need more counselors, right, 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.080 And it's like, well, maybe let's discuss that. But then 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:50.840 all of a sudden you realize, no, no, it's all about 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.240 the dollars for them. It's every new employee is a 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.680 new paycheck going into the conference of the unions. And 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.040 so when you have this three billion dollar machine, I mean, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:00.160 I mean, I don't know what the final tally was 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:02.280 for this year in the presidential elections, but for the 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.000 last couple of decades, I mean, that's the amount of 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.920 money that was spent at a presidential campaign level. And 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.240 they're doing that year over year at the school board level, 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.480 at the state level, at the federal level. And so 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.840 their influence on politics, particularly in democratic politics, really a 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.080 stranglehold on things. Whereas if they weren't able to you know, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.200 collect that money, and there's all these kind of state 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.040 laws that are trying to push for that that you 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.200 can't automatically deduct the dues from you know, employees in 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.400 that fashion. If you took that money element away, I 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.520 think that's probably, you know, the biggest it would have 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.480 the biggest downstream effect in terms of our kind of 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.400 ability to get good reforms in the education system, because 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:39.760 especially on the you know, the democratic side of the equation, 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.480 there is such this fear that a Democrat, they tell 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:43.640 us this privately off. 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.240 And they're like, look, I'm with you. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.920 Maybe when it gets to the vote, I'll be with you, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.200 but I cannot stick my neck out or else they 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.040 will wipe me out into primary, right, And that's that's 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.439 really harmful to the politics because it's also this nefarious 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.640 I mean, it's a taxpayer funded initiative essentially, right, because 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.079 our tax dollars are going to the school employees. Their 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.960 money is then getting shuffled over to the teachers unions automatically. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.440 Not that's not a good sign dynamic here. And so 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:10.720 but aside from that, the last couple of years, parents 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:12.960 have really made their voices heard. They got to see 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.800 what happened during COVID. We've been much more effective at 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.520 getting our message out there to those parents directly. So 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:20.400 we've been able to actually beat them, even though we're 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.040 well under resource relative to them. As we kind of 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:23.320 talked to. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:28.319 What's step one in fighting their dominance and actually ending that, 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.120 you know, taking money out of every teachers and every 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.000 employees paycheck. I mean, is there a way to stop that? 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:34.800 Yeah? 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.040 I think there are a number of states of past 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.199 laws where you know, you had the voluntary contributions have 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.080 to be voluntary and they can't be automatic, right, And 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:44.880 there are a couple of Supreme Court cases that kind 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:46.680 of dealt with this at the federal level that made 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.040 it such that you couldn't just you know, automatically take 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.840 money out of, you know, the teacher's paychecks. Jana's decision 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.960 was pretty notable in that regard. But then of course 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:57.959 the unions had already been seeing that the writing was 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.840 on the wall here, so they have their thous of lawyers. 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:03.120 They had worked out different ways to say, sure, you 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.040 won't be automatically joined into the teachers unions, but the 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:08.920 way that you have to like opt out is there's 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.760 this one Saturday at this random time and you have 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.080 to have your original teaching certificate that you got to bring. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:15.560 So they created all these kind of. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.400 Artificial ways to keep keep the doors from like you know, 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.720 them flooding for the exits. So there's a lot of 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.680 really good groups other folks that you should certainly talk 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.480 to in your podcasts that are working on that issue 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.720 in particular. But for us, you know, it does actually 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.040 go back to the school choice laws in that if 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.680 you are giving parents total control of their child's education 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.560 funding and they're able to kind of freely choose the 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.120 location or the type of setting home, you know, brick 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.600 and mortar, you name it, suddenly you know the power 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:46.200 of the unions and the power of the blob, all 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.800 the bureaucratic elements of this that has been just rising 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:50.320 dramatically over the last thirty years. 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:51.120 When parents are in. 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.040 Control, suddenly there becomes a marketplace. Florida we've seen this 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:59.120 the most where they've embraced all of the options right, public, private, charter, 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.400 all of the public schools have gotten better in that 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:02.760 regard because of it. 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:03.000 Right. 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.760 So again, when parents are in charge, that's usually the 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.080 biggest lever. And then there is this kind of element 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.160 on the margins. I think that is an important part 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:11.880 of it, but where it's like, hey, we need to 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.200 really rethink how the teachers' unions and these kind of 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.200 public sector unions are able to operate in this you know, 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.120 unlimited fashion in a lot of ways within our kind 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.240 of public discourse, in our politics, so a lot of. 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.200 The time, and I admit that this is true for me. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.040 People only start to care about things like what they're 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.800 teaching at the local school, or school choice or any 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.600 of this when they have kids in the system. You 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.400 mentioned before we started, you have two small kids, so 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.120 this isn't actually personal for you yet. How did you 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:44.200 become so passionate about this? 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.120 Yeah, again, it goes back to that story where I'm 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.240 you know, touring these beautiful schools with these in these 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.640 like high poverty areas that are doing so well for 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.280 these kids. You're talking to the teachers about the student 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.640 body and their challenges. The teachers are saying, roughly fifteen 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.120 percent our kids are homeless, or you know, you have 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.560 all these other ailments. You know, parents that you know, 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.120 single parent households that are really in deep poverty, but 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.160 they are getting their kid into this great school, which 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.280 is their ticket to end generational poverty in many ways, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.760 and you're thinking about the fact that the unions are 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.320 trying to essentially either close these schools make sure they 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:20.720 don't get any state funding. 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:22.520 And it's just when you're. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.880 Looking at the kind of dichotomy here of how enough 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.280 farious it is that there are people that they do 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.480 not actually care about the student's success, especially of these 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.280 kids in deep poverty. And you know, lower income families 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.480 have been screaming about this for generations, and lawmakers and 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.440 others will say, well, no, you know, the schools I 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.000 went to, they were good, and we just need to 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.440 do do like we did in the seventies and eighties. 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.840 It's like, you know, there are really deep, deep cracks 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.120 within our kind of public education system that we need 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.560 to fix, and there's this sort of moral imperative that 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.760 we should all have about that. And to your point 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.360 about parents not really you know, understanding this or paying 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.040 attention to us until their kids are going into it. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.600 Too late, it's like too late to make changes once 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:03.400 your kids are in it. 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:03.840 Yeah. 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:04.000 No. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.000 And thankfully there were visionaries kind of a people that 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.560 founded AFC who were you know, both philanthropus. They were 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:12.720 giving out lots of scholarships, but they felt at that 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.080 time in the nineties they're like, look, we could give 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.879 out the entire fortunes of every kind of major family 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.919 in the world here, but we're not changing the system. Right, 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:23.399 we're giving a lot of you know, we're giving out 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.800 a lot of proverbial lifeboats. But the system remains unchained 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.000 and actually was only growing, and it's kind of power 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.879 and influence. And so therefore thank God for the people 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.399 like you know, Betzy to Voss, even the John Walton 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.160 Bill Obendorf, who at the early stage of this said 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.600 we need to fix this American education system or else 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.480 it's going to be too late for the future country 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:43.560 and everything. I mean, we could have a long debate 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.720 about poverty, right, but it's so much of it stems. 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.840 From a poor education system. Right. 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.280 And for parents at the individual level again, I almost 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.480 I love when a parent really kind of comes to 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:56.720 this with like the zeal of a you know, convert, 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.880 where they go, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.480 it was you. And again, this is the nature of 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.000 our system, where if you grew up in this system 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:06.879 that just said, hey, it's your zip code and this, 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:09.720 I mean, when the game is sort of set that way, 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.160 you're not really thinking could this be different and should 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.440 we change it? And I think again COVID really had 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.560 this seench of sketch moment on the American consciousness that wait, 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.080 all these other countries aren't doing it like we do, right, 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.480 and we can actually have a free and open system 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.240 where we control our education funding. Especially when we're spending 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.520 about twenty thousand dollars per kid per year in American 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.479