That that little theater is kind of sweet. It's like they do little I
mean they do little plays. Not little, I mean they're actually regular,
full sized people doing full size plays. But it's a little theater. Not
what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your
country, Mister Gerbatcheff, tear down this wall, read my lips. It's
the Ricord Shape podcast with Peter Robinson. Oh nope, sorry, it's not
Stephen Hayward sitting and for Peter rob Long and New York. I'm James Lilex
and we talked to Ian Rowe about affirmative action, the Supreme Court and what
to do about our schools. So let's savosels a podcast. I was found,
by my observation, in a much more secure place, and now the
investigation has progressed, and so so they're saying the West Executive Inference. It
is also next to West Executive Drive. That's where, for example, the
Vice President's vehicle is parked. Welcome everybody, Welcome to July. Well,
come to Ricochet podcast number sixty nine. I'm James likes Minneapolis. Rob Long
is in Gotham. We presume Stephen Heyward sitting in for Peter Robinson and Stephen
where are you? I know that's a vital importance for everybody to have the
theater of the mind of this show. You are where I am at my
usual location on the central coast of California and wondering why Peter Robinson hasn't figured
out that they have telegraph service in Wyoming. Now, yes, we should
be doing this show by telegraph with Peter. It would be great. And
although we'd have to tell them to stop every every sentence or so, that
would be kind of fun. A guy in a motorcycle, just women whizzing
up to Peter's door every minute and a half For the next question, Well,
gentlemen, it's been a big week fourth over, but the fourth delivered
something of a bombshell of firework. I'm sorry with this decision about the government
and social media. Now we've all we all know what it is, right,
I have this injunction and says that they can't put pressure lean on the
social media companies to combat disinformation. And much of the disinformation that they were
worried about, of course, turns out to be information, actual truth,
actual truth. My question is, because I brought this up to somebody who's
a lawyer and who was completely uninterested in what actually had been what the result
of this was. You know, our good friend friend of the show,
doctor j was one of the right. It was one of the guys that
said, we know what happened to him with a shadow banning and the rest
of it. But the person who whom I was speaking saying, well,
what did the government do exactly? And I'm saying, well, you know,
they coordinated, they strongly suggested, he said, But did they force
them to do any of these things? You know? And you can say,
well, you know, they don't have to force you necessarily, they
can just sort of strongly suggest and that's enough, or is it? I
mean, is the fact that the government and the social media companies were colluding
and the social media companies were doing the bidding of the government, Is that
in itself something that the courts should look at if there is no specific leaning
on them and making them do things. I'm just throwing this out Devil's advocate,
right, and you guys are smarter, so go ahead and take it.
Well, I you know, I think you got to crack down.
I'm really hard. You got to hit them really hard over the head.
You got to like punish people, you got to fire people, You got
to wrap some people in you know, tars and feathers and send them out
into the town square. For two big reasons. One big reason is that
they were wrong. That they were absolutely wrong. Half the disinformation they claimed
disinformation about COVID was in fact not disinformation. It just was counter to what
they wanted you to know. And the second thing is is that because we
have now entered this bizarre part of the culture where people are believed that they
know exactly how you're going to react, that is that was the heart of
the COVID problem. Was that the government, all of the government, from
the very top in the Oval Office, all the way you know, through
Fallacy and burks, all the way into a lot of the states and the
Public Health Administration bureaucracy, they thought, well, we can't tell you anything.
We can't tell you the truth because you'll you'll draw the wrong conclusions.
And so this wasn't an attempt to um in their minds, this was not
an attempt to control us the way we think of people controlling like animal farm.
Right, They're trying to help us. They wanted to make it better
for us. They were trying to make it us safer, and they thought
we were too stupid to know how to do that ourselves. Right, And
that is what that is why you really need to crack down hard on these
people, not just because they were wrong, but because their impulse was wrong.
And you know, the truth is that you know, two, we've
had two or three giant or maybe more giant policy disasters in the past twenty
years. Right, probably more right. He had a war with Iraq.
It was a foolish war. We had a financial collapse which was really created
by the same kind of arrogance, and then we had COVID And I don't
see anybody being taken out in the town square and fired Like I didn't see.
I remember arguing somebody, some financier in two thousand and eight about you
know, the bailouts. Well, what do you want to do? You
want to see people selling apples on the street, Like, yes, exactly,
I want to see as Greenberg had a AIG and a bunch of other
people selling apples on the street. I want them broke. What do you
want to see? You want to see the full scale, complete top to
bottom scouring of the FDA and the CDC and the NIH and and our and
our system of funding laboratories. Yes, that's exactly what I want. I
want. I don't want anybody to go to jail. They didn't do anything
illegal, but they were incompetent and they should be fired. And what do
I what do I want? Do I want to what's your name Biden's first
press secretary's name? Do I want her to be publicly shamed and vilified?
Yes, that's exactly what I want. I want. I want an example
to be made of people who made errors of this kind. Well, Stephen,
back to my question, do you think that there was anything there was
a question? Was there? I mean, I agree with Rob, I
agree completely, and I too would love to see these things happening. Although
probably the fruit monopoly in New York is as such as it would be difficult
for these people to find produce, So maybe letters or something that fell off
the truck. But what do the government do exactly that that the courts have
stand that the courts can step in here and say that they did something that
was against the law. Was what the government did against And again I'm Devil's
advocating here. I'm not saying what they did was right, but was it
against the law. Did they do anything, did they twist arms that they
force people or was this sort of I mean, Twitter and Facebook were leaning
into this in a lot of ways because they, like Rob said, shared
the desire to do us, to do well for us, a tyranny for
our own benefit. Yeah, look the James, the federal government, actually
state and local government do this too. They have long ago mastered the standard
line of the organized crime syndicates. They say, nice little company you have
here, shame if anything happened to it. And that's what went on here.
I read the entire opinion. It's one hundred and fifty five pages,
double space, and it's a district court opinion. So remember that at that
level of the legal process, the court is establishing facts. So over one
hundred pages of this is a narrative of what happened and who said what,
and it's absolutely devastating. And although there was no direct orders given or maybe
one or two I'll give you, I'll give you one sentence in the opinion
in a minute, were there was lots of what the judge characterized as blatant
coercion, suggestions, threats, and intimidation about Gee, we might have to
revisit section to thirty, which gives the social media company's immunity. Uh.
And so that you know, there's it's on page ninety seven. If anyone
wants to look, here's one quote from a White House to one of those
social media companies. Cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved
immediately, Please remove this account immediately. That doesn't sound like a suggestion,
recommendation. Please could you review this? That sounds like a command. And
so the legal point, when you finally get to the end of the opinion,
turns on the government could only be justified in behaving this way if there
was a demonstrable injury to the American public. But in fact, these people
were telling the truth, right, and and so there there's the injunction against
further communication. I agree with you. I agree this was this was wrong.
And I think the account that they were trying to get down was what
was a parody account of Joe Biden's granddaughter or something like that one of them.
Right, but but but but and again, I know I'm gonna be
taking the wrong way. I'm not defending this in any way. It was
possible for Twitter to say, here's a bag of sand and a hammer,
this is not what we do exactly. They didn't, but it was possible
for them to say so. So at no point in this whole I mean,
yes, you're precisely right when you say it's the old Luigi Ricatti and
money Python saying nice army base you guy, um Michael Paylo my favorite.
But but there, but they didn't walk in and pull plugs. They didn't
walk in and tikti dikty tick hack, you know, right, but they
did they didn't have to. But I'm just, I just I'm answering the
question that my friend had about you know, why does this matter? You
know, what did they what it? Actually? Did they do? I
don't know? Now do we do? We want the government to be able
to go to Twitter and Facebook and say, hey, look we got an
isis cell here. We want some access, we want you to throw I
mean, we want that too. Well, the opinion specifically exempted legitimate national
security concerns may and maybe it was foreign threats and foreign misinformation disinformation so forth,
So there is an exception carved out for national security. But I think
but the point you make James is Worth reiterating they were pushing on an open
door. I mean, one mild concern you can have as well if the
government gets out all the wokey's at Twitter and YouTube. I mean, we're
missing Peter today. But we saw his uncommon knowledge gets censored from YouTube.
Probably the government did that. I think YouTube may have taken it upon themselves.
By the way, I mentioned one one little small victory and all this
um gosh. A year and a half ago, John, you and I
had Richard Epstein come to give a talk at Berkeley Law. He gave his
and you know, he got off on the wrong foot on COVID the beginning
and backtrack, but yeah, he gave his very strong attack on masking and
all the other mistakes we made, and we always post these guest lectures on
YouTube. They took it down, and to their credit, the General Counsel's
Office at UC Berkeley contacted YouTube and said, we're going to sue you because
we're you know, we're a were public university. You are censoring a government
institution. And they put it back up. But of course Berkeley, you
see the University of California has to have to bring that kind of pressure on
YouTube. Take god, can I take another like a hundred thousand foot for
you, even higher than fifty thousand of you is that we have entered up
time in I think culture where everyone on both sides is terrified of telling their
devoted audience the truth. Like you saw that in the Fox News emails.
Oh my god, we can't tell our audience the truth that Trump lost.
We have to lie to them and let them down easy. And you see
that in all these emails with Twitter and Facebook, in all those places,
like well, we can't tell people what's really going on. A Fauci actually
says it in his memoirs. We could. I couldn't tell you the truth
about masks because you wouldn't be able to handle it. And there's this attitude
and you can see it. You can see it in politics, you can
see to meet in all these media consultants, this attitude that we have mastered
public opinion management. Oh, we've mastered it. And it is the one
thing that these people are terrible at and they insist that they're good at it.
The truth is that and that the sad part of it has happened to
silic value because the beginning of the look Value, Vidom, all these social
media networks. The idea was freedom, freedom, crowd the wisdom of crowds,
that a free exchange the good stuff will rise to the top. All
that, all that was a complete I mean, there's an article of faith
for people who started Twitter and Facebook and all those things with a freedom and
it I mean, was it ten years? In ten years, they have
also convinced themselves that they are capable of shaping and honing and managing public opinion.
And that is just dumb. You can't. Not only is it wrong
and illegal and you shouldn't happen in immoral and not befitting sovereign citizens of a
great republic. Not only is it insulting to those citizens, but it's also
stupid. You can't do it. You cannot manage you are no one is
smart enough. If they believe me, If if people knew how to shape
public opinion, First of all, I would be a lot richer because every
single one of my TV shows would have been a giant hit. But all
Holly would be much better. It's it's the thing that you can't do.
And these arrogant, arrogant, bureaucratic fools believe that they can, and I,
you know, it really is. I mean, I keep I mean,
I'm not arguing for some kind of divine intervention here, but I keep
thinking that the universe or God or whoever you believe in has been trying to
send us a signal for twenty years, which is, stop trying to grow
a brain, Stop trying to think you can figure over the app, stop
trying to control everybody, and we just are not listening. What is the
point of going to all these elite institutions and getting a good degree, in
going into government if you can't improve the world. Because that the whole model
is based on the idea that a technocratic, enlightened delete will be able to
guide in shape society to our benefit. Now, in the early days of
the Internet, you go back to you you know you're talking about Twitter,
Rob, You go back to the very beginning, go back way when they
plug. The first thing in the prevailing idea was that the Internet interpret censorship
as damage and routes around it. That this whole, big, disvast,
distributed network of information would I would inevitably self correct. And it did.
It did. We were able to get things out, and we were able
to get different narratives out and we were able to stay free, which is
kind of great and I like that. But now you're right, we have
the people who want to shape and manage, but we have a good sign.
As chaotic as Eon Musk's stewardships of Twitter may have may be to some
people, Frankly, I don't tell. I can't tell with the difference between
what it was people, the ads are worse and some stuff is interesting,
and it's still far better than any of the alternatives because it's a vivacious,
kaleidoscopic conversation. We had this week the launch of Threads, which was the
meta version of this. So now we have about nineteen Twitter clones out there
that you can spend your time on truth social which either you guys have been
there, oh no, yeah, okay, Well I've been there and it's
yeah okay, and I've been on Threads and Threads is absolutely nothing and it
seems to be filled with Zuckerberg simps, which is really bizarre. I cannot
cannot imagine wanting to be an orbiter for this barely humanoid creature, and it's
very boring. There's nothing going on there. Twitter remains this place where it's
boisterous, and it is still what we need to get this stuff out.
So I'm hopeful at the end of this, between this injunction and between the
continued you know, calamitous slapping, throwing pots and pans and hammers mess that
Twitter is, that we still are able to get our message out past these
technocratic minders. But if we do, we have to freedom. The problem
with freedom is it's messy and ugly. Right, So all the people arguing
that Twitter is, you know, free, they also have to contend with
the fact that Twitter is at present a pornography delivery device. So you say
that never pops up in my feet, I mean that's because you're not looking
for it. But if you look for it, it's there and it doesn't
and and the and the and the user age for Twitter is thirteen so and
twitters and a normal So you so that you either decide that Twitter needs to
crack down on that as if it could it's a giant fire hose, or
you need to say I have to be more careful about what I put inside
my window to look at where I have to be careful about when my kids
are looking at um. But there's no there is there is no uh,
there is no way to to thread the needle for freedom and free exchange of
views without any kind of interference by government, which will eventually become coercient.
It always does. And um, personal vigilance like personal and the irony for
me is like the perfect example of this of why I will always vote for
personal vigilance and people is that during COVID, it was the people predominantly who
were right. They they're intuition was correct, and they're you know, the
administrative betters from the White House on down were wrong. And I mean,
I'm not making an ad here for Rod de Santis, but you could if
you like, you could say Brian Kemp of Georgia. Both of those governors
chose a different path and they were both correct. Well, if I could
wave a one to make the future better, it would be this. All
the smartphones that we have would not be able to be used by somebody without
a retinal scan. The retinal scan would be tied to your birth certificate,
and until you reach the age of eighteen, you would not be allowed to
own a smartphone, and you'd be banned from social media entirely. It would
do us all a world of good. But Rob's right, I mean,
the government is still if you want to if you want a good, good,
clean Internet, you're going to need the government. Unfortunately, as we've
learned, well, you know, do you want the government looking at where
you went? Hard to keep track of the extent to which the government is
sticking its nose in the business a big deck, right, You've seen it
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now we welcome to the show. Ian Rowe, co founder of Vertex Partnership
Academy, is a new network of character based international baccalaureate high schools in the
Bronx he's a the co founder of the National Summer School Initiative and a senior
fellow at AIE and the author of Agency Welcome to the show. Hello,
how are you good? How are you good? I hear conversations about pornography
on the internet conversation earlier. Yeah, I hate to tell you that my
beloved Internet is filled to the brim with smut. And you shared some sobering
statistics. People are worried about the fallout from the Supreme Court decision on affirmative
action, race based affirmative action. And here's what you tweeted quote. If
you are concerned that the decision to end race based affirmative action will result in
less Black students in college, consider this. In twenty fifteen, eighteen percent
of fourth grade black kids read at or above proficient defined by the National Assessment
for Educational Programs aka the National Nations report Card. In twenty nineteen, only
fifteen percent of that same cohort, now in eighth grade, read at or
above proficient levels. Now in twenty twenty three, it's very likely that less
than twenty percent of that cohort of black high school seniors is reading at proficient
levels. Truth is we have to confront is that stronger families and more school
choice have to be part of the story so that our kids can compete on
equal footing far before college applications are on the table. So is that going
to happen? I'm sorry to be the sobering one with actual data. I
know that they're suar, you know, losing, you know, losing a
gasket because race based affirmative action is no longer and for good reason, it's
unconstitutional. But we cannot afford to get distracted. You know. One other
piece of information, one other data point is that the college board that administers
the SAT exam each year publishes what the scores are across racial lines, and
for typically elite school's, top tier colleges, you've got a score between the
fourteen hundred and sixteen hundred range to be really considered for admission. Right well,
of the about approximately one hundred and seventy thousand black students that took the
SAT in the year twenty twenty one, only one percent performed between the fourteen
hundred and sixteen hundred range. That's part of the reality, that's part of
the data that we have to confront. You know, I run schools.
I run public charter schools in the heart of the South Bronx because I want
my students to know two hard things. These are almost all low income kids,
almost black, you know, all black and Hispanic students. I want
them to know that they can lead a self determined life and that they can
overcome barriers that are going to be inevitable. But at the end of our
education, we need to know where they need to know that they've earned it,
that they can actually legitimate compete on an equal playing field. And the
distraction, well maybe the benefit actually of the decision confirmative action. It will
put now in stark reality what is actually happening within our CA to twelve system.
I'm a drob long thanks for joining us. I want to have about
the Vertex Partnership ademys in a minute. But something struck me about the coverage
of the Supreme Court decision, which is that one of the things that people
kept saying with a kind of a you know, subdued sneer, is you
know that Clarence Thomas, he's one of the chief beneficiaries of affirmative action,
and isn't that part of the problem is though whenever they want they can just
point to you and say, well, you didn't really qualify. Isn't that
the heart of the problem with with the way the way the left treat s
affirmative action? Oh yeah, I mean I I posted an additional tweet a
couple of days ago. Now it's been viewed I think nearly one point two
million times that that said. You know, in the future, maybe the
benefit of this Supreme Court decision that black kids accepted it to elite colleges will
say thank you for actually make a decision that removes the perception that I was
gained this position solely based on my skin color. It is interesting to note
that former First Lady Michelle Obama, in response to the Supreme Court decision,
posted this about her own experience at Princeton University. This is what Michelle Obama
said, quote, I sometimes wondered if people thought that I got there Princeton
because of affirmative action. It was a shadow that students like me could not
shake, whether those doubts came from the outside or inside our own minds end
quote. That is part of the grinding self doubt that many black and other
minority students who were talented always carried. With them and carry with them because
of the implementation of affirmative action and the perception that you're only there right because
of your skin color. But before we get past this, because what I
was, we talked about this little last week, but you weren't here for
that. But one of your thoughts, I was struck by the two kind
of tent poles of the decision where their opinion written by Katangie Brown Jackson and
they could and the opinion written by Clarence Thomas, like they live in two
different worlds. They because I think they do, right, I think they
Clarence Thomas, rural Georgia, single parent family, raised by his grandparents,
didn't. I don't think he had indoor plumbing until he was at a certain
age, you know, disrespect to Katangie Brown Jackson. Two parent family.
Father was a lawyer, mother was a probably school administratorum entirely different background.
I mean, I mean not even close. I mean in a way,
I sort of and I think Michelle Obama had kind of a similar upbring.
And what I understand their argument is like, well, you know, a
white kid with that background, that's every it's all Is it all likelihood that
the white kid working hard would also get to those colleges. That it doesn't
seem like that was the race of deciding factor here. But what do you
say to people who argue, Okay, well we have to have some kind
of affirmative action, but it should be based on um. But well,
I've long argued that adversity was the word, right, well, not adversity
because because there actually now is a medical school, I believe that it's it's
creating a diversity score and so now there's going to be a the you know,
the grievance Olympics. I said adversity. I think that was the term
they used to No, no, no, no, there is a there
actually is a methodology around adversity, which which I have issues with some reasons.
No, I have long argued that if you have to have affirmative action,
it should be based on economic class and race, because I think most
Americans would agree if you're from a low income background and you've achieved academically,
if there is to be a leg up within the admissions process to elite schools,
that I think most people would agree. Economics should be the barometer.
And you know, and if you actually look at the data from the Harvard
case, nearly seventy percent of the black students that have been admitted under the
affirmative action program. We're upper middle class kids, right, you know,
you know, oftentimes immigrants from West Africa and Nigerian and Caribbean. So even
under the current administration of affirmative action, race based affirmative action, it has
not been benefiting the people that I believe that most of us think should be
benefiting from some kind of preference treatment, and that should be kids from low
income backgrounds. Okay, So that that leaves been my next question, and
I know Steve wants to jump in, So here's my just just one before
we keep go over we go to the actual the schools. Your argument seems
to me to be we are focused on entirely the wrong thing. We're trying
to fix the problem way too late. Back problem starts at K through twelveth
K through six K through three whatever. It is even earlier if you talk
about family structure. But ye, okay, yeah, why do we spend
no time talking about that? I'm trying, Okay, no, affirmative Race
based affirmative action is what I call a back end band aid. You know
the reason I run schools is that I want our students to know that they
don't have to be dependent upon some kind of preferential treatment based on an immutable
characteristic, in this case race. We have to have an educational system that
is truly providing equality of opportunity in terms of a good education choices within your
neighborhood, regardless of income level, regardless of rays, regardless of zip code.
That's where our attention needs to be focused. And again, maybe one
benefit from the Supreme Court decision it puts that into stark reality. Yeah,
Ian, it's Steve Heyward out in California, where, among other things,
I'd like to say, I'm an inmate. And you see Berkeley, and
you know the comment Rob brought up about people think Punch Thomas benefited from affirmative
action. I believe he graduated sixth in his class of five hundred students at
Holy Cross, and yet we make the assumption about MRIs. Critics make that
assumption about him just a quick story to cheer you up a little bit,
but it shows the problem. One of the five best students I ever had
was the black girl who got the only perfect one score on any of my
exams. Ninety nine percent talently. L Sad came to me asking for a
recommendation for law school, which I was delighted to do. I asked her
where do you think of applying and a straight age student, of course,
needless to say, and she names a bunch of second tier law schools,
good places. But I said, with your scores and grades and obvious abilities,
you should be applying at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, etc.
She's a soft spoken young lady, and she said, well, yeah,
but I feel like I might only get in as an affirmative action admittance.
It broke my heart, right, And of course, you know what
can I say? Accept? Oh, you must not think that I have
seen your work. You can go toe to toe with the best of them.
And by the way, the happy ending of the story is she did
end up going to an ivy League school on a full right scholarship and did
very very well. But that is the this is the message that gets sent.
By the way, this has becomes overpower. Okay. One of the
things that Chief Justice Robert said in his majority opinion was, you know,
Harvard could alleviate this difficulty they're having by simply getting larger. They've got all
this money. The population of the country has expanded by one of one hundred
million people since Baki and Harvard has not really changed in student body size or
Yale or any of the others, and he set Harvard declines to do so.
The other thing they might do. In addition, if they don't want
to for whatever reason, the other thing they could do is they could emulate
what Hillsdale College has done and emilate you. In other words, they could
create competition for Vertex Partnership academies. Hillsdale has their charter schools all over the
country. Correct, how about the IVY Leagues? Do the IVY League academies
around the country to try and recruit minorities qualify them for elite schools or any
schools for that matter. And they could raise a ton of money from the
alumni to do that, and they decline to do that. Also, not
to mention, they could use their endowments. So the reasons the reason I
like the direction of that idea is that it's now getting to the heart of
the issue, which is how do we improve the preparation of all students.
Yeah, according to the Nation, the National Assessment for educational progress. Less
than of all American kids are reading a grade level, so this is not
only an issue with black students. So a few days ago Roland Friar,
Great Economists, actually had this idea. He proposed that all of the top
tier schools, the ivs, the uncs of the world should use the power
of their endowments and or raise additional money to launch upboards of a hundred public
charter schools in their localities. They could launch high schools and middle schools potentially
serving cumulatively fifty thousand kids, low income kids from their localities to build a
pipeline of talent either for their own colleges or universities or heaven forbid, they
create a public good by just creating more talented kids. To me, that
is a solid idea that is responsive to the data that I shared at the
beginning of this call, because that's where our attention should be. Not the
virtue signaling in this back end band aid not checking the box because accepted a
black Nigerian student who's had a phenomenalation, and now you say, well we're
you know, we're doing right by black kids in this country. That's the
hollow hypocritical, cynical virtue signaling that hurts the larger effort to create upward mobility
for all students. So Ian, we have only mentioned you're a school initiative,
the Vertex Partnership Academies. Tell us a little bit more about this because
I know nothing about it actually, and you know, what's your strategy,
what are your keys to success? How does it work? What's the takeaways
for us? Yeah, thank you for asking. So for a decade I
ran public charter schools in the South Bronx and Lower East Side of Manhattan.
These were elementary and middle school so they only went through eighth grade, and
you know, we did a lot of phenomenal work, but at the end
of eighth grade, the question where do the kids go next? And in
places like District twelve in the Bronx where we just launched Vertex Partnership Academies as
a high school, only seven percent of kids that start ninth grade four years
later graduate from high school ready for college. So think about that. That
means ninety three percent of kids start ninth grade and either drop out or they
actually do earn their high school diploma but still cannot do reading nor math without
remediation if they were to go to college. And so that's the context that
exists in the Bronx in Brooklyn, in Chicago, in parts of Los Angeles,
all over the country. Even if you have the benefit of a strong
elementary and middle school education, there just aren't enough high quality high school options.
So we endeavor to launch a new kind of high school virtues based So
it's organized around the cardinal virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom.
At the end of your sophomore year of high school, you'll actually have
a choice of pathways that you can choose a pathway that will lead you into
a high performing university or college, or you can choose what we call the
careers pathway, which means that you have the opportunity to still take academically rigorous
classes and though time would be made that you could do an apprenticeship in your
junior and senior year of high school. So imagine if you had the opportunity
to apprentice at a New York City based hospital where you could learn how to
become a phlebotomist taking blood, or work in a computer science arena working at
Amazon. So we're building those relationships now where a high school student could earn
an industry credential with labor market value, meaning at the end of four years
of high school, they could get a job in a particular arena. Again,
the other thing that this Supreme Court decision hopefully highlights is that maybe a
college degree shouldn't be the only option considered at the end of four years of
high school. So there's a lot of opportunity hopefully that this decision will shed
line on. We've chosen to build an institution that we hope can grow into
a model for what the rest of the country can achieve. This row,
it's a great guest who anticipates my next question and answers it and then sort
of leaves me flapping my COM's wondering what to say. You're absolutely right as
a question of whether or not everybody needs to go to college. In a
perfect world, they spend their elementary years getting the basics, in the middle
years being introduced to more substantial topics, and then the high school solidifies it
all, caps it off, and they're ready for the world. But we
always assume that college is the next obvious step, and that anything below that
is somehow demeaning or giving up on that one. Actually, you're right,
phlebotomy, computer science, electrician, plumbing. These are virtuous professions that are
they're absolutely ness that are necessary. And do we have a cultural bias though
that needs to be shaved away and massaged and deluded that unless you're going to
college, you're really not successful, that that that we've given up on this
generation of people because we're not sending them to college. I would almost look
at declining college and romans among certain groups as signs that they've got it.
They understand that this is just a lot of money for a credential. That
doesn't mean you're a smarter person, you're able to do these things. So
how do we sort of work on that cultural shift without sounding like a bunch
of you know, uh, you know, bloodyed philistines who don't care about
book learning. No, no, it's it's a very good point, even
within our high school. So we just launched in twenty twenty two with freshmen,
so ninth grade, and this upcoming year will be at ninth and tenth
grade, So at the end of next year years when students will be choosing
their pathway, either the diploma pathway or the careers pathway, and we're going
to do a lot of work to ensure that all the students know that the
choice that they're making is of equal stature. There is no stepchild relationship inside
careers. It's still a rigorous academic path, but it's just at the end
of four years you'll have you'll be equipped with the credentials that could be very,
very valuable. One thing that's interesting is that there's a good amount of
data. MDRC, a great research firm, did a study that shows that
particularly for low income boys, those that leave high school into meaningful work over
those course of those next few years, much lower interaction with the criminal justice
system, much lower levels of non marital births, higher rates of actually if
they go to college, higher rates of college completion. So there's actually some
value even if your goal ultimately is to get kids into college. Right working
for a few years, coming out of high school with a meaningful industry credential,
can you can have your cake and eat it too. And so so
we very much believe that high school because this is not part of the general
education reform discussion, but we think high school needs to be to become the
place where we now have multiple pathways where college for all is not the default
pathway. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with the getting Rob Henderson,
who's been writing about that. He grew up in California and sort of
the Central Valley. I think as a foster kid or adopted something trouble trouble
high school. Somebody said, well, you joined the Air Force, so
he said, I better do that. It's either that or jail. And
then he eventually after the Air Force, think at twenty four, he became
a freshman year and he writes really brilliantly about how how different his experience was
as a twenty four year old. Obviously that's pretty old to go to be
at undergraduate, but he's he's convinced he got more out of it because he
had more questions, and he had more experience, anymore discipline, and he
got he got his money's worth out of that education, where I think a
lot of eighteen year nineteen year olds just don't get their money's worth. Yeah,
And just as it relates to to boys in particular, there's a lot
of, you know, emerging evidence that young men are having a different,
different challenges in the matturation process and there's something to be said about high school
being a place for more hands on learning, job engagement where you you know,
and an apprenticeship you got to show up, you know, you have
to make icons to do things that enhanced responsibility and accountability. And so as
we think about that aspect too, I think many advantages. And again,
all of this is starting with the Affirmative Action court decision. My hope is
that we don't obsess over again the back end band aid and think about what
are the ways we need to acculturate all of our kids right in the pathways
that can lead to a life of flourishing. And you're in the middle of
that right now. So I have two questions for you. A question,
and then I have a request which you may not be able to answer.
But here's my question. How much BS do you have put up with as
a percentage during the day or during the week from the people in the education
establishment or whatever you want to call it. Who are I mean, the
polite way to put it is unsupportive, but I think probably the more honest
way to put it with like would just like you to go away, to
shut up and go away. Yeah, yeah, there there are a few
people who would like me not to put forth the argument, right, but
you know what, I have a I have a here's the thing. When
you hear data, for example, where only seven kids in this district in
the Bronx graduate from high school ready for college, some people look at that
and say, see, that's the proof of structural racism, structural barriers,
and it's an oppressive system and end of story. And so that's why we
need things like reparations, or we need increased funding, or we need government
intervention. And so I see that same disparity and share the concern that we
should not live in America where the district in one of the poorest sections of
our country, where only seven percent of kids are graduating from high school ready
for college. So I try to find a common cause. We both deeply
care about that disparity. It's just that my prescription is different. Right,
Well, then let's have more school choice, Let's have stronger families, Let's
have ways in which young people can choose better educational environments so that they're not
having to depend on this back end band, permative action, or any other
of these interventions, which are by the way, proven over time not to
be the vehicle to achieve the wide scale upward mobility that we all want.
So for all those people who don't like the arguments that I advanced, look,
look, I'm with you on the issues, but let's talk about the
solutions. Because Okay, so aren't working. So how long you've been running
the schools? So since twenty ten, I've been running public charter schools.
Okay, so that is Dauns twenty twenty three, that's K through twelve.
You've you've seen You've seen K go to through twelve. Oh yeah, no,
I mean we have kids. You know, when I took over the
network of schools I let in twenty ten, and that included kids who were
already in sixth grade. So I've seen our students now graduate from college schools
like Yale and you know, and you know Tough and Howard and you know,
very inspiring. So here's what I'm gonna ask you. What's in the
past month. Say, I'm just gonna pick month. What's been the most
inspiring thing that you've heard from a former student, or from a parent,
or from somebody in your community that makes you remind you that you're on the
right track. Wow? Um, well, uh let's see a few different
things. Um, I told you it was going to be a little bit.
Yeah. We we just finished the first year at Vertex Partnership Academies.
Was our inaugural class of ninth grade students, and um, we we we
recently took a trip to Washington. We took a group of students to Washington.
Actually, we took another group of our students to Annapolis to the US
Nagorhood and in this case, it was almost all girls and they had an
opportunity to interact with the astronauts. It was it was a it was a
convocation for the new incoming class of astronauts at NASSA, and the students talked
about the fact that they had never ever envisioned a possibility like that for themselves,
and yet they just said, wow, now that I've seen it,
I'm like, wow, I met an astronaut, and this person who they
were able to talk to about what their life was like when they were fourteen
years old, shared stories of the doubts that they had, the challenges that
they had. And so for these students, these Vertex Partnership Academy students,
when they talked about that, now it's almost it's it's like, um it,
the success has been demystified for them, it's like a fail had been
taken off. So that's certainly one of the most im I gonna share other
stories too, but that's not that's just one. But I kind of want
to hear I mean for two reasons. One because I feel like I always
get more inspired when I hear somebody doing great stuff and then there's a story
behind it. But two because it's the fourth of July and this is a
great patriotic story about how we can renew and refresh and and o country.
And by the way, for what it's worth, when we designed Vertex,
we were thinking about these two pathways of university pathway or career pathway. As
a result of the trip to Naval Academy and some work I had done with
West Point years ago, we're going to have a third pathway and it's going
to be military. We're going to want to and again of equal statue right
at the end of high school. We want our students to know that by
the way, you can get a world class tuition free education, and institutions
like West Points, like the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and we should be
encouraging our kids to think about that as a as a way to serve their
country with honor and dignity and respect. That's what we want to do,
serving their country, honor, dignity, respect. These are words like across
to vampire for some people. Oh my gosh, Roll, thank you for
joining us, Tod. Anybody want to learn a little bit more about this,
of course, why don't you go to Amazon and pick up his book
Agency Agencies. That's the word. Just google agency and RWE and you will
find it. You'll read it and you'll learn and certain thank you for coming
and best of luck. All right, that was great, thanks guys,
Thanks you, Hane, And it is inspirational. I liked the idea that
you know, you don't have to go to college. And I say that
as somebody who was more who was of course absolutely intent that my daughter has
to go to college, right and a tremendous expense and all the rest of
it. I'm glad she did. She's gainfully employed, and if she wasn't,
oh lord. The only thing is is that she lives an expensive part
of the country, really expensive, and it's got roommates and the rest of
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air around. The good thing is, though, and it's a really good
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Or you've got your first job and you're still using the finnel sheet,
the fannel sheets that you had in the wintertime. No, no, no,
no no. So that's why you need well high quality things. And
again when you're starting out, you need a high quality air condition a if
you need a high quality bed to keep you RESTful, you need high quality
items like a coffee maker so that you stay perky at your job. And
as I mentioned, of course, high quality sheets. It's almost an investment.
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Branch for sponsoring this the Ricochet podcast. Well Winston meets up good like a
meetup should, as Jo went. You know what, when I was a
kid and my my my, my uncle smoked Winston's. He was a Winston
man, and I had had an aunt somewhere smoked Salem's. When I first
realized there was actually a town named Winston Salem, I couldn't. I couldn't
figure that out. It was like Lark, Marlborough or something like that,
or you know, Parliament of Kent. But I guess that's where the names
came from. And you don't have to smoke to live there, and you
certainly don't have to smoke to go to the meet up. But here's Rob
Long to tell you all about it. Yeah, I'm sure I remember.
Like my thing, my grandfather smoked Winston's and my grandmother smoked something and I
can't remember. It was again a Silverton. Winston was a good cigarette.
It was a silver hack. I remember. We had to go and I
had to get to find them all the time, try my cigarettes. Which
she'd sit there in the morning and you know, eat her breakfast and make
me breakfast when I was staying with them, and she'd smoke a cigarette and
she did the New York Times cross root puzzle, which is kind of like
what I do now every day. But I do still have a cigarette,
all right. So speaking, that was my own memory. I'm in the
memory banks here, so sorry about that. Speaking of meetups, the great
thing about being a member, Ricochet, aside from being part of the club
online and being able to join conversations and start your own and just sort of
generally shoot the breeze with like minded people, even if it's not about politics.
Almost especially it's not about politics, I think Ricochet said, it's best
we also meetups. We like to get together, and there are some meetups
coming up and we would like to join us. If you're a member,
please show up. If you're not a member, please join Winston Salem next
weekend July fourteenth through sixteenth, Portland, Oregon July eighteenth, so that's also
next week. The German Fest meetup in Milwaukee at the end of July July
twenty eighth to July thirty and in Cookville, Tennessee, Labor Day weekend.
That's I think September first through fourth. All the details of these meetups are
on the site ricochet dot com. Please go and check them out if you
want. We tend to meet up and for some reason these meetups don't work
for you, the summer meetups. Here's what you do. You just put
up a post and the member feed and say hey, how about a meet
up here at this time, and people will show up because Ricochet members show
up. That's the part of the fun of being in the club. I'm
going to try to ring something in New York in the autumn. I don't
know quite yet when, but we'll have to do another New York meet up
in the auto of The last New York meet up was so much fun.
Um So that's that is the full That's all the pitch I'm gonna give you
if you don't think after we listened to Ian wrote to speak or last week,
we have the best guests, We have the best conversations on the way
of If you don't think that this for you, I don't know what to
say except you're wrong, and join us anyway because we need the money.
But please, whatever you do, come to Ricochet, check us out and
see if it's for you, and please join because we would love to have
you brand. I'm wondering what the silver pack was. I know, remember
I don't remember any silver cigarette with silver. Was it silva? I was
thinking of silva things? Is possibly what it was with the silva thins um
uh it? Well she was the ath all smokers, so it could have
been. It could have been silver things. Was this the late sixties early
seventies, Well it's the seventies, it's not yeah, yeah, I would
say that, yeah, okay, could have been that could have been Benson
and Hedges. But the study event, the study, the study of cigarette
packs is a fast anything for me, The graphic design, the history of
it, oh yeah, the way that Lucky went to war, Lucky's gone
to war, which actually find fasting the idea, you know, the idea
that cigarette packs would rebrand themselves for the conflict, which, which you know,
is the way of telling you how all in that thing was. Well,
gentlemen, before we go, is there's something that has happened in the
last week? Did you absolutely have to get a few chests to talk about?
If not, of course I can prompt you. But I can imagine
that Stephen has let this week go by without something nettling you, getting under
your epidermis, any gripe you want to you want to vent before we go,
Well, the whole packet of cocaine found in the White House is really
astounding getting attention. Yeah, where was it found? Now? Today?
I think it's moved to the attic of a big Bathroomison, Well, I
think the last version I've heard, But you're right, it seems to change
by the moment. It was found in the cubbies where you leave your cell
phones and personal items if you're going to the situation room, which is a
you know, a no cell phone zone in the White House messages by there.
I've been there once twenty some years ago when Bush was president. And
it's not an early open to the public. It does get a fair bit
of traffic. But the odd thing to me is this, I remember back
in the Reagan years, and Rob may remember this. Reagan was so concerned
about leaks that I think it was when McFarland was a National security advisor,
they were going to do polygraph tests to find out who was leaking. That
ended. I think drug test too. It was drug tests and polygraphs on
leaks. And I think it was George Schultz put an end when he went
into Reagan and said, the day you require a drug test for me or
any cabinet members is the day I resign. And then Reagan back down.
And also so the point is is that they're saying, gosh, we may
never know whose it is or how it got there. If I'm running a
white house that had to be evacuated because of this because the old white powder
problems from twenty years ago, I want to know who did it because there
might be a real problem there. The fact that they're the immediate line is
gosh, we can't figure this out. You know are the FBI has been
able to pinpoint people who are in the Capitol on January sixth from granny footage
and you know this and that, and we can't figure out how this got
in the White House. Uh, this is everybody logs into that part of
the White House and put your names on. It's ridiculous. It's always it's
hunters. That's my point, right, yeah, right right. I mean
I think the best thing to be in the White House right now is a
coke addict as long as hunters around, because you can probably get away with
murder. No, you can do whatever you want. You know, you
can shoot up rowin there. I've got to be a hunter us. What's
interesting to me, of course, is that the White House. I don't
know right now what it is the past month or two six months, maybe
it has changed. But certainly if the first year the Biden administration, maybe
in the first year to a half, there were extensive COVID protocols, like
the extensive ones. I mean they started obviously under under Trump, but I
mean they continued under Biden, where you couldn't go into the overlaps, you
can't go in the West Wing without being tested that day, that that minute,
Like there were there were people would go I would have a meeting with
the President, they would go and sit in a room and get a COVID
test. And then wait and then go in. So there there is definitely
a testing regime, and there is it's it's they are perfectly willing to have
an administrative state sort of like lockdown that that house, and that both the
residential part and the office part. So it isn't as if, I mean,
it isn't a loosey goosey place, right. So their inability to um
identify the owner of this cocaine is an inability by choice. Put it that
way, UM. In the same way of their inability to sort of fully
prosecute influenced battling UM in this administration is an inability by choice. It wasn't
sobody suggesting at one point, oh, well it is located close to where
the Vice president's car is part. Oh yes, we're going to try to
pin some stuff on her man. Somebody said somebody gamed this out on Twitter
and said, okay, well, what they're trying to do here is to
get it is a pinned on the Kamala Harris. And then after it's been
blamed on her, she resigns. Gavin Newsom is appointed as Vice president.
Joe Biden resigns for health reasons or demandia Gavin Newsom is the new president and
runs as an incumbent and has all of the incumbent virtues in powers and strengths,
and I'm thinking, well, that's absolutely ridiculous. Probably that's certainly Gavin
Newsom's dream journal right there. That is exactly how he's like, I have
to say, but somebody brought Gavin Newsom like, um, I think Gavin
Newsom is. I don't know how to put this because I don't think he's
smart, but I think he's smart. I think what he's doing right now
is really really smart. He is not running, but he's running, and
he's just kind of doing this thing where you go, I'm available, I'm
available. Hey, I'm looking at me. I'm available. He's staying in
shape. You know, he's like he's like the boyfriend in waiting, you
know, He's like, I'm not gonna let myself go. I'm not gonna
do any I'm just gonna stay in part of the fray. I'm gonna campaign
against as if I'm campaigning, and I'm going to campaign relentlessly against the Republicans,
which I think is a very very smart move. So I'm just surprised
that a guy who's so dumb and has like is so unable to run California
and it is so wrong about everything, is so smart about this, But
I guess that defines a lot of politicians. The word that defines him is
inevitable. Well, I'm serious. Last inevitable candidate we had that she didn't
do so good. Well. The other thing, the other word that applies
to him is vain. Rob I I agree with you about it. He's
being very shrewd in a certain way, but he's also very vain. But
I am absolutely I have no knowledge of this from any sources, and I
haven't really tried to find any, but I'm convinced that he has a campaign
in waiting ready to spin up to full speed in twenty four hours. Notice,
ye you know, if Biden takes a tumble down the steps of Air
Force one, it couldn't happen any moment now, right. I think I
think that would finish him, or I think it is not impossible that what
does the July come around October November? If Biden is still looking what am
I say, Biden looking shaky, He's not gonna get any better. If
he's looking even worse, I think there's a fifty fifty chance Newston decides to
run anyway. No, I think you're right. I think it's like the
Spielberg version of War the World. There's a bunch of lighting boats and cylinders
and drypods start to rise from the ground in every part of the country,
more in sorrow than an anger. Right, that will be He'll run right
exactly. Thank you's great American for his service. But we're taking the car
keys away from Grandpa, picking the fallen mantle up and uh and kamala Harris.
I'm sorry. It's a pity that you won't be able to join me
in the new effort, but something will be good. They don't like each
other. I mean you ask anybody around the Beildy Bay area arrivals for a
long time. So if there's no love loss there, well, I would
love to see De Santis versus Florida versus Newsoman, because Florida versus California,
each with their own Disney World place is a great lesson for us. It's
a it's a stark, it's a lustrative, it's revelatory. I want to
have that, I really do, but I also want to do the thing
here that we do sometimes Steven when Peter isn't here and that's we get out
in an hour. Is that okay with everybody else? Yeah? Yeah?
Can I just tell a Gavin Newsom story to get us out of funny little
Gavenu story which may or may not be true? Too good a check,
okay? So the story is always the rumor, is always this rumor.
The Gavin Newsom when he's mayor of San Francisco was having an affair with a
woman who was at that point working at a fancy fish restaurant in the Financial
District, and she was a hostess there, and the manager complained to the
owner of the restaurant saying, look, people are just coming in right now
and just sitting the bar because they want to check her out. They've heard
the rumor, they want to see her. And the owner of the restaurant's
solution was, okay, fine, move her to two days and Wednesdays because
those are slow nights for us. So if people want to come in this
restaurant and sit at the bar and drink, I'd rather have him come on
a Tuesday on a Wednesday, which are slow nights. Let's pick up our
Tuesday Wednesday and it totally worked. It totally totally worked. So there is
one there's one economic effect of the Gavin Newsom administration that actually benefited working people
all over everywhere, and that was his choice of girlfriend. So that's the
story. I'm sticking with it. Well, keep that in your pocket so
you can bring down the administration at the appropriate time. Yeah, right,
thank our guest. Of course he can go buy his book agency. We'd
like to thank Bowland Brand. We'd like to thank Express VPN for joining us
and for sponsoring us. We'd like to thank you if you're a Rocouchet member,
and if you're not, would it kill you? Would it just kill
you to pony up a little bit and find yourself on the side of the
smartest and the sharpest and the best civil center right conversation you're gonna find on
the internet. Yeah, you can go to Ricochet, you can read the
whole thing, you can get the podcast. But the member side is,
you know, to where the fun happens, the hugging, the fighting,
the shouting. It's family. We're all family anyway. It's been fun,
Stephen, thank you and always a pleasure as it certainly is. And by
the way, if you like Stephen, that's the reason to give us a
five star review on Apple Podcasts. I didn't mention that I should, and
I must. And if you like Rob, same thing, if you'll,
if you like me, you know, whatever, reason give us each one
point seven five stars and somehow that'll five. Yeah. Thanks. Will see
you next week, maybe Stephen, see you next week, maybe Rob.
I hope we'll see everyone though. In the comments at Ricochet, four point
out next week, Happy fourth, Happy fourth. Yeah it's so late,
but you know still, I said, the whole week is the fourth of
July. It's Independence Day week. I believe Ricochet. Join the conversation