One of the things that's great about California public schools is how they really major
the miners and minor the majors. There's this huge emphasis. Well, let
me put it this way. You have massive structural failures with California public schools
up and down the state. And nowhere is this better demonstrated than Fresney Unified,
the paradigmatic poorly run California public school. The teachers' union flexes its muscles
to be wildly successful in getting their members paid, getting more jobs, et
cetera. They go to the press with any sob story that makes them upset,
press gleefully runs with it. And in the meantime, seventy percent of
the kids can't read at grade level, can't do math at grade level,
and all up and down the state that is the case. But Fresne Unified
is about ten percentage points worse than the state wide average. But what are
the things we worry about? What are the things that come from Sacramento New
mandates for all high schoolers in California public schools to take an ethnic studies course
as a graduation requirement, not an elective, a graduation requirement. So now
we get in the media belly aching over Fresno Unified. By the way,
this mandate for ethnic studies classes doesn't come into effect until students in the class
of twenty thirty. That's when this ethnic studies mandate comes in. So this
was legislation that was recently passed, but it doesn't take effect. It's only
students in the class of twenty thirty who will be mandated to have have an
ethnic studies class as a necessary part of the curriculum. Okay. So that
would be kids entering high school in twenty twenty six, So not this upcoming
fall, not the fall after, but the fall after. Okay. So
President Unified, looking at budgetary issues, is cutting certain kinds of positions that
would teach ethnic studies for the moment since it's not it's not a mandatory requirement
right now, which is leading to this uproar from the lefty teachers who want
to teach ethnic studies now again. You know, I'm not here to say
that any arts and letters subject that does not result in gainful employment is useless.
On the contrary, I think I'm a promoter of the liberal arts.
I probably took too many such courses when I was in college. But I
was actually studying, like real disciplines, real topics, actually learning Latin,
actually learning Ancient Greek, actually learning Greek and Roman history, actually learning philosophy.
These are actual, real solid disciplines looking at some of the great achievements
of Western culture and some of the most important concepts and strains of thought.
And these are all things that have been useful to me as I went to
law school. And beyond it's being a talker on the radio and directing right
to life and all these different pursuits that I have, as well as I
think giving a full human formation, which is kind of part of what a
university kind of should be beyond just you know, the point of the university
is not purely just to churn out people for the workforce. Certainly we want
young people to be prepared for life and able to work. The problem is
with something like ethnic studies. Most ethnic studies courses and disciplines. They are
often both completely useless as far as job preparation, but also not real disciplines.
They are they are a discipline that is looking at a certain ethnic diaspora
or a certain ethnicity, a certain culture through the most left wing, radicalized
lens possible. If you want to understand why a bunch of leftist, radical
college students are setting up pro Palestinian liberation communes at you know, Yale and
Columbia and all these fancy schmancy, elite East Coast schools, it's because they
were taking these kinds of gender study, these kinds of gender or ethnic studies
courses in high school and into college, where it's not a real discipline.
All they're learning is basically critical theory as applies to that racial group or that
gender group or whatever it is, studying these things at a kind of surface
level where they're just getting tons of the most extreme left wing ideology possible.
An ethnic studies course looking at latinos that has basically zero appreciation of Catholicism.
So an ethnic studies course looking at the African American experience with no appreciation for
the Christianity that most African Americans in the United States embrace and that most Africans
in Africa embrace, are very very many. I'm pretty sure Christianity is the
majority religion in Africa. So here's this piece from the Fresno Bee, whining
and complaining about what whining and complaining about Fresdent State making budgetary cuts that are
going to result in fewer teaching positions to teach ethnic studies despite soon becoming By
soon we mean several years from now becoming a state high school graduation requirement.
Ethnic studies classes offered at Presdent Unified schools are at risk as the district looks
to put program expansion on hold amid planned budget cuts. The district says possible
cuts are due to the new agreement with the teachers Association to increase pay and
reduce class sizes. Oh okay, so here's what we're doing. Teachers are
going to have their pay and liberal teachers. Teachers are going to have their
cake, and liberal teachers want to eat it too. So the teachers' union
negotiates this deal. Hey, we want more pay, we want all these
Our president Unified says, okay. But if you guys want all this more
pay and you want reduced class sizes, which means we have to have more
teachers to teach basic classes, other things are gonna have to suffer. So
now that those other things are having to suffer, now that the chickens have
come home to roost, Oh, all of a sudden we're bellyaching about it.
The district says possible cuts are due to the new agreement with the Teachers
Association to increase pay and reduce class sizes. Teachers, for their part,
say the district has been failing to offer enough courses for students to meet graduation
and college admissions requirements. It's not a grad it's not a graduation requirement.
Yet, it's not a graduation requirement until you get to the class of twenty
twenty six. Excuse me, the class of twenty thirty. The kids will
be entering as fresh in fall of twenty twenty six. But guess what all
of the kids who are graduating in the classes of this year's class twenty twenty
four, next year, twenty twenty five, twenty twenties, twenty twenty four,
twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty
eight, twenty twenty nine, the next six graduating classes, including the current
one, don't have to take this class. So Fresno Unified is basically just
taking the posture. Hey, we have to spend way more on teacher salaries.
We don't have enough money for the extra funding to cover teachers who are
going to teach this stuff, so we're gonna cut it until we have to
pay for it at risk during this budget session is a teacher on assignment position
that has been in place for two years to expand the Ethnic Studies curriculum,
to mentor new teachers, and to obtain outside support. That teacher received a
layoff notice when the board approved a resolution in March that could result in one
hundred positions lost, meaning those teachers could lose their jobs or be reassigned to
regular course teaching. So you had these teachers on assignment who are only teaching
this ethnic studies thing. Those people are being told, who I guess were
not part of this larger agreement that President Unified had with the teachers' union.
Those teachers on assignment are being told, Hey, you're either going to get
laid off or you have to go to just normal classroom teaching. The district
told to be on Friday, they would try to try to save the position,
but the final decision will be made in June. But they've already given
some of these people layoff notices because they have to. State law requires them
to give layoff notices in advance. In our opinion. We're not going fast
enough to meet the demand of that graduation requirement, said Marissa Rodriguez, an
ethnic studies teacher at Roosevel Hi. Well, yeah, trying to save her
job. The problem is beyond lacking Ethnic Studies course offerings, Rodriguez, another
teachers told to be but the ripple effect of asking schools and students to potentially
choose between fulfilling graduation requirements by taking available Ethnic studies classes and other courses that
interest them. That was a completely incoherent sentence. I guess what it's trying
to say is that they're lacking Ethnic Studies or forcing kids to choose between taking
Ethnic Studies and other things that they actually have to take because there's not enough
space in their schedules or something. They're also arguing there aren't enough teachers to
meet surging demand for Ethnic studies classes, so the availability of other electives might
suffer. Rodriguez said, the Department of Social Science is making hard decisions and
choosing courses to offer the site used to have. This is another teaingo.
They refer to any of their schools as school sites, and we're not even
talking about sites. I think we're talking about the district as a whole.
This is a terribly written article. By the way, site used to have
AP psychology, human geography, world history, civics, economics, and more.
By the way, geography, world history, economics, civics all much
better things for anyone to be taking rather than ethnic studies. Why are kids
wanting to take ethnic studies? Probably because it's an easy a it's not actually
a real discipline. Abraham Perez, a Chicanos studies teacher at Edison High,
told board members at a recent meaning that he's frustrated some Edison High students might
be forced to choose between some AP classes and his class or other ethnic studies
courses. Yeah, it's not a requirement yet it's an elective. That's the
point of electives. You don't have time to take all the electives. That's
the nature of electives until the fall of twenty twenty six, and those kids
entering in the fall of twenty twenty six, this this thing is elective.
So yeah, President Unified is not going to prioritize it right now. And
this is the when we returned the navel gazing nature of these ethnic studies courses,
as exemplified by one quote, and how President Unified should maybe really think
of themselves and really think about their role, how high school should think about
their role. That's next on the John Girardi Show. I'm laughing at the
rearranging of deck chairs on the titanic nature of this Presdent Bee story. I
stumbled across talking about the terrible tragedy of how students don't have enough access to
ethnic studies courses in Fresdent Unified high schools. That there is a surging demand
among students for ethnic studies courses, that it's going to be a state requirement
for a high school graduation that public school kids take an ethnic studies course.
But alas Fresney Unified isn't funding it and providing for it. Why isn't Fresdent
Unified funding for it or providing for it? Well, because ethnic studies courses
were taught by these kind of it seems like they were almost like adjunct or
like almost adjunct faculty. So at a college or university, hire an adjunct
who maybe teaches one particular course but is not like a professor there full time
or regularly. Law schools will sometimes do this, so like you'll have one
particular subject where instead of having a full time faculty member, you hire some
local attorney to teach that individual course. Maybe it's about those securities law or
something, so you get a local prominent attorney who's really knowledgeable in that subject
area, who comes as adjunct faculty. It seems like that was what was
happening. It was like people who weren't full fully contracted teachers. It seems
to me, from outside looking in, I might be wrong, happy to
be corrected. There who are teachers on assignment who are teaching teaching these ethnic
studies courses, but they weren't part of the main collectively bargained agreement between Presde
Unified and the Teachers Union. The Teachers Union just negotiated last November this huge
deal to give themselves a lot more money. So Fresnew Unified doesn't have enough
money to keep funding all these teachers on assignment who are teaching ethnic studies.
Ergo ethnic studies, looks like it's going to take a hit. Ethnic studies
teaching, though is not a state requirement yet, it'll be a state requirement
for high schoolers in the graduating class of twenty thirty. The high schoolers who
are going to start their freshman year in the fall of twenty twenty six.
So Presde Unified is just making the decision, hey, until a until we
have to, We're not going to fund this to the hilt. We're going
to cut some of this stuff because we need to balance our books. Here
we're paying all the teachers all this extra, we got to cut other things.
This is leading to the liberal teachers who support ethnic studies stuff to be
in an uproar and me laughing that here we are worrying about ethnic studies when
meanwhile, seventy percent of these kids can't read or do math at grade level.
And it makes me think about what's the point of high school. There's
tons of inkspilled about the purpose of a university, education of the universe,
the purpose of higher education, and even among in conservative circles, there's kind
of this tension. Maybe especially in conservative circles. I think conservatives who tend
to be more in the world of business look at the arts and letters offerings
at a university and they think of it as a massive waste of time.
It's a lot of stuff that does not have a very gainful employment necessarily attached
to it, other than teaching. You're a really great English major, what
can you do well? You can teach English. You're a really great classics
major, what can you do well? You can teach Latin at a high
school. You're a really great history major. Well, what can you do
with it? Well, maybe you can teach history or whatever. But basically
there's the thought that, Okay, if you are a biology major, you
can go to medical school and become a doctor and make a lot of money,
or you can become a nurse and make money. I think some conservatives
look a scance at arts and letters stuff in universe in the context of universities.
A because there's not a lot of practical job opportunities other than teaching attached
to a lot of those subjects, but also because those subjects are so dominated
nowadays by the left. Ninety nine percent of philosophy professors probably are ultra left
wing across the United States of America, ninety nine percent of English professors across
the United States or ultra left wing, et cetera. So conservatives have this
disdain for it. But the idea of a university degree was to have someone
who was well formed in a broad variety of subjects. Including some of these
fundamental questions of human life, in human existence, and our ultimate end with
the Queen of the sciences, theology. So the idea of the well formed,
the liberally educated person, Yeah, it would not necessarily disdain studying philosophy
or theology or things like that. And at the very least, at my
alma mater, University Notre Dame, everyone is required to take some philosophy courses,
take some theology courses to at least in some way to try to capture
this well rounded, well formed human individual with a genuinely liberal education. High
school, though, is a little different. We don't talk as much a
what is the purpose of high school? A lot fewer high schoolers are going
to be at the level of going to college. Right, huge percentage of
high school graduates are never going to graduate from college, and those people are
valuable and worthwhile. I've ranted and raved on this show about how California public
school California public schools have as their goal going to college, and a lot
of it is this baby boomer mindset of the path to success in America is
going to college. The path to success in America is going to college.
My family plays this out perfectly. My great grandfather came to Italy on a
boat. He was a grosser and a shoemaker. My grandfather, his son
went to college. He went to NYU, studied finance, became a CPA,
did pretty well. My dad went to college and then medical school and
became a physician. Now his son went to college and law school and now
yaps on the radio and runs nonprofit organizations. So the path to success for
the Girardi family in America over one, two, three, four generations was
higher education. Great grandpa came to America on a boat when he was fourteen,
didn't go to college. Grandpa went to college. Dad went to college
and medical school. I went to college in law school. More and more
and more education. I guess kind of plateaued with my dad and me.
But more and more educational leads to more and more success in America. That
it went downhill because I made less money than my dad. So so that's
the path to success in America. And that's so the baby boomer idea is
the path of success in America's higher education. Well at a certain point,
though, the realities of twenty twenty four are just very different from the realities
of nineteen ninety four or nineteen eighty four. College brings with it a weight
of debt that it didn't have in nineteen eighty four or nineteen seventy four.
That baby boomer mentality isn't going to work. And guess what, the idea
of college for all, as idealistic and egalitarian as that sounds, is just
not the reality. It's not the reality of what happens. And we shouldn't
characterize everyone who goes through high school not wanting to go to college as a
failure. So why don't we have more robust trade education, vocational education.
Why don't we have a more robust system for high schoolers to actually prepare them
for the workforce. You know, I understand that debate between you know,
job preparation versus a well rounded liberal education when it comes to universities, but
why do we have that for high schoolers. For high schoolers, we should
have a more concrete job oriented focus and trade oriented focus because a lot of
these kids are not going to college. Okay, large percentage of them will
not graduate college. So let's give kids the tools they need to actually succeed
as opposed to know this quote, this quote from one of these ethnic studies
teachers at President Unified, students are learning about themselves, their history, and
their community for the first time in ethnic studies courses. It's an opportunity for
them to finally see themselves reflected in the curriculum. What a bunch of tripe
they're learning about themselves. Talk to your parents if you want to learn about
yourself. Like, the idea having ethnic studies courses for high schoolers is the
biggest waste of time. It's already a waste of time usually in the university
context, and is even bigger waste of time when you're talking about high school
kids. Here's these high school kids. Seventy percent of them can't read a
grade level or do math a grade level. A bunch of a bunch of
them are in no position to go to college, and you're going to try
to teach them ethnic studies whatever that is a flim flam subject. Basically to
just give them the most radicalized, ideological, you know, slanted version of
Latino history African American history possible that completely excludes the story of Christianity from the
stories of Hispanic peoples in North South Central America or the experience of Christianity for
African Americans like which is a key building block of their culture. Now,
what a complete waste of time this is when we return. I want to
criticize the constant right wing instinct to try to him give it. You gotta
hand it to liberal temporary allies like Bill Maher. Why I never want to
hand it to Bill Maher. That's next on the John Girardi Show. I'm
I've been confused by the phenomenon of Bill Maher pretty much ever since I was
a kid. And I remember as a kid, like you know, a
teenager, starting to listen to talk radio, starting to you know, I
was listening to Rush and you know, starting to think about politics. Bill
Maher was, for conservatives in the two thousands, the ultimate boogeyman. He
was the ultimate villain. Nobody was more consistently a lunatic left winger than Bill
Maher. No one hated George W. Bush more than Bill Maher did,
and so he was, you know, basically, mar was for conservatives,
the the most the most hated, one of the most hated liberal public figure,
kind of comedian types of the era. So we all just liked Bill
Maher, and I I've also just never understood kind of the appeal. Like
he's very sarcastic and smug all the time. I mean, that's kind of
his shtick, and he always seems to parley it into, you know,
some kind of paid television job. I mean, he's had a show for
gazillions of years in one format or another. You know, he's on.
I remembered seeing him doing an appearance on some late night talks I can't remember
if it was Conan or a Conan O'Brien, or it might have been Jay
Leno or something. And he comes on and says, immediately, you know,
it's Jay Leno, it's network TV, it's the to it's not like
it's not late night, it's not on cable. And he tells two jokes
that are so filthy and unpleasant that he's like already losing the audience, and
he looks incredibly unpleasant, like the segment is bombing. I never have understood
the appeal of Bill Maher. Why he's a thing. I guess if maybe
he was just the forerunner of what would happen with you know, Stephen Colbert
and Jimmy kim Ma all these basically these late night shows that have just become
sort of, especially Colbert, these late night shows that have just become sort
of liberal feel good sessions where they just bashed Donald Trump and tell jokes about
how terrible Donald Trump is and conservatives are and just whatever the liberal party line
is, and that's the entire sum of their humor. Anyway, one of
the things I've noticed, any of you who consume talk radio or watch Fox
News have probably noticed this, this constant citation of Bill Maher as an unlikely
conservative ally where Bill Maher says something or another criticizing some ultra woke lefty proposition.
So Bill Maher is very supportive of Israel, and he is very much
disliking all the radical left wing pro Palestinian campus protests and things like that,
the bizarre bedfellows of Palestine and the bizarre bedfellows of like the most left wing,
sexually transgressive university activists possible who believe in the whole panoply of the LGBTQ
whatever rainbow coalition with the pro Palestinian position, Which is hilarious giving that given
that you know hamas the ruling government in the Gaza strip if presented with someone
who is identifying as LGBTQ whatever, would probably execute them on the spot.
Anyway, Maher is very pro Israel. Why well, because Maher is reflective
of basically baby boomer liberalism. He was the cutting bleeding edge of baby boomer
liberals. He was their muse, he was their comedian. So all of
the conventional, most hardcore left wing talking points of liberalism circa two thousand and
two, that's who Bill Maher was. And guess what liberal circa two thousand
and two, they all were pretty supportive of Israel. Okay, they all
kind of wanted They wished Bill Clinton had succeeded in the nineties, and Clinton
was close. I mean, Israel is practically giving away half of its territory
for the formation of a Palestinian state to Yasir Arafat and Airfat turned it down
and immediately Palestinian started attacking Israelis. So liberals of that era were for the
most part pro Israel. All right, They're not a bunch of anti Israeli,
pro Palestinian people. So it's not that mar is Oh wow, he's
so intellectually consistent. No, that's just who he is. He's a he's
the same guy he's always been But what I hate is this whole conservative like,
this conservative instinct to try to find some celebrity who kind of agrees with
them and to promote them as if they are wonderful. Like for years in
the pro life movement, we would talk about who or any pro life celebrities.
Oh h, John Voight. John Voight is conservative. John Voyd is
pro life. I don't give a rats. But what Joe John Voight thinks
about any No one has cared about a single opinion John Voight has expressed on
any topic. He has not been a relevant actor since the nineties. Okay,
he was in I'm trying to think of the most recent movies he was
in where he was any good. He was in Heat with with al Pacino
and Robert de Niro. He was pretty good in Heat. I think he
was in like the first mission Impossible, But since then pretty slim pickens for
old John Voight. I don't care what John Voyd has to say in favor
of conservatism. I don't care what uh, who's the guy who played chacci
by Bio or Blio whatever the so many James Wood. I don't care that
James Wood's a conservative. The conservative instinct to try to find the lamest sea
tier celebrities possible, as if that's some wonderful advocacy on behalf of conservatives that
they make, some that they say, some inane thing that sounds conservative.
I just don't care, and I feel like that's what happened. What's been
happening lately with Bill Maher every time I've never watched one second of Bill Maher's
show, But what do I say every time I hear about Bill mahert's Oh,
here's a Fox News News story. Oh. Bill Maher says that the
campus liberals are radical. Oh. Bill Maher said it. You got a
hand it to Bill Maher. He's no, I'm not handing anything to Bill
Maher. Bill Maher is wrong about I don't know ninety six percent of issues
around this same time that all these conservatives are saying, Bill Maher agrees with
us, as if this is some wonderful virtue. Bill Maher also basically laid
out the liberal position of yes, I think abortion is murder, and I
also don't care because the world has too many people, and so I'm okay
with murdering unborn children. I acknowledge flatly that it's murder, which is the
worst position to have. At the very least you could you know, at
the very least, there are some people who their pro choice advocacy is in
some way saying something along the lines of, well, look, the unborn
child doesn't have value. No, Bill Maher is the most evil position you
could possibly fundamentally have that acknowledging that abortion is murder and just being completely okay
with it. Why should I hand him anything? And this is the thing,
all of the liberal ideas that his generation of liberals sewed. That is
what we are reaping today with the entire panoply of what we call woke social
values and ideals and positions. The idea that Marr is now alarmed at all
the things that his political viewpoints for the last forty years have spawned, well,
I'm sorry that he feels upset and uncomfortable about these things, but that's
what happens. Like this is what his generations liberalism has provoked. The only
reason Mar hasn't shifted to the left on those things, I think is because
Bill Maher does not have any children. If Bill Maher was married and had
children who were in their twenties and thirties, whom he would have sent to
ultraliberal universities, who would have adopted the liberal, left wing woke ideologies of
those universities. He would be so afraid of upsetting them and not appearing woke
enough to his own children, that he probably would have adopted all of their
radical, lefty woke views. The only reason Bill Maher hasn't done that is
because he famously has never made worried and has never had any children. So
you feel because he lacks all human connection and kinship and interact in this he
has not actually adopted those terrible views. Some of those terrible views like four
percent of the left wing panoply of sort of acceptable liberal ideologies. There's about
three things that he actually disagrees with most liberals on. So no, I'm
not going to hand it to him. I'm tired of handing it just all
well, so and so Lee are the gal who played the wife on the
King of Queens she said a conservative thing? Or oh you know the lady
from Everybody Loves Raymond, she's a conservative. I don't care. I don't
care. Patricia heat like, it's lovely that they're conservative, it's lovely that
they're pro life. Wonderful. I really don't care. This is not someone
who's going to shift the culture or something, all right, I just do
not give a darn turn. Just to wrap up the show, an example
from the city of Santa Monica of why the state's approach to tackling homelessness is
not working. That is next on the John Girardi Show. This is a
fascinating example from the city of Santa Monica of how the state's approach to homelessness
is completely failing and we're not addressing the actual root causes of why we cannot
house be unhoused. So Santa Monica, the City of Santa Monica, has
approved a new apartment complex for the homeless. It is going to cost one
hundred and twenty three million dollars. It will have one hundred and twenty two
units. One hundred and twenty three million dollars, one hundred and twenty two
units, over a million dollars per unit. I'm sorry, that's not going
to work. There is no godly way we are going to get homeless people
off the streets. If even if you think the approach of just getting more
housing a housing first approach, even if you think that's the approach. If
you're gonna spend over a million dollars per unit built, we're never gonna do
it. There's no way the state can subsidize that enough to actually build enough
housing. It's insane. And why do we have to do it that way.
Well, there's labor union prevailing wage rules, there's environmental regulations. There's
just this endless list of things that make it just unfeasible for builders to build.
You can't do it without massive state subsidization. No builder is ever going
to build housing for lower income people or for middle income people if they can't
make money. And that's why you see the only things that are being built,
Like look around the Fresno Clovis area. The only stuff that's getting built
are government subsidized quote lower income housing or a lot of what's happening is this
like condos that are clearly very upper crust expensive because anything in the middle ain't
gonna make money. So this is again a million dollars per unit to build
for lower income housing for homeless people, Like presumably these are these are apartments,
These are not for bedroom houses that are costing a million dollars per unit
to build. These are you know, apartments for one or two people live
in, maybe three, like stretching it with four like this is this is
completely insane, but this is California. Like we are absolutely so beholden to
all these other liberal orthodoxies that make it impossible to actually address the problem at
hand. And so basically it's like we're doing everything in our power to fight
homelessness. No you're not. You're doing everything you're in your power to fight
homelessness with one arm tied behind your back. That's what you're doing again,
Santa Monica, one hundred and twenty three million dollars for one hundred and twenty
two units for the homeless. That's never gonna work. That'll do it for
John to already show see next time on Power Talk