Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. Story out of the Charlotte Observer and I
mentioned some of this data in the last hour twelve
local districts. School districts in the Charlotte area all but
one saw a decrease in average daily enrollment between last
school year and this school year. New data from the
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction show. Meanwhile, charter school
enrollment continues to grow. Charlott mcklenburg Schools so a decline
of about one point seven percent, which equates to about
twenty four hundred students a little bit over twenty four
hundred students during the first two months. That also means
that cms's average daily membership, or the average number of
students currently on the rolls at a school on any
given day is down to one hundred thirty nine thousand
and four to seventy six. That is the lowest it's
been since the twenty ten school year twenty ten twenty
eleven school year one hundred thirty nine thousand, so the
enrollment number hasn't been this low in fifteen years. That
could have big implications for district funding because about eighty
percent of the state's funding calculations are based on average
daily membership or ADM as they call it. The state
uses the first two months of enrollment data for any
given school year to determine the funding for the following year.
The other twenty percent is based on student populations, including
what percentage of a district students are low income, they
have disabilities, and district characteristics like how big is the district,
how wealthy a county is. Statewide, enrollment dropped in one
hundred and five of the one hundred and fifteen districts
all but so all but ten school districts out of
one hundred and fifteen saw a declining student population. That
is a total of a little bit more than twenty
four thousand total students down, or about one point eight percent,
So that's the state wide number, one point eight percent decrease,
and that's roughly what CMS saw, a one point seven
percent decrease. The Observer says, it's a continuation of a trend.
Enrollment has decreased in North Carolina's traditional public schools by
over five percent pre pandemic twenty nineteen. Over the same period,
enrollment at charter schools and lab schools have increased forty
six point six percent, so almost forty seven percent. So
you have a lot more parents taking their kids to
the charter schools and parents taking their kids out of
the public schools, the traditional public schools. Now, there is
an argument. Where is it here that that is made.
Let's see here. It is from Andrew Dunn's piece at
the Charlotte Observer. He says, big city superintendents have started
to latch on to a theory here that it's the
declining birth rates. Okay, and I saw in one of
the articles about the data that that is what CMS
is saying, right, it's the declining birth rates, that's the reason,
and that can be part of the story. Sure, but
in fast growing places like Wake County, Mecklenburg County, and
Orange County, families are not disappearing, They're just choosing something else. Now,
the Democrats will say it's the Republican's fault at the legislature,
it's their fault, but yeah, not really, because they've spent
much of the last decade increasing teacher pay every single year,
and I know teachers don't believe that that's enough. And
this usually whenever I have discussions about teacher pay, which
I did not like. I'm we had the call in
the last hour from a teacher and she mentioned teacher pay,
but we didn't go into that is an argument because
this is about something larger than just the individual or
specific argument about teacher pay. But it's why I usually
will ask if I'm having a discussion with somebody about
teacher pay, I will usually ask what is the optimal pay?
What is the number? Right, just like at the when
you're having a discussion about per pupil funding, what's that
optimal number? Because some of the states that spend the
most amount of money have the worst outcomes. Have you
heard of the Mississippi miracle? Mississippi does not spend more
money than Massachusetts, but for some reason, they are now
topping the charts across like we used to joke, thank
God for Mississippi because they always were at the bottom
of the pile, bottom of the list, right, Their test
scores were terrible, graduation rates terrible, all of this. But
they have now turned around their education system in like
a matter of a couple years. How did they do it?
It's a miracle, not really. They they went back to
what worked. And this is part of the you know,
I don't understand sometimes when I do understand, it's like
this constant need to like find new ways to teach
for example, you know, reading and writing, and they abandoned
the phonics model and they went to the whole words
model and it didn't work. And when you looked at
the research and we covered this, I think it was
about two years ago the creator of this pedagogy, this
whole words thing, Like there's like no research to back
it up, but it took off and there was this
craze across the country. Oh this is the next big thing.
We all need to do this thing. And it didn't work. Sorry, kids,
you can't read, you know. And you know, honestly, I
don't know if teacher pay connects to kids not knowing
how to do algebra. Right, that's more to me, that
sounds more of a policy problem in that if you
don't if you don't have the scores to graduate, you
should not graduate. But we can't do that anymore, right,
we socially promote the kids anyway, and then they go
to college and now they they're unprepared for college, and
now they're having to put the kids through these remedial
math classes. As I went over yesterday, it's obscene, right,
That's why I said the model is broken. So yeah,
I mean, like that's the math side. Then there's the
history side, the civics side. And Andrew wrote about this
also in that uh Andrew done at long Leaf Politics
longleafpol dot com and he was, you know, talking about
and we spoke with him last hour and he was
talking about this comment that his daughter made when he
asked her, you know what you learned today about Columbus
Day or something, and she's like, oh, Columbus was the villain.
And if that's the one thing your third grader takes
away from a history lesson about Columbus, like, there's something
wrong there, right. If that's if that's the headline that
Christopher Columbus was a villain. He said, in this piece,
North Carolina is still stuck in the assumption that quote
unquote experts should decide what children are taught, with parents
and legislators relegated to the sidelines, but it ought to
be the other way around. He's reading a book, he said,
called Rescuing the American Project. One of its main arguments
is that a healthy, ordered nationalism, an appropriate love of country,
is essential if the United States is going to hold together, right,
because it's always been thus, it's been an idea, it's
been this concept. Right, there's a thing that makes us American.
That doesn't mean pretending we're perfect. It means recognizing that
we are a nation with a story that is fundamentally
a good one, one that's worth knowing, one that's worth defending,
one that's worth teaching, especially at the younger grades, especially
at the younger grades. If you start teaching kids that
all of this is corrupt, it's inherently systemically bad, they're
not going to love their country, and then you're not
going to have a country. You know, Stories are powerful.
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dot com. Let's get Mark on the program. Hello Mark,
Welcome to the shoe. Hey man.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I just wanted to say my sister were
in special needs, uh for CMS and the and like
the special education department and one thing she doesn't. She
no longer works there. She she went to school for
it and she ended up not doing it because of
the experience that she had with other teachers who were there,
like for a very very long time. And I think
with your your point that made earlier that you brought
up you talked about how principles need to have more
control over the hiring process and the firing process, especially
in CMS. I one hundred degree man, because in my opinion,
and I know my sister would agree, teaching is a
is a passion and it is not an easy thing
to do. And I feel like from what she has
told me to stories that I'm not gonna like share
because I don't want to rabbit hole and there's only
a short amount of time. There's a lot of people
who are teachers who do.
Speaker 1: Not care sure, just like in any profession, just like
in any.
Speaker 2: Profession, Like I'm a chef, for example, and there's plenty
of other chefs who have been above me that I've
worked for, who I think have a terrible culture and
who are very rude and very mean. But you can't
do anything about it, because that's just it is what
it is.
Speaker 1: You know, YEA, If you don't want to work. If
you don't want to work under them, then you go
find another job, working for another chef with a better
culture exactly.
Speaker 2: And you know, and one thing you talk about, like
these charter schools, where there's more people going to charter
schools is because you know, parents don't want to send
their kids to somewhere that is, you know, that has
a bad culture, and where that culture is continuously like promoted,
Like civics and economics isn't a thing anymore as far
as I'm pretty sure, like at least in CMS, they
don't teach that anymore. And that was my favorite That
was my favorite thing in high school, learning about civics
and economy.
Speaker 1: So here's and this is another aspect in all of this,
which is the teaching profession is dominated by women, right
has been for a very long time, and boys learn
differently than girls, and boys need, generally speaking, need more
time to go run around and do stuff and burn
off some of their energy. Sitting them down in a
classroom for forty five minutes or so not allowing them
to you know, to break concentration or whatever. Especially today's
kids with you know, very short attention spans, like that pedagogy,
that method of teaching, that model of teaching that might
not be the best thing for all kids.
Speaker 2: And exactly, and you know what, you know, I've built
teams before, and I understand that whole concept, and that
is I agree with you one hundred percent, and I
would love to hear more people talk about it is
the idea of principles building their team, building their teachers,
you know, because that is the culture, like you want
to talk about, like bring in people who are like
kids not able to read when they get to like
not being able to read a high school level when
they get to high school. That's embarrassing. And it's because teachers.
Teachers are overworked, are underpaid, and now they don't care. Well,
you need an individual to build them up, man. I mean,
you need someone to build somebody up, man, Like I mean,
at the end of the day, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I got you, Mark. I appreciate the comments. Thanks, Yes, sir, Yes, sir.
All right, take care. Regarding the population declines, I'm going
to kind of pivot here because I have a theory
that may be connected. Okay, we hear. Oh, it's the
birth rates, right, The birth rates are declining, and that's
why the student population is declining. At public schools in
North Carolina. One hundred and five out of one hundred
and fifteen districts lost students. CMS has as many students
as it had in twenty ten. Right now, Okay, so
all of those population gains, they've they've all gone down
back to twenty ten levels. And the education officials are like,
it's the declining birth rate, so it's not their fault.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, I was seeing surges in charter schools. Whatever, here's
another component. I'm not saying this is the main driver,
but I would not be surprised if this had some
kind of an impact. Here's a press release from the
Department of Homeland Security announcing more than two point five
million illegal aliens have left the United States since January
of twenty twenty five. This year, DHS enforcement operations resulted
in more than six hundred five thousand deportations. Additionally, thanks
to the comprehensive ft of DHS law enforcement, one point
nine million illegal aliens have voluntarily self deported since January twentieth,
twenty twenty five. And the CBP app their homepage, offers
a free flight home for Christmas and one thousand dollars
if people choose to self deport, and by the way,
that then preserves the ability for them to try to
apply to become a citizen and to do it legally.
If you self deport, you leave voluntarily, you won't be
you know, deported, and then you've got an illegal re
entry on your record, so you would still be able
to apply to be a citizen down the road if
you self deport now. So I'm just throwing this out there.
Maybe this has an impact as well. All right, if
you're listening to this show, you know I try to
keep up with all sorts of current events, and I
know you do too, And you've probably heard me say
get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's
how you detect media bias, which is why I've been
so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's
a website and it combines news from around the world
in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information.
You can check it out at check dot ground dot
news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast
description too. I started using ground News a few months
ago and more recently chose to work with them as
an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories
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my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they
make the media landscape more transparent. Alrighty, So I saw
this story a couple of days ago at the Charlotte Observer.
I read it so you don't have to headline Charlotte
church adds ice agents to nativity scene. That aims to
disturb passers by. That's the goal, to be disturbed. It's
disturbing in the sense that, like, you purport to be
a Christian church with a nativity scene and you're packing
a bunch of extra characters into the nativity. I mean yeah. Also,
some of your explanation make me wonder if you know
the stories you're supposed to know you're supposed to be telling.
But uh, let's go to the article. This is again
from the Observer, A Charlotte Church says it wants to
disturb passers by this Christmas with a Nativity scene depicting Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph. First off, you shouldn't put baby Jesus in
the Nativity, yet you put the baby Jesus in the
Nativity on Christmas. So that's your first first problem with
this tableau. Yeah, so they got Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
out there along with masked immigration agents wearing bulletproof vests
and brandishing handcuffs. These are not actual people. They're mannequins. Okay,
these are mannequins. The installation went up outside Mission Gathering
Church all one word, Mission Gathering Church. This is in
the Optimist Park area East fifteenth Street. It casts the
biblical Holy Family as targets of modern immigration enforcement, which
is kind of bizarre because they lived like two thousand
years go and there was no ice. There wasn't even
an America at the time. But so it's not really
in keeping with the story. You know, the church is pastor.
Oh and by the way, in case you're not aware
and you hadn't figured this out by now, this is
a woke social justice warrior church. I don't know how
many people it's got. It doesn't seem like a very
large church. But the church's pastor said that the goal
is to force viewers to confront the fear that many
immigrant families in Charlotte felt following recent immigration arrests in
the city. Okay, well that's what it's not what it
is doing, right, If that's the point of your art installation, right,
this is what I refer to as art by explanation, right,
where the message you're trying to convey is not a
parent and so you have to explain it to people. So, uh,
the explanation is that the goal is to force me.
If I'm a viewer, I'm walking down the road and
I come across your church and I see, oh, there's
the Nativity. Wait, why is baby Jesus in the in
the manger? He shouldn't be there. Oh, and then what
are these ice agents doing? That does not inspire me
to confront the fear of other people? That's not so
I'm not sure you're aware, Like, if that was the
goal of the installation, that is, that's not the outcome. Okay,
so you missed the mark, which, by the way, is
what the word sin means. When you when you miss
the mark, just heads up on that. One Christian church.
The goal This is according to the UH the leader
of the church, Reverend Andrew Shipley, who says the goal
is too disturb to make people feel so something. Didn't
do that either. It doesn't disturb me and it doesn't
make me feel something. It does make me think something
about your church, about you. Yeah, but then again, a
quick visit to the Facebook page of the of the
church and they've got all sorts of posts up there
and events that they were running. I think they were
selling t shirts that say Queerness saves like Jesus saves,
but queerness saves very much a proponent of the of
the transgenderism the LGBTQ plus two I A. They also
had some event about a Christmas potato which I'm not
really clear on, like if that's just a mascot or
is it like some sort of a food drive where
you bring potatoes or something. Not really clear on that one.
They're all in on leftist liberation theology. Yeah, big on
the liberation theology stuff. Environmental justice check that box as well.
Oh and they did the drag Bingo fundraiser. It's a
big deal. For the church as well, just as Jesus
would do. Yeah, the the drag Bingo fundraiser. They never
said how much they raised for the drag or the
but yeah, for the for the drag Queens, I'm not sure,
but it said save the Queens. That's the name of
the event. So you really get to think you got
a good grasp on what this church is selling, you know,
I mean, yeah, well it's like basically like all of
the current direction of the Methodist Church.
Speaker 2: Now is that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sorry, too soon?
Speaker 2: Too soon?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, all right, the uh he says, what? Oh
so Shipley goes on to say, what's happening to Charlotte
Families is disturbing and is graphic and horrifying. He said.
The installation was created by an outside artist collective called
Task Force, which has created similar installations in cities across
the country. Okay, now I also object to this being
called art. They're just mannequins. And now, unless you're gonna
say that when you walk through a department store and
you see the mannequins wearing clothes and the different departments,
you know, for the men's and the women's and whatever, like,
if you're gonna call that art, then, okay, fine, this
is art. But I don't call those art either. They're
just mannequins. They're trying to sell me something, just as
you are in your church. You're trying to sell me something.
Shipley said. The group contacted the church iPhone end email
with the idea, and local artists built to Charlotte display. Again,
you just set up some mannequins. Okay, this isn't This
isn't some massive art installation, Shipley said. The concept builds
on the biblical account of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fleeing
violence under King Herod's rule, a story he believes parallels
what many families are experiencing now. But wait a minute, now,
I may be a little rusty in my memory here
on what exactly happened that prompted Mary and Joseph to
end up in the manger of the stable or the
barn or whatever like. But I seem to recall this story.
I think I've heard it. I don't know, probably about
a thousand times at this point, so my recollection may
not be correct. But didn't they go back to Bethlehem
because they were following the law? Isn't that why they
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and make memories that'll last a lifetime. David, Welcome to
the program. Hello David, Hello, how you doing. I am well, sir,
I am.
Speaker 3: Well, well, I just wanted to verify that you are correct.
They were observing the law to go and have their
names listed in the census. And that's because they're the
city of David, and the lineage of David was at.
Speaker 1: A besta hat That's what I seem to recall too.
So I don't know why ICE agents would be surrounding
Baby Jesus.
Speaker 3: You know, well, I think that we've confused our faith
with our ideology.
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, I think you are correct, David. I appreciate
the call, sir.
Speaker 3: You will kai.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Floyd says on the text line, Mary and
Joseph went back to Bethlehem going to pay their taxes.
You do, okay? Yeah? Because then there was this this
is off of Christian Today dot com, which maybe the
Mission Gathering Church might want to review Luke two. And
it came to pass in those days that a decree
went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should
be registered. This census first took place while Kyarinius was
governing Syria, so all went to be registered, everyone to
his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out
of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city
of which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the
house and lineage of David, and he went there to
be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.
So it was that while they were there, the days
were completed for her to be delivered. Now, according to
Christian Today dot com JB. Katchilla, the author of this piece,
the Roman emperor was able to call all the Jews
back to their hometowns through the use of a census.
Since Joseph was a descendant of David, he had to
go back to Bethlehem in order to comply with the
command of the ruler. See again, I'm not sure that
the Mission Gathering Church is really internalizing and understanding some
of the details of this story, and maybe they are
not familiar. Maybe they're not as familiar with the story,
but I kind of remember these details from many years ago,
and like I would think that the lead preacher of
the church would know some of these key details. It's
like one of the biggest days in the Christian calendar. So,
by the way, this also fulfilled the prophecy from Micah
five to two, because the census that prompted Joseph and
Mary to go to Bethlehem in order to comply with
the law. See. Because a corollary here would be if
Mary and Joseph did not go back to Bethlehem, right,
that would be the analogy that they would stay in Nazareth.
They would not have gone back to Bethlehem. They would
have stayed in the place where they were not supposed
to stay. See, that would be more analogous to the
ice thing that you're trying to, you know, use. But
this census was the first of its kind to take place,
the very first census, which of course then fulfills the prophecy.
Now back to the Charlotte Observer article, the reverend of
the Mission Gathering Church, Andrew Shipley, said that the concept
builds on the biblical account right of Mary Joseph and
Jesus fleeing violence, A story that fleeing violence under King
Herod's rule, A story he believes parallels what many families
are experiencing. Now, okay, didn't Herod order like the murder
of every young male? Didn't he send out the troops
to go slaughter every kid? So it wouldn't be king?
What is that what we're doing in America right now?
I must have missed all of the slaughtering or something
I didn't see. I mean, look, I follow the news
pretty closely, okay, but I have not seen I have
not seen all of the slaughtering. He said. Quote. The
goal is to translate the Christmas story into a modern context. Okay,
Well you failed, okay because you missed it, missed the
mark aka sin. If the Holy Family had been in
Charlotte two weeks ago, they would have been putting the
baby Jesus in handcuffs because he wouldn't have his papers.
Well okay, no, see again, you like you either don't
understand the immigration law currently or you don't understand the
Christmas story, but also you don't understand either that they
don't make handcuffs. That small dude. Okay, You don't need
to handcuff a baby. It's an infant, it's a newborn.
You can kind of just pick it up and take
it wherever you want. It's not going to fight back.
Good Lord, all right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
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