Speaker 1: We round off this week's discussion with something very real
Speaker 1: that some consider a threat. Project twenty twenty five is
Speaker 1: something that is on the horizon and is here in
Speaker 1: front of us, and it could fundamentally change the way
Speaker 1: public education works. We're going to have Scott tell us
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Scott Project twenty twenty five, a conservative policy agenda crafted
Speaker 2: for the next Republican president, proposes eliminating the federal Department
Speaker 2: of Education, privatizing student loans, and implementing federal parental rights legislation.
Speaker 2: Developed by the Heritage Foundation and supported by Trump allies,
Speaker 2: it seeks to fundamentally restructure K twelve and higher education
Speaker 2: funding and curriculum. Critics argue a devastate public education, with
Speaker 2: Sky Perriman of Democracy Forward calling it a wrecking ball
Speaker 2: to the system. The plan includes dismantling Title I funding
Speaker 2: for low income schools, reducing federal oversight, and privatizing student loans,
Speaker 2: which could limit educational access and quality. While former President
Speaker 2: Trump has distanced himself from the Democrats, Warrant reflects this
Speaker 2: potential presidency's direction. The plan has faced backlash for its
Speaker 2: perceived undermining of civil rights protections and diversity efforts. In education.
Speaker 2: This story is from the Hill by Lexi Lonis on
Speaker 2: July twelfth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Scott, And I'm going to go ahead and
Speaker 1: give the first question to you, since you are an educator. Sure,
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five actually proposes the elimination of the
Speaker 1: Department of Education and a significant reorganization of K through
Speaker 1: twelve education funding. How might these changes impact the quality
Speaker 1: and equity of public education in the United States?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Boy, okay, So where should I Where should I start?
Speaker 2: I'll start with the quote where we got that wrecking
Speaker 2: ball thing that I was just talking about. This is
Speaker 2: from like I mentioned, sky Perrman, he's the president and
Speaker 2: CEO of Democracy Forward. The quote says, it is not
Speaker 2: hyperbole to say that Project twenty twenty five would be
Speaker 2: a wrecking ball to the public education in this country,
Speaker 2: and it seeks to radically undermine and undercut the ability
Speaker 2: of people to get a quality education in this country.
Speaker 2: And then even goes further and seeks to transform our
Speaker 2: public education system and our public schools into ideological extremist spaces.
Speaker 2: And I agree with that. I think that's not hyperbole
Speaker 2: to say that this is an existential threat to public
Speaker 2: education as we know it. And I think that the
Speaker 2: effects that they are, at least the effects that they
Speaker 2: were talking about in this particular article. I'm sure the
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five document itself is just the gift
Speaker 2: that keeps on giving, which is horrible thing after a
Speaker 2: horrible thing. This article was particularly focused on the changes
Speaker 2: to education, and I think there's kind of a two
Speaker 2: prong approach here. One is, get them while they're young, right,
Speaker 2: it's going to control the content of K twelve education.
Speaker 2: This is going to be done using things like school vouchers,
Speaker 2: which reroutes money from or which can reroute money from
Speaker 2: public schools to private schools. And we cover that all
Speaker 2: the time in the nonprofit. It's the school about your
Speaker 2: issue and skewed content standards either dropping important material like
Speaker 2: different racial issues and so forth can be dropped from
Speaker 2: from the curriculum and adding things like Bible study and so.
Speaker 2: Uh so we're skewing the content, and uh we're redirecting
Speaker 2: the funds keep biggotry alive. And well, so it's going
Speaker 2: to remove protections for vulnerable, marginized and minority students. Bigotry
Speaker 2: encourages division and a divided population is easier to control, okay,
Speaker 2: And so by removing those protections that we have fought
Speaker 2: long and hard to get these students, is just going
Speaker 2: to be pushing us back back into the you know,
Speaker 2: back into the dark ages, right uh. And then also
Speaker 2: to defund programs that are intended to increase opportunities for
Speaker 2: underprivileged students and so getting so getting them while they're young.
Speaker 2: That's that's phase one. Phase two, UH is put them
Speaker 2: down and keep them down. They're going to be destroying
Speaker 2: the effectiveness of student loan programs by deregulation, deregulation and privatization,
Speaker 2: and so privatization is going to allow them to uh
Speaker 2: siphon funds off to these private loan organizations, and then
Speaker 2: regulation deregulation is basically an invitation for more and more
Speaker 2: severe predatory types of loans. And that what that's going
Speaker 2: to do is that's going to undercut many, many portions
Speaker 2: of the population. Their ability to get an education is
Speaker 2: going to be severely hampered. And and you know, to me,
Speaker 2: that's the frustrating thing. If if knowledge is power, this
Speaker 2: is basically just a big power grab. They want to
Speaker 2: control the flow of information and they want to control
Speaker 2: our ability to get that kind of information. Uh, it
Speaker 2: moves the focus of education from empowerment to basically mental enslavement.
Speaker 2: You know, if you remove a person's ability to think
Speaker 2: on their own and investigate, you remove their power to
Speaker 2: take their lives in a direction that they want. And
Speaker 2: it's not and it's shifting that focus. It's not about
Speaker 2: enabling personal improvement anymore. It's not about contributing to the
Speaker 2: betterment of us all anymore. Now, it's about perpetuating that division,
Speaker 2: about sacrificing the many for the betterment of the few.
Speaker 2: And that's not education at all. That's bastardizing an educational
Speaker 2: system into a tool for control. And so if there's
Speaker 2: anything that is sacrilege in my eyes, this is it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: We talked earlier this week about the zig Lag organization
Speaker 1: that talked about what they want to do as far
Speaker 1: as like taking over the Seven Mountains, and one portion
Speaker 1: of that was education. And it seems like that Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, especially when we're talking about how we
Speaker 1: want to consolidate the majority of the powers in the
Speaker 1: exec executive Pridge in order to tate how all the
Speaker 1: other federal benches to the states and the municipalities actually
Speaker 1: function would definitely be something that is concerning. And even
Speaker 1: I was even thinking about to your point, Scott, when
Speaker 1: you were talking about student loans and like you know,
Speaker 1: basically like the restructuring of the of basically the Department
Speaker 1: of Education, especially when it came to regulation. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you all remember, but a lot of for
Speaker 1: profit schools got suit I want to say, like in
Speaker 1: the I want to say, like around the time period
Speaker 1: where Obama took off, and then we had a former
Speaker 1: president who will name nameless, who also had a for
Speaker 1: profit school that had to settle. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times that these for profit schools were sued was because
Speaker 1: their curricula that they said would be able to prepare
Speaker 1: students for the future for them to be able to
Speaker 1: get jobs was basically a lot. And you even had
Speaker 1: like some for profit schools who had accreditation, but the
Speaker 1: accreditation that they the accreditation standards those particular for profit
Speaker 1: schools were not keeping up with. Now that we have
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five, and you know, depending on how
Speaker 1: things go in the fall and how things would be implemented,
Speaker 1: that could very much so be a threat in the
Speaker 1: way that you know, some of these schools are structured,
Speaker 1: and what could be an oversight as far as like
Speaker 1: making sure that curriculum is meeting standard practices, making sure
Speaker 1: that the schools themselves are teaching robust lessons in order
Speaker 1: to prepare students for the future instead of actually, you know,
Speaker 1: saying like everybody has to study the Bible. I guess
Speaker 1: like everybody's going to turn into a theocrat right now,
Speaker 1: and that's going to help us in the future. Right
Speaker 1: I don't think so is going to be definitely the problem.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm coming to you Eli because you
Speaker 1: said something very interesting about you agree with something concerning
Speaker 1: the Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Believe man on that it is not as sinister as
Speaker 3: it sounds. The area. The single point on which I
Speaker 3: agree with what I've read from Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: is that, Yeah, let's fundamentally restructure the curriculum of kindergartens
Speaker 3: up through tertier education. Let's do that. Let's make that better.
Speaker 3: Where we don't agree is where is the people that
Speaker 3: wrote like this document, or who are running the Heritage
Speaker 3: Fund Foundation, or the people that are involved and trying
Speaker 3: to make these changes are more of the same people
Speaker 3: that should not be structuring education. Get professional experience to
Speaker 3: educators that understand, you know, not just educating, but you know,
Speaker 3: other things, and have them create an educational structure that
Speaker 3: is going to like be be beneficial. It is in
Speaker 3: our best interest to have an educated society, unless your
Speaker 3: goal is like ignorant obedience, which I think a strong
Speaker 3: argument could be made that that is, you know, the
Speaker 3: goal of some individuals that happen to have a lot
Speaker 3: of power. But if that weren't the case, if we
Speaker 3: could have an educated society with an accessible quality education,
Speaker 3: that we're going to start to see things get better.
Speaker 3: But I don't think that's what they want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think mostly because we covered it so many times.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily about making things better. It's more about
Speaker 1: this consolidating and holding on to power. And I am
Speaker 1: now coming to you, Jonathan, because I know that I've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of doubles speak in my life, and
Speaker 1: I think that you have as well. But what are
Speaker 1: your concerns when it concerns twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: I have quite a few, and I have heard a
Speaker 5: lot of double speak in my life, But this is
Speaker 5: really bad. Destroying the Department of Education means that there's
Speaker 5: no watchdog over education in the country and they don't
Speaker 5: want one. Betsy never mind, I won't say specific names.
Speaker 5: Some people in the last administration who were were higher
Speaker 5: up in the education department attempted to destroy it from
Speaker 5: that position. So now they're literally saying they're going to
Speaker 5: destroy it. You want to give the states the freedom
Speaker 5: quotes in quotes to underfund and destroy public education. So
Speaker 5: what are you saying if you only want private schools
Speaker 5: and only those rich enough to afford them can get
Speaker 5: across get a good access to good education. That's one
Speaker 5: of the things that Jefferson was afraid of. Actually, when
Speaker 5: we just established public education. Thomas Jefferson pushed for the
Speaker 5: education because he was of the opinion that in a democracy,
Speaker 5: the citizenship citizenry must be able to think, address the
Speaker 5: questions of the day, and understand the people they are
Speaker 5: voting for and what their positions are. If you keep
Speaker 5: populations dimmed down and without the benefit of a decent education,
Speaker 5: and you only educate them to be in a trade
Speaker 5: so that they can be there, they won't know that
Speaker 5: they're working for slave wages and they're not able to
Speaker 5: pursue careers that would put them in positions of power.
Speaker 5: They are trying to strip the entire people of the
Speaker 5: of the United States of that power, and they're they're
Speaker 5: starting it with their seven Mountains. But what they really
Speaker 5: want to do is make sure that their particular viewpoint
Speaker 5: is forced down people's throats, and that the people are
Speaker 5: not taught enough critical thinking and enough have enough education
Speaker 5: and knowledge about the world to do anything but what
Speaker 5: they want them to do. And that's the problem that
Speaker 5: I have with it. Education should be under the control
Speaker 5: of educators, not people who have ulterior agendas that they
Speaker 5: are trying to fulfill. Our population needs to be educated,
Speaker 5: and they need to have the skills in thinking and
Speaker 5: in analysis to be able to create the society that
Speaker 5: we all want. They've been dumbing down the education for
Speaker 5: a while, and they really need to. We are falling
Speaker 5: behind radically in education. We are something like twenty sixth
Speaker 5: in all the nations. I don't have that specifically, but
Speaker 5: I think that's the last stat I saw, And then
Speaker 5: there was another one that said.
Speaker 4: We were eighteen. But what are we as the United
Speaker 4: States doing anywhere but the top five, if not the
Speaker 4: number one in education? What are we doing to our kids?
Speaker 4: You know, what are we doing to the next generation.
Speaker 4: Why aren't we bringing them to the point where they
Speaker 4: know enough math, science, English, literature and history to be
Speaker 4: able to make the next leap in our society to
Speaker 4: a better and more equitable and more inclusive society. That's
Speaker 4: what's bothering about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know. It says something about being in the richest nation,
Speaker 1: one of the richest nations in the world, and still
Speaker 1: being damn near thirty in the world when it comes
Speaker 1: to education, and how you have to pay basically an
Speaker 1: exorbitant amount of money in order for you to be
Speaker 1: able to be properly educated depending on what go and
Speaker 1: we're already having issues when it comes to standards, how
Speaker 1: you know, how people are educated, especially when we're looking
Speaker 1: at K through twelve. I think of my own city
Speaker 1: and how depending on what neighborhood that you're in in
Speaker 1: public school would be a determining factor on the quality
Speaker 1: of education that you're going to get, even though that
Speaker 1: everybody in the city is paying property taxes and those
Speaker 1: property taxes are supposed to be going to fund the school,
Speaker 1: but there's definitely a difference for those who happen to
Speaker 1: be in a higher tax bracket on how their schools
Speaker 1: look versus other neighborhoods where that is not the case,
Speaker 1: and it's unfortunate that we have this. The only thing
Speaker 1: I can really call it as an ideological extremism coming
Speaker 1: from Project twenty twenty five that could possibly be very
Speaker 1: detrimental to our already very much so broken educational system. So, Scott,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, with this extremism that we're seeing with Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five and the shift that the authors want
Speaker 1: to do, especially when it comes to specific cultural and
Speaker 1: political viewpoints, how could these changes actually impact academic freedom
Speaker 1: and diversity of perspectives in schools and universities.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the target, I mean, that's the main target.
Speaker 2: It's not that it, like I said before, it's totally
Speaker 2: bastardizing the entire per purpose of education. By the goal
Speaker 2: of education is to is for people to learn about
Speaker 2: the world and to be able to act and to
Speaker 2: institute change and to push the direction of the world
Speaker 2: in the direction that is helpful and positive for all
Speaker 2: of us. You know, we've heard the phrase a rising
Speaker 2: tide raises all ships, you know, that's kind of what
Speaker 2: we're looking for. But instead. What it's doing is it's
Speaker 2: turning it to a system of using of using we've
Speaker 2: you know, we use the phrase teach to your children
Speaker 2: how to think, not what to think, right, and so,
Speaker 2: and that is the humble way to approach things. It's
Speaker 2: an optimistic way to approach things. It's working under the
Speaker 2: assumption that maybe your children can reach a little bit
Speaker 2: further than you did. You know, maybe they can do
Speaker 2: a little better than you did, maybe they can learn
Speaker 2: things that you didn't know about. And so really, what
Speaker 2: this is doing is it's taking away that it's taking
Speaker 2: away that attitude of curiosity, it's taking away that additude
Speaker 2: of betterment, of empowerment, and it's saying, and you know,
Speaker 2: we were talking about this and the other segments too,
Speaker 2: it's turning it into a system of obedience and of
Speaker 2: putting people into this particular box because this is the
Speaker 2: box that I was in, and this is the box
Speaker 2: that my parents were in, and this is the box
Speaker 2: that their parents were in, and so this is the
Speaker 2: box that you should be in. If you're outside of
Speaker 2: this box, you are wrong, you're bad, you're impure, you're evil,
Speaker 2: you're whatever. And you know, it's it's it's it's flipping
Speaker 2: the script there. It's saying that it's not that we
Speaker 2: want you to learn, it's that we want you to
Speaker 2: learn these specific things. And if you if you do,
Speaker 2: if you approach your education that way, then you've eliminated
Speaker 2: those opportunities for improvement. You've eliminated those opportunities to expand,
Speaker 2: to get better. You're even eliminating opportunities for us to
Speaker 2: keep up with the rest of the world. It's inexcusable
Speaker 2: for us to have such, you know, such a low performance.
Speaker 2: And I disagree with a little bit what what Eli
Speaker 2: was saying. I don't think that our education system needs
Speaker 2: to be revamped from the ground up. I think that
Speaker 2: I think that there's good bones there. I think that
Speaker 2: I think we have a strong core is to uh,
Speaker 2: you know, to the way that educators approach education. I
Speaker 2: think it's and again I'm a teacher, I'm you know,
Speaker 2: this is a biased opinion, and so you know, take
Speaker 2: what I say with a grain of salt here. But
Speaker 2: I think it has a lot to do with the
Speaker 2: attitude towards education. What people aren't, you know, aren't aren't
Speaker 2: looking into aren't looking into getting education For what I
Speaker 2: would consider the best reasons. You know, they want to
Speaker 2: get their job, they want to go punch the clock,
Speaker 2: and they want to move on with their lives. And
Speaker 2: rather than rather than looking at education as a way
Speaker 2: of opening yourself up to many opportunities, to many different
Speaker 2: avenues of investigation and and ways that you can satisfy
Speaker 2: your curiosity. So I think the changing our educational system
Speaker 2: in this way, I think is going to we will
Speaker 2: not have an education system anymore. We will have a
Speaker 2: dogma system. We will have indoctrinate Yeah, thank you Jonathan
Speaker 2: in indoctrination system. And I think that it's it's going
Speaker 2: to be ultimately to the detriment of us as individuals
Speaker 2: and as a nation.
Speaker 1: Elhy did you want to respond to Scott?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll say, because you're the one that's an educator.
Speaker 3: If you and I disagree that about the education system,
Speaker 3: the likelihood is that I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily. Not necessarily, like I said, I have a
Speaker 2: biased opinion to yourself.
Speaker 3: That's argument from authority. But my point is that that
Speaker 3: is why people like you should be making decisions about
Speaker 3: the education system and not people like me who don't
Speaker 3: have experience in that field. And I think you demonstrated
Speaker 3: that aptly.
Speaker 2: And that's what I assumed that you had meant. I
Speaker 2: didn't mean to be trashing you. It's just that one
Speaker 2: little nettle in my shoe there.
Speaker 1: Come on, Scott, we all knew that you wanted to
Speaker 1: trash Eli. Well, you know, I mean to to I
Speaker 1: think to wards like Eli's point about like revamping the
Speaker 1: education system, and to your point, Scott, about the reasoning
Speaker 1: behind people wanting to get educated is that we have
Speaker 1: to kind of look at basically how our society is structured,
Speaker 1: specifically in the United States that you know, a big
Speaker 1: emphasis on you know, doing better economically is tased on education.
Speaker 1: But we have an issue where we don't have equitable
Speaker 1: education from you know, from California all the way to
Speaker 1: New York, you know, from the north to the South
Speaker 1: and everywhere in between, from Ohio to the US to
Speaker 1: the coast of Florida. You know, I will not bust that, right,
Speaker 1: I know, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, from sea to
Speaker 1: Shining Segma. We're not gonna go there.
Speaker 3: I think it was few enough notes that were okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm sure that's public.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you right should be. But you know, but
Speaker 1: but still, I think that if we take both of
Speaker 1: your points about making sure that an education system can
Speaker 1: foster things like curiosity and in critical thinking, and also
Speaker 1: the wantingness to become sharper and better, and then having
Speaker 1: our society structured in a way that those particular values
Speaker 1: are value would make a huge difference in the way
Speaker 1: that education works for everyone who happens to be here. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we don't have that system, or at least it does
Speaker 1: not exist everywhere. And then because it does not exist everywhere,
Speaker 1: we have Heritage Foundation and some of the other you know,
Speaker 1: Christian nationalists crystal fascists that have also helped develop this
Speaker 1: particular plan come in and say we want to make
Speaker 1: education even shittier by also using it to like you said,
Speaker 1: Scott get A, while they're young, right yep. So I
Speaker 1: think that if we go back to this whole thing
Speaker 1: about awareness and how Project twenty twenty five actually approaches
Speaker 1: and reflects a broader trend of minimizing federal involvement in
Speaker 1: favor of a market based solution, there goes that capitalism thing. However,
Speaker 1: the risk of such a drastic overhaul, including worsening educational
Speaker 1: inequities and undermining the foundational principles that public education should
Speaker 1: be accessible and equitable for all. As this debate unfolds,
Speaker 1: it's crucial for advocates of secularism and humanist values to
Speaker 1: emphasize the importance of maintaining robust public education systems that
Speaker 1: serve all students, regardless of their socio economic status, their race,
Speaker 1: their creed, their color, their sexual orientation, their gender identification,
Speaker 1: or their status