Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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your support. All right, So, talking a little bit about education,
came across a tweet from Brian Balfour, he is with
the John Locke Foundation, talking about North Carolina education funding
this morning, and he pointed out that in the last decade,
total spending on North Carolina public schools increased by forty
eight percent over ten years. Forty eight percent increase in
public education funding, total enrollment growth. Oh, actually that's not true.
It wasn't. It wasn't growth. It's down four and a
half percent in the last decade. So while the number
of students has declined, the number of or the amount
of money has increased. Forty eight percent increase in funding
and a four and a half percent decline in student enrollment.
So It's not the money, folks, It's not the money, unless,
of course, you want to make the argument that the
school districts are spending the money on the wrong things, which,
as I mentioned at the end of the last hour.
You know, parents in Carlsbad, California did not like their
money being used to bring in a science of BDSM
expert named Mita Beach. I don't know if that's a
plan on words, I really don't a self described BDSM expert.
The parents requested that this event be canceled. The school
denied their request to even sit in on the event
or any other presentation, or even allow them to pull
their kids out of this important educational event that would
include god knows what about sexuality, sexually deviant behavior, or
how best to get gender affirming care. Quote unquote, David
Strom at hot air dot com says, after all, the
kids might kill themselves if they missed out on Mita's
body modification lesson. Yeah, because what Mita Beach quote teaches
in the workshops kink one oh one? Examining self injurious behavior?
What does that mean? Examine self mutilation, cutting yourself, hurting
yourself right, Examining self injurious behavior, erotic play, and body modification,
and so the parents were like, hey, can we can
we attend this thing if you're not going to cancel it. So,
in response to the parental complaints, the school reportedly doubled
down on their position, claiming they will not provide any
kind of an opt out for students and will not
inform parents about speakers or let them on campus to
hear the speakers. After the parents plan to attend the
event anyway, the school notified them that the event was canceled. So, parents,
that might be the way to do it right. That
might be a tactic in the toolkit that you could
use if you're being denied access to some program that
you find objectionable like this. Within twenty four hours of
the social media post and the news that the parents
were to attend this event, Beach's appearance was canceled, but
it still moved forward with at least two other speakers
from other organizations that helped facilitate gender transitions and surgeries.
David Strom says over the past couple of decades, we
have seen a substantial increase in schools delving deeper and
deeper into sexuality and gender identity issues, and all of
this is part of a movement called Social and Emotional
learning or SEL. It really took off over the last
fifteen years or so. I was actually talking to a
family member, my niece who's in college, and we were
talking about some of this stuff while I was on
vacation up in New York, and I tried to convey
to her that you know, you don't You're the I
told her, I said, you're the fish that doesn't know
it's wet, because this is the only thing you've known.
You grew up in all of this. But your dad
and me, we remember fifteen years and before, before all
of this stuff started just rolling out into the K
twelve education scene. The claim is that SEL exists to
support the mental health of children. But a funny thing
happens when you look into the statistics. Suicide and suicidal
ideation among students have skyrocketed along with the spread of SEL.
He says, you cannot argue that SEL has done anything
to improve mental health among kids, which has seen a
sharp decline, especially in the past few years. I did
have a message here from Russ. Oh two messages actually
hang on a second. Russ says, you mentioned the mental
health grants that are being frozen. I don't know if
it's the same ones, but I had read that many
states were taking grants from that awful Biden gun bill
earmarked to address the mental health issues that lead to
school shootings and the rise in depression and anxiety, and
they were diverting the money to promote LGBTQ and especially
the trans ideology. That would not surprise me. And also,
Russ says in the other message regarding the school money,
based on most recent reading proficiency, English learners really could
be everybody, not just e SL students. That's no, that's
fair terrible grades. Among Trump's first executive orders was one
that barred the grooming of kids into destructive ideologies, and
the schools and blue state politicians are now fighting back hard.
Strom says, I suppose they want to protect their unblemished
record in improving child mental health and stuff. Okay, so
much so that they don't even they don't want even
pesky parents to know what they are doing or to
have a say in whether their kids are subjected. I mean,
education hated with the brainwashing BDSM training for the kids.
Russ mentioned the grades. A couple of months ago, Helen
Raleigh at the Federalist dot Com took a look at
the National Assessment of Educational Progress test results. This is
the NAPE scores and AEP known as the nation's report card. Okay.
It assesses the reading and math skills of America's fourth
graders and eighth graders. The reading and math scores of
students in Mississippi and Louisiana have surpassed those in California
and New York. When I grew up the New York
high school diploma system, they had tracks. We had tracks.
There was first track AP basically second track that was
the middle of the curve. Most of the kids were there.
But you could get a region's diploma, and that region's
diploma meant something because it meant that you were taking
solid coursework, challenging stuff, minimum requirements and all that. And
then there was the local diploma. If you did not
get the regents or you didn't go for the AP,
then you would be in. You would just get a
local diploma, not a region's diploma. Well, apparently that system's
now trash to heavily Republican states and among the poorest
in the nation. Mississippi and Louisiana have surpassed California and
New York. New York I think spends somewhere close to
forty thousand dollars per pupil per year. The secret of
Mississippi and Louisiana's educational success is not actually a secret.
You may be shocked to learn this. It's about returning
to the fundamentals and following the evidence. Mississippi's Republican led
legislature has implemented effective education reforms starting back in twenty twelve.
They prioritized phonics, which teaches kids to read by sounding
out the word, and they have a policy for retaining
or holding back third graders who do not meet essential
reading benchmarks. By the way, this is something that the
left has talked about for a long time. Education progressives
in the education industry they talk about the school to
prison pipeline. This is one of those data points. Kids
who do not achieve at grade level in reading at
grade three are way more likely to be in prison
when they're adults or before, but not in Mecklenburg obviously
way more likely. So if you can make the kid
at grade level grade three, they got better prospects for
the rest of their education, career, and the rest of
their life. Why wouldn't you do that? 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
get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows
you which stories get ignored by the left and the right.
See for yourself. Check dot dot news slash pete. Subscribe
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I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to
every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast,
but it also supports ground News as they make the
media landscape more transparent. Alrighty, So this story at the
Federalist dot com about the Mississippi Miracle and the Louisiana Miracle.
But I guess I don't know. Louisiana is I guess
a little bit behind Mississippi on this, but they both
now have higher reading scores and math scores than California
and New York and they are like among the poorest,
if not the poorest, in the country. And what they
did was in twenty twelve, they prioritized phonics, teaching kids
to sound out words because it works, it always did work,
worked for the vast majority of students, rather than adopting
the whole language model that then broke everybody's brains. And
then we find out later years later. I covered this
when the story came out, the interview with the woman
who created it, and she was like, oh, yeah, I
don't even know if it works, Like, oh okay. But
the reason why this happens is that every like ten
or fifteen years, you get this overhaul in K twelve
education circles and the cottage industry that surrounds this industry,
and they sell their crap to the K twelve edocrats, Oh,
we got to get new books, We have to do
new teacher trainings, right, because they make money off of
all of that stuff. So if you have a program,
you have a model that works, it's not in their
interest to continue that model because once you get the
software or you get the books, you get the training,
you don't need it anymore. And now you don't need
them anymore. Also, they implemented and enforced a retention policy
for third graders who do not meet essential reading benchmarks. Also,
the state invests fifteen million dollars each year, which is
about thirty two dollars a student, into training teachers on
literacy and providing dedicated reading coaches in schools. That's it.
Thirty two bucks a kid and you two can have
these kinds of results. Now will large districts like cms
will they look to the Mississippi miracle and say, hey,
maybe we should do that. I doubt it. Mississippi's fourth
grader's reading scores went from forty ninth in the nation
back in twenty thirteen. They are now at the top.
So in eleven years they went from second to last
to number one reading scores. Governor Tate Reeves said, the
state's black fourth graders have improved from forty fifth in
the nation to third place, a learning gain equivalent to
a full year of schooling and an extra year of schooling. Moreover,
the state's graduation rate has seen a significant rise, going
from seventy two percent back in twenty thirteen. It's now
at eighty nine point nine percent, or ninety percent last year.
The Mississippi miracle. Governor Reeves declared in an interview that
the education out comes in his state is really not
a miracle at all. It's really a result of conservative
reforms implemented in public education. He said. So Louisiana, because
it's so close to Mississippi, they could see it just
by standing on their tiptoes, and they were like, hey,
why don't we do that. That looks like it's working
right there. So they implemented similar education reforms they did theirs.
In twenty nineteen, the state focused on phonics instruction and
providing content rich literacy curriculums. Additionally, Louisiana has invested in
training programs for principles teachers and reading coaches on teaching
kids how to learn to read. It was the only
state Louisiana was the only state where fourth grade reading
scores were higher last year than they were five years ago.
What does that mean? Every other state saw a decline
in reading scores over the last five years, which makes
sense because there was COVID and we had to lock
all the kids in their homes and such. The California
reading scores for fourth and eighth graders have plummeted yet again.
Last year. They remained lower than those in twenty seventeen,
lower last year than five years prior. While there was
a slight improvement in fourth grade math scores, they still
lag behind the scores from five years ago. California's experiments
with alternatives to teaching phonics, despite extensive research that phonics
works best, have obviously failed. Obviously, less than half of
all public school students in California met state grade level
standards for English Language Arts, which is what they call
it now reading ELA. Forty seven percent can can meet
the grade level standard for reading. The reading scores of
Black and Spanic students are even worse. Thirty percent of
Black students and thirty six percent of Hispanic students are
at grade level. So tell me who actually cares about
the kids who actually cares particularly right about minority kids
who's closing the achievement gap? How are they doing it right?
If if you can't identify the answers in this piece
that I have just given you, I would submit you
should be nowhere near K twelve education. Here's a great idea.
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memories that'll last a lifetime. Comparing Mississippi and Louisiana to
California and New York when it comes to education outcomes,
Mississippi and Louisiana now doing better than California and New
York despite the two Democrat controlled states spending way more
money but doing really stupid things and the Mississippi Miracle
it's been dubbed, which isn't really even a miracle at all.
It's just using the models that have worked in the past.
Legislation requiring schools to implement more phonics based reading curricula
failed to pass in California's legislature last year. Why good question,
Want to take a guess I'll give you three guesses.
First two don't count. That's right. It's the unions, right,
the unions didn't think about that. Why Why on earth
would you be opposed to using phonics. This was primarily
due to opposition from Democrat party leadership, teachers, unions, and
advocacy groups, so leftists. The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board lamented, quote,
the California childhood literacy rates have fallen significantly beneath those
of the poorest states in the nation should be considered
a stain on progressive values. This state claims to stand
for no, no, no, no, no. That's the These are
the progressive values because the performance, the merit doesn't matter.
And you know what if that means kids don't know
how to read and do math and you damn them
to a life of either prison or poverty, well, you
know you got to break some eggs to make the omelet,
the utopian omelet, the perfect omelet. Editorial board said, insuring
Californian kids receive the most effective reading lessons didn't even
merit a discussion among Democrats in the face of union opposition.
And then there's this from Nicole Russell. This was at
USA today. Yesterday, k twelve students in America lag peers
in other industrialized countries in math and reading skills, and
they've hit a new low. And while students struggle in
core subjects, many parents say their children have been indoctrinated
with a liberal political bias. If you doubt that last point,
she says, listen to the NEAs. That's the Teachers' Union
National Education Association's Teacher of the Year. I watched this
woman's speech. It was her name is Ashley or cross
On or Croissant, and anyway, she delivered her speech that
hailed education as a political endeavor. That was her speech.
She's an English teacher at Mifflin County High School in Lewistown, Pennsylvania,
and said what teachers want is the same as what
students want. No, No, I know, I don't think that's accurate.
I think that if you were to draw a Kamala
Harris approved ven diagram, there would be some overlapping of
the circles. But it's not all the same obviously. I mean,
a kindergartener doesn't care about whether or not she's going
to get a pension, you know, the teacher does stuff
like that. But anyway, crossing or Croissant told her fellow
union members, quote, what's good for educators is what's good
for students. The best way to advocate or our students,
truly is to advocate for ourselves. Oh my gosh, you
narcissistic sociopath. No, you are not the same as the
kids your interests, and the way to advocate for kids
is not to advocate for yourself. Okay, you are a
different person. Stop trying to live vicariously through these kids,
or to try to use them as props to get
what you want. It's understandable that the NEA's Teacher of
the Year is pro union, obviously, but the idea that
the same things that are good for teachers and their
unions are also good for students that is utter nonsense.
Exhibit a my previous story from The Federalist about the
Mississippi miracle. Unions actually shield their members from the consequences
of poor performance and even bad behavior. How does that
help students. Croissant also said teaching is a political endeavor,
and it always has been so. Now that the NEA's
Teacher of the Year admits this, maybe lefties, you can
stop attacking me when I say that because I've been
saying that for years. Obviously, obviously K twelve education is
being used to promote political ideology. Has been my schooling.
When I was in school, I remember it. I would
have arguments with teachers about it. I know that's hard
to believe, but it's true. I would have arguments with
teachers about them injecting politics. Had a had a this
was in college, I will say this. I had a
professor who made us read a book and I forget
the name of the book now, but it was a
book by or about the Vietnam War. And the final exam,
she gives us a multiple choice essay question why why
was America destined to lose the Vietnam War? And then
she gave you know, was it? This? Was it? This?
Was it? This? And the correct answer was none of
the above. She did a trick question on us on
the final exam, and the reason why is because none
of the above the right answer, according to her, because
she was a leftist who was like hungover after Bill
Clinton one election came to class, though, I will say,
but it was a short class. She cut it short
because she was hungover. Anyway, she she made the answer
it was an unwinnable war because it was a people's war.
That was the right answer, according to her, but she
didn't offer that as one of the options to write about.
Education should not be political and certainly not partisan. But
according to the Pew Research Center, about sixty percent of
teachers identify with or leaned toward the Democrat Party. The
NEA's partisanship has grown so extreme that even the union
admitted that it has to do a better job of
representing its Republican members. Randy Weingarten, remember this, a couple
of weeks ago, president of the American Federation of Teachers Union.
She served as a member of the Democrat National Committee
for more than two decades, and she resigned in June.
And don't tell me that what's good for students is
good for teachers and vice versa. So we're all the same.
And to advocate for kids, truly, you got to advocate
for teachers because the teachers' unions, I'm old enough to remember,
pushed to keep the schools closed, which was not in
the student's best interests, which we knew, and some of
us like myself were saying at that time during the pandemic.
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message here. It's a Pete tweet from Melissa. She says,
I take my seven year old to a reading and
math program called cumin. Is that how you pronounce it?
Or come on, it's k umn. I don't know which
one sounds funnier, but they're both funny in their own way.
So it's kumn. And she says anecdotally, the parents and
grandparents bringing their kids there are predominantly non white. These
kids will be head and shoulders above their fellow students
and successful. My kid just turns seven and is doing
multiplication and now reading three grade levels above her level.
Phonics and math memorization, that's the key. Yeah, I tend
to agree. Oh, and then there was this Teresa Opeka
at the Carolina Journal. This is hilarious over if you
go to the website of the North Carolina Governor Josh
Stein and look at the very top of his web
page again, it's back, everybody. At the very top of
the website page, there's a red bar across the whole top,
and there's a little exclamation point in a triangle, and
it says a state of emergency for public education. Governor
Cooper has declared that wait, what that's right? It says
Governor Cooper has declared that public education in North Carolina
is facing a state of emergency and de urges North
Carolinians to contact legislators read more about how to protect
public schools, and then there's a link. It's literally the
banner from my good friend Ray Cooper's his his stunt
of emergency is what I called it, because it wasn't
an actual state of emergency. But he declared quote unquote
a state of emergency for public education because he wanted
more money to go to K twelve spending than what
the Republican legislature had allocated. And so he has a
big press conference and declares a stunt of emergency or
state of emergency. It was a stunt. There wasn't an
actual state of emergency. He literally So now you got
Josh Stein up there, who literally does the exact same thing,
to the point where they just copied and pasted Cooper's thing.
And when you go there, yeah, here it is. Teresa
Opika follows up. Governor Cooper had the banner on his
web page when the state legislators pushed for and got
opportunity scholarships for parents to send their children to schools
of their choice. And if you click on the banner,
it has all of the old information about the general
Assembly wanting to make the quote unquote cuts. Yeah, there
you go, that's our governor, Josh Stein. Good lord, what
a joke. Then you've got Oh, this was interesting. I
did not know. I guess the NAACP. I guess they
paid for a whole bunch of sponsorships over at the
Charlotte Observer because man, like you go over onto that website,
the Charlotte Observer website, and it's just like they became
the press shop for the NAACP, which is in town.
So I understand why you've got a bunch of stories there,
but I mean, this is a little bit over the top.
You know, you're just you're quoting everybody in their panel
discussions and you're not doing any kind of pushback or anything.
It's you're just acting as stenographers for this event. So
one of the stories, one of the many stories that
they churned out of this event. NAACP events call for
pro union voting in the North Carolina midterm elections. Labor
unions speaking on Monday, called for attendees to vote for
candidates who are in favor of labor unions in the
upcoming North Carolina midterm elections. In other words, Democrats right,
they're out there politicking for Democrats. By the way, they
did not invite Donald Trump to attend, which in years past,
I think they've always invited the presidents to attend, and
they did not invite Trump. The afl CIOs nationwide bus
Tour began here in Charlotte. The name of the tour
is quote, it's a better union. Sorry, it's better in
a union fighting for freedom, fairness and security. Bus Tour. Okay,
that's the name of it. Guys might want to work
on that. It's it's not very memorable anyway. It began
on July ninth, first off at the annual convention here
in Charlotte. Altogether, the bus tour will visit twenty six
states over the next two months, using three buses. That's
what your dues are being used for. Charles Clark, Southern
Regional director for the National afl CIO, said the tourist
mission is to bring awareness to how labor workers are
being affected by the Trump administration. He said the executive
orders firing federal workers and ending the Collective Bargaining Agreement,
along with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, are some
of the changes that most affect them. Did you see,
by the way, the layoffs at the State Department. You
see those videos, these people walking out like they're being
celebrated and applauded, and they're weeping in the streets and
look full disclosure. As a radio industry veteran now for
almost thirty years, I have seen a lot of mass firings.
I have been part of mass firings. Nobody gets this
kind of Nobody gets this kind of riff party. On
the way out the door, You're lucky if you get
a box to put your stuff in. All right, that'll
do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
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