1
00:00:19,079 --> 00:00:21,920
Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist

2
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,480
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at The

3
00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:29,879
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.

4
00:00:30,359 --> 00:00:33,039
As always, you can email the show at radio at

5
00:00:33,039 --> 00:00:37,479
the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.

6
00:00:37,759 --> 00:00:40,560
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and

7
00:00:40,719 --> 00:00:43,920
of course the premium version of our website as well.

8
00:00:44,439 --> 00:00:48,200
Our guest today is Stephen Wilson, pioneer Institute scolar and

9
00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:52,240
former Charters school head. We talk about his new book,

10
00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:57,039
The Lost Decade, Returning to the Fight for better schools

11
00:00:57,079 --> 00:01:02,719
in America. In it, he talks about how social justice

12
00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:08,040
and trauma informed teaching are tanking test scores and damaging

13
00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:11,280
students development. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us

14
00:01:11,319 --> 00:01:13,079
on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.

15
00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:15,000
Speaker 2: It's a real pleasure to be with you.

16
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:19,680
Speaker 1: Thank you absolutely. This book just recently published, correct, Yeah,

17
00:01:19,799 --> 00:01:23,040
just two weeks ago. So there's nothing that I enjoy

18
00:01:23,159 --> 00:01:26,799
more than fresh pages in a book, and here we are.

19
00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:33,359
In it, you argue that social justice education. We've heard

20
00:01:33,439 --> 00:01:36,400
all about social justice over the last several years. In

21
00:01:36,439 --> 00:01:42,319
this country from the far left, in particular social justice education.

22
00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:48,200
The decades de facto K twelve school reform strategy is

23
00:01:48,319 --> 00:01:52,359
harming the very students it aims to help. Let us

24
00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:55,560
begin there, because that really is at the cornerstone of

25
00:01:55,599 --> 00:01:59,879
your argument in many ways, where we stand in America.

26
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,959
Speaker 3: That's precisely the case that I try to make, which

27
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:10,439
is that efforts which began with a noble and urgent purpose,

28
00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:16,280
which is to address the achievement gaps that we all

29
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:19,199
to cry on both the left, center and the right,

30
00:02:20,159 --> 00:02:24,360
that these particular efforts are having the reverse effect. That is,

31
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:29,439
they are leaving students who are ready marginalized still further behind.

32
00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:34,400
So rather than bringing them into American life and equipping

33
00:02:34,439 --> 00:02:38,560
them for success, they are excluding them. It's really not

34
00:02:38,639 --> 00:02:41,439
a very complicated argument, really when you think about it,

35
00:02:41,479 --> 00:02:46,719
because if we are denying students a vigorous, rich, exciting

36
00:02:47,199 --> 00:02:52,159
academic education, we are really consigning them to exclusion and

37
00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:53,120
to poverty.

38
00:02:54,879 --> 00:02:57,319
Speaker 1: And we have seen the impacts of that. How much

39
00:02:57,319 --> 00:03:01,719
more has the COVID era, or did the COVID era

40
00:03:02,319 --> 00:03:05,400
lend to all of this? We saw, as you noted

41
00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,240
in your book, an advancement on this front in the

42
00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:11,439
early part of this century some real movement, and I

43
00:03:11,479 --> 00:03:14,840
think that has everything to do with there at least

44
00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:18,520
much to do with school choice, expanding and opening charter

45
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:22,759
schools and voucher systems in all kinds of different ways

46
00:03:23,199 --> 00:03:26,319
to break away from the standard public education system and

47
00:03:26,439 --> 00:03:29,039
so much failure that we've seen over the last several

48
00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:31,039
decades in the country in that system. But how much

49
00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:34,680
did COVID play into this when you think about the

50
00:03:34,719 --> 00:03:40,680
isolation and what has been called the lost year plus

51
00:03:40,759 --> 00:03:41,479
in education.

52
00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I love the way you set that up,

53
00:03:44,319 --> 00:03:49,159
and there's so much rich richness in your question that

54
00:03:49,199 --> 00:03:53,879
I hope we can dive into. But essentially what I

55
00:03:53,919 --> 00:03:57,960
would bring attention to is Yes, in the first two

56
00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,319
decades of the new century, we had what has been

57
00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:05,000
widely recognized on both the left and the right.

58
00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:06,400
Speaker 2: Stanford in.

59
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:13,680
Speaker 3: Credo their agency that examines a charter school effectiveness the

60
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,360
most rigorous studies of charter school effectiveness in the country,

61
00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:20,480
and also at Brookings reaching the same conclusion that urban

62
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:24,560
charter schools, and specifically an approach to urban charters called

63
00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:27,600
no Excuses much misunderstood. Hope we can get into that

64
00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:32,639
as well. A post in simply astonishing results where these

65
00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:37,800
schools were able to not only close achievement gaps, but

66
00:04:37,879 --> 00:04:41,720
actually begin to reverse them. So, for example, at the

67
00:04:41,759 --> 00:04:46,800
best known network KIP, the Knowledge Is Power program, if

68
00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:51,199
you attend, according to a recent study, if you attend

69
00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:54,279
both a KIP Middle school and a KIP High school,

70
00:04:55,399 --> 00:04:58,079
you are now in a situation where your likelihood of

71
00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:02,920
not just enrolling in college completing it is as great

72
00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:08,120
as a white student from an affluent background. So a

73
00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:12,000
black student attending those two schools, black student from poverty

74
00:05:12,079 --> 00:05:15,560
has as good a chance of completing college after a

75
00:05:15,639 --> 00:05:19,079
number of years. So really a remarkable achievement. And that's

76
00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:22,040
just one measure of success, but there are so many.

77
00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:27,720
So in two thousand and twenty, however, after the murder

78
00:05:27,759 --> 00:05:31,199
of George Floyd, the racial reckoning could have led us

79
00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:35,519
to double down on the successful approach and to dramatically

80
00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:40,120
expand it in the name of equity and inclusion. Instead,

81
00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:43,639
we turned away from it. Many of these schools adopted

82
00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:48,160
a program of anti racism. I would like to figuratively

83
00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:51,920
capitalize that term, because we're all anti racist, but of

84
00:05:51,959 --> 00:05:56,000
anti racism, which meant that they would engage kind of

85
00:05:56,439 --> 00:06:01,560
a twofold dimension two fold approach, where both a program

86
00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:06,839
of therapy where students were assumed to have suffered trauma

87
00:06:07,439 --> 00:06:11,720
growing up in America in what was presumed to be

88
00:06:11,839 --> 00:06:19,120
a racist country, and secondly, a program of political recruitment,

89
00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:25,199
if you will, into a particular ideology. And this took

90
00:06:25,240 --> 00:06:30,399
away from this single minded focus on academic excellence that

91
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,800
had been the north star of these very successful organizations.

92
00:06:35,199 --> 00:06:39,800
So places like the Noble Schools in Chicago, which you

93
00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:44,360
may be familiar with, which were simply killing it. They

94
00:06:44,399 --> 00:06:47,759
occupied some of the many of the top slots of

95
00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:52,000
Chicago's high schools. This is a network of urban charter

96
00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:57,399
high schools, places like Boston Collegiate, one of the high performing,

97
00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:02,160
super high performing Boston charters, places like Achievement First, the

98
00:07:02,199 --> 00:07:05,360
network of superb charters in New York City just saw

99
00:07:05,399 --> 00:07:09,040
the results really collapse as a result of this change

100
00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:14,040
in purpose and method. And this is what I write

101
00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:17,000
about in the book. So results tumbled. They ended up

102
00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:22,199
being in many cases at the beginning they were eighty

103
00:07:22,279 --> 00:07:24,959
percent of students were on grade level on Tractor College,

104
00:07:25,079 --> 00:07:28,439
ninety percent even higher. And now they were performing below

105
00:07:28,639 --> 00:07:33,360
the failed districts in which they were located. That's what

106
00:07:33,399 --> 00:07:36,040
I wanted to bring attention to because I want to

107
00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:41,120
create a drive to restore the excellence in these schools

108
00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:45,079
and to expand it to hundreds of thousands of more

109
00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:46,480
students across the country.

110
00:07:46,759 --> 00:07:49,279
Speaker 1: Steven, this is the burning question that I have because

111
00:07:49,319 --> 00:07:51,600
I've seen so much failure. I've reported on so much

112
00:07:51,639 --> 00:07:56,319
failure in our school systems across the country. When you're

113
00:07:56,439 --> 00:08:01,399
dealing with the critical race theory, the anti racism, all

114
00:08:01,439 --> 00:08:07,199
of this dogma teaching on the left, and you see

115
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:11,519
the full spectrum of DEI that is the umbrella under

116
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:15,360
which all of this exists, diversity, equity and inclusion. The

117
00:08:15,399 --> 00:08:19,600
burning question I have is why did these schools open

118
00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:20,839
the door to this?

119
00:08:21,279 --> 00:08:23,639
Speaker 2: And yes, I can explain that something.

120
00:08:24,079 --> 00:08:28,800
Speaker 1: But further yes, and if you would expound on are

121
00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:32,919
they closing the door? Are they kicking this stuff out?

122
00:08:33,519 --> 00:08:37,679
In understanding now that that was an abject failure.

123
00:08:39,399 --> 00:08:42,840
Speaker 3: Let's take that each part of time. By the way,

124
00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:46,759
such wonderful, rich questions. I do want to begin by

125
00:08:46,799 --> 00:08:50,840
saying that I'm in favor after diversity, equity, inclusion, but

126
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:54,639
not of the particular methods that were used. I mean, look,

127
00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:56,559
we live in a diverse country, we live in a

128
00:08:56,639 --> 00:09:01,799
nation of immigrants. We want everyone to feel included and

129
00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:06,039
to feel that they are empowered and equipped for success.

130
00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:10,399
That's what I think of inclusion as meaning. And certainly

131
00:09:10,519 --> 00:09:14,320
want fairness. We all want a fair society where everyone

132
00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:18,919
has an equal chance. But I do not think that

133
00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:22,679
the particular method of DEI has been successful, and you

134
00:09:22,759 --> 00:09:27,480
alluded to components of it. Informing students that the world

135
00:09:27,519 --> 00:09:31,200
has rigged against them is not a successful path for

136
00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:36,080
building engagement in schooling, a sense of optimism and purpose

137
00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:41,320
and agency. So that the reason to your question of

138
00:09:41,759 --> 00:09:46,480
what caused the turnarway, it's really about a new generation

139
00:09:47,159 --> 00:09:52,120
of aspiring teachers coming out of colleges and universities, particularly

140
00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:56,279
ones that we would call elite colleges and universities who

141
00:09:56,399 --> 00:10:01,279
were culturated there in college with very different set of

142
00:10:01,320 --> 00:10:07,399
beliefs than new teachers simply a decade before. So, if

143
00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:10,440
you recall in two thousand and eight we had the

144
00:10:10,679 --> 00:10:13,879
movie Waiting for Superman, we had a tremendous and by

145
00:10:13,919 --> 00:10:20,039
the way, bipartisan enthusiasm for charters and particularly urban charters

146
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:23,320
for Teach for America, where a lot of these teachers

147
00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:27,240
into charters were coming from and they.

148
00:10:27,159 --> 00:10:28,039
Speaker 2: Shared a passion.

149
00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:32,240
Speaker 3: Whether it be white teachers, black teachers, brown teachers, everybody

150
00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:36,039
wanted to do whatever it takes to educate students to

151
00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:40,879
a high level. So there's passion for great teaching. But

152
00:10:42,080 --> 00:10:47,200
in the first part, in the early part of the

153
00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:50,080
twenty twenties, we saw a real turn away from that.

154
00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:55,879
So graduates of college universities were arriving to charters with

155
00:10:56,159 --> 00:11:01,279
a very different set of commitments, very anti intellectual commitments.

156
00:11:01,279 --> 00:11:04,919
By the way, they didn't their passion was not for

157
00:11:05,039 --> 00:11:10,919
great teaching. Their passion was for critical pedagogy, for racial sentialism,

158
00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:16,440
for the ideas in particular of Ibram Kendy and Robin DiAngelo,

159
00:11:16,480 --> 00:11:19,120
who were very widely read at that time. Of course,

160
00:11:20,360 --> 00:11:24,759
Robin DiAngelo and also derivative scholars like Tima Oakum, who

161
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,279
you may recall, was the one who identified what she

162
00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:34,879
described as the as the characteristics or symptoms of white

163
00:11:34,919 --> 00:11:38,120
supremacist culture. And she included in that list of eleven

164
00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:43,440
or twelve items objectivity and worship of the written words.

165
00:11:43,519 --> 00:11:49,399
So just imagine telling teachers of black and brown students

166
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:54,559
that worship of the written word is whiteness. What does

167
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:59,159
that tell to those students? It tells them that great

168
00:11:59,279 --> 00:12:03,559
literature is something that doesn't pertain to you, that's part

169
00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:08,039
of oppressive white culture. I mean, it's really I'm sorry,

170
00:12:08,080 --> 00:12:10,279
it's a really deranged message.

171
00:12:10,639 --> 00:12:12,080
Speaker 2: If you were if you.

172
00:12:12,039 --> 00:12:12,279
Speaker 4: Were a.

173
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:17,879
Speaker 3: Mad scientist going into the lab trying to concoct something

174
00:12:17,919 --> 00:12:21,879
that would most hurt students, you might turn to that

175
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:27,559
kind of message. Similarly, describing objectivity as whiteness is also

176
00:12:27,799 --> 00:12:32,759
a very dangerous message. Punctuality would be another one. So

177
00:12:33,679 --> 00:12:39,159
Tima Oakum's document The Explicit inexplicably was used in almost

178
00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:44,240
all these trainings, including in twenty nineteen a required training

179
00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:48,720
for all New York City educators in the district where

180
00:12:48,759 --> 00:12:52,080
they were schooled, that these were things to basically look

181
00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:55,159
out for as being part of quote white supremacy, even

182
00:12:55,279 --> 00:13:00,840
of course white supremacy culture. Even that is a horrific

183
00:13:01,559 --> 00:13:05,279
borrowing of a term that in the common mind refers

184
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:09,279
to the klu klux Klan right and overt racist. So

185
00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:15,000
to say there was provocative is a massive understatement. And

186
00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:16,960
what happened is that a lot of really great people

187
00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:20,080
just left these schools because I thought this was absurd

188
00:13:21,399 --> 00:13:22,519
and or worse.

189
00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:28,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can certainly understand that because it is the

190
00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:34,039
value of ignorance. It's putting a value, a greater value

191
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:37,639
on ignorance. I mean, there is the expression that perhaps

192
00:13:37,679 --> 00:13:39,919
is overused, but I think it fits here. It's the

193
00:13:40,519 --> 00:13:44,759
you know, it's the soft bigotry of low expectation that

194
00:13:44,960 --> 00:13:49,080
seems to me to be whether they want that to

195
00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:54,840
be or not, these so called experts in education. That

196
00:13:54,919 --> 00:13:59,159
seems to be at the core and the big reason

197
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:00,600
why we've seen some much failure.

198
00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:03,840
Speaker 2: Right. And by the way, this notion that you bring up,

199
00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:05,320
which is so important.

200
00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:09,440
Speaker 3: Of the soft bigotry of low expectations, is precisely right.

201
00:14:10,759 --> 00:14:16,360
And it's also it's not just an ideological supposition, it's

202
00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:17,600
a proven fact.

203
00:14:17,759 --> 00:14:19,639
Speaker 2: If you go into.

204
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:23,039
Speaker 3: Schools and you look at what is being placed before students,

205
00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:27,200
what is expected of them, what learning tasks are they

206
00:14:27,279 --> 00:14:31,759
being assigned, you will find that they're consistently being assigned

207
00:14:31,919 --> 00:14:36,960
tasks that underestimate horrifically what they're capable of. Students are

208
00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:40,320
being given assignments and material that is one or two

209
00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:45,759
grade levels below them and what they could reasonably grapple with,

210
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:51,360
and so that's low expectations in living color. And this

211
00:14:51,559 --> 00:14:56,559
is the foremost problem in American education, which is underestimating

212
00:14:57,399 --> 00:15:01,159
students and what they're capable of learning doing. And then

213
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:07,159
you add to that this very anti intellectual element of

214
00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:14,720
dismissing a vast swath of the curriculum as Western oppressive knowledge,

215
00:15:15,279 --> 00:15:19,399
and you have a formula for a disaster. The other

216
00:15:19,639 --> 00:15:24,000
element that's very important in this is that these highly

217
00:15:24,039 --> 00:15:27,480
successful so called no excuses schools were called no excuses

218
00:15:28,039 --> 00:15:34,000
not because they would not be accommodating of children being children,

219
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:37,519
not because they were going to weigh along kids for

220
00:15:37,679 --> 00:15:43,000
bad behavior, but rather it meant the solemn pledge of teachers,

221
00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:46,840
of the adults in the building to stop making excuses,

222
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:51,639
to stop blaming inadequate resources, poverty, racism. Those are all

223
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:55,559
very real things and we need to tackle all of them.

224
00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:00,399
But that is not an obstacle to achieving success sas

225
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,120
with every child. So we said within these new schools,

226
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:06,919
we said, within these four walls, we have everything it

227
00:16:07,039 --> 00:16:11,399
takes to succeed. That's an amazing proposition, and these schools

228
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:16,519
turned away from that by saying no o contreire. Racism

229
00:16:16,799 --> 00:16:22,559
is the biggest problem until we uh, until we eliminate racism,

230
00:16:22,919 --> 00:16:27,080
we can't really be expected to succeed with children. So

231
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:31,080
in fact, not only did they break the solemn pledge

232
00:16:31,159 --> 00:16:36,480
of not making excuses, but they adopted the ultimate, everlasting,

233
00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:41,360
inexhaustible excuse, which is, so long as racism remains prevalent

234
00:16:41,399 --> 00:16:46,039
in American life, we can't succeed with with our students.

235
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:51,159
That was that was in effect the message, and and

236
00:16:51,159 --> 00:16:53,639
and then and then in turn, what happened is that

237
00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:57,879
they began by saying, we must first address our own

238
00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:01,919
trauma as teachers in education, and once we've that and

239
00:17:02,159 --> 00:17:05,200
done that, then we will turn to the trauma of

240
00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:09,160
our students. And only when we have encountered and engaged

241
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:12,559
that will we turned back to rigorous teaching. And that's

242
00:17:12,599 --> 00:17:15,799
a very long path away, and that's why the results collapsed.

243
00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:23,039
Speaker 4: It's time to embrace the suck once again. The Watchdout

244
00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:26,039
on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris

245
00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:28,880
helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and

246
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:31,680
how it affects your wallet. Every stock market sell off

247
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:33,920
is different. The media will tell you it's the end

248
00:17:34,079 --> 00:17:36,680
of the world. Don't believe it. If you have an

249
00:17:36,759 --> 00:17:39,680
investment plan. You'll be just fine. Whether it's happening in

250
00:17:39,759 --> 00:17:42,160
DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.

251
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:44,599
Be informed. Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast

252
00:17:44,599 --> 00:17:47,279
with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get

253
00:17:47,279 --> 00:17:51,400
your podcasts.

254
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:55,079
Speaker 1: So much to unpack there. It's horrifying. It really is

255
00:17:55,160 --> 00:17:58,160
what we've experienced over the last several years in this country,

256
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,000
and I want to delve into that further. Our guests

257
00:18:00,079 --> 00:18:04,519
today is Stephen Wilson, pioneer Institute scholar, former charter school head.

258
00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:08,000
We're talking about his new book, The Lost Decade, returning

259
00:18:08,079 --> 00:18:11,559
to the fight for better schools in America, and it

260
00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:14,079
is just that it is a fight, and it is

261
00:18:15,279 --> 00:18:18,319
such an important fight. But I just want to go

262
00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:23,000
back to what you mentioned before about the death of

263
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:28,559
objectivity in this style of teaching, in the style of

264
00:18:29,319 --> 00:18:33,039
apparently trying to reach students turns out to me to

265
00:18:33,039 --> 00:18:36,839
be nothing more than a method for indoctrination. And what

266
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:41,440
you talked about is a long term, long term failure.

267
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:46,400
It also seems to me to be a successful movement

268
00:18:46,559 --> 00:18:51,440
for the big teacher unions in this country. It's job security.

269
00:18:51,599 --> 00:18:54,880
But first, how did we get to a point where

270
00:18:54,960 --> 00:19:00,519
we have education experts again so called saying that one

271
00:19:00,599 --> 00:19:06,960
plus one doesn't have to equal two. That is, I mean,

272
00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:09,519
that has been the joke around this argument, but that

273
00:19:09,599 --> 00:19:12,359
really is true. There are people teaching that, that is,

274
00:19:12,599 --> 00:19:16,200
it is racist to expect one plus one to equal

275
00:19:16,279 --> 00:19:20,000
two in communities of color, as they say.

276
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:26,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it arose I would bring our attention to

277
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:27,160
two moments.

278
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:27,559
Speaker 2: One is.

279
00:19:27,599 --> 00:19:33,440
Speaker 3: In the nineteen sixties, the Brazilian educator Paulo Frera gained

280
00:19:33,759 --> 00:19:38,440
wide influence with a particular book called Pedagogy of the Oppressed,

281
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:43,160
which she first lectured at the part of Graduate School

282
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:50,039
of Education and became immensely popular. It dovetailed with, of course,

283
00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:56,839
radical movements on campus and sentiments of that period, but

284
00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:04,079
basically it argued a very seductive way that American schools

285
00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:07,039
or schools more generally, were engaging in what he called

286
00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:12,240
a banking theory of education. They were making deposits of quote,

287
00:20:12,279 --> 00:20:19,319
oppressor knowledge in students and basically fattening them into meek

288
00:20:19,559 --> 00:20:28,599
and submissive citizens who would do the bidding of capitalist exploiters.

289
00:20:29,319 --> 00:20:33,400
And this was very, as I said, very attractive message

290
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,839
for a lot of people, and remain so today it's

291
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:40,400
among the most assigned. There's a study on this that

292
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:43,440
looked at what are people reading in schools and colleges

293
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:46,559
of education and this was among the top techs. So

294
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:51,440
still today it is the viewpoint that is advanced in

295
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:55,319
schools of education. And you make an extremely important point,

296
00:20:55,359 --> 00:21:00,640
one that I emphasize a lot, which is, these are schools.

297
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:05,240
These are places that are supposed to venerate intellectual achievement,

298
00:21:05,279 --> 00:21:09,680
These places that are supposed to get kids excited about

299
00:21:10,759 --> 00:21:15,720
their intellectual inheritance from all cultures at all times. That's

300
00:21:15,759 --> 00:21:19,880
our gift to them, but we're apparently intent on denying

301
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:24,240
it to them. The other strand, which of course is related,

302
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:31,119
is the rise of postmodernism, which was also which now

303
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:37,519
dominates the humanities and increasingly the natural sciences at colleges

304
00:21:37,559 --> 00:21:45,359
and universities, which has a epistemological claim that there is

305
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:51,000
no such thing as objectivity. Objectivity is simply a tool

306
00:21:51,359 --> 00:21:55,880
or a weapon of the oppressor. This arises from the

307
00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:04,359
claims of Michelle Fucot, among others, and that the oppressed

308
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:08,480
have another way of seeing the world, and in fact

309
00:22:08,559 --> 00:22:11,279
they have a kind of dual site. They can see

310
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:16,119
through the eyes of the oppressed, and they can also

311
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,519
see through the eyes of their oppressed sore. So it's

312
00:22:19,559 --> 00:22:23,400
a kind of claim that there is no one truth.

313
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,599
There is only It's called standpoint theory for those who

314
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:30,720
want to delve into it. Further, standpoint theory claims that

315
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:34,559
truth is only my truth or your truth. We shall

316
00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:38,400
never meet, we shall never find common ground, because truth

317
00:22:38,519 --> 00:22:42,599
is a function of identity. I of course utterly reject

318
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:47,759
that it's particularly remarkable that the natural sciences have significantly

319
00:22:47,839 --> 00:22:50,880
bent in this direction, but because of course it's totally

320
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:52,480
at odds with empiricism.

321
00:22:53,559 --> 00:22:54,319
Speaker 2: So there we are.

322
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,640
Speaker 3: So these are great influences on young teachers. They find

323
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,720
these ideas, as I said, very seductive, and then they

324
00:23:01,759 --> 00:23:05,720
bring them to the schools that they join. And because

325
00:23:05,839 --> 00:23:09,839
charter schools met rely much more significant on younger teachers

326
00:23:11,039 --> 00:23:15,920
and have, for better for worse, often a significant attrition.

327
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,359
The jobs are very demanding that people are young, they

328
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,359
may go on to something else. You have a higher

329
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,680
turnover in these schools and more young teachers. And that's

330
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:31,799
why they adopted this ideology faster than in the majority system.

331
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:35,839
But to your point, the unions have wrapped themselves around

332
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:40,200
these claims, so they're also very pervasive in the majority system.

333
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:43,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you know, I think there's a clear mission

334
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:46,559
to this pedagogy and it has been going on, as

335
00:23:46,599 --> 00:23:52,359
you note, for decades. The idea that this is a

336
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:57,519
rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressors is of course

337
00:23:58,559 --> 00:24:01,880
laughable to me as I watched this movement, I'm sure

338
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:06,039
it is. It is equal parts laughable and sad. But

339
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,920
what we're seeing is the development of an indoctrination system

340
00:24:12,279 --> 00:24:16,960
where instead of the idea from what they're talking about

341
00:24:17,079 --> 00:24:20,160
is a knee bent at the altar of capitalism, this

342
00:24:20,279 --> 00:24:23,279
is a knee bent at the altar of socialism. And

343
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:32,680
this very bizarre a series of ideas, this strategy of education,

344
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:38,160
and that is what is concerning. What is ultimately more

345
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:42,279
concerning is that in so many places we're not learning.

346
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:44,960
And let me put this in perspective. This week, Stephen,

347
00:24:45,839 --> 00:24:50,119
as I talked to you, Wisconsin had a very nationally

348
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:55,160
watched Supreme Court state Supreme Court election, but there was

349
00:24:55,240 --> 00:25:01,000
also another race on the state wide ballot that was

350
00:25:01,039 --> 00:25:05,960
for Superintendent of Public Instruction and the people of the

351
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:08,480
state of Wisconsin. Although it's a spring election, it does

352
00:25:08,519 --> 00:25:12,039
not get the kind of turnout that you would see

353
00:25:12,039 --> 00:25:14,720
certainly in a presidential election, as we saw in November

354
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,519
in Wisconsin, pretty high turnout for a spring election given

355
00:25:17,559 --> 00:25:21,240
the Supreme Court race. But the people of Wisconsin re

356
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:28,240
elected a union supported superintendent of public education who has

357
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:33,960
presided over a failure rate in the state of Wisconsin,

358
00:25:34,039 --> 00:25:39,039
particularly in Milwaukee, which is abysmal, where we have single

359
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:44,160
digit proficiency ratings for kids reading and for kids being

360
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:48,440
able to solve math problems. That is inexcusable. But why

361
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:53,799
do we keep electing people who deliver these results?

362
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:55,880
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question.

363
00:25:55,960 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 3: And by the way, how utterly heartbreaking to hear of

364
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:09,519
single digit success rates. So that reminds me of a

365
00:26:09,559 --> 00:26:15,119
district here in Rochester, a city in New York State,

366
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,839
where indeed the person who is in charge of curriculum

367
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:27,000
instruction has claimed great success in fighting racism despite the

368
00:26:27,039 --> 00:26:31,720
fact that they remain in the single digits level of proficiency.

369
00:26:31,839 --> 00:26:34,440
So I'm afraid you know, I have no answer for

370
00:26:34,519 --> 00:26:37,720
you on that. How someone could be re elected or

371
00:26:37,759 --> 00:26:40,640
someone could be in the case of my story, hailed

372
00:26:41,039 --> 00:26:46,240
as she was as a great education visionary when it's

373
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,079
playing that under her watch in this case, where she

374
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,039
has explicit responsibility for instruction in the district and has

375
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:58,759
for a long time, when the children have not been educated,

376
00:26:58,799 --> 00:27:02,240
where it's an abject fail. This is in fact very mysterious.

377
00:27:02,279 --> 00:27:07,160
I think part of it in both stories is that

378
00:27:07,319 --> 00:27:11,839
the Union has so successfully peddled the message that what

379
00:27:12,039 --> 00:27:16,000
is wrong with American schools is not enough money, despite

380
00:27:16,039 --> 00:27:19,039
the fact that we spend among the highest in the

381
00:27:19,079 --> 00:27:23,240
world and have for decades, and now of course pedaled

382
00:27:23,279 --> 00:27:27,920
the message that the primary problem is racism. And so

383
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,359
you will see, for example, the head of the Massachusetts

384
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:36,960
Teachers Association, Marin Najami, saying that the differential outcomes across

385
00:27:37,599 --> 00:27:42,920
school systems in Massachusetts is not a measure of their

386
00:27:43,039 --> 00:27:47,359
quality or their students preparation, but is mainly, and I

387
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:53,319
will paraphraseer an expression of quote, structural racism. So this

388
00:27:53,599 --> 00:28:02,759
argument is a way of excusing their failure, invoking another

389
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,079
cause beyond their control.

390
00:28:05,519 --> 00:28:06,079
Speaker 2: I want to be.

391
00:28:06,079 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 3: Clear that I am not anti union, and in fact,

392
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,480
I think every American should have the right to unionize

393
00:28:12,519 --> 00:28:16,000
that we may disagree, but I think that our country

394
00:28:16,039 --> 00:28:21,319
would be stronger if more of the working class was unionized.

395
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:25,079
But putting that aside, the teachers' unions are, in their

396
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:30,920
present incarnation unquestionably an obstacle. We have Shirley and Milwaukee,

397
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:36,000
certainly in New York City, Boston, et cetera, collective barring

398
00:28:36,039 --> 00:28:40,359
agreements that run three hundred pages or more that shackle

399
00:28:40,519 --> 00:28:44,119
the hands of principles and being able to do anything

400
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,880
that any reasonable person would think that principle has to

401
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,880
do to create excellence, that is, to be able to

402
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:53,240
hire and fire. Takes one hundred thousand dollars to dismiss

403
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:58,039
a chronically ineffective teacher in legal fees. That's insane. So

404
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,119
it is a more wrong that we take the most

405
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,559
important institution in American life, which is the schools that

406
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:10,000
prepare the next generation, and we impose on them these

407
00:29:10,319 --> 00:29:15,559
horrendous constraints that make success impossible. That's why charters are

408
00:29:15,559 --> 00:29:19,000
so important, of course, which is that they free ambitious

409
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,319
school leaders from those constraints.

410
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, we certainly have seen that across the country. And

411
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,200
I speak again of Milwaukee, and you talk about three

412
00:29:27,319 --> 00:29:32,319
hundred page collective bargaining agreements the state of Wisconsin for

413
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,960
the better part of the last fifteen years hasn't really

414
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,200
had to deal with that because of the Act ten

415
00:29:37,839 --> 00:29:42,319
reforms in public sector collective bargaining, the teachers' unions, and

416
00:29:42,599 --> 00:29:45,359
the election that I spoke of, the Wisconsin Supreme Court

417
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:50,640
election which liberals will continue to control the court. That

418
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:55,880
means that those reforms are about to go away. And

419
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:58,440
it's not only the savings that are attached to that.

420
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:01,519
People talk about that all the time. It's exactly what

421
00:30:01,559 --> 00:30:06,039
you just spelled out. It's the sort of binding that

422
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:13,799
happens that blocks great education in our schools. Education, dedicated

423
00:30:13,839 --> 00:30:20,319
teachers that could be reaching these students, raising these horrific

424
00:30:21,559 --> 00:30:25,000
levels of proficiency lack thereof.

425
00:30:25,039 --> 00:30:28,319
Speaker 3: And if I could just give actual example so our

426
00:30:28,359 --> 00:30:31,200
listeners understand if they're not involved in schools, how this

427
00:30:31,279 --> 00:30:35,000
plays out. So I founded and ran a network of

428
00:30:35,119 --> 00:30:38,519
urban charters in New York City called a sam Learning

429
00:30:38,519 --> 00:30:40,880
of fifteen schools. We were eventually, after a lot of

430
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,319
new steps, able to close and then reverse these achievement

431
00:30:44,359 --> 00:30:47,839
gaps in some of the most challenged communities in New

432
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,559
York City. And we were able to do that because

433
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:55,000
organized as charter schools, we were able to write job descriptions,

434
00:30:55,079 --> 00:30:59,279
we were able to pay teachers more than in the

435
00:30:59,319 --> 00:31:03,720
district were able to pay more for the most difficult specialty,

436
00:31:03,839 --> 00:31:08,519
say high school chemistry teachers, we were able to not

437
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:13,119
have seniority based bumping. That's a tremendous obstacle. So, just

438
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:15,079
to give an example of what that means, that if

439
00:31:15,079 --> 00:31:19,680
you have a reduction in force, a prized teacher in

440
00:31:19,799 --> 00:31:22,119
one school who might be might have been there for

441
00:31:22,279 --> 00:31:27,640
years and achieving remarkable success, can lose her or his

442
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,400
job and be replaced by a gym teacher who is

443
00:31:31,519 --> 00:31:35,559
more senior from a school halfway across the city. That's

444
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:40,839
complete madness. Yes, so the way that tenure actually functions,

445
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,960
the way that seniority based assignments actually function. If we

446
00:31:45,079 --> 00:31:49,880
wanted to look at examples of structural racism, I would

447
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:54,960
say there's our exhibit A that is structural racism because

448
00:31:54,960 --> 00:32:01,039
it assigns the least experienced teachers to the most need classrooms.

449
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:06,880
That is wrong, and that is the policy of the

450
00:32:07,039 --> 00:32:10,039
union and has been for decades. So you can't make

451
00:32:10,079 --> 00:32:12,720
any headway in those kinds of environments. And by the way,

452
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,279
it's not just one collective bargaining contract.

453
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 2: You might have ten of them.

454
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 3: That building bus the custodians and the assistant teachers, everybody

455
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,960
that even the principles. In many states until recently we're

456
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:26,680
their own union.

457
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 2: So you just can't create great schools.

458
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 3: I have a whole chapter devote to this, because, of course,

459
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,640
the common question is can't we fix the majority system

460
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,559
where most the kids are And the hard answer is

461
00:32:40,039 --> 00:32:43,640
probably not, And if we wanted to, the best way

462
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,400
to do it would be to introduce competition. Even a

463
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,960
little bit of competition. Research is showing puts the majority

464
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:57,480
district schools on their toes and compels them to get better.

465
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,599
Speaker 1: Well, we spend a lot of time, understandably toiling in

466
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:07,319
the garden of disappointment, frustration, and just the pain of

467
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:12,200
watching these broken systems. But your book does spell out

468
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:18,440
the way forward. And I guess the question before I

469
00:33:18,599 --> 00:33:23,000
get there is you have, you know, a defined look

470
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,519
at how to improve these schools. You've experienced it, you've

471
00:33:26,559 --> 00:33:30,720
done that. But why for so many decades have we

472
00:33:30,799 --> 00:33:36,200
made our children lab rats as we try to figure

473
00:33:36,279 --> 00:33:42,799
out you know, different ways in generally you know, leftist

474
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:49,039
directed ways on how to fix our kids, so to speak.

475
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 3: Well, I think there are a couple of dimensions to

476
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,480
that one is that teachers.

477
00:33:56,079 --> 00:33:59,759
Speaker 2: Are deeply caring people. They are.

478
00:34:01,279 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 3: What we call a helping profession, right like nurses, and

479
00:34:06,319 --> 00:34:09,960
they want to they want to help children, and they

480
00:34:10,159 --> 00:34:17,559
are naturally inclined towards caring. And the problem is is

481
00:34:17,599 --> 00:34:23,840
that if you see your job to be to comfort

482
00:34:25,119 --> 00:34:30,400
students rather than to challenge them, you're going to have

483
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,880
You're going to create a very bad outcome for them.

484
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,840
So part of it is who the profession attracts. And

485
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:41,960
I don't say that with any sense of criticism or accusation.

486
00:34:42,199 --> 00:34:47,679
You really need leaders in American education at the school level,

487
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,440
at the state level, even at the federal level, who say, no,

488
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,880
high standards, high expectations is not a lack of caring.

489
00:34:56,039 --> 00:35:00,360
It's the ultimate expression of caring, because we carry for

490
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:02,320
you to ask more of you. And you know, we

491
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,400
know this from our own lives. Who are the teachers

492
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,840
that we remember, meant from our own schools. They aren't

493
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,760
the ones who didn't expect anything from us. They aren't

494
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:13,880
the ones who soothed us and said, oh, you don't

495
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:15,880
have to do your homework and oh that papers and

496
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,639
a when you damn well know it isn't. They're the

497
00:35:18,679 --> 00:35:22,079
ones who expected more of you, who pushed you harder,

498
00:35:22,599 --> 00:35:25,599
who thought of you as someone who could give more

499
00:35:25,639 --> 00:35:27,800
than you were giving. Those are the ones that we

500
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:29,039
revere as adults.

501
00:35:29,519 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 1: Missus Verity, Missus Verity, you just described Missus Verity, my

502
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:34,679
seventh grade English teacher, right there, you go.

503
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 3: Yes, and I remember mine too, very well, exactly right.

504
00:35:38,599 --> 00:35:40,880
I can name two or three who were like that.

505
00:35:41,199 --> 00:35:43,000
They live with me in my mind for the rest

506
00:35:43,039 --> 00:35:45,480
of my life. So this is a very important part

507
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:50,119
of why we've come to this place. The other thing

508
00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:57,360
is that, frankly, America has extraordinary strengths, but anti intellectualism

509
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:01,199
has been a harmful strength and in American life really

510
00:36:01,199 --> 00:36:05,199
from the very beginning. And so it's been a nation that,

511
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,519
and this is good, has prided itself on industry, on

512
00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:12,800
practical knowledge, but always been a little bit suspicious of

513
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,199
academic learning if you go back to colonial times, as

514
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:24,480
being a remnant of European elites, and so this has

515
00:36:24,559 --> 00:36:29,199
been this has hampered us. And then the democratization of

516
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:35,960
education has often meant sorting students prematurely into those who

517
00:36:36,039 --> 00:36:40,320
were capable of rigorous academics and everybody else kind of

518
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:44,559
got either career preparation, by the way, not job preparation,

519
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:48,719
not very successfully, or just a dumbed down curriculum. So

520
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,800
we've been living with this dumbed down version of education

521
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,360
in this country for a long time. It's really baked

522
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,440
into the culture. We need to get away from it.

523
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,000
But turn to turn to the positive, which you've been

524
00:37:00,079 --> 00:37:02,079
I didn't need to do. I do want to say

525
00:37:02,119 --> 00:37:06,480
that we have these extraordinary examples of not just individual schools,

526
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:10,920
but networks of schools that are just producing extraordinary results.

527
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:14,000
And the kinds of problems I'm describing with social justice

528
00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:16,639
education are not universal. There are many parts of the

529
00:37:16,639 --> 00:37:20,199
country that are much less affected by this. We have

530
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:26,519
fantastic networks, say in Texas, like Great Hearts Academy, we

531
00:37:26,639 --> 00:37:30,559
have the Basis schools. We have many places that are

532
00:37:30,599 --> 00:37:34,599
getting exceptional results that did not make this turn away,

533
00:37:35,119 --> 00:37:38,559
and we should be talking about them all the time

534
00:37:38,639 --> 00:37:42,079
and everybody, because that's the future of excellence.

535
00:37:42,519 --> 00:37:43,199
Speaker 2: We should be.

536
00:37:43,119 --> 00:37:46,800
Speaker 3: Providing all students with a rich, liberal arts education. That's

537
00:37:47,039 --> 00:37:50,920
what the affluent have always benefited from. You know, it's

538
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,639
stultifying to tell teachers to tell students what to think

539
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,920
and to indoctrinate them in a particular view. Of course

540
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:04,679
they should be exposed to Marxist ideas. Of course they

541
00:38:04,679 --> 00:38:11,199
should be exposed to claims of all kinds. But let

542
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:15,639
them wrestle with these competing ideas. That's what creates electricity

543
00:38:15,639 --> 00:38:19,079
in the classroom. Let them come to their own conclusions.

544
00:38:19,119 --> 00:38:22,960
That's how we would really respect them. You know, I

545
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,920
think that we we mock students when we claim to

546
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,199
empower them, but we fail them to tea. We fail

547
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:33,119
to teach them to reason, to analyze, to express themselves

548
00:38:33,119 --> 00:38:35,719
in speech and speech and writing. Those are the real

549
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:39,599
tools of power, and that's what we need to grant students,

550
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:40,719
all students.

551
00:38:41,199 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time today, You've been very generous with it.

552
00:38:44,599 --> 00:38:46,800
But just back to a point real quick before we

553
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,400
close today. You talked about some of these things that

554
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:53,679
are built into the pursuit of what the ultimate goal is.

555
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:58,079
And one of those obstacles, as you noted, is this

556
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:08,400
American Trust for Higher Education. And you can understand these

557
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:12,039
days why it is there. Everything we talked about has

558
00:39:12,079 --> 00:39:16,599
so much to do with these indoctrinating institutions that have

559
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:19,719
brought us this, that have taught our teachers this, our

560
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:25,239
teachers teaching our children this. How do you break that cycle?

561
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,800
Because until you do that, in my estimation, I don't

562
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:34,599
know if you can really attack the problems at their

563
00:39:34,599 --> 00:39:35,760
fundamental level.

564
00:39:36,159 --> 00:39:39,639
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that a big part of the problem

565
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:46,440
here has been the fecklessness of university leaders in allowing

566
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:51,119
an illiberal culture to take hold on their campus, where

567
00:39:51,159 --> 00:39:55,960
students were not exposed to a variety of viewpoints. They

568
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:02,440
were not heterodox institutions and students and of course professors

569
00:40:03,079 --> 00:40:12,400
were canceled for views that violated the orthodoxy. I think

570
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:16,559
the good news is that is breaking and we are

571
00:40:16,679 --> 00:40:21,599
seeing a recognition, although it's just beginning that this was

572
00:40:22,039 --> 00:40:26,000
very much a wrong turn. So step one is to

573
00:40:26,039 --> 00:40:32,480
restore viewpoint diversity on campus so that teachers are acculturated

574
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,079
in a far more generous conception where they are curious

575
00:40:37,639 --> 00:40:43,079
about ideas other than one point of view, where they

576
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:47,599
want to understand people who disagree with them, where they

577
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:51,719
want to test out arguments of all kinds. That's what

578
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,800
a great education is. I think we need to restore

579
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,880
that to your point first, and then that's going to

580
00:40:58,119 --> 00:41:02,599
enable a much greater selce sas at the K twelve level,

581
00:41:03,599 --> 00:41:04,079
very good.

582
00:41:04,639 --> 00:41:08,199
Speaker 1: We need that success desperately, now more than ever, because

583
00:41:08,199 --> 00:41:13,880
our children, our future depends on that success. Thanks to

584
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:18,079
my guest today, Stephen Wilson, Pioneer Institute scholar and former

585
00:41:18,199 --> 00:41:22,000
charter school head, as we talk about his new book,

586
00:41:22,079 --> 00:41:26,480
The Lost Decade, returning to the fight for better schools

587
00:41:26,599 --> 00:41:29,360
in America. You've been listening to another edition of The

588
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,119
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at

589
00:41:33,119 --> 00:41:36,360
the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,

590
00:41:36,599 --> 00:41:39,599
stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the frame