The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

00:00:00.000 So there's a geographic monopoly and there's a state mandated monopoly because you have to send

00:00:05.320 your kids to school and then there's a teacher certification monopoly. And that trickles down

00:00:10.340 from the university level into the K-12 system. The findings were less pregnancy, less crime and

00:00:15.840 higher probability of graduating. I'd also say on the teenage pregnancy thing we found a reduction

00:00:20.560 in crime but also a 38% reduction in paternity disputes which could be caused by out-of-wedlock

00:00:26.360 births or teenage pregnancies. Another separate study in New York City was a charter school

00:00:31.120 experiment. They found that winning a lottery to go to a charter school in New York City

00:00:35.120 decreased the likelihood of crime for male students by 100%. Republicans don't have a

00:00:41.300 hope in hell of ever winning the culture war if they allow faculties of education to maintain

00:00:46.480 their hammerlock on teacher certification. Everything else, as far as I'm concerned,

00:00:50.460 it's blowing in the wind. And if Democrats are smart, the way that we can get towards

00:00:54.660 bipartisanship on school choice is through

00:00:57.440 Hello, everybody. I'm speaking today to Dr. Corey D'Angelis.

00:01:18.500 He has a PhD in education policy, which under normal circumstances wouldn't necessarily be

00:01:26.600 a good thing. But he graduated from the Department of Educational Reform at the University of Arkansas

00:01:33.180 and that's one of the rare schools, maybe the singular schools, that isn't terribly bloody

00:01:40.300 Marxist in its fundamental orientation with a smattering of incompetence thrown in there

00:01:45.740 just for good measure. I've been following Dr. D'Angelis, Corey, on X for a good long time.

00:01:55.480 He's one of these one-man wrecking balls, one-person wrecking balls like Leila Micklewaite,

00:02:00.220 who's fighting the good fight against Pornhub, and Robbie Starbuck, who's a complete bloody army

00:02:06.680 in relationship to calling corporations out for their foolishness of their DEI policies.

00:02:12.880 And Corey's been distributing the word in relationship to school choice. And school choice

00:02:22.580 is a matter that's bigger than you might think, even though it has become quite a hot political

00:02:29.020 issue. Because the school system, the public school system, is a failure in many ways. It's

00:02:36.860 extraordinarily expensive. It's expansive. And it does an absolutely dismal job of what it should

00:02:42.740 be doing, which is educating children, at least teaching them to read, let's say, a bare minimal

00:02:47.760 standard of literacy. And although it turns out to be quite effective as a propaganda machine,

00:02:54.020 there's a variety of reasons that it's rotten to the core. But the fact that it's a monopoly

00:02:58.980 is definitely one of them. And we delved into that topic in great detail. If you're a parent

00:03:05.580 and you're concerned about your children's future, if you're concerned about your rights as a parent,

00:03:10.500 if you want to have the option to find an educational institution of high quality so that you can give

00:03:16.880 your children the start they need in life and also to protect them against a substantial amount of

00:03:22.760 ideological warping, then the issue of school choice should be something that's paramount in your

00:03:28.840 attention, as it has become for many people in the United States. In any case, we delved into the

00:03:37.340 rationale for school choice from the free market and libertarian perspective, but also from the

00:03:44.300 perspective of parents' rights. I suppose a cardinal question of our time is, well, just whose

00:03:50.480 children are they? And I think the right answer to that question is, children should be watched

00:03:57.140 over by those who have their best interests most firmly at heart, and that's inevitably going to be

00:04:04.280 parents. And so it's in this service of children that parents have the right to determine the

00:04:11.100 educational pathway that they can pursue. And even though parents might not be able to do that on their

00:04:17.320 own, because educating children is a difficult job, they're certainly in the best position to make

00:04:23.020 intelligent choices about the direction to take if those choices are available to them. And so Corey's

00:04:29.020 been working very hard on making that possibility a reality for parents. And so that's what we talked

00:04:36.760 about today. Well, Dr. D'Angelis, hey, I got to make sure I'm pronouncing that exactly right. Am I

00:04:43.160 pronouncing that exactly right? Yeah, D'Angelis like Los Angeles, but I'm not a real doctor. I'm more

00:04:47.660 like a Jill Biden doctor. I got a PhD in education policy. Oh, yes. Where from? University of Arkansas.

00:04:54.760 I see. When did you get that? Pretty recently, actually. Well, I'm getting older now. It's 2018 or

00:05:00.700 so. I got the PhD. And I studied school choice policy. How come you didn't get brainwashed?

00:05:05.340 I didn't. It was actually the Department of Education Reform. So 99% of education PhDs are Marxist

00:05:12.060 institutions. Yes. This one was housed in the College of Education, but not a lot of people

00:05:16.460 liked us there because it was the Department of Education Reform. Just the very name of the

00:05:21.880 department imply that we're trying to shake things up to try to improve the education. You said 99%

00:05:27.100 of education PhDs are Marxists. I think it's higher than that. 99.5%. Yeah, definitely. And the rest of

00:05:33.980 them are socialists. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so how did that institution come to exist and why does it

00:05:39.980 still exist? I think it originally was funded by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

00:05:46.220 And it still exists. There's professors there. My advisor is named Patrick Wolfe. And the Journal of

00:05:54.080 School Choice is actually housed in that department. And Patrick Wolfe did a lot of the early evaluations

00:05:59.440 of voucher programs. Like in D.C., for example, they were able to use random lottery to determine the

00:06:05.120 different outcomes for kids in the public schools versus the private schools. Much like a medical

00:06:10.580 trial, you do the placebo for the kids who lose the lottery, which is the public school system,

00:06:16.200 business as usual. If you win the lottery to get a voucher to go to a private school. Wolfe's

00:06:20.480 evaluation, for example, in 2013 found about a 30% increase in the likelihood of graduating from high

00:06:26.620 school from getting more educational opportunities through the voucher. And you can say-

00:06:30.620 That was random?

00:06:31.740 Yeah, randomized control trial. So you can say with a big enough sample with certainty

00:06:35.460 that this is not because of the family characteristic of the student. It's not because of the student's

00:06:40.100 racial background or their income. It's because of them getting a better opportunity to go to a

00:06:46.420 better school. And so I did that kind of research when I started. My first study was actually with

00:06:51.080 Dr. Wolfe. And we found that the Milwaukee voucher program that started in 1990,

00:06:56.700 we found a huge reduction in crime later on in life. So it shouldn't be very surprising. You're

00:07:03.860 more likely to graduate high school.

00:07:04.720 Independent of graduation rates?

00:07:05.840 We didn't control for graduation, but it's probably closely linked. If you're more likely to graduate,

00:07:10.680 you're probably going to be more likely to get a job, less likely to be involved with the criminal

00:07:14.540 justice system.

00:07:15.640 Yeah. Oh, well, okay. Let's back up and do a big picture overview. You should perhaps let everybody

00:07:22.420 know. Well, two things. You've authored or co-authored two relatively recent books, right?

00:07:28.860 One of these, this is The Parent Revolution. And that's this year's 20-

00:07:33.220 2024.

00:07:34.040 2024. Wow. So essentially this year.

00:07:36.460 Pretty recent.

00:07:37.120 Yeah. And then there was another one that you co-authored. What's the title of that?

00:07:40.840 Mediocrity, right?

00:07:41.920 Right.

00:07:42.140 40 Ways Government Schools Are Failing Today's Students. And it was on the 40th anniversary of

00:07:46.840 the Nation at Risk Report, which came out, which basically said that, look, our outcomes are

00:07:52.860 horrendous and things haven't gotten any better since then. In some cases, they've gotten worse

00:07:56.320 and we spend a lot more money than we did back then.

00:07:58.920 Well, that's better, at least for the people who are getting the money.

00:08:01.940 We spend about $20,000 per student per year now, which is about 52% higher than average private

00:08:09.360 school tuition in this country. That spending in the government schools has increased by about

00:08:13.860 164% inflation adjusted since 1970. Have the outcomes gotten 164% better? No, obviously not.

00:08:22.720 But it's because they're not focusing on math and reading. They're focusing on gender ideology and

00:08:27.440 critical race theory in the schools. And if you're focusing on those things and teaching kids to hate

00:08:32.620 your country, it shouldn't surprise us that the academic outcomes aren't getting any better.

00:08:37.980 Yeah. So why don't you explain exactly what problem you are attempting to address? How would

00:08:46.760 you characterize your... Because you're an interesting person because lots of people are focusing on

00:08:53.360 the dismal plight of the schools, let's say, and their dreadful expensiveness. You know, 50% of

00:08:59.360 US state budgets are spent on K-312 education, right? 50%. So that means essentially that the

00:09:07.460 teacher unions have a hammerlock on 50% of the state budgets. And it's worse than that. It means

00:09:14.040 that the faculties of education, we can talk about them in some detail, because they have a monopoly on

00:09:20.900 teacher certification, basically have their... What would you say? Their status is subsidized by half the

00:09:27.420 money that Americans spend at the state level, right? And it's the only way they can survive,

00:09:32.560 because I don't know if there's a more dismal faculty than the faculties of education.

00:09:38.140 Social work might compete.

00:09:39.880 They have the lowest scores on all the SATs and other academic credentials. And they also have a

00:09:46.680 monopoly, a geographic monopoly, when it comes to the K-12 government school system, where in most

00:09:53.180 places in America, you live where you live, and you're assigned to a school just based on your

00:09:57.960 address, which gives them no incentive to spend additional dollars wisely. I mean, just imagine if

00:10:03.540 you had to shop at a government grocery store that you were assigned to based on where you lived, and

00:10:07.860 they had empty shelves, no food. And when they did have food, imagine if you got food poisoning where

00:10:12.480 it was expired. And if you wanted to go somewhere else, they'd tell you to go complain to the grocery

00:10:16.800 board who wouldn't listen to you, and would try to cut off your mic, which is what happens with the

00:10:21.080 school boards right now. And if you had to just move houses to get access to a better grocery store,

00:10:26.680 that would make zero sense. Or if you had to pay twice, basically once through taxes for the

00:10:31.900 government grocery store you're not using, and then again, out of pocket for a grocery store that

00:10:36.360 actually provided you with healthy food, that's what we have with the government school system today.

00:10:41.940 You cannot go somewhere else unless you pay twice, essentially. And low-income families are

00:10:46.180 basically just screwed in the worst failure factories that we call public schools today.

00:10:50.660 In places like Chicago, they have like 33 public schools with 0% math proficiency rates.

00:10:57.900 And they spend about $30,000 per kid. And guess what? Their teacher's union boss,

00:11:02.980 Stacey Davis Gates, she sends her own kid to a private school. She knows better than anybody else

00:11:06.860 that their schools are not working for kids. And that's the main problem that I see. And everything

00:11:12.860 else trickles out from that monopoly issue. They don't have an incentive.

00:11:18.300 So there's a number of different monopolies operating that you just described. There's

00:11:22.380 geographic monopoly, right? And that's a good analogy. So there's no competition.

00:11:28.580 The problem with no competition is that when there's no choice, there's no real incentive to

00:11:34.320 do the hard work that produces improvement. And there's actually no possibility even for comparison

00:11:40.080 between different systems, right? So without competition, you don't have any possibility of

00:11:45.580 really head-to-head evaluation, right? And no necessary incentive for innovation.

00:11:53.200 So there's a geographic monopoly, which you just described. You send your kids to the school that's

00:11:58.220 in your location, and that's that. And then there's a state-mandated monopoly, because you have to send

00:12:04.380 your kids to school. And then there's a teacher certification monopoly. So we actually...

00:12:09.280 And that trickles down from the university level into the K-12 system.

00:12:13.000 Right, right. Okay. And now, so you've fundamentally concentrated, and does this include your doctoral

00:12:19.160 research? You've fundamentally concentrated on the issue of choice per se. And were you interested

00:12:25.120 in choice as an economist might be interested in choice? Or why were you interested in the issue of

00:12:31.920 choice? Yeah, I did my bachelor's and master's in economics. Oh, yeah.

00:12:33.820 And I had a professor there. John Merrifield was his name. He's now a retired professor. But he was

00:12:38.800 probably the only free market professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio that I knew of.

00:12:42.620 And I had him, I took all of his classes. He was my advisor. He was affiliated with the Friedman

00:12:46.900 Foundation at the time, which is now called EdChoice, which is a school choice advocacy group.

00:12:51.340 And he was the one who directed me or suggested to me at least three different times,

00:12:56.040 hey, you should probably do this PhD program. And I ultimately took his advice, and I'm glad that I

00:13:02.500 did. And that's how I look at the school system. I see it as one of the most socialist institutions

00:13:07.900 that we have in America today, where the government operates the means of production,

00:13:12.580 the schools that you have, whether you want to call it the local, state, or federal government,

00:13:16.300 but they all have their hands into the government school system. And taxpayers have to fund it.

00:13:22.360 And there's a monopoly. There's no competition.

00:13:24.620 There's also kickbacks. What's the percentage of Democrat financial support from teachers unions

00:13:30.780 across the U.S.? It's something that's in the high 90s, if I remember correctly.

00:13:33.880 99.9% of Randy Weingarten's union. She's the head of the American Federation of Teachers. She lobbied

00:13:40.220 the CDC to make it more difficult to reopen schools during COVID. That's another story altogether.

00:13:45.460 They knew they could hold children's education hostage to get billions of dollars in ransom

00:13:50.380 payments and so-called COVID relief that started in 2020, because they knew if they were closed,

00:13:56.180 they could say, we need more money because we're closed. It's the same story as we see with the

00:14:00.300 test scores. They say, we're failing because we need more money. It's the definition of insanity,

00:14:05.480 doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

00:14:08.880 They're not doing the same thing because they keep ramping up the mounted costs.

00:14:13.120 Yeah.

00:14:13.280 Right. So, it's worse than the same thing.

00:14:15.300 Their same thing is always give us more money, and it never improves anything.

00:14:20.280 Smaller classes, more money.

00:14:21.840 Yes. And in every other industry, if you think about what smaller class sizes actually means,

00:14:26.780 that means lower units of production output for the same inputs.

00:14:31.720 Yeah.

00:14:32.540 Everywhere else, you increase your production over time with more technology.

00:14:35.860 Well, in principle, you'd assume that much of the heavy lifting could have been done by computational

00:14:42.120 technology. And I think that's particularly true if it was applied properly for...

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00:15:51.300 You know, when you're teaching children basic skills, likely reading is the best example of this.

00:15:59.480 So when children learn to read, contrary to the whole word theorists, who are also a product of the faculties of education and devastated literacy in their theoretical stupidity.

00:16:12.000 So English obviously is a phonetic language, and the way you learn to read is that you learn to associate sounds with letters.

00:16:21.300 And that's actually a rather dull process.

00:16:25.860 There's nothing intrinsically, not, there's little that's intrinsically interesting about that.

00:16:30.020 Some kids will treat it like a puzzle.

00:16:32.540 Some children can associate letters with sounds very rapidly, and some take much more practice.

00:16:40.120 That's IQ dependent fundamentally, although it's, there are other contributing factors.

00:16:44.820 You can have high IQ kids with dyslexia, but it's basically an IQ phenomenon.

00:16:49.380 But what you want to do with little kids is continual exposure and practice, because they need to produce little neural circuits that recognize each letter,

00:17:01.100 and that use the conjunction between the visual system and the auditory system in the brain to tag each letter with a sound.

00:17:08.400 Letters first, two letter combinations, three letters, small words.

00:17:12.640 Then as you develop expertise, phrases, you get in a single glance, and maybe even sentences if you start to become stunningly proficient.

00:17:20.380 Computers are unbelievably good at the first part of that, right, because they're incredibly patient, and they can give you immediate feedback.

00:17:29.440 And so, at least in principle, it would be possible to augment teachers with appropriate technology and increase their efficiency, and we've seen none of that, right?

00:17:38.640 None of that.

00:17:39.340 None of that.

00:18:09.340 It's those elected officials.

00:18:10.440 It's special interest politics at its worst.

00:18:12.520 They also influenced them to close the schools as long as possible.

00:18:15.580 You had the Chicago Teachers Union tweet out during COVID that the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.

00:18:25.240 Yeah, but everything is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny, you know.

00:18:29.480 They threw every buzzword at the wall.

00:18:31.580 Yeah, every buzzword.

00:18:32.260 Genderism, you know.

00:18:34.360 And I'm glad that that's not working anymore, and I think that unions,

00:18:37.860 actually stepped on a rake.

00:18:40.080 They overplayed their hand

00:18:41.380 during the COVID era

00:18:42.460 and that showed families

00:18:43.940 what the heck was happening

00:18:44.920 in the classroom.

00:18:45.600 We wouldn't have known

00:18:46.380 a lot of this Marxism

00:18:47.460 was in the government-run schools.

00:18:48.760 Maybe some families

00:18:49.500 saw it here and there,

00:18:50.620 but for the first time ever

00:18:52.040 as a country,

00:18:52.900 we were able to,

00:18:53.880 at large scale,

00:18:55.240 get a peek

00:18:55.840 into some of the

00:18:56.880 far-left lunatics

00:18:58.760 who are running

00:18:59.360 the government-run school system

00:19:00.880 through remote learning,

00:19:02.560 which, let's be real,

00:19:03.700 we should have just called it

00:19:04.480 remotely learning.

00:19:05.460 There wasn't a lot of learning

00:19:06.400 going on,

00:19:07.180 but families have been

00:19:08.680 mobilized more than

00:19:09.580 they've ever been before

00:19:10.660 and since COVID,

00:19:13.280 we've had 14 states now,

00:19:15.620 all controlled by

00:19:16.340 Republican legislatures,

00:19:18.140 go all in on school choice.

00:19:19.740 Arizona's one of them,

00:19:20.740 one of the first, actually,

00:19:21.960 to allow families

00:19:23.060 to take that money

00:19:24.080 that would have gone

00:19:24.860 to their government school

00:19:25.980 to a private or charter school

00:19:27.820 or homeschool.

00:19:28.080 Okay, so let's take apart

00:19:29.400 this issue of choice

00:19:30.560 because it would be easy

00:19:32.160 to assume that you're

00:19:33.500 an advocate

00:19:34.480 of something approximating

00:19:36.680 parental freedom, right?

00:19:38.520 That parents have the right

00:19:39.820 to choose, let's say,

00:19:40.920 the value set

00:19:41.800 that defines the education

00:19:45.340 of their children,

00:19:46.000 but it sounds to me more

00:19:47.240 that your primary concern

00:19:50.300 wasn't so much

00:19:51.140 the freedom of parents

00:19:52.280 to choose

00:19:52.960 as it was

00:19:53.780 your observation

00:19:55.040 of the fact that

00:19:56.060 in the absence

00:19:57.560 of competition,

00:19:58.800 so in the presence

00:19:59.540 of a monopoly,

00:20:00.800 particularly a government-run monopoly,

00:20:02.420 the probability

00:20:03.540 of low quality

00:20:04.580 is 100%.

00:20:05.600 Is that...

00:20:06.160 It's both of those things.

00:20:07.260 I think it's actually

00:20:08.420 more so than the outcomes.

00:20:10.040 It's more so about

00:20:10.820 parental rights

00:20:11.660 and who gets to direct

00:20:13.080 the upbringing

00:20:13.640 of their children.

00:20:14.520 I got into this

00:20:15.120 as a libertarian,

00:20:16.560 a limited government person.

00:20:18.980 Okay, so you're making

00:20:19.660 two arguments.

00:20:20.700 One is...

00:20:21.160 It's an outcome-based

00:20:22.120 and also values as well.

00:20:24.560 Values as well.

00:20:25.380 Whose children are they?

00:20:26.200 They're not

00:20:26.460 the government's kids.

00:20:27.920 They're not

00:20:28.240 the teachers' union's kids,

00:20:29.580 even though they just posted recently

00:20:31.560 right before we came here

00:20:33.020 that we've got to protect our kids.

00:20:35.240 They always use language

00:20:35.980 of ownership of...

00:20:37.240 It's a communist ideology

00:20:38.840 and I think that's what woke up

00:20:40.720 so many people

00:20:41.480 with recent elections too.

00:20:42.860 You look at the Trump

00:20:43.500 versus Harris election,

00:20:45.680 Republicans typically

00:20:46.620 don't do well on education

00:20:47.880 because they don't,

00:20:48.660 you know,

00:20:48.960 throw more money

00:20:50.080 at the problem.

00:20:51.420 But right before the election,

00:20:53.620 there were two

00:20:54.260 nationally representative

00:20:55.760 surveys by Atlas Intel,

00:20:57.600 which was the most accurate

00:20:58.520 pollster in 2020

00:20:59.560 and they correctly predicted

00:21:01.200 Trump winning

00:21:01.860 all the swing states

00:21:02.700 in 2024.

00:21:04.080 They both found that Trump

00:21:05.500 was beating Kamala Harris

00:21:06.720 on education

00:21:07.440 and I think that's because

00:21:08.700 it's changed

00:21:09.380 from a conversation

00:21:10.300 about who's going to

00:21:11.500 throw more money

00:21:12.000 at the problem

00:21:12.540 to who's going to

00:21:13.520 respect my right

00:21:14.200 as a parent

00:21:14.760 and Trump won

00:21:15.640 the parent vote

00:21:16.220 by nine points too.

00:21:17.980 Mm-hmm.

00:21:18.520 Mm-hmm.

00:21:19.340 All right.

00:21:20.160 So,

00:21:21.180 back to the issue of,

00:21:24.340 let's see,

00:21:24.920 we've covered

00:21:25.580 school choice

00:21:27.600 on an economic grounds.

00:21:28.880 we've covered

00:21:29.460 school choice

00:21:30.560 on a parent's right

00:21:32.000 ground.

00:21:33.080 The next issue

00:21:34.760 might be,

00:21:36.760 let's talk a little bit

00:21:37.760 about the Marxist element.

00:21:39.520 Okay,

00:21:39.780 so I'd like to focus

00:21:41.880 for a moment

00:21:42.460 on the faculties

00:21:44.340 of education.

00:21:45.440 Okay,

00:21:45.760 as I intimated earlier,

00:21:48.040 I don't think

00:21:48.980 there is,

00:21:49.720 there is a more corrupt

00:21:51.500 and intellectually

00:21:52.840 bankrupt faculty

00:21:54.560 than the faculties

00:21:55.440 of education.

00:21:56.100 my experience

00:21:57.980 with faculties

00:21:58.680 of education

00:21:59.300 as a psychologist

00:22:00.680 is that

00:22:01.360 the worst

00:22:02.380 of all psychological

00:22:03.520 theories

00:22:04.000 are always picked up

00:22:05.320 and amplified,

00:22:06.660 magnified,

00:22:07.460 publicized

00:22:08.040 by educational

00:22:09.580 psychologists.

00:22:11.140 Okay,

00:22:11.360 so let's take that

00:22:12.160 apart a little bit.

00:22:13.320 Whole word learning

00:22:14.020 is a good example,

00:22:15.540 right?

00:22:15.860 So,

00:22:16.160 whole word learning

00:22:16.880 was predicated

00:22:17.540 on the idea

00:22:18.240 that expert readers

00:22:21.020 read words

00:22:22.440 at a glance.

00:22:23.240 they don't sound them out

00:22:24.620 or phrases even.

00:22:26.160 And so,

00:22:26.820 since the experts

00:22:27.740 do it that way,

00:22:29.060 it would be reasonable

00:22:30.760 to teach children

00:22:31.760 to do it that way

00:22:32.540 right from the beginning.

00:22:34.040 Now,

00:22:34.820 that presumes

00:22:35.680 that

00:22:36.100 experts

00:22:38.160 read

00:22:39.500 when they learn

00:22:40.840 to read

00:22:41.200 the same way

00:22:41.720 they learn.

00:22:42.320 They read as experts,

00:22:43.780 which is a completely

00:22:44.440 preposterous idea

00:22:45.480 neurologically,

00:22:46.300 but that didn't seem

00:22:46.980 to occur to any of the people

00:22:48.000 who are pushing it.

00:22:49.380 And the introduction

00:22:50.220 of whole word reading,

00:22:51.700 if I remember correctly,

00:22:52.660 into the California

00:22:53.400 school system,

00:22:54.880 knocked California

00:22:55.800 from number one

00:22:56.700 in childhood literacy

00:22:57.600 to number 50,

00:22:58.900 if I remember that correctly.

00:23:00.400 Okay,

00:23:00.700 so whole word learning

00:23:01.820 has been a complete

00:23:02.440 bloody disaster,

00:23:03.460 but it's still often utilized.

00:23:04.980 And then there's

00:23:05.540 the self-esteem training.

00:23:07.880 There's another terrible idea

00:23:09.180 from psychology.

00:23:10.200 First of all,

00:23:10.680 the idea that there is

00:23:11.740 such a thing

00:23:12.400 as self-esteem.

00:23:13.880 So,

00:23:14.080 you can model self-esteem

00:23:15.600 with extroversion

00:23:16.920 and neuroticism.

00:23:18.440 So,

00:23:18.660 people with

00:23:19.180 high self-esteem

00:23:20.540 are low in neuroticism.

00:23:23.160 That's the primary issue.

00:23:24.380 So,

00:23:24.560 they are less likely

00:23:25.820 to feel negative emotion

00:23:26.960 and that's temperamental trait.

00:23:28.640 Maybe there's some

00:23:29.260 environmental contribution,

00:23:30.520 but not a lot.

00:23:31.480 And then,

00:23:32.280 they're more likely

00:23:33.020 to be extroverted

00:23:33.740 because that's

00:23:34.260 positive emotion.

00:23:35.280 And so,

00:23:36.200 if you're low

00:23:37.220 in self-esteem,

00:23:38.480 you tend to feel

00:23:39.080 a lot of negative emotion,

00:23:40.540 particularly in women.

00:23:41.680 Negative emotion

00:23:42.340 is self-directed.

00:23:43.900 So,

00:23:44.500 women with

00:23:44.940 high negative emotion

00:23:45.840 have a lot of

00:23:46.720 bodily concerns,

00:23:47.640 for example.

00:23:48.220 They're self-conscious,

00:23:49.840 right?

00:23:50.420 And that's,

00:23:51.240 that's not,

00:23:52.520 it's not an attitude,

00:23:53.900 it's not a cognitive set,

00:23:55.320 it's a temperamental feature.

00:23:57.460 And the evidence

00:23:58.840 that you can do

00:23:59.740 something about that

00:24:00.760 with something like

00:24:01.460 self-esteem training,

00:24:03.000 well,

00:24:03.600 not only is it thin,

00:24:05.060 to say the least,

00:24:06.260 there's reasonable evidence

00:24:07.640 to presume that

00:24:08.640 teaching children

00:24:09.860 to concentrate

00:24:10.600 on their emotional experience

00:24:12.380 actually makes them worse.

00:24:13.900 So,

00:24:15.260 the psychologists

00:24:16.620 who laid out

00:24:17.320 the big five

00:24:18.160 personality template

00:24:20.120 using statistics

00:24:21.400 to begin with,

00:24:22.800 the most common

00:24:24.380 measure

00:24:25.820 is the Neo-PIR

00:24:27.180 and

00:24:28.140 its measure

00:24:29.560 of neuroticism,

00:24:30.940 negative emotion,

00:24:32.160 has facets.

00:24:33.860 One facet

00:24:34.800 is literally

00:24:35.800 self-consciousness.

00:24:38.380 So,

00:24:39.180 thinking about yourself

00:24:40.420 and being miserable

00:24:41.360 are so

00:24:42.360 tightly associated

00:24:43.820 that you can't

00:24:45.020 distinguish them

00:24:45.740 statistically.

00:24:46.800 So,

00:24:47.040 if you get children

00:24:47.620 to dwell on their

00:24:48.800 negative emotional

00:24:49.980 experiences,

00:24:51.400 then,

00:24:52.540 then you tend

00:24:55.400 to exacerbate

00:24:56.260 the problem.

00:24:56.800 Yeah,

00:24:57.040 exactly.

00:24:57.540 Yeah,

00:24:57.760 so,

00:24:58.800 so anyways,

00:24:59.600 you can't,

00:25:00.080 you can't use

00:25:00.840 self-esteem training

00:25:02.040 to...

00:25:02.660 So,

00:25:02.920 when we started

00:25:03.900 seeing the videos

00:25:04.720 from Libs of TikTok

00:25:05.560 and other

00:25:06.080 were otherwise

00:25:06.860 with critical race

00:25:07.900 theory in the classroom

00:25:08.900 and teachers

00:25:09.540 bragging about

00:25:10.880 how they were

00:25:11.400 injecting gender

00:25:12.320 ideology into the

00:25:13.320 schools,

00:25:13.880 a lot of people

00:25:14.780 would ask me

00:25:15.360 how prevalent

00:25:16.160 is this stuff

00:25:16.860 anyway?

00:25:17.640 And,

00:25:17.980 you know,

00:25:18.220 it's like I'm

00:25:18.560 seeing it all the

00:25:19.160 time and parents

00:25:19.740 are complaining

00:25:20.520 about it at the

00:25:21.060 school boards

00:25:21.700 where they were

00:25:22.680 later labeled

00:25:23.800 as domestic

00:25:24.320 terrorists for doing

00:25:25.340 so and they had

00:25:26.100 their mics cut off.

00:25:26.920 but there was

00:25:28.360 a nationally

00:25:28.740 representative survey

00:25:29.920 that just came out

00:25:31.200 earlier this year

00:25:32.340 in January

00:25:33.080 that found

00:25:34.380 that 36%

00:25:36.120 of kids

00:25:37.180 in high school

00:25:38.320 reported

00:25:38.920 that their teacher

00:25:40.640 often or almost

00:25:42.180 daily

00:25:42.940 said that

00:25:44.000 America is a

00:25:45.300 fundamentally racist

00:25:46.480 country.

00:25:47.780 And there were a lot

00:25:48.140 of other findings

00:25:48.760 in that survey

00:25:49.440 as well as by

00:25:50.060 Education Next

00:25:51.080 and that was the

00:25:52.380 first that I saw

00:25:53.080 that this is actually

00:25:53.920 a wide-scale

00:25:54.840 phenomenon.

00:25:55.600 My first reaction...

00:25:56.440 It's the norm.

00:25:57.580 Yeah.

00:25:57.940 When people...

00:25:58.860 Like,

00:25:59.280 I didn't have,

00:25:59.920 like,

00:25:59.980 a data point

00:26:00.620 to point to.

00:26:01.240 And I had the sense...

00:26:02.180 When was this?

00:26:02.860 When did you figure this out?

00:26:03.840 This survey was

00:26:04.260 January this year.

00:26:05.280 This just happened.

00:26:05.720 Oh, oh, oh.

00:26:06.660 So you didn't realize

00:26:07.580 how widespread it was

00:26:08.520 until that survey.

00:26:09.560 And so I saw...

00:26:10.060 You know,

00:26:10.440 because I get asked

00:26:11.260 this all the time,

00:26:12.020 like,

00:26:12.560 Corey,

00:26:12.860 is it really a big problem?

00:26:14.040 And I'd say,

00:26:14.760 well,

00:26:14.900 we're hearing about it

00:26:15.780 all the time.

00:26:16.340 If it's a big problem

00:26:17.500 for this parent,

00:26:18.180 then this is a big

00:26:19.200 enough deal

00:26:19.860 for us to change

00:26:21.160 something, right?

00:26:22.180 If that parent

00:26:23.060 is unhappy,

00:26:23.640 they should have a choice

00:26:26.920 of the time.

00:26:27.440 Well,

00:26:27.620 now we know

00:26:28.300 it's not just 1%

00:26:29.440 of the time.

00:26:30.140 It's...

00:26:30.320 It's all the time.

00:26:31.440 It's everywhere.

00:26:32.980 And...

00:26:33.480 Yeah,

00:26:33.640 well,

00:26:33.840 conceptualizing it

00:26:34.800 as a problem

00:26:35.520 in some sense

00:26:36.740 is misleading

00:26:37.420 because a problem

00:26:39.240 implies

00:26:40.480 that there's

00:26:41.520 a normal course

00:26:42.380 of events

00:26:43.040 and some aberrations.

00:26:44.900 That's just not the case.

00:26:46.860 The entire education system,

00:26:49.560 and this is a consequence

00:26:50.440 of the operation

00:26:51.320 of the faculties

00:26:52.020 of education,

00:26:52.820 is radically

00:26:54.820 resentfully leftist

00:26:57.480 at its core.

00:26:59.740 The aberration

00:27:00.500 is any learning

00:27:02.040 that happens

00:27:02.680 outside of that philosophy.

00:27:04.280 And so,

00:27:04.940 I want to tell you

00:27:05.840 about a study we did

00:27:06.820 because this is relevant

00:27:07.840 to the faculties

00:27:08.620 of education.

00:27:09.920 So,

00:27:11.300 I did this study

00:27:12.140 with a student of mine,

00:27:14.560 Christine Brophy,

00:27:16.740 master's student.

00:27:17.800 We were going to

00:27:18.240 follow up on it,

00:27:18.960 but my academic career

00:27:20.000 exploded

00:27:20.580 shortly thereafter.

00:27:22.820 But it was a good study.

00:27:24.360 The first thing

00:27:24.900 we wanted to do

00:27:25.660 was to assess

00:27:26.820 how political beliefs

00:27:27.820 clump together.

00:27:29.220 You can do that

00:27:29.880 statistically

00:27:30.500 by looking at

00:27:31.500 the,

00:27:32.880 you can say,

00:27:33.780 imagine you ask

00:27:34.560 a large number

00:27:35.440 of people

00:27:35.800 a large number

00:27:36.480 of questions.

00:27:37.580 You can see

00:27:38.420 across people

00:27:41.640 whether answering

00:27:42.880 one question

00:27:43.580 predicts

00:27:44.100 in a given direction

00:27:45.200 predicts answering

00:27:45.900 another question

00:27:46.600 in a given direction.

00:27:47.780 So,

00:27:48.020 then you can

00:27:48.380 clump the questions.

00:27:49.340 And so,

00:27:49.620 you can analyze

00:27:50.920 how belief statement

00:27:52.720 and aggregate.

00:27:54.220 So,

00:27:54.460 the first question

00:27:55.180 we wanted to ask,

00:27:56.500 answer,

00:27:57.300 was,

00:27:58.900 was there

00:27:59.680 a coherent set

00:28:01.160 of politically correct

00:28:02.600 political beliefs?

00:28:04.020 Because back

00:28:04.940 in 2015,

00:28:06.120 the idea

00:28:06.780 of political correctness,

00:28:08.220 that there was

00:28:08.920 a coherent body

00:28:09.780 of beliefs,

00:28:10.720 was parodied

00:28:12.200 or pilloried

00:28:12.840 as a right-wing

00:28:13.520 conspiracy theory,

00:28:14.680 which,

00:28:15.360 you know,

00:28:15.640 was on the face

00:28:16.640 of an absurd,

00:28:17.340 but it still needed

00:28:18.180 to be demonstrated.

00:28:18.860 We actually found

00:28:19.900 that there was

00:28:20.320 two forms

00:28:21.140 of politically

00:28:22.160 correct belief systems.

00:28:24.380 One was

00:28:25.080 more like

00:28:26.200 classic

00:28:27.020 left-wing liberalism,

00:28:29.140 right?

00:28:29.420 But there was

00:28:30.020 a smaller group

00:28:31.480 of left-wing

00:28:32.700 totalitarians,

00:28:33.820 authoritarians.

00:28:34.760 And so,

00:28:35.260 those were people

00:28:35.900 who adopted

00:28:37.100 progressive policies,

00:28:39.040 so-called progressive

00:28:39.880 policies,

00:28:40.320 but were also

00:28:41.000 willing to implement

00:28:41.800 them with force,

00:28:43.500 essentially.

00:28:44.160 So,

00:28:44.360 there was a

00:28:44.740 tyrannical aspect

00:28:45.600 to it.

00:28:46.360 Okay,

00:28:46.620 so once you

00:28:47.180 establish that

00:28:48.600 these groups

00:28:49.540 of beliefs exist,

00:28:51.200 you can look at

00:28:52.400 the correlates

00:28:53.440 or the predictors,

00:28:54.480 right?

00:28:54.820 So,

00:28:55.080 there's a standard

00:28:56.660 set of features

00:28:58.100 that you would

00:28:58.720 look for in a

00:28:59.700 psychological study.

00:29:00.780 You know this,

00:29:01.640 undoubtedly.

00:29:02.380 If you're trying

00:29:03.080 to predict behavior,

00:29:04.200 one of them would be

00:29:04.820 general cognitive ability,

00:29:06.440 which is essentially

00:29:07.620 IQ,

00:29:08.260 which is essentially

00:29:08.980 something like

00:29:09.680 rate of learning,

00:29:11.020 and temperament,

00:29:13.500 big five temperament,

00:29:14.560 and then sex,

00:29:15.940 and then...

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00:30:21.080 Environmental history.

00:30:22.620 And so we used

00:30:23.400 those variables

00:30:24.180 and we found that

00:30:25.360 the best predictor

00:30:27.060 of being a politically

00:30:27.960 correct authoritarian,

00:30:29.820 that's radical

00:30:30.680 left-wing

00:30:31.380 authoritarian attitude,

00:30:33.440 was low

00:30:34.420 verbal IQ.

00:30:36.180 right?

00:30:37.540 So you can imagine

00:30:39.080 that people will default

00:30:40.440 to a particular kind

00:30:41.880 of simple-minded worldview

00:30:43.280 if they can't think

00:30:45.020 critically very well.

00:30:46.380 It was a very powerful predictor.

00:30:47.980 It was the major predictor

00:30:49.460 by a lot.

00:30:50.380 It was a better predictor

00:30:51.520 than the relationship

00:30:52.340 between general cognitive

00:30:54.340 ability and grades.

00:30:55.940 So you're less likely

00:30:56.820 to tolerate others' beliefs

00:30:58.480 and think of them

00:30:59.380 as a person.

00:31:01.140 No, I don't think

00:31:01.880 it's tolerance.

00:31:02.800 No, I don't think

00:31:03.380 it's that.

00:31:03.800 I think what it is

00:31:04.800 is preference

00:31:05.440 for a maximally

00:31:06.500 simple explanation.

00:31:08.680 Yeah, because you

00:31:09.360 can't explain,

00:31:10.160 well, maybe they have

00:31:10.880 good motivations

00:31:11.560 behind what they're thinking

00:31:13.080 because they can't

00:31:14.180 come up with those

00:31:14.780 alternative theories.

00:31:15.000 Well, you also can't

00:31:16.140 credit, you can't

00:31:17.120 like America

00:31:18.360 is a racist society.

00:31:20.020 All inequalities

00:31:20.840 are a consequence

00:31:21.620 of systemic oppression.

00:31:23.800 Well, that's one sentence.

00:31:25.780 It's one sentence.

00:31:26.580 Yes, they can't think

00:31:27.500 beyond that.

00:31:27.900 And now you have an explanation

00:31:28.520 for the whole world.

00:31:29.860 Well, that's attractive.

00:31:30.940 Like we like belief,

00:31:32.020 people like belief systems

00:31:33.320 that collapse

00:31:34.040 into something simple.

00:31:35.520 Okay, there were

00:31:36.060 other predictors.

00:31:37.340 Okay, being female.

00:31:39.360 Yep.

00:31:40.300 Having a feminine temperament.

00:31:42.240 That was an additional predictor

00:31:43.780 over and above being female.

00:31:44.920 And that was after controlling for...

00:31:46.680 This is controlling

00:31:47.420 for intelligence

00:31:48.620 and being female.

00:31:50.420 The next was having

00:31:51.080 a feminine temperament.

00:31:52.140 Agreeableness in particular.

00:31:53.520 Trait agreeableness.

00:31:54.660 Empathy, essentially.

00:31:56.700 And the next predictor

00:31:57.780 was ever having taken

00:31:59.120 even one politically correct course.

00:32:02.300 Okay, so now

00:32:02.980 why am I telling you this?

00:32:04.400 Well, partly because

00:32:05.660 it's a useful thing to know.

00:32:07.780 But the other reason is

00:32:08.920 is that

00:32:09.340 the students

00:32:11.760 in faculties of education,

00:32:13.280 as you said,

00:32:14.220 have the lowest SAT scores.

00:32:16.280 Okay, now the SAT purveyors

00:32:18.460 don't like to describe

00:32:19.880 the test

00:32:20.400 as an intelligence test,

00:32:22.300 but it's an intelligence test.

00:32:24.900 Yeah, it's correlated

00:32:26.200 at like 0.9.

00:32:27.620 It's an IQ test.

00:32:28.960 It's just not corrected for age.

00:32:30.660 So I wonder

00:32:31.120 if why there's selection

00:32:33.520 into the education,

00:32:35.420 academia

00:32:35.840 based on these predictors.

00:32:37.580 Is it because

00:32:38.500 going into the school system

00:32:40.700 is seen as an easier job

00:32:42.300 with pretty good benefits?

00:32:43.940 And so...

00:32:44.440 Well, that's a good question.

00:32:45.540 That could be...

00:32:46.100 Well, I think, first of all,

00:32:47.340 the admission criteria

00:32:48.460 are low to absent, right?

00:32:50.720 So you can get in.

00:32:52.080 Not barrier to entry.

00:32:52.900 Right.

00:32:53.220 And it's very frequently the case

00:32:54.960 that if you don't know

00:32:56.000 what you could do,

00:32:57.620 that's a degree

00:32:58.360 that will more or less

00:32:59.620 guarantee you a job.

00:33:00.920 And then the other

00:33:02.200 potential problem,

00:33:03.280 and I don't know

00:33:03.760 of any research

00:33:04.400 bearing on this specifically,

00:33:06.120 is that the security

00:33:09.260 and the holidays,

00:33:11.040 my suspicions are,

00:33:12.600 attracts people

00:33:13.400 who are lower

00:33:13.960 in conscientiousness.

00:33:15.080 And one of the best predictors,

00:33:16.660 by the way,

00:33:17.080 of teaching ability,

00:33:18.380 apart from general

00:33:19.440 cognitive ability, right,

00:33:21.140 because hopefully

00:33:21.740 you'd have smart teachers,

00:33:23.020 is conscientiousness.

00:33:24.360 Now, and conscientiousness

00:33:26.320 also predicts

00:33:27.140 conservative political leaning,

00:33:28.720 not liberal political leaning.

00:33:30.700 Right.

00:33:31.140 So you have kind of

00:33:32.440 a perfect storm

00:33:33.280 in the faculties of education

00:33:34.620 is that

00:33:35.220 their academic standards

00:33:38.520 are very low for admission,

00:33:39.960 which really matters, right?

00:33:42.000 And then

00:33:42.560 they tilt radically

00:33:44.660 to the left,

00:33:45.380 which is also something

00:33:46.360 that would be attractive

00:33:47.380 to people

00:33:47.920 who have decreased

00:33:48.920 cognitive ability.

00:33:50.400 They select

00:33:51.220 against conscientiousness

00:33:52.740 because of the work hours

00:33:53.900 and the security.

00:33:55.080 I mean,

00:33:55.360 these are all things.

00:33:56.140 I had also seen a study

00:33:57.260 that selection

00:33:57.980 into education,

00:33:59.940 you know,

00:34:00.400 degrees

00:34:00.760 was associated

00:34:02.060 with risk aversion too.

00:34:03.960 So if you know

00:34:04.600 you have a union

00:34:05.180 protecting you,

00:34:06.340 you're not going to,

00:34:06.980 you have job security,

00:34:08.480 even if it's not

00:34:09.200 the highest pay,

00:34:10.620 you're going to have

00:34:11.120 a pension when you retire,

00:34:12.940 you can't get fired

00:34:13.880 if you do a bad job,

00:34:15.820 you're not going

00:34:16.460 to get paid any less

00:34:17.320 if you're not doing

00:34:18.300 as well as the person

00:34:19.100 across the hallway.

00:34:20.120 Right.

00:34:20.340 But you said,

00:34:21.160 I believe,

00:34:21.760 I think it was

00:34:22.280 in the Parent Revolution,

00:34:23.440 I read both of your books

00:34:26.160 in the last week

00:34:27.060 and I don't,

00:34:27.960 so I don't remember

00:34:28.660 where this stat came from,

00:34:30.620 but you said

00:34:31.260 that the New York State

00:34:32.600 dispensed with

00:34:34.160 a dozen teachers

00:34:35.320 over what,

00:34:36.060 do you remember

00:34:36.480 the period of time?

00:34:37.760 Was that a 10-year period?

00:34:38.980 Was it a one-year period?

00:34:40.360 I don't recall.

00:34:40.980 Okay, well,

00:34:41.480 the fundamentals.

00:34:42.600 Yeah, it's very low,

00:34:43.740 very low.

00:34:44.280 Right, right, right.

00:34:46.500 There's virtually

00:34:47.320 no assessment

00:34:48.500 of teachers

00:34:49.220 for effectiveness,

00:34:50.440 right?

00:34:50.760 You need,

00:34:51.380 you need...

00:34:51.720 No merit pay.

00:34:52.420 So the best teachers leave.

00:34:53.540 The best teachers say,

00:34:54.280 to heck with this.

00:34:55.700 We're not,

00:34:56.100 there's a person

00:34:56.640 across the hall

00:34:57.240 showing videos all day

00:34:58.420 and they're getting

00:34:59.340 paid the same

00:34:59.880 or more than me,

00:35:01.620 but just because

00:35:02.480 they've been around

00:35:03.240 the system longer.

00:35:04.580 They reward years

00:35:05.880 of service,

00:35:06.940 not much.

00:35:07.840 And I mean,

00:35:08.420 I mentioned earlier

00:35:09.380 that spending

00:35:10.040 has gone up

00:35:10.560 by 164%

00:35:11.940 in real terms

00:35:12.620 since 1970.

00:35:14.240 Teacher salaries

00:35:14.960 on average

00:35:15.460 have actually only increased

00:35:16.720 by about 3%

00:35:17.940 in real terms.

00:35:18.640 Right, so where's

00:35:19.100 the bulk of the money going?

00:35:20.020 So I think it's also

00:35:20.520 going to pensions

00:35:21.260 and other benefits too,

00:35:22.600 but it's going

00:35:23.160 towards administrative low.

00:35:24.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:35:24.940 So the same thing

00:35:25.740 that happened

00:35:26.160 at the universities

00:35:26.920 fundamentally.

00:35:27.360 Same in healthcare.

00:35:28.740 Yeah.

00:35:29.100 Since 2000,

00:35:30.100 we have data

00:35:30.640 on this in the U.S.

00:35:32.280 And we've seen

00:35:33.200 that enrollment

00:35:33.960 for students

00:35:34.780 has increased

00:35:35.400 in this public school system

00:35:36.640 by about 5%

00:35:37.660 since 2000.

00:35:39.540 The number of teachers

00:35:40.300 in the system

00:35:40.880 has increased

00:35:41.440 about twice that rate

00:35:42.540 by about 10%.

00:35:43.660 Administrators

00:35:45.100 have increased

00:35:45.960 by about 95%.

00:35:47.760 Yeah, right.

00:35:48.300 So it's exactly

00:35:48.940 the same pattern

00:35:49.660 as in higher education.

00:35:50.940 Yeah, it's become

00:35:51.440 a jobs program

00:35:52.260 for administrators.

00:35:52.760 Yeah, well, it's a weird thing.

00:35:53.740 The administrative issue

00:35:55.120 is a very complicated one

00:35:56.580 because the problem

00:35:58.280 with the managerial strata,

00:36:01.560 let's say,

00:36:02.060 is that it's very difficult

00:36:03.320 to parameterize

00:36:06.380 the demand.

00:36:08.740 You know,

00:36:09.800 if you're in a complex system,

00:36:11.500 you can always see

00:36:12.620 that more could be done

00:36:14.040 regardless of the direction

00:36:15.420 you happen to be moving in.

00:36:17.020 And what that implies

00:36:17.920 is that there's no limit

00:36:20.080 to the number

00:36:20.860 of potential

00:36:21.760 administrative contributions,

00:36:24.020 right?

00:36:24.560 And then the question is,

00:36:26.500 well,

00:36:26.860 what would limit

00:36:27.620 the growth

00:36:28.140 of the administration?

00:36:29.620 And in a competitive environment,

00:36:32.320 free market principles

00:36:33.580 essentially limit

00:36:34.840 because you run out of money,

00:36:36.540 right?

00:36:36.840 So you can only hire

00:36:37.840 as many people

00:36:38.580 as you can afford to hire.

00:36:39.720 This isn't a problem

00:36:41.060 with administrative bureaucracies

00:36:44.840 that have an unlimited

00:36:45.820 source of funding.

00:36:46.940 So they're just going

00:36:47.740 to continue to grow

00:36:49.180 at, I don't know

00:36:49.800 what it is,

00:36:50.400 5% to 7% a year

00:36:51.860 or something like that.

00:36:52.900 And there's actually

00:36:53.360 been four studies on this.

00:36:55.320 Not a lot,

00:36:56.100 but it's what we have.

00:36:57.180 It's a really niche

00:36:58.100 area of research

00:36:58.980 that the more private

00:37:00.640 and charter school

00:37:01.360 competition in the area,

00:37:02.900 all else equal

00:37:03.560 after they control

00:37:04.200 for all the usual

00:37:04.860 demographic characteristics,

00:37:07.060 the public school

00:37:07.840 teacher salaries

00:37:08.600 slightly go up.

00:37:09.720 And now a lot of people

00:37:10.740 say, oh,

00:37:11.160 that's counterintuitive

00:37:11.940 because it's stealing money

00:37:13.580 from the public schools,

00:37:14.620 they say,

00:37:15.040 which the money

00:37:15.620 doesn't belong

00:37:16.080 to the schools,

00:37:16.680 it's for the kids.

00:37:17.440 But all that aside,

00:37:20.620 because there's

00:37:22.100 also competition,

00:37:23.640 they start to allocate

00:37:24.760 those additional dollars

00:37:25.960 instead of towards

00:37:26.800 administrators,

00:37:27.680 they start to allocate

00:37:29.060 them towards the classroom,

00:37:30.240 towards the teachers.

00:37:31.200 So the teachers

00:37:31.960 who remain

00:37:32.700 actually end up

00:37:33.960 better off.

00:37:34.400 Stop them from going

00:37:36.520 to the private sector,

00:37:37.600 stop the kids

00:37:38.500 from going

00:37:38.980 to the private sector

00:37:40.040 because now

00:37:40.620 there's a monopsony

00:37:42.640 situation

00:37:43.320 and a monopoly situation.

00:37:45.360 Monopsony is a monopoly

00:37:46.360 in the labor market.

00:37:47.740 With the government

00:37:48.220 school system,

00:37:48.820 you want to be a teacher,

00:37:49.720 you basically got to

00:37:50.580 take what they give you.

00:37:51.700 But now if you have

00:37:52.360 more competition

00:37:53.200 in the labor market too,

00:37:54.560 competing for your

00:37:56.500 excellence,

00:37:58.140 if you're doing

00:37:58.520 a good job,

00:37:59.700 then the public schools

00:38:01.120 have to say,

00:38:01.620 you know what,

00:38:01.860 we got to treat

00:38:02.360 the teachers better too.

00:38:03.880 So some teachers

00:38:05.260 are underpaid,

00:38:05.940 some teachers

00:38:06.360 are overpaid.

00:38:07.100 Depends on,

00:38:07.720 you know,

00:38:07.980 we try to treat

00:38:08.880 everything as one size

00:38:09.820 fits all in our

00:38:10.540 current system.

00:38:11.560 But that's an

00:38:12.400 interesting finding

00:38:13.260 that actually benefits

00:38:14.420 teachers.

00:38:15.300 But also we found

00:38:16.740 in places like Florida,

00:38:18.980 there is a control

00:38:20.480 group of,

00:38:22.340 you mentioned earlier

00:38:23.140 about how do we

00:38:23.780 compare systems.

00:38:25.060 In Florida,

00:38:25.580 there's 11 academic

00:38:26.580 studies on this topic.

00:38:27.960 10 of them find

00:38:28.680 positive effects of

00:38:29.760 competition on the

00:38:30.740 outcomes in the

00:38:31.460 public schools.

00:38:32.480 It's been a rising

00:38:33.280 tide that lifts all

00:38:34.260 boats and just over

00:38:35.380 time you can see it

00:38:36.220 work out in Florida

00:38:36.900 too.

00:38:37.340 So a couple decades

00:38:38.120 ago,

00:38:38.780 they were at the

00:38:39.940 bottom of the pack

00:38:40.760 on what we call

00:38:41.320 the nation's report

00:38:42.120 card,

00:38:42.400 the math and reading

00:38:42.980 scores.

00:38:44.040 Now,

00:38:44.620 U.S. News and World

00:38:45.400 Report has ranked

00:38:46.180 Florida number one

00:38:47.200 on education.

00:38:48.560 They're at the top

00:38:49.080 of the rankings for

00:38:49.720 the nation's report

00:38:50.420 card.

00:38:51.180 And it's not because

00:38:51.900 they pump more money

00:38:52.700 into the system.

00:38:53.440 They spend 27% less

00:38:55.100 than the national

00:38:55.720 average in Florida,

00:38:56.800 but they have school

00:38:57.680 choice for everybody.

00:38:58.800 Same here in Arizona,

00:38:59.740 they have school

00:39:00.140 choice for everybody.

00:39:01.460 If you like your

00:39:03.040 public school,

00:39:03.680 you can keep your

00:39:04.260 public school for

00:39:05.400 real this time,

00:39:06.100 unlike with your

00:39:06.640 doctor.

00:39:07.680 Thanks, Obama,

00:39:08.320 for lying about

00:39:08.940 that.

00:39:09.340 But the public

00:39:10.260 schools in this

00:39:10.840 case actually do

00:39:11.820 get better in

00:39:12.800 response to

00:39:13.360 competition.

00:39:13.980 And we have

00:39:14.360 studies all across

00:39:15.780 the nation.

00:39:16.080 Well, it's funny that

00:39:17.000 you even have to

00:39:17.640 make that case.

00:39:18.600 I mean, it's so

00:39:19.180 absurd that we have

00:39:20.900 to sit here and

00:39:21.600 discuss whether

00:39:22.400 having more

00:39:23.320 provider of a given

00:39:24.660 mandatory service is

00:39:26.400 going to improve

00:39:27.160 quality.

00:39:28.080 Like, well,

00:39:28.800 what else would

00:39:30.500 improve quality?

00:39:31.860 What, wishful thinking

00:39:33.320 or more money?

00:39:34.580 Well, you can spend

00:39:36.160 an indefinite amount

00:39:37.820 of money stupidly and

00:39:39.500 counterproductively.

00:39:40.820 So, obviously...

00:39:42.080 I also did one

00:39:43.740 more study on this

00:39:44.560 issue, and I

00:39:45.060 haven't brought it

00:39:45.600 up in a long time

00:39:46.400 because I've done

00:39:47.740 like 40 peer-reviewed

00:39:48.780 articles on school

00:39:50.260 choice, which is

00:39:50.980 really tough in the

00:39:52.100 academia for

00:39:53.220 education.

00:39:54.300 The peers are your

00:39:55.060 enemies, not your

00:39:55.900 peers.

00:39:56.000 Yeah, that's for

00:39:56.400 sure.

00:39:56.720 I'm amazed you

00:39:57.360 managed that.

00:39:58.140 So, I mentioned

00:39:58.680 that first study I

00:39:59.520 did about school

00:40:00.260 choice reducing crime

00:40:01.480 later on in life.

00:40:02.420 It was a very good

00:40:03.140 study, the first of

00:40:03.900 its kind.

00:40:04.880 Long-term data,

00:40:05.960 student-level data,

00:40:07.200 very rigorous study.

00:40:08.280 One of the reviewers,

00:40:09.800 and one of the first

00:40:10.500 places we sent it,

00:40:11.340 was a journal called

00:40:12.000 Urban Education.

00:40:13.500 One of the reviewers

00:40:14.080 said, you know, we

00:40:15.060 like the methods, and

00:40:16.180 we buy that it's a

00:40:17.140 causal relationship, but

00:40:18.820 they said, you called

00:40:20.260 the students urban

00:40:21.320 students.

00:40:22.180 You can't say that.

00:40:23.080 They are students in

00:40:24.380 urban areas.

00:40:25.080 So, it was like a

00:40:25.600 politically correct thing.

00:40:26.480 And I looked at their

00:40:27.440 about the journal.

00:40:28.440 The only reason we

00:40:29.100 said that was because

00:40:30.260 they said urban

00:40:31.440 students in their own

00:40:32.300 about the journal.

00:40:33.220 Total hypocrites on

00:40:34.220 the issue.

00:40:34.880 Why were they allowed

00:40:35.660 to say it, but I

00:40:36.440 wasn't allowed to say

00:40:37.260 it.

00:40:37.640 But they went further

00:40:38.380 than that.

00:40:38.940 They also said that we

00:40:41.080 have to reject this

00:40:41.900 because you didn't

00:40:42.580 talk about how the

00:40:43.260 results relate to

00:40:44.320 whiteness, structural

00:40:45.780 oppression, and power.

00:40:48.360 I mean, it's just so

00:40:49.060 ridiculous.

00:40:49.500 But the study I wanted

00:40:50.240 to bring up about

00:40:50.860 competition was actually

00:40:52.020 my home state of Texas.

00:40:53.560 I did a survey

00:40:54.580 experiment with my

00:40:55.720 co-author.

00:40:56.280 So, I randomly assigned

00:40:57.660 different surveys to

00:40:59.480 public school leaders

00:41:00.540 in Texas.

00:41:02.040 And one of the

00:41:03.340 treatment group

00:41:05.380 had a randomized

00:41:06.840 note that said

00:41:08.400 on one of the

00:41:09.140 questions, you're

00:41:10.520 going to have a new

00:41:11.080 charter school that's

00:41:11.860 expected to open

00:41:12.580 nearby.

00:41:14.100 And I was asking

00:41:15.000 them where they were

00:41:15.500 going to put their

00:41:16.020 money next year.

00:41:16.760 Like, where were they

00:41:17.300 going to allocate

00:41:17.800 resources?

00:41:19.060 And the treatment

00:41:20.340 of having a charter

00:41:21.660 school competing with

00:41:22.640 you had the effect

00:41:24.340 of reducing

00:41:25.160 administrative

00:41:25.880 allocations and

00:41:27.580 having more of that

00:41:28.240 money going to the

00:41:28.940 classroom.

00:41:29.460 Any idea why?

00:41:30.980 Well, because they

00:41:31.660 know that they might

00:41:33.160 have to think about

00:41:35.040 where they're going to

00:41:35.560 spend money if they

00:41:36.280 have a competitor.

00:41:37.120 Because if they waste

00:41:38.000 the money, families are

00:41:39.340 going to go there.

00:41:39.900 But their argument

00:41:40.420 usually is that,

00:41:41.980 obviously, it's got to

00:41:43.000 be something like more

00:41:43.920 administrators make for

00:41:45.120 a more effective

00:41:45.760 school system.

00:41:46.380 That's what they tell

00:41:46.820 you publicly, but

00:41:47.660 privately they know

00:41:48.340 that's all BS, which

00:41:49.380 is what that study,

00:41:51.220 because they didn't

00:41:51.920 know what the study

00:41:52.560 was doing.

00:41:53.100 They just thought

00:41:54.700 I'm answering a simple

00:41:56.560 survey question, and

00:41:58.400 they didn't know

00:41:59.480 whether they're the

00:42:00.240 treatment group or

00:42:01.220 not.

00:42:01.880 Right, right.

00:42:02.680 How did you manage

00:42:03.620 to, you said 40

00:42:04.780 studies?

00:42:05.840 Yeah, peer-reviewed.

00:42:07.180 Yeah, well, over

00:42:08.100 what period of time?

00:42:08.480 Other ones that

00:42:08.860 weren't peer-reviewed,

00:42:09.580 but I almost think

00:42:11.040 peer-reviewed is a

00:42:11.700 negative indicator at

00:42:12.660 this point because of

00:42:13.580 the peers that are

00:42:14.220 looking at your study.

00:42:15.060 We won't go there,

00:42:15.660 yes.

00:42:16.120 Yeah, but in your

00:42:17.180 case, that's probably

00:42:18.200 not the truth, because

00:42:20.280 the probability that

00:42:22.700 you're going to

00:42:23.780 publish something that

00:42:24.700 challenges the...

00:42:25.580 It's counter to my

00:42:25.900 views.

00:42:26.340 Absolutely, man.

00:42:27.720 So the fact that this

00:42:28.820 is exactly what I'm

00:42:29.660 asking you, it's like

00:42:30.440 how many, over how

00:42:31.500 many years did you

00:42:32.220 publish 40 studies?

00:42:34.520 2016, I want to say,

00:42:35.660 was my first, so what

00:42:36.800 is this, nine or so

00:42:37.900 years.

00:42:38.300 So you've published

00:42:39.060 four, five studies a

00:42:40.740 year.

00:42:41.140 Yeah, and a lot of

00:42:41.900 them were at the very

00:42:42.540 beginning when I was in

00:42:43.560 grad school because I

00:42:44.640 thought that that

00:42:45.240 mattered for getting an

00:42:46.280 academic job.

00:42:47.080 Well, I thought it

00:42:47.760 mattered.

00:42:48.080 It did matter.

00:42:49.320 But, and I wasn't

00:42:51.380 very serious on the

00:42:52.440 job market, but I

00:42:53.480 applied to like three

00:42:54.260 schools, and most

00:42:54.820 people will apply to

00:42:55.380 like a hundred if

00:42:56.100 you're serious, but I

00:42:57.200 knew I was probably

00:42:57.820 going to go into a

00:42:58.560 think tank where I'd

00:42:59.220 be rewarded for my

00:43:00.200 ideas as opposed to

00:43:01.580 being punished with

00:43:02.360 all the lefties.

00:43:02.380 You mean when you

00:43:02.760 were on the job

00:43:03.340 market?

00:43:03.720 When I was on the

00:43:04.220 job market, my first

00:43:05.180 think tank was called

00:43:06.100 the Cato Institute.

00:43:07.000 It's a libertarian

00:43:07.600 think tank.

00:43:08.720 And I moved to D.C.

00:43:09.620 while I was finishing

00:43:10.360 my Ph.D. like two and

00:43:11.520 a half years into the

00:43:12.360 program.

00:43:12.900 I ended up finishing

00:43:13.600 it.

00:43:14.500 And I've slowed down

00:43:15.860 publications since then,

00:43:17.300 but, you know, some

00:43:18.600 of these lefty

00:43:19.200 departments didn't

00:43:19.840 even give me a

00:43:20.380 call.

00:43:21.200 But I had like nearly

00:43:22.940 a dozen peer-reviewed

00:43:24.240 publications a few

00:43:25.980 years into my Ph.D.

00:43:27.780 program.

00:43:28.780 How do you do that?

00:43:29.960 So just for everybody

00:43:31.100 watching and listening,

00:43:32.420 so you can draw a

00:43:36.140 rough equivalent between

00:43:38.300 number of publications

00:43:39.580 and a given degree.

00:43:41.140 So for example, with

00:43:43.000 one publication, you

00:43:44.500 you have a master's

00:43:45.580 degree, essentially,

00:43:46.420 although most master's

00:43:47.360 students don't even

00:43:48.020 have one publication.

00:43:49.600 With three, you have a

00:43:51.180 Ph.D.

00:43:51.960 And you have 40.

00:43:53.780 Yeah.

00:43:54.060 Right.

00:43:54.320 And you said you had a

00:43:55.500 dozen of them two and

00:43:57.280 a half years into your

00:43:58.260 Ph.D.

00:43:58.940 Okay, so that's...

00:43:59.720 And some of the far

00:44:00.520 lefty departments won't

00:44:01.420 even call me.

00:44:02.200 Yeah.

00:44:02.600 Because they select

00:44:03.600 based on ideology.

00:44:04.460 They don't select based

00:44:05.980 on productivity or

00:44:07.820 intelligence or anything

00:44:09.720 like that.

00:44:10.500 But peer-reviewed

00:44:11.720 articles are not the

00:44:12.500 same thing as

00:44:12.960 intelligence.

00:44:13.440 I'll say that.

00:44:14.140 But I found out

00:44:16.780 really quickly that...

00:44:18.200 And I'm glad.

00:44:18.840 I had a fork in the

00:44:19.560 road.

00:44:19.740 I did have an offer

00:44:20.400 from one academic

00:44:21.960 institution.

00:44:22.720 It was Kennesaw

00:44:23.380 State University in

00:44:24.720 Georgia.

00:44:25.420 Uh-huh.

00:44:26.480 And I think they had

00:44:27.340 like a free market

00:44:28.100 center there, so they

00:44:28.900 were friendly.

00:44:29.640 So how many

00:44:30.100 publications...

00:44:30.840 Sorry, how many

00:44:31.280 publications did you

00:44:32.080 have when you entered

00:44:32.940 the job market?

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00:45:46.140 Approximately.

00:45:46.540 Nearly a dozen.

00:45:47.680 A dozen.

00:45:48.580 Okay, so in principle, you

00:45:51.180 should have been a very

00:45:52.500 hot prospect, because a

00:45:53.940 dozen publications in most

00:45:55.900 institutions would get you

00:45:57.920 pretty serious.

00:45:58.540 I didn't publish in the

00:45:59.100 quarterly journal of

00:46:00.060 economics.

00:46:01.080 It wasn't like the, you

00:46:02.220 know.

00:46:02.240 Yeah, still, dozens a

00:46:03.500 lot.

00:46:04.560 You know, a dozen's a

00:46:05.440 lot, and that would

00:46:06.500 give you serious

00:46:07.400 consideration for

00:46:08.440 promotion to associate

00:46:10.400 professor at many

00:46:11.880 educational institutions.

00:46:13.380 So they should have been

00:46:14.140 lining up at your door.

00:46:15.860 Okay, so...

00:46:16.280 I also didn't do it

00:46:17.160 seriously.

00:46:17.860 Like, three, you know,

00:46:19.120 applying to three schools

00:46:20.100 just to put my feet in

00:46:21.200 the water to see what

00:46:21.720 would happen is not the

00:46:23.100 same thing as what most

00:46:24.040 people do with, you

00:46:24.980 know, they're applying to

00:46:25.540 100 different schools.

00:46:27.520 True, true.

00:46:28.280 And so, you know...

00:46:29.180 Okay, so you didn't have

00:46:30.080 a full test of whether...

00:46:31.580 Yeah, so it might have

00:46:32.620 not...

00:46:33.840 It might have been...

00:46:35.500 I might have gotten more

00:46:36.380 of a fair shake if I

00:46:37.200 actually did a real...

00:46:38.300 Yeah, okay, okay, okay,

00:46:40.160 okay, fair enough.

00:46:41.520 All right, so...

00:46:43.360 Another mystery about you,

00:46:45.760 I would say, is...

00:46:47.620 You've had a lot of

00:46:49.780 impact.

00:46:50.300 How old are you?

00:46:51.440 33.

00:46:52.280 Okay, okay.

00:46:53.000 So you're pretty early on

00:46:54.160 in what would be an

00:46:55.100 academic career, let's say.

00:46:56.400 And you've had a lot of

00:46:58.440 impact on public policy,

00:47:01.260 but more on public

00:47:02.780 consciousness.

00:47:04.440 And so not only have you

00:47:06.180 produced a remarkable

00:47:07.860 body of research,

00:47:10.100 but you're very good at

00:47:12.960 public communication.

00:47:14.200 That's a rare combination

00:47:15.200 of skills.

00:47:15.800 So I guess the first thing

00:47:17.360 I'd like to know is,

00:47:18.240 I mean, I know about you.

00:47:20.440 I'm probably more prone to

00:47:22.160 follow, find and follow

00:47:23.460 people like you.

00:47:24.840 Tell me about how you

00:47:26.600 understand your public

00:47:27.760 influence.

00:47:28.380 Like, how broad an

00:47:29.420 influence do you have?

00:47:30.480 How well are your books

00:47:31.340 selling?

00:47:31.800 And what are your other

00:47:32.840 major dimensions of

00:47:34.520 communication?

00:47:35.520 So this one hit the

00:47:36.420 national bestseller list,

00:47:37.720 USA Today.

00:47:38.460 The New York Times,

00:47:39.300 they didn't put me on

00:47:40.280 their list for some

00:47:40.960 reason.

00:47:41.360 But Trump endorsed the

00:47:42.340 book, Vivek Ramaswamy,

00:47:44.480 Pete Hegseth, Ted Cruz,

00:47:46.900 my senator from Texas, he

00:47:48.220 actually says on the back,

00:47:49.220 you can ruin Randy

00:47:50.060 Weingarten's day by

00:47:51.740 reading this book.

00:47:52.660 So there's that.

00:47:54.920 But I also went to

00:47:56.180 government schools all

00:47:57.120 through K through 12, so

00:47:58.040 I don't know how I did

00:47:58.760 any of this.

00:47:59.720 You can just check out my

00:48:00.780 handwriting in the

00:48:02.080 beginning.

00:48:02.920 It's very horrible.

00:48:03.820 I blame it on my

00:48:04.440 government school

00:48:05.020 education.

00:48:05.740 It's to you, Jordan.

00:48:06.620 I'm going to give it to

00:48:07.200 you right after the

00:48:07.960 recording.

00:48:09.200 But I think the way

00:48:10.360 that I really started to

00:48:12.020 change the narrative when

00:48:13.300 it came to school choice

00:48:14.580 was talking about it

00:48:15.940 differently.

00:48:17.280 You know, these days we

00:48:18.040 can just say school choice

00:48:18.880 and you and I know what

00:48:19.740 we're talking about.

00:48:20.600 But when I first entered

00:48:22.520 the think tank world, I

00:48:24.120 made a deliberate shift to

00:48:25.600 talk about funding

00:48:26.520 students, not systems.

00:48:29.200 And it's a linguistic

00:48:29.860 Is that your phrase?

00:48:30.900 That's my phrase I came up

00:48:32.060 with.

00:48:32.440 It's good to have a phrase.

00:48:33.600 It puts the other side on

00:48:34.700 defense because now if you

00:48:36.220 want to argue with me, you

00:48:37.540 have to say why we should

00:48:38.700 fund the system and not the

00:48:40.120 student.

00:48:40.600 So it changes the burden of

00:48:42.440 proof to be on them,

00:48:43.680 whereas the school choice

00:48:44.720 supporters for a long time

00:48:45.960 have been trying to explain

00:48:47.140 ourselves as to why families

00:48:48.540 should have a choice as

00:48:49.880 opposed to the other side

00:48:51.100 explaining why we shouldn't.

00:48:52.600 Well, yeah, you should

00:48:53.420 never let the side that

00:48:54.980 you're opposing define the

00:48:57.420 terms of engagement.

00:48:59.060 Conservatives are very bad

00:49:00.260 at that.

00:49:00.720 They're always on the, I'll

00:49:02.300 give you an example.

00:49:03.260 So in the last Canadian

00:49:04.640 federal election, I think

00:49:06.940 there were in the debate,

00:49:08.300 the leaders debate, I think

00:49:09.260 there were five topics that

00:49:10.820 were debated.

00:49:12.960 All five of them were picked

00:49:14.300 by the left, right?

00:49:15.620 So one of them, for

00:49:16.360 example, I think 40% of

00:49:19.040 the debate was about

00:49:19.960 climate change, right?

00:49:21.120 So as soon as you debate

00:49:22.840 that, you lose, right?

00:49:24.200 Because the fact that you're

00:49:25.320 even talking about it means

00:49:26.600 that it's one of your

00:49:27.560 priorities.

00:49:28.480 And so, yeah, you got to

00:49:29.440 get the question right.

00:49:30.360 So you said, tell me your

00:49:32.040 phrase again.

00:49:32.720 Funding students, not

00:49:34.040 systems.

00:49:34.860 So it's more transparent.

00:49:36.100 People know like this is the

00:49:37.300 concept of the money

00:49:37.940 following the child.

00:49:38.240 Well, and they are the

00:49:38.600 consumer.

00:49:39.900 Yep.

00:49:40.340 Yeah.

00:49:40.780 And the other thing that

00:49:42.120 is very useful in how I

00:49:44.000 changed talking about this

00:49:45.240 was that it really pointed

00:49:47.280 out the hypocrisy of a lot

00:49:48.680 of the Democrats, not just

00:49:49.820 because they send their own

00:49:50.680 kids to private school, but

00:49:51.760 also because Democrats and

00:49:54.040 other people who are

00:49:54.780 supported by the teachers

00:49:55.620 union, some of the rhinos,

00:49:57.300 will support programs where

00:49:59.620 the money follows the

00:50:00.640 individual.

00:50:01.240 Think about it.

00:50:01.720 When we have grocery

00:50:02.640 stores, which I mentioned

00:50:03.460 earlier, we have food

00:50:04.280 stamps.

00:50:04.980 Yeah.

00:50:05.240 We don't say the food

00:50:06.040 stamps must be spent at a

00:50:07.420 signed Walmart.

00:50:08.680 That's a good analogy.

00:50:10.420 And so we also do this with

00:50:11.680 higher.

00:50:12.060 It's not just that we do

00:50:13.840 this with other industries.

00:50:14.600 We do this with education

00:50:15.640 to higher ed.

00:50:16.480 We have Pell Grants in the

00:50:17.540 U.S.

00:50:18.280 We have other the GI Bill.

00:50:21.620 These are taxpayer dollars

00:50:23.060 that can be used at private

00:50:24.920 universities, if you want.

00:50:26.300 And it's it follows the

00:50:27.940 decision.

00:50:28.500 So it's the equivalent of

00:50:29.520 money, essentially,

00:50:31.340 although a little more

00:50:32.280 narrowly targeted.

00:50:33.260 Yeah, because the status

00:50:34.480 quo would always say we need

00:50:35.580 public money for public

00:50:36.600 schools.

00:50:37.040 And my quick response is,

00:50:38.880 well, you support public

00:50:40.180 taxpayer dollars for private

00:50:41.760 everything else when it comes

00:50:43.260 to higher ed.

00:50:43.840 You support Pell Grants that

00:50:45.460 go to private religious

00:50:46.940 universities.

00:50:48.180 You support vouchers when it

00:50:50.200 comes to hospitals.

00:50:51.220 We have Medicaid vouchers.

00:50:52.600 You can take that to a

00:50:53.600 religiously affiliated

00:50:54.500 hospital if you want.

00:50:56.280 We do this with pre-K.

00:50:57.440 We have the Head Start

00:50:58.120 programs.

00:50:58.660 All the Democrats support it.

00:51:00.420 It's a pre-K program where the

00:51:01.700 money follows your decision to

00:51:03.100 a private provider of pre-K,

00:51:05.880 even a religious one.

00:51:06.880 Has that helped Head Start?

00:51:11.120 Do you know?

00:51:12.180 Has it improved its quality?

00:51:13.860 Head Start evaluations are

00:51:16.300 horrible.

00:51:16.980 They find that it spends a lot

00:51:18.340 of money and they don't

00:51:20.560 improve outcomes.

00:51:21.220 Most of the results are null

00:51:22.380 results.

00:51:23.040 They improve some outcomes.

00:51:24.660 People are more likely to

00:51:26.020 graduate and they're less

00:51:27.260 likely to be thrown in prison

00:51:28.720 or get pregnant.

00:51:29.960 But they don't improve

00:51:31.000 cognitive performance.

00:51:31.700 I don't think that was the

00:51:32.700 RCT, though.

00:51:33.560 I think that was more of

00:51:34.400 like a regression with

00:51:37.160 controls, which could be.

00:51:39.320 Well, the crucial issue is

00:51:40.920 there's no evidence that

00:51:42.080 Head Start improves

00:51:43.080 academic performance.

00:51:44.500 And that's a consequence of

00:51:45.960 multiple reviews.

00:51:46.800 And it's really a

00:51:47.600 catastrophe that it's the

00:51:48.940 case.

00:51:49.420 And the latest pre-K

00:51:50.420 evaluation statewide was in

00:51:52.380 Tennessee.

00:51:52.940 Yeah.

00:51:53.480 When was that?

00:51:54.320 That was a few years ago.

00:51:55.660 They followed them through

00:51:56.440 sixth grade.

00:51:57.180 Oh, yeah.

00:51:57.860 And it was a randomized

00:51:58.760 control trial.

00:51:59.700 They found that those who

00:52:00.760 won the lottery,

00:52:01.700 were worse off academically

00:52:03.660 and behaviorally by the

00:52:05.500 end of sixth grade.

00:52:06.500 Okay, won the lottery

00:52:07.440 meaning?

00:52:08.200 You won a lottery to get

00:52:09.620 a scholarship to go to

00:52:10.780 pre-K relative to the

00:52:12.460 families who lost the

00:52:13.380 lottery and stayed with

00:52:14.240 their parents.

00:52:15.460 So they were worse

00:52:16.540 behaviorally as well.

00:52:17.640 Maybe because the parents

00:52:18.800 have an advantage at

00:52:21.060 raising their own kids.

00:52:22.540 Maybe they're better at

00:52:23.540 disciplining the kids at

00:52:25.040 home.

00:52:25.340 I did a very programmatic

00:52:27.160 review of Head Start in

00:52:29.000 the 80s.

00:52:30.440 So that's quite a long

00:52:31.680 time ago, but the

00:52:32.400 programs had been

00:52:33.320 operating for a very

00:52:34.180 long time.

00:52:35.200 And there were, I think,

00:52:36.100 five major reviews.

00:52:37.500 And at that time, the

00:52:39.180 findings were that Head

00:52:41.160 Start accelerated cognitive

00:52:43.180 performance, so test

00:52:44.740 scores, for a year or two

00:52:47.160 following the

00:52:47.900 interventions, but that by

00:52:49.520 grade six, there was no

00:52:51.180 effect, but that the

00:52:53.100 longer-term effects seemed to

00:52:55.100 be behavioral.

00:52:56.740 And so reduced time...

00:52:58.400 No, no, they were

00:52:59.400 positive.

00:52:59.640 Oh, they were, those

00:53:00.240 were positive.

00:53:00.640 They were positive.

00:53:01.660 Less pregnancy, less crime,

00:53:03.220 and higher probability of

00:53:04.780 graduating.

00:53:05.860 So, and the relevant issue

00:53:08.360 with regards to

00:53:09.120 graduation in principle was

00:53:10.660 that because the kids who

00:53:12.080 had gone to Head Start

00:53:12.900 behaved better, they were

00:53:14.300 less likely to be held

00:53:15.280 back.

00:53:16.040 But you're saying that the

00:53:17.240 more recent...

00:53:17.920 The more recent Tennessee

00:53:18.860 experiment, which is the

00:53:19.880 latest one, RCT, negative

00:53:21.780 effects on academics and

00:53:23.220 behavior through sixth

00:53:24.820 grade, which is the last

00:53:25.920 year of the study, and I'd

00:53:28.460 also say on the teenage

00:53:29.480 pregnancy thing, that's

00:53:30.440 another important outcome

00:53:31.200 that we looked at in our

00:53:32.280 follow-up crime study that

00:53:33.640 was published in the

00:53:34.620 Journal of Private

00:53:35.280 Enterprise.

00:53:35.820 Yeah, yeah.

00:53:36.340 We found a reduction in

00:53:37.340 crime, but also a 38%

00:53:38.800 reduction in paternity

00:53:40.340 disputes, which could be

00:53:41.540 caused by out-of-wedlock

00:53:43.340 births or, you know,

00:53:44.460 teenage pregnancies.

00:53:46.400 And we also had a...

00:53:47.920 There is an RCT.

00:53:48.400 That was with choice.

00:53:49.600 That was with a voucher

00:53:50.580 program in Milwaukee.

00:53:51.560 Uh-huh.

00:53:52.220 That one was not an RCT.

00:53:53.660 We did the best we could

00:53:55.000 with, you know, we even

00:53:55.780 controlled for neighborhood

00:53:56.700 and, like, single-parent

00:53:57.900 households and religiosity.

00:54:00.340 All the...

00:54:00.820 All, like, as many

00:54:01.820 demographics as you could

00:54:02.880 get to control for.

00:54:04.700 But another separate study

00:54:06.100 in New York City was a

00:54:07.200 charter school experiment by

00:54:08.840 Roland Fryer and his

00:54:10.620 co-author, published in the

00:54:12.280 Journal of Political

00:54:12.880 Economy, I believe, in

00:54:13.860 2015.

00:54:15.080 They found that winning a

00:54:16.060 lottery to go to a

00:54:16.920 charter school in New York

00:54:17.840 City decreased the

00:54:20.040 likelihood of crime for

00:54:21.420 male students because

00:54:22.760 we're the ones causing

00:54:24.160 all the trouble.

00:54:24.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:54:25.280 By 100%.

00:54:26.320 It was a complete

00:54:27.420 elimination for lottery

00:54:28.840 winners through the

00:54:30.080 study period.

00:54:30.640 I don't remember how

00:54:31.220 long they covered.

00:54:32.000 It might not have

00:54:32.620 lasted forever.

00:54:34.360 But through the study

00:54:35.640 period, it was like 5%

00:54:37.640 were incarcerated for

00:54:38.680 the control group in

00:54:39.500 the public schools.

00:54:40.680 Lottery winners who got

00:54:41.720 into the charter schools,

00:54:43.080 0%.

00:54:43.820 Hmm.

00:54:44.600 So, all this to say,

00:54:47.760 on the Head Start thing,

00:54:48.840 I don't bring up these

00:54:49.700 analogies to say that we

00:54:51.500 should, I'm not saying

00:54:53.380 that I support Head Start

00:54:54.560 or Pell Grants or Food

00:54:55.820 Stamps.

00:54:56.380 I'm saying if we're going

00:54:57.240 to spend the money, we

00:54:59.780 might as well fund the

00:55:00.680 people as opposed to

00:55:01.720 the buildings.

00:55:01.960 Yeah, yeah.

00:55:02.160 No, no.

00:55:02.480 I understand.

00:55:03.240 Well, I sidetracked a

00:55:07.300 little bit into Head

00:55:07.960 Start because doing that

00:55:09.820 review for me was actually

00:55:11.100 very disheartening.

00:55:13.500 Because the thing about

00:55:14.520 Head Start, and this can

00:55:17.120 allow us to talk about

00:55:18.220 political issues more

00:55:19.220 broadly or conceptual

00:55:20.240 issues, nobody liked the

00:55:22.420 fact that poverty tended

00:55:24.520 to persist multi-generationally.

00:55:28.080 And there were reasons to

00:55:29.540 assume that if you gave

00:55:31.420 so-called disadvantaged kids

00:55:33.840 a Head Start, that A, that

00:55:36.320 might work, but B, that it

00:55:37.640 might even have self-reinforcing

00:55:40.880 consequences, right?

00:55:42.320 Because the idea was, well,

00:55:44.500 you take the disadvantaged

00:55:45.420 kids, you give them a bit of

00:55:46.740 an academic boost when

00:55:48.320 they're three or four, and

00:55:50.000 the consequence of that

00:55:51.920 compounds with time.

00:55:54.220 And so they're actually

00:55:55.520 farther ahead of their peers

00:55:57.040 by grade six because they

00:55:58.240 got this Head Start, you

00:55:59.960 know, and that didn't

00:56:02.280 happen.

00:56:03.040 And that was a catastrophe

00:56:04.180 for the right and the left

00:56:05.720 politically, as far as I was

00:56:07.020 concerned, because it was a

00:56:08.980 reasonably motivated endeavor.

00:56:12.800 Now, I did some arithmetic

00:56:14.040 calculations with regards to

00:56:15.780 Head Start to try to figure

00:56:17.120 out how many adult minutes a

00:56:21.780 Head Start program actually

00:56:23.140 bought a given child, and the

00:56:25.520 answer is virtually none.

00:56:27.760 And also, the Head Start

00:56:30.460 programs were also used as

00:56:32.340 employment programs, so the

00:56:34.580 probability that a given

00:56:35.800 Head Start teacher had any

00:56:37.860 qualification was extremely

00:56:39.380 low.

00:56:40.620 You know, when you're dealing

00:56:41.520 with three- and four-year-olds,

00:56:42.800 let's say, it's very hard to,

00:56:44.440 especially in groups, it's

00:56:46.520 very hard to spend time

00:56:47.800 teaching them anything

00:56:48.940 because just taking care of

00:56:50.700 three- and four-year-olds is

00:56:51.720 such a daycare program.

00:56:52.600 Well, exactly, and often not

00:56:54.380 a good one.

00:56:55.200 Now, when I was looking at the

00:56:56.960 positive results, say, in the

00:56:59.020 1980s, the hypothesis was

00:57:01.020 Head Start might not have been

00:57:03.280 good for most kids and probably

00:57:05.120 not good at all for kids who had

00:57:07.160 decent families, but for kids in

00:57:09.220 absolutely wretched conditions.

00:57:10.600 It can't get any worse, right?

00:57:11.920 Yeah, yeah, well, maybe you-

00:57:13.560 Whereas if you're taking them

00:57:14.360 away from parents that are

00:57:15.720 already doing a good job and

00:57:17.280 you're kind of nudging them in

00:57:18.220 that direction, they're going to

00:57:19.780 be worse off.

00:57:20.280 Right, but you were convinced

00:57:21.580 that the Tennessee data, that's-

00:57:23.440 I don't know the study.

00:57:24.320 That's the latest experiment, and

00:57:25.260 it's peer-reviewed published.

00:57:25.900 Oh, that's already too bad.

00:57:27.100 And the Head Starts that I've

00:57:28.140 seen as far as the RCTs-

00:57:30.100 RCTs, yeah, randomized control

00:57:31.800 trial.

00:57:32.080 Had the fade-outs.

00:57:32.840 Yeah.

00:57:33.000 But one more thing that I think

00:57:34.860 that I added that was really

00:57:36.040 important to the conversation

00:57:37.660 about school choice, I mean, one

00:57:39.540 thing is, it's not all me, right?

00:57:41.100 It was COVID that helped open the

00:57:42.420 eyes of parents.

00:57:43.040 I was just there with the right

00:57:44.100 ideas laying around at the time,

00:57:45.600 as Milton Friedman famously put

00:57:47.120 it, is that we were taking a

00:57:49.680 bipartisan strategy for a long

00:57:51.380 time to get school choice.

00:57:52.680 And I'm sure you've heard this

00:57:53.540 before where people say, like,

00:57:54.760 school choice is a civil rights

00:57:56.000 issue of our time.

00:57:56.940 We still have elected officials

00:57:58.060 saying these things using left-

00:58:00.160 leaning arguments to advance

00:58:01.280 school choice, which I think

00:58:02.320 they're all good arguments.

00:58:03.460 It's true that the lowest

00:58:04.780 income are in the worst schools,

00:58:06.120 that they would benefit the

00:58:06.960 most, school choice is an

00:58:07.980 equalizer.

00:58:09.260 But there's also right-leaning

00:58:10.120 arguments you can make about

00:58:11.240 choosing schools that align

00:58:12.780 with your values.

00:58:13.680 The public schools are Marxist.

00:58:15.020 We don't want gender ideology.

00:58:16.380 We want schools that teach you

00:58:18.220 that America is a great country,

00:58:19.660 not a horrible country.

00:58:20.980 And so you can make all these

00:58:22.340 different types of arguments.

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00:59:38.900 But when you go into a red state

00:59:41.320 making blue state arguments, these

00:59:43.960 lefty arguments, you might alienate

00:59:45.720 alienate some of the Republican

00:59:47.520 legislators who might say, this isn't

00:59:49.660 my issue, so, you know, I'm not

00:59:51.380 going to lead on it.

00:59:52.200 And then the Democrats, they're

00:59:53.460 controlled by the teachers unions

00:59:54.560 anyway, so you're not going to make

00:59:56.260 much ground with them, regardless

00:59:58.340 of the argument you're making.

00:59:59.440 They respond to power, not logic.

01:00:01.420 And then if you alienate the

01:00:02.520 Republicans, we weren't really

01:00:03.720 getting school choice passed in

01:00:05.700 blue states or red states in a

01:00:07.340 meaningful way.

01:00:08.280 But now it's become more of a GOP

01:00:11.240 litmus test issue.

01:00:13.480 Voters have gone to the ballot box

01:00:15.420 and held Republicans accountable for

01:00:18.240 being against school choice in Texas,

01:00:21.360 my home state.

01:00:21.960 We failed on school choice last

01:00:23.620 year because we had 21 Republicans

01:00:26.040 join all the Democrats in the House

01:00:27.700 to kill school choice.

01:00:29.260 And they came up with their

01:00:30.340 arguments about how they were in

01:00:31.400 rural areas and they didn't need to

01:00:32.840 vote for this.

01:00:33.740 But after the primaries, now 14 of

01:00:36.300 them are gone.

01:00:37.040 That was a political earthquake.

01:00:38.940 And now for the first time in Texas

01:00:40.620 history, the House has 76 co-sponsors

01:00:44.660 to pass a school choice bill, which

01:00:47.400 has never happened.

01:00:48.180 And you need 76 votes to pass a

01:00:50.700 school choice bill.

01:00:51.120 What did you have to do with what

01:00:52.480 happened in Virginia?

01:00:54.360 Well, in Virginia, we had Mr. Terry.

01:00:56.320 I don't think parents should be

01:00:57.380 telling schools what they should

01:00:58.460 teach, McAuliffe on the debate stage.

01:01:00.220 He was the former governor of

01:01:01.560 Virginia.

01:01:02.420 And he said that at the final debate,

01:01:04.260 he was up in the polls by a lot.

01:01:06.200 It flipped right after that because

01:01:08.080 parents were pissed.

01:01:08.980 Virginia closed their schools just

01:01:10.820 about more than any other state.

01:01:12.260 They were as bad as California when it

01:01:13.760 came to reopening the schools in

01:01:15.160 Virginia.

01:01:15.540 Virginia, and Glenn Youngkin turned

01:01:18.260 that into an opportunity.

01:01:19.360 He laid out a blueprint for success

01:01:21.260 for Republicans going forward.

01:01:23.500 And Glenn Youngkin ended up winning

01:01:25.280 that election by six points with

01:01:27.460 education voters.

01:01:28.900 And that was the number two issue in

01:01:30.320 that election, which is a big deal

01:01:31.620 because education is usually at the

01:01:33.120 bottom.

01:01:33.660 Voters, they rank, you know, jobs, the

01:01:35.780 economy, crime at the top.

01:01:37.820 Education was number two.

01:01:39.620 And a Republican won on that issue.

01:01:41.300 Well, given that 50% of the bloody

01:01:43.480 state budgets go to K-12 education,

01:01:45.940 it should be like number one or

01:01:48.040 number two all the time.

01:01:49.500 You would think.

01:01:50.760 But I think for a long time, people

01:01:52.620 thought things were fine, right?

01:01:53.940 Before they saw, I mean, if you're a

01:01:56.120 high-income parent and you're sending

01:01:57.520 your kid to the assigned public

01:01:59.380 school and it's consistently getting

01:02:01.740 A ratings, your kid's coming home with

01:02:03.720 A's on their report card, they get

01:02:05.540 into great universities that are good

01:02:07.540 on paper.

01:02:07.820 Well, they're also for a long time.

01:02:08.980 Like, when I went to school as a kid,

01:02:11.720 like, I hated school.

01:02:13.140 It bored me to death.

01:02:15.640 And, but I have to say that my

01:02:18.500 teachers didn't teach me insane

01:02:20.480 things, right?

01:02:21.660 And so, we don't just have a feeling

01:02:23.840 I don't know when that blip happened

01:02:23.960 either.

01:02:24.460 Somewhere around mid, somewhere around

01:02:27.720 2010, things really went sideways.

01:02:29.920 They went sideways in the universities

01:02:31.220 too.

01:02:31.620 Like, I saw that blip of political

01:02:33.620 correctness in the 1990s when I was

01:02:35.600 teaching in Boston.

01:02:36.640 But it was mostly outliers, you know?

01:02:38.760 It was the radical fringe, although

01:02:40.500 a lot of them were in the educational

01:02:42.700 psychology departments.

01:02:43.920 But they weren't, they didn't have

01:02:45.920 the upper hand.

01:02:46.720 And somewhere around 2010, that

01:02:48.660 flipped hard.

01:02:49.380 And I think that those, that sort of

01:02:51.860 thing flips partly too.

01:02:53.080 You said, you talked about good

01:02:54.760 teachers leaving.

01:02:56.020 Well, one of the things that does

01:02:57.320 happen as an enterprise disintegrates

01:03:00.140 is that it'll hit a point of no

01:03:02.360 return where it becomes so unbearable

01:03:06.140 for anyone competent to be in the

01:03:07.940 system.

01:03:08.340 They all leave, right?

01:03:09.800 And then, well, then you're just

01:03:11.500 left with the worst of the worst,

01:03:13.300 right?

01:03:13.560 And then they hire people who are

01:03:15.360 even worse than they are and the

01:03:16.700 whole thing's, you know, going off

01:03:18.400 its railings.

01:03:19.220 And so, I guess part of the reason

01:03:21.480 that this has become an issue is

01:03:23.680 because the student, the schools

01:03:25.400 moved from merely like traditional

01:03:28.200 incompetence, traditional socialist

01:03:30.140 incompetence, let's say, to absolute

01:03:33.060 bloody insanity.

01:03:33.960 And then people started to notice.

01:03:35.740 And it was likely the gender issue

01:03:37.400 that did that.

01:03:38.160 And I think the more that we talk

01:03:39.200 about and see that there's a lot of

01:03:41.820 left-leaning bias in the schools,

01:03:44.180 that might attract more people who

01:03:46.320 want to change other people's

01:03:48.880 children's views in that direction

01:03:51.260 to select.

01:03:51.900 Oh, yeah.

01:03:52.620 So, it's almost like it's a

01:03:53.540 reinforced, it's a self-fulfilling

01:03:56.300 prophecy.

01:03:57.480 I've spoken to Republican governors

01:03:59.480 about this on multiple occasions.

01:04:01.300 I think I met you at RGA, by the

01:04:02.800 way.

01:04:02.900 That's, yes, yes, that's right.

01:04:04.680 That's right.

01:04:05.340 You know, and I've been beating the

01:04:06.640 drum on this issue, not very

01:04:08.620 successfully, I would say, is that

01:04:10.280 Republicans don't have a hope in

01:04:12.520 hell of ever winning the culture

01:04:13.840 war if they allow faculties of

01:04:16.340 education to maintain their

01:04:17.600 hammerlock on teacher

01:04:18.480 certification.

01:04:19.620 And if they continue to spend half

01:04:21.320 the state's money on K-12

01:04:23.340 education, essentially, that's

01:04:25.200 dominated by progressive Marxists.

01:04:27.400 Like, everything else that is

01:04:29.040 happening is, as far as I'm

01:04:30.700 concerned, it's blowing in the wind.

01:04:32.640 And so, I want to challenge you on a

01:04:34.240 couple of things, because I'd like

01:04:35.540 your opinion.

01:04:36.920 See, I can understand the

01:04:39.520 rationale, the logic for your

01:04:41.500 choice approach, and I can see it

01:04:43.760 from the free market perspective, so

01:04:45.620 let's say the libertarian

01:04:46.600 perspective.

01:04:47.060 I can see it from the parents'

01:04:48.340 right perspective.

01:04:49.020 perspective, and I appreciate the

01:04:51.140 data that you've described in

01:04:54.060 terms of demonstrating that when

01:04:56.020 you do open the market up to

01:04:57.360 competition, you get an increment

01:04:59.380 in quality, even on the public

01:05:01.200 side, and a decrease in

01:05:02.940 administrative spending.

01:05:04.160 Great.

01:05:04.680 All of that makes sense.

01:05:06.180 But I am wondering if you've hit

01:05:09.360 the nail squarely on the head,

01:05:12.000 because I'm, and I genuinely want

01:05:15.960 your opinion on this, it seems to me

01:05:18.360 that the fundamental weakness in

01:05:22.620 the system is still that faculties

01:05:25.420 of education have a hammerlock on

01:05:26.920 teacher certification.

01:05:28.040 So, because, you know, I know

01:05:29.800 people who are sending their kids to

01:05:31.540 private schools, but the private

01:05:33.420 schools are full of woke teachers

01:05:34.800 too, right?

01:05:35.520 The Catholic schools are full of

01:05:36.860 woke teachers.

01:05:37.620 Like, it's a pervasive problem.

01:05:39.540 And so, I want to know your

01:05:43.700 thoughts on the teacher

01:05:44.740 certification issue, because I think

01:05:46.620 what the Republicans should do is

01:05:48.700 just, they should just take the

01:05:50.080 monopoly away from the

01:05:50.960 focus of education.

01:05:51.120 Yeah, we need alternative

01:05:51.680 certification.

01:05:52.720 So, I think you're right that we

01:05:54.540 have to have a multi-pronged

01:05:55.600 approach.

01:05:56.000 School choice isn't the silver

01:05:57.020 bullet for everything, and

01:05:58.180 neither is alternative

01:05:59.460 certification.

01:06:00.360 We should fight the battle on

01:06:01.800 multiple fronts.

01:06:03.140 And some people do set up this

01:06:04.380 false dichotomy.

01:06:05.360 They'll say, oh, you're saying

01:06:06.640 school choice will cure

01:06:07.680 everything.

01:06:08.180 Well, not exactly.

01:06:10.000 We should also reform the public

01:06:11.780 school system.

01:06:12.400 You should still go to your

01:06:13.320 school board and try to change

01:06:14.420 things, because a lot of kids

01:06:15.360 are still going to go to the

01:06:16.300 public schools, whether you have

01:06:18.100 school choice or not.

01:06:19.540 But we also need an escape

01:06:21.760 valve.

01:06:22.400 I mean, for example, if you only

01:06:24.240 try to change the system from the

01:06:26.600 top down, which is what we've

01:06:27.680 done partially in my home state of

01:06:29.280 Texas, some good tweaks.

01:06:30.400 They've banned critical race

01:06:31.780 theory.

01:06:32.160 They're talking about banning DEI in

01:06:33.720 public schools this year as well.

01:06:35.380 We have Trump with his executive

01:06:36.480 orders helping out as well.

01:06:37.820 But we have undercover video from a

01:06:39.740 group called Accuracy in Media.

01:06:42.280 They've gone into all these public

01:06:43.600 school districts in red states like

01:06:45.400 my home state of Texas, where

01:06:46.980 they've gotten these

01:06:48.140 administrators to admit on

01:06:49.700 undercover video that they're

01:06:51.300 still teaching things that are

01:06:52.700 banned.

01:06:53.360 Sure, of course they are.

01:06:54.380 And they're proud about it.

01:06:55.700 They're like, yeah, we're still

01:06:57.180 doing CRT, but we're just going to

01:06:58.540 call it something else.

01:06:59.380 How do you ban ideas?

01:07:01.580 Behind closed doors, they

01:07:02.760 continue to do what they want.

01:07:05.200 Well, you see this in the

01:07:06.220 universities, too.

01:07:07.220 It's like, well, we're going to

01:07:09.060 scrap our DEI programs.

01:07:10.560 It's like, they're not scrapping

01:07:11.700 them, they're just renaming them.

01:07:13.440 They move, they just retitle this

01:07:15.500 person and they continue to do

01:07:16.760 exactly the same thing.

01:07:17.900 And you can camouflage what you're

01:07:19.660 doing with words, no problem.

01:07:21.300 It'll take people years to figure it

01:07:22.860 out.

01:07:23.360 And so this is another part.

01:07:25.180 OK, so.

01:07:25.740 So I'm not saying that we shouldn't

01:07:27.280 try because it's it isn't perfect

01:07:29.720 enforcement, but we should have both

01:07:31.680 of these.

01:07:32.000 We need top down accountability, but

01:07:34.040 also bottom up for if you if you're

01:07:36.220 a parent, you get a whiff of these

01:07:37.260 things happening.

01:07:37.860 Even if you can't prove it before

01:07:39.220 a judge and change the school

01:07:41.400 system that way, you need to be

01:07:43.320 able to say, you know what?

01:07:44.160 Screw this.

01:07:44.660 I'm sending my kids somewhere else.

01:07:46.320 Yeah, I think that would give a

01:07:47.360 pressure for the public schools to

01:07:48.840 say, let's knock it off.

01:07:50.340 I don't want to irritate anybody on

01:07:52.200 the left or the right.

01:07:53.020 I'm going to focus on the basics,

01:07:54.740 math, reading and writing.

01:07:56.280 And then, you know, you're not

01:07:58.680 going to have all of them.

01:07:59.780 And so you might say, well, what

01:08:00.620 about the private school?

01:08:01.380 Some of them, they also operate in

01:08:02.940 this kind of small market right now

01:08:05.040 already when you don't have choice.

01:08:06.700 But when you when you unleash the

01:08:08.640 market and families can vote with

01:08:10.060 their feet, you'll have a different

01:08:11.660 supply of private schools pop up as

01:08:14.220 well, especially right now.

01:08:15.360 We're pushing something called

01:08:16.540 education savings accounts.

01:08:18.460 It's kind of like a voucher where you

01:08:20.020 can use it for a private school, but

01:08:21.720 you can also use it for homeschooling,

01:08:23.880 micro schooling.

01:08:25.100 They were calling them pandemic pods

01:08:26.600 during the covid era where five to

01:08:29.040 ten children were getting together in a

01:08:30.460 household, kind of like the one room

01:08:31.820 schoolhouse idea.

01:08:32.740 Those are more likely to sprout up

01:08:35.680 and you're more likely to have a

01:08:36.720 thousand flowers blooming.

01:08:37.980 Yeah, yeah.

01:08:38.800 If you have these low cost options.

01:08:40.360 And this has happened in Arizona, too.

01:08:42.060 So you think the diversity of school

01:08:44.420 proliferation then will eventually

01:08:46.400 solve the ideological.

01:08:47.880 Yeah, because if you only have a couple

01:08:49.040 elite private schools and they're

01:08:50.940 captured by the left, it's kind of

01:08:52.580 like, OK, what can I do now?

01:08:54.420 I'd say that's still better than the

01:08:55.860 status quo where you have zero choices.

01:08:58.840 But at least now you can take the

01:09:00.960 funding. If you let's say if you want

01:09:03.020 to just homeschool your own kids and

01:09:04.460 use it for the curriculum or private

01:09:05.940 tutors, that's that is a step in the

01:09:09.540 right direction, even if it's not

01:09:11.260 perfect.

01:09:11.580 Are many or most of the school choice

01:09:12.860 programs set up so that you could set

01:09:15.340 up a micro school and educate your own

01:09:17.160 children?

01:09:17.760 Most of them now are.

01:09:19.280 And Arizona has an education savings

01:09:21.820 account. They've had one for over a

01:09:23.160 decade. They just went all in in

01:09:25.380 2022, making available to everybody.

01:09:27.900 They actually crashed the government

01:09:29.120 website in Arizona because so many

01:09:30.840 families signed up right when they

01:09:32.840 opened up.

01:09:33.280 Well, it's an interesting twist on

01:09:36.960 paying women to have children

01:09:39.440 because in some sense, that's what

01:09:41.460 you're setting up.

01:09:42.920 Right. Well, yeah.

01:09:44.260 Yeah. Because.

01:09:45.580 Which is what the public school system

01:09:46.960 is already.

01:09:47.580 Right. Yeah. Right.

01:09:48.680 It's subsidy.

01:09:49.500 But it's a failing system that not a

01:09:51.320 lot of people don't see it as.

01:09:52.580 Well, if it's twenty thousand dollars

01:09:54.540 a year per child and

01:09:56.520 the typical family has

01:09:57.860 two children, the woman

01:09:59.420 has to make forty thousand

01:10:00.740 dollars a year to justify

01:10:02.380 the subsidy.

01:10:03.660 And so that

01:10:04.640 that's after expenses.

01:10:06.780 And so that's that's a very

01:10:08.260 it's very unlikely.

01:10:09.260 Think about a classroom of,

01:10:10.580 you know,

01:10:11.040 thirty kids at six hundred thousand

01:10:13.360 dollars.

01:10:13.820 I know. I know.

01:10:14.140 Where's all the money going?

01:10:14.860 If the teachers are only making sixty

01:10:16.280 thousand a year on average,

01:10:17.700 where's the rest?

01:10:18.540 And it's.

01:10:18.800 Yeah. Well, you could figure what?

01:10:20.080 Sixty for overhead in terms of

01:10:22.100 physical plant,

01:10:23.300 but something like that.

01:10:24.240 So that's twenty thousand.

01:10:25.960 You know, a lot of them make more

01:10:26.980 than the president of the United

01:10:27.960 States.

01:10:28.560 We have a less

01:10:29.700 a half a dozen or so

01:10:31.440 who make over four hundred

01:10:32.700 thousand dollars a year.

01:10:34.040 So where does.

01:10:34.800 Well, so tell me where does

01:10:36.080 the where does the.

01:10:37.760 So a lot

01:10:38.760 a lot of buildings.

01:10:39.520 They love building new schools

01:10:40.740 and stadiums.

01:10:41.600 Yeah.

01:10:42.020 So one of the school districts

01:10:43.700 in Texas, La Jolla ISD,

01:10:45.260 made headlines recently

01:10:46.400 because they had a big

01:10:47.880 like a like a big water

01:10:49.620 park at their campus.

01:10:52.260 So maybe that improves,

01:10:54.020 you know, the self-esteem

01:10:55.340 of the kids or whatever

01:10:56.220 the teachers are trying

01:10:57.120 to do these days.

01:10:57.920 But it's just frivolous

01:11:00.880 things.

01:11:01.460 And you see this at the

01:11:02.120 university level, too,

01:11:03.020 right?

01:11:03.140 They have these extravagant

01:11:04.760 water parks and

01:11:06.060 tuition is going up

01:11:07.720 to cover these things

01:11:08.740 and also subsidies

01:11:09.640 from the government, too.

01:11:11.960 But

01:11:12.400 these micro schools

01:11:14.880 are really shaking

01:11:15.840 things up.

01:11:16.820 The whole

01:11:17.060 the whole factory model

01:11:18.080 itself is

01:11:18.720 is frightened

01:11:19.300 because of this.

01:11:20.080 In fact,

01:11:21.420 when Prenda

01:11:22.800 micro schools

01:11:23.480 in Arizona

01:11:24.240 was reporting

01:11:25.360 just huge increases

01:11:26.780 in enrollment

01:11:27.300 during COVID

01:11:27.860 because the government

01:11:28.400 schools were closed.

01:11:29.720 So families were

01:11:30.320 figuring it out

01:11:31.260 and they

01:11:32.760 a lot of them

01:11:33.520 went to these micro schools.

01:11:35.900 The NEA,

01:11:36.860 which is the largest

01:11:37.560 labor union in the country,

01:11:38.820 the National Education Association,

01:11:40.340 they also lobbied the CDC

01:11:41.880 to close the schools longer.

01:11:43.740 They put out

01:11:44.780 an opposition

01:11:45.500 research sheet

01:11:46.660 on Prenda micro schools

01:11:48.420 and their founder,

01:11:49.320 Kelly Smith,

01:11:50.380 because they were

01:11:51.020 so afraid

01:11:52.040 of them

01:11:53.440 of them

01:11:55.200 basically

01:11:55.820 providing something

01:11:56.760 that they weren't

01:11:57.480 providing to students.

01:11:58.340 They knew they were

01:11:58.760 going to lose funding

01:11:59.420 because public schools

01:12:00.100 are funded based

01:12:00.700 on enrollment counts.

01:12:02.000 And so if you lose

01:12:02.900 some students,

01:12:03.400 you're going to lose

01:12:03.820 some money,

01:12:04.160 whether you have

01:12:04.480 a school choice

01:12:05.000 program or not.

01:12:05.820 And in Arizona,

01:12:09.300 you can use those

01:12:10.400 education savings accounts

01:12:11.660 to pay for Prenda micro schools

01:12:13.080 and other ones too.

01:12:14.220 Define micro school.

01:12:15.860 It's a miniature school

01:12:17.060 and there's a lot

01:12:18.140 of different definitions

01:12:18.900 for it,

01:12:19.540 but basically

01:12:20.100 a miniature private school.

01:12:22.580 And during COVID era,

01:12:23.860 it was basically

01:12:24.600 five to ten children

01:12:25.540 getting together

01:12:26.240 in households

01:12:27.000 to economize

01:12:28.240 on homeschooling.

01:12:29.160 And you can either

01:12:30.060 do it with one of the parents,

01:12:31.080 you can take turns

01:12:31.720 with the parents

01:12:32.300 doing different subjects,

01:12:33.820 or you can even hire

01:12:34.840 a private tutor

01:12:35.780 to do it as the teacher.

01:12:36.820 Which you could do

01:12:37.520 if it's $20,000 per.

01:12:39.340 So what is the amount

01:12:40.880 of the typical voucher

01:12:42.200 if student expenditure?

01:12:44.700 Yeah, why?

01:12:45.100 So it saves taxpayer money

01:12:46.360 and most of these bills

01:12:47.360 are passed at the state level.

01:12:48.620 Yeah.

01:12:49.180 In the U.S.,

01:12:49.780 we're funded

01:12:50.300 in the public school system

01:12:51.620 in every state

01:12:52.300 by the federal level,

01:12:53.440 which should not exist at all.

01:12:54.920 The word education

01:12:55.780 is not in our constitution.

01:12:57.040 It's an unconstitutional

01:12:58.380 waste of time and money.

01:12:59.980 But that's only about

01:13:00.800 8% of the total spending,

01:13:02.320 8% to 10%.

01:13:03.080 Okay, okay.

01:13:03.580 The other 45,

01:13:04.540 45 are state

01:13:05.740 and local dollars.

01:13:07.200 These bills are typically

01:13:08.180 passed in state legislatures,

01:13:09.840 so it's about half

01:13:10.760 of the total

01:13:11.380 that follows the students.

01:13:12.660 So let's say

01:13:13.480 on average 10,000

01:13:14.520 versus the 20,000

01:13:15.620 that's spent

01:13:16.080 in the government schools.

01:13:17.360 Is any of that

01:13:18.200 happening locally as well

01:13:19.540 to pull in the rest

01:13:20.660 of that money?

01:13:21.200 Some local vouchers

01:13:22.460 that have passed

01:13:23.260 in Colorado,

01:13:24.980 a blue state,

01:13:25.660 there was Douglas County

01:13:26.720 had at once

01:13:27.800 a couple decades ago

01:13:28.920 passed a voucher program.

01:13:30.360 It got nixed

01:13:31.660 in the court

01:13:32.220 by a lefty judge

01:13:34.000 and that program

01:13:35.060 is no longer

01:13:35.580 on the books.

01:13:36.780 New Hampshire,

01:13:37.480 which passed

01:13:38.140 a state level program,

01:13:39.780 also proposed

01:13:40.680 a bill a year

01:13:41.680 or two ago

01:13:42.300 in their legislature

01:13:43.200 to also allow

01:13:44.520 the local districts

01:13:45.780 to have the money

01:13:46.800 followed the child

01:13:47.400 if they opted in

01:13:48.400 as well.

01:13:49.060 That bill got tabled.

01:13:50.940 That was one

01:13:51.380 that I was really excited.

01:13:52.300 I think that's the next

01:13:54.100 step in the revolution.

01:13:56.340 But at the same time,

01:13:57.960 if the private schools

01:13:59.660 are doing it for less

01:14:00.900 and if the micro schools

01:14:02.200 are doing a good job

01:14:03.000 for less,

01:14:04.000 do we want all

01:14:05.100 of the dollars

01:14:05.640 following the student?

01:14:06.500 I think it should be

01:14:07.440 equal across sectors.

01:14:08.600 If we're going to

01:14:09.000 spend the money,

01:14:09.900 I think the state

01:14:10.560 and local should follow

01:14:11.360 the student,

01:14:11.840 not just the state.

01:14:12.760 But the reality is

01:14:14.200 it's mostly

01:14:15.120 basically everywhere

01:14:16.760 at this point.

01:14:17.160 Well, and also

01:14:17.780 the reality is

01:14:18.820 as you pointed out

01:14:19.760 that there's enough

01:14:20.540 money at the state level

01:14:21.780 to produce economic

01:14:23.440 incentive for the

01:14:24.340 micro schools,

01:14:25.080 for example.

01:14:26.300 You know,

01:14:26.580 you could imagine

01:14:27.340 five kids together,

01:14:29.260 that's $50,000 a year.

01:14:30.940 That's a pretty good

01:14:31.700 supplement for

01:14:32.520 a given parent's income.

01:14:35.000 So, okay.

01:14:37.040 So, let's talk about,

01:14:39.880 let's see,

01:14:40.500 where should we go now?

01:14:41.920 Yeah, okay.

01:14:44.280 Effects.

01:14:45.180 So, I want to talk

01:14:46.120 a little bit more

01:14:46.800 about your

01:14:47.560 means of communication.

01:14:49.300 You've been working

01:14:49.740 for these think tanks,

01:14:50.880 but your work

01:14:52.560 has received

01:14:53.300 broad public attention.

01:14:55.140 Okay, so now

01:14:55.660 you also said

01:14:56.440 that that was in part

01:14:57.320 because you were

01:14:57.880 in the right place

01:14:58.800 at the right time.

01:14:59.820 Yeah, yeah,

01:15:00.140 that makes a difference.

01:15:01.180 And you've done

01:15:01.700 the background research,

01:15:02.840 right?

01:15:03.040 So, you had a message

01:15:04.120 that was saleable

01:15:05.500 given the

01:15:06.680 state of the

01:15:08.860 zeitgeist,

01:15:09.520 let's say.

01:15:10.000 Okay, well,

01:15:10.340 that's crucially important,

01:15:11.800 right?

01:15:12.060 But it's also important

01:15:13.420 to be able

01:15:13.780 to capitalize on that.

01:15:14.920 Okay, so what,

01:15:16.740 how would you characterize

01:15:17.800 the consequences

01:15:18.840 of your work so far?

01:15:20.220 What have you seen

01:15:21.740 shifting

01:15:22.220 that you would attribute

01:15:23.860 at least in part

01:15:24.900 to the message

01:15:26.240 that you've been

01:15:26.940 disseminating?

01:15:28.220 Yeah, changing the way

01:15:28.920 people talk about

01:15:29.660 school choice

01:15:30.240 in terms of the money

01:15:31.020 following the child.

01:15:32.020 There have been

01:15:32.520 a lot of legislators

01:15:33.900 on the House floor,

01:15:36.140 Senate floor

01:15:36.700 talking about

01:15:38.080 funding students,

01:15:39.000 not systems.

01:15:39.680 So, they've developed

01:15:41.160 my arguments

01:15:41.980 and I think

01:15:42.520 a lot of them

01:15:43.060 follow me on social media

01:15:44.200 and politicians,

01:15:45.940 again, they want

01:15:46.600 to get re-elected,

01:15:47.340 they want to look good

01:15:48.280 and so when they're

01:15:49.420 following, you know,

01:15:50.820 different influencers

01:15:51.520 on social media,

01:15:52.920 they want to look good

01:15:53.720 in the public eye

01:15:54.320 when they're debating

01:15:55.000 the issue against

01:15:55.700 the Democrats

01:15:56.460 on the House

01:15:57.360 and Senate floor

01:15:58.100 and so I think

01:15:59.880 they've adopted

01:16:00.520 some of the language

01:16:01.700 and arguments

01:16:02.200 and studies

01:16:02.740 that I've conducted

01:16:04.180 and also cited myself.

01:16:05.500 Is X

01:16:06.060 your most effective?

01:16:07.480 It is, for sure.

01:16:08.440 Yeah, I have Facebook

01:16:09.340 and Instagram

01:16:09.780 but they're not nearly,

01:16:11.420 I have over 200,000

01:16:12.500 followers on X,

01:16:13.320 it's not like crazy

01:16:14.680 but it's ballooned

01:16:15.940 in a short amount

01:16:17.100 of time

01:16:17.780 and it's-

01:16:18.900 Who follows you?

01:16:19.920 Do you follow me?

01:16:20.980 Yes, I certainly do.

01:16:23.620 Tulsi Gabbard,

01:16:24.580 Pete Hegseth,

01:16:25.440 a lot of the,

01:16:25.860 you know,

01:16:26.120 Vivek Ramaswamy,

01:16:27.020 there's a lot of

01:16:27.720 influential people

01:16:29.140 who follow me,

01:16:29.720 Libs of TikTok,

01:16:30.520 a lot of big accounts.

01:16:32.400 Donald Trump

01:16:32.840 doesn't follow me,

01:16:33.540 maybe after he sees

01:16:34.320 this episode

01:16:34.960 he'll jump on

01:16:37.180 the headwagon.

01:16:37.920 State governors,

01:16:38.900 state treasurers?

01:16:39.640 Yeah, so Doug Ducey

01:16:41.080 who's here in Arizona,

01:16:42.200 he was the first state

01:16:43.640 to go all in

01:16:44.340 on school choice

01:16:45.300 and I have a good

01:16:47.600 relationship with him.

01:16:49.080 He's no longer

01:16:49.600 the governor.

01:16:50.160 It's now Katie Hobbs

01:16:51.000 in Arizona

01:16:51.420 who's a hypocrite

01:16:52.180 on school choice.

01:16:52.880 She went to Catholic school

01:16:53.840 and now she opposes

01:16:54.720 school choice

01:16:55.280 for other families

01:16:56.060 but Doug Ducey

01:16:58.900 was a leader

01:16:59.400 and you needed

01:17:00.680 one state

01:17:01.200 to do it first

01:17:02.140 to show the rest

01:17:03.340 of the states

01:17:03.820 they could.

01:17:04.320 He often uses

01:17:05.420 the analogy

01:17:06.140 of when the first

01:17:07.900 person broke

01:17:08.580 the four minute mile.

01:17:10.140 Before the first

01:17:11.600 person did it,

01:17:12.100 I don't remember

01:17:12.460 his name,

01:17:13.520 people thought

01:17:14.060 it was impossible

01:17:14.660 for a human being

01:17:15.700 to run below

01:17:16.520 a four minute mile

01:17:17.540 but once the first

01:17:18.560 person did it

01:17:19.220 you had just

01:17:20.260 this cascade effect

01:17:21.280 of tons of people

01:17:22.060 breaking.

01:17:22.580 Yeah, yeah.

01:17:22.840 Now,

01:17:23.660 with school choice

01:17:24.420 no one thought

01:17:25.120 that any state

01:17:26.160 could do it

01:17:26.920 where it's every family

01:17:28.520 because for a long time

01:17:29.880 there was an

01:17:30.680 incremental approach

01:17:31.660 on the school choice front.

01:17:32.900 It was decades

01:17:33.920 we were hitting

01:17:34.300 our head against the wall.

01:17:35.560 It was small

01:17:36.100 incremental wins

01:17:37.060 where maybe the lowest

01:17:38.260 income families here

01:17:39.320 maybe just in this city

01:17:40.540 they're going to do it

01:17:41.480 maybe just for special

01:17:42.660 needs kids

01:17:43.360 but now the barometer

01:17:45.240 of success is

01:17:46.180 do you have a

01:17:46.960 universal program

01:17:48.020 meaning for everybody

01:17:49.240 regardless of income

01:17:50.320 which these are the types

01:17:51.720 of programs I support

01:17:52.740 one because

01:17:53.460 it allows for more

01:17:54.600 competition

01:17:55.220 allows for a bigger

01:17:56.420 supply side response

01:17:57.900 more of a market response

01:18:00.680 but also

01:18:01.560 we're paying for

01:18:02.320 public schools

01:18:02.880 for high and low

01:18:03.900 income families

01:18:04.540 they should be able

01:18:05.040 to benefit from

01:18:05.620 school choice as well

01:18:06.500 we don't discriminate

01:18:07.220 based on income

01:18:07.980 for the public schools

01:18:08.840 we shouldn't discriminate

01:18:09.960 based on income

01:18:10.780 for school choice either

01:18:12.860 and politics again

01:18:15.140 is all about

01:18:16.020 organized interest

01:18:16.760 pushing for what they want

01:18:17.980 if you have a small

01:18:18.920 program that not a lot

01:18:19.900 of people are benefiting

01:18:20.700 from

01:18:21.120 well the problem

01:18:23.000 there is

01:18:23.700 if Democrats get in charge

01:18:25.180 they're going to be

01:18:25.800 more likely to be able

01:18:26.540 to take it away

01:18:27.380 because

01:18:28.720 low income families

01:18:30.240 are not as politically

01:18:31.120 active

01:18:31.660 so let me ask you

01:18:33.320 about that

01:18:34.800 I've discussed

01:18:36.720 school choice

01:18:37.540 with some of my

01:18:38.440 more intelligent

01:18:39.180 liberal friends

01:18:40.040 and one of their

01:18:41.420 objections has been

01:18:42.620 that

01:18:43.000 the

01:18:44.800 I think you'll be able

01:18:46.860 to address this

01:18:47.640 given what you already

01:18:48.560 said but I'm going

01:18:49.360 to lay it out anyways

01:18:50.320 parents who are involved

01:18:53.760 in their

01:18:54.460 children's

01:18:55.380 future

01:18:56.480 in their

01:18:56.920 children's

01:18:57.740 educational

01:18:58.460 options

01:19:00.080 given the vouchers

01:19:02.560 are going to do

01:19:02.980 the research

01:19:03.620 and they're going

01:19:04.720 to find

01:19:05.260 the best school

01:19:06.820 to suit their

01:19:07.680 children

01:19:08.080 but then they'll

01:19:09.620 be the children

01:19:10.220 whose parents

01:19:10.940 can't

01:19:11.660 or won't

01:19:12.800 involve themselves

01:19:13.740 and they're going

01:19:14.560 to default

01:19:15.320 to the

01:19:16.100 public school

01:19:18.020 system

01:19:18.480 and if it

01:19:19.120 collapses

01:19:19.680 as a consequence

01:19:20.760 or degenerates

01:19:21.960 as a consequence

01:19:22.660 of funding

01:19:23.720 being distributed

01:19:24.580 widely

01:19:25.220 then

01:19:26.040 don't we risk

01:19:27.300 setting up

01:19:27.940 a group

01:19:28.260 of kids

01:19:28.780 who are already

01:19:29.520 suffering

01:19:30.020 because their

01:19:30.540 parents aren't

01:19:31.120 involved

01:19:31.480 to fail

01:19:31.940 even worse

01:19:32.520 because they're

01:19:33.140 going to exist

01:19:33.920 within the

01:19:34.380 confines of a

01:19:35.060 degenerating

01:19:35.720 public school

01:19:36.280 system

01:19:36.580 you already

01:19:36.820 have that

01:19:37.240 inequality

01:19:37.720 baked into

01:19:38.280 the government

01:19:38.700 school system

01:19:39.440 you have

01:19:39.700 Baltimore

01:19:40.100 they have

01:19:40.640 40% of their

01:19:41.420 high schools

01:19:41.940 have 0%

01:19:42.820 math proficiency

01:19:43.500 rate

01:19:43.780 you see the

01:19:44.240 same thing

01:19:44.640 in places

01:19:45.000 like Chicago

01:19:45.700 and so

01:19:46.940 they shouldn't

01:19:47.580 make perfect

01:19:48.080 the enemy

01:19:48.440 of the good

01:19:49.020 and this

01:19:50.080 fear mongering

01:19:51.080 hasn't happened

01:19:51.800 with school

01:19:52.220 choice

01:19:52.600 the public

01:19:53.040 schools

01:19:53.360 if anything

01:19:53.780 have gotten

01:19:54.220 better

01:19:54.540 but we also

01:19:56.460 have nationwide

01:19:57.100 data on this

01:19:57.860 26 of the

01:19:58.700 29 studies

01:19:59.560 on this

01:19:59.920 nationwide

01:20:00.640 find statistically

01:20:02.120 significant

01:20:02.740 positive effects

01:20:03.820 of private

01:20:04.740 school choice

01:20:05.280 competition

01:20:05.900 on the

01:20:06.720 outcomes

01:20:07.080 in the

01:20:07.320 public

01:20:07.520 schools

01:20:07.820 even enemies

01:20:08.440 of school

01:20:08.800 choice

01:20:09.120 who are

01:20:09.380 in academia

01:20:10.020 who have

01:20:10.420 any

01:20:10.840 form of

01:20:12.660 honesty

01:20:13.040 at all

01:20:13.520 they admit

01:20:14.440 that

01:20:14.820 the studies

01:20:16.580 on the

01:20:16.900 competitive

01:20:17.260 effects

01:20:17.620 are positive

01:20:18.440 so the

01:20:18.860 main

01:20:19.080 argument

01:20:19.460 that the

01:20:19.760 unions

01:20:20.060 put forward

01:20:20.740 is the

01:20:21.480 worst

01:20:21.880 argument

01:20:22.340 in terms

01:20:23.500 of it

01:20:23.820 being

01:20:24.040 supported

01:20:24.480 by the

01:20:24.840 evidence

01:20:25.160 but a lot

01:20:25.960 of people

01:20:26.200 respond to

01:20:26.820 fear mongering

01:20:27.420 and so they do that

01:20:28.380 well it's a reasonable

01:20:29.420 hypothesis

01:20:30.260 but the fact that the

01:20:32.100 studies have already been

01:20:33.000 done indicating that

01:20:34.040 there's one other study

01:20:35.780 on this topic

01:20:36.440 that I think is really

01:20:37.100 important

01:20:37.580 and it was done by

01:20:39.060 Cornell researchers

01:20:39.960 published in 2018

01:20:41.340 and they actually found

01:20:43.420 that when school choice

01:20:44.460 was introduced

01:20:45.360 peer-reviewed study

01:20:47.020 when school choice

01:20:49.020 was introduced

01:20:49.540 the number of

01:20:50.300 searches online

01:20:51.460 for different

01:20:52.100 private education

01:20:53.160 providers

01:20:53.900 spiked

01:20:54.740 doesn't seem like

01:20:55.980 a surprising finding

01:20:56.980 to me

01:20:57.320 probably not

01:20:57.800 if you have choice

01:20:58.600 now you can exercise

01:20:59.400 it you're going to look

01:21:00.140 the point is

01:21:01.780 school choice

01:21:03.000 increases parental

01:21:04.580 involvement by definition

01:21:05.820 yes there will be the

01:21:06.640 parents who are involved

01:21:07.480 anyway

01:21:07.860 but on the margins

01:21:09.340 the parents who

01:21:10.440 who just felt like

01:21:11.880 they were depressed

01:21:12.680 being in the school system

01:21:13.760 where they didn't have

01:21:14.400 any other options

01:21:15.020 now all of a sudden

01:21:15.860 you give them $10,000

01:21:17.020 to seek out a better option

01:21:19.320 they're not going to be

01:21:20.600 depressed by looking

01:21:21.580 at the private school

01:21:22.380 so they're going to look

01:21:23.320 and they're going to

01:21:24.620 exercise that choice

01:21:25.820 well it's definitely the case too

01:21:25.840 like I remember

01:21:26.560 reviewing studies

01:21:27.500 probably about the same time

01:21:29.000 I was looking at

01:21:29.840 Head Start

01:21:31.140 on

01:21:32.180 attitudes of the

01:21:34.360 underclass

01:21:35.120 towards their

01:21:35.860 children's

01:21:36.440 education

01:21:37.220 and

01:21:38.020 look

01:21:38.760 if people are going

01:21:39.460 to be motivated

01:21:40.080 by anything

01:21:41.020 they're going to be

01:21:42.120 motivated by the thoughts

01:21:43.260 that their children

01:21:43.960 might have a better future

01:21:45.220 right

01:21:45.560 so

01:21:45.800 and so

01:21:46.600 most parents

01:21:48.080 for example

01:21:49.180 regardless of their

01:21:50.580 own literacy levels

01:21:51.680 would like to have

01:21:53.220 children who are

01:21:54.040 literate

01:21:54.520 and well educated

01:21:55.580 and they might not

01:21:56.360 know how to do it

01:21:57.240 but

01:21:57.760 they know their kids

01:21:59.200 better than anybody else

01:22:00.180 they care

01:22:00.640 yeah well they actually

01:22:01.160 care

01:22:01.620 that's right

01:22:02.120 yeah well they care

01:22:03.020 as much as they care

01:22:04.380 about anything

01:22:04.980 and they care far more

01:22:06.140 about their kids

01:22:06.740 than anyone else

01:22:07.620 is likely to

01:22:08.460 right

01:22:09.180 okay

01:22:09.560 but the critical issue

01:22:10.720 is as you already

01:22:11.580 pointed out

01:22:12.240 if these studies

01:22:13.440 and you think

01:22:13.960 the studies that show

01:22:15.040 a salutary effect

01:22:16.720 on public school

01:22:17.720 quality

01:22:18.180 because of increased

01:22:18.980 competition

01:22:19.520 you think those

01:22:20.220 are reliable

01:22:21.240 yeah

01:22:21.640 they're rigorous

01:22:22.380 studies

01:22:22.860 there's

01:22:23.240 you can't randomly

01:22:24.240 assign competition

01:22:25.440 but it's as good

01:22:26.380 as you can get

01:22:27.120 and

01:22:28.180 okay

01:22:28.980 so

01:22:29.260 I've cited all the studies

01:22:30.340 on that topic

01:22:30.800 okay okay okay

01:22:31.680 so let's end with this

01:22:32.840 let's end this

01:22:33.660 this portion

01:22:35.320 of the discussion

01:22:36.220 I think what we'll do

01:22:37.420 I wanted to hit one more thing

01:22:38.420 yeah well this is what

01:22:39.280 I want to give you

01:22:39.840 the opportunity to do that

01:22:40.940 so

01:22:41.220 so if there's anything else

01:22:42.440 you'd like to bring up

01:22:43.220 do it

01:22:43.560 do it now

01:22:44.140 and then we'll turn

01:22:44.980 to the daily website

01:22:45.660 on the issue of

01:22:46.480 whether low-income families

01:22:47.760 are benefiting from this

01:22:48.760 I already talked about

01:22:49.460 the theoretical

01:22:50.040 about how

01:22:50.900 they're in the worst

01:22:51.500 schools already

01:22:52.240 so they had the most

01:22:53.000 to benefit

01:22:53.780 most to gain

01:22:54.480 from having more options

01:22:55.680 in their kids education

01:22:57.140 in DC

01:22:58.200 they have a voucher program

01:22:59.400 which I think

01:23:00.060 Obama was against

01:23:01.020 even though he sent

01:23:01.760 his own kids

01:23:02.320 to Sidwell Friends

01:23:03.100 a private school

01:23:03.880 school choice for me

01:23:04.820 but not for me

01:23:05.620 hypocrisy again

01:23:06.520 strikes again

01:23:07.380 it's everywhere

01:23:08.560 but we looked at the data

01:23:10.460 most recently

01:23:11.180 in DC

01:23:12.160 and the average

01:23:13.840 family

01:23:14.640 their average

01:23:16.100 household income

01:23:16.700 was about

01:23:17.200 $30,000

01:23:18.540 per year

01:23:19.360 for the entire

01:23:19.960 household

01:23:20.540 in the District

01:23:21.160 of Columbia

01:23:21.680 which is a higher

01:23:22.340 cost of living

01:23:23.100 area than the average

01:23:24.660 in the United States

01:23:25.620 and I believe

01:23:26.700 about 95%

01:23:28.200 of the kids

01:23:28.780 were black or Hispanic

01:23:29.880 so this goes

01:23:31.360 completely counter

01:23:32.480 to the narrative

01:23:33.240 that the left is saying

01:23:34.220 about how this is only

01:23:34.960 for rich white kids

01:23:36.080 using the program

01:23:37.600 in Florida as well

01:23:39.500 there's a really

01:23:40.020 interesting story

01:23:40.820 about how DeSantis

01:23:41.840 actually won in 2018

01:23:43.340 he actually barely won

01:23:45.060 the governor's race

01:23:45.900 in 2018

01:23:46.500 and the headline

01:23:47.700 in the Wall Street Journal

01:23:48.680 the next day

01:23:49.460 was that

01:23:50.280 school choice moms

01:23:51.620 tipped the governor's race

01:23:52.920 for DeSantis

01:23:53.580 so they looked at

01:23:55.360 exit polling

01:23:55.940 from CNN

01:23:56.520 of all places

01:23:57.300 and they found

01:23:58.140 that black moms

01:23:59.120 in particular

01:23:59.800 came out in force

01:24:00.800 for DeSantis

01:24:01.500 much higher than expected

01:24:03.340 after his opponent

01:24:05.340 Andrew Gillum

01:24:06.160 who was a black

01:24:06.780 democrat

01:24:07.200 called to get rid

01:24:08.640 of their private

01:24:09.400 school choice program

01:24:10.500 that was already

01:24:11.180 benefiting over

01:24:11.880 100,000 kids

01:24:13.060 at the time

01:24:13.660 and those kids

01:24:14.520 were disproportionately

01:24:15.240 low income

01:24:15.980 and non-white kids

01:24:17.420 so this is another way

01:24:18.820 that one

01:24:19.760 republicans can make

01:24:20.760 inroads with groups

01:24:21.680 that they hadn't

01:24:22.340 reached out to before

01:24:23.420 and it's also

01:24:25.140 it shows you

01:24:25.780 that this shouldn't

01:24:26.760 be a partisan issue

01:24:27.900 and if democrats

01:24:28.980 are smart

01:24:29.720 if they're going

01:24:30.640 to bleed votes

01:24:31.820 on this issue

01:24:32.440 to people like

01:24:33.140 Ron DeSantis

01:24:33.720 in Florida

01:24:34.300 they should come along too

01:24:36.060 and this is something

01:24:36.620 I point out in the book

01:24:37.540 that the way

01:24:38.580 that we can get

01:24:39.260 towards bipartisanship

01:24:40.520 on school choice

01:24:41.700 is through

01:24:42.800 hyper-partisanship

01:24:44.000 in the short run

01:24:44.800 because the more

01:24:45.800 that the democrats

01:24:46.440 lose on the issue

01:24:47.320 like we saw

01:24:47.780 with Terry McAuliffe

01:24:48.880 Andrew Gillum

01:24:50.020 in Florida

01:24:50.560 the more they're

01:24:51.540 going to scratch

01:24:52.080 their head

01:24:52.420 and you'll have

01:24:52.740 some defectors

01:24:53.540 and say

01:24:53.980 I'm going to join

01:24:55.040 the kids union

01:24:55.860 and listen to them

01:24:56.940 the parents

01:24:57.500 as opposed to

01:24:58.160 just the teachers union

01:24:59.060 well it isn't

01:24:59.800 an obviously

01:25:00.640 partisan issue

01:25:01.860 it shouldn't be

01:25:02.500 well it's like

01:25:03.620 cost cutting

01:25:04.340 in government

01:25:04.920 it isn't obvious

01:25:05.880 at all

01:25:06.320 why the default

01:25:08.140 left winger

01:25:09.180 would be against

01:25:10.680 getting rid of

01:25:11.680 fraud in the

01:25:13.240 political system

01:25:15.500 and political spending

01:25:16.500 right

01:25:16.820 because then

01:25:17.400 at least in principle

01:25:18.380 more money

01:25:19.700 could be spent

01:25:20.520 on things

01:25:21.040 that actually work

01:25:22.000 yeah exactly

01:25:22.960 and this seems

01:25:24.020 to be

01:25:24.440 I mean you can

01:25:25.320 make a perfectly

01:25:26.000 cogent case

01:25:27.020 as you have

01:25:27.920 I would say

01:25:28.480 for how

01:25:29.580 broadening choice

01:25:31.340 it might even

01:25:32.520 preferentially benefit

01:25:33.840 people who are

01:25:34.640 poor and dispossessed

01:25:36.080 that seems to be

01:25:36.860 highly likely to me

01:25:37.880 because as you

01:25:39.020 pointed out

01:25:39.600 the worst schools

01:25:41.020 are the ones

01:25:41.780 that are serving

01:25:42.460 the people

01:25:42.940 who are trapped

01:25:43.580 in the

01:25:43.900 mired in poverty

01:25:45.760 often multi-generationally

01:25:47.560 and I don't see

01:25:48.520 any way out of that

01:25:49.480 than

01:25:49.780 the multiplication

01:25:52.000 of supply

01:25:53.360 and it's also

01:25:54.520 the case that

01:25:55.280 the money of a poor

01:25:56.820 person is just as good

01:25:58.000 as the money

01:25:58.480 of a rich person

01:25:59.340 and so if they have

01:26:00.360 that money at hand

01:26:01.480 their children

01:26:03.300 are more likely

01:26:03.900 to be valued

01:26:04.540 by people

01:26:05.080 who would like

01:26:05.520 to get paid

01:26:06.060 for their efforts

01:26:06.720 right

01:26:07.640 right

01:26:08.020 all right

01:26:09.200 so I think

01:26:09.840 we'll turn to

01:26:11.560 the Daily Wire side

01:26:12.520 now and I think

01:26:13.220 I'll talk to you

01:26:13.860 about a couple of things

01:26:15.060 I'd like to know

01:26:16.640 about your future plans

01:26:18.000 strategic and conceptual

01:26:20.060 where do you go next

01:26:21.280 I'd like to know

01:26:22.520 what it's been like

01:26:23.500 for you

01:26:24.800 to deal with

01:26:26.020 the new administration

01:26:27.860 federally

01:26:29.840 and particularly

01:26:31.840 on the federal level

01:26:33.020 and

01:26:34.100 I'd like to

01:26:36.320 talk to you

01:26:37.700 more about

01:26:38.280 any pitfalls

01:26:39.360 you see emerging

01:26:40.180 on the school choice

01:26:41.140 side

01:26:41.580 so we'll talk

01:26:43.160 about

01:26:43.520 the future

01:26:44.840 we'll talk about

01:26:45.540 strategy

01:26:46.080 we'll talk about

01:26:46.760 the new administration

01:26:47.540 we'll talk about

01:26:48.380 potential risks

01:26:49.400 that you might see

01:26:50.580 maybe in the

01:26:51.120 hyper-partisan approach

01:26:52.200 but also

01:26:52.780 in the school choice

01:26:54.720 conceptual domain

01:26:58.120 per se

01:26:58.920 so

01:26:59.480 we'll turn to that

01:27:00.440 on the Daily Wire side

01:27:01.280 everybody watching

01:27:02.340 and listening

01:27:02.800 you're more than

01:27:03.800 welcome to join us

01:27:04.820 for an additional

01:27:05.500 half an hour

01:27:06.140 behind the Daily Wire

01:27:07.380 paywall

01:27:07.980 thank you very much

01:27:08.940 for coming

01:27:09.240 thank you so much

01:27:09.820 yeah yeah

01:27:10.320 it's really good

01:27:11.160 to have you here

01:27:11.800 and appreciate it

01:27:12.780 and you know

01:27:14.320 you're spending

01:27:16.180 your time

01:27:16.740 educating people too

01:27:17.980 and letting them know

01:27:18.820 well

01:27:19.640 exactly how

01:27:21.960 they should be

01:27:22.620 thinking about

01:27:23.180 the fact that

01:27:23.800 their children

01:27:24.280 are sent to a

01:27:25.300 pathologically

01:27:26.280 unproductive monopoly

01:27:27.440 right

01:27:28.380 that eats up

01:27:30.120 half

01:27:30.760 the resources

01:27:32.000 at the state level

01:27:33.060 right

01:27:33.640 it's really something

01:27:34.960 it's really something

01:27:36.360 to see

01:27:36.880 so

01:27:37.520 all right everybody

01:27:38.500 you can join us there

01:27:39.760 you

01:27:45.440 you

01:27:45.820 you

01:27:46.420 you

01:27:47.740 you

01:27:48.600 you

01:27:48.960 you

01:27:49.540 Thank you.

529. How Competition Will Save Public Schools ｜ Corey DeAngelis

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