Jason Bedrick is a research fellow with The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
I’m asked this question of a lot of folks Who do you love more? What do you love more your children or government? Now most sane people with the exception of left-wingers of course they’re not saying what answer of course I love my children more than I love big government, not Democrats, not pro-Democrat Republicans. Folks, you have to understand the position of your government right now in the state of Texas is you Vin not have the school choice. V will keep control of as their money.
That’s all it’s about. It’s about money. It’s about control, and they don’t want they get money from you fleece money from you and say this is where your child’s education BS. If it was really following your child and not their government institutions, then they would have no problem saying Well, sure. Go ahead, parents. This is your kids money for their education. You determine where your child is best educated. No, they don’t do that.
What they do is they say, Hey, we take your money, we lift it out of your wallet, and it’s ours. It’s no longer yours. It’s ours. But you said it was for my child? No, no. That’s where we lie. It’s for gov Ed. It’s not for your child. It’s for gov Ed. And folks, Gov Ed is all they care about big government control over you taking money out of your pocket, and then putting it into their control so they can control you. That’s all these people give a damn about. Folks, I’ve said this, it’s the Salcedo show axiom.
And the Salcedo show axiom that states the following is true, more true in the education debate than in almost any other one. They can’t harm us if they don’t have our money and leftist Democrats are doing their very level best to do as much harm as they can separate our children, undermine what you teach them at home with their efforts in gov ed, and gov Ed schools. James Tallarico is a left-wing extremist who is basically one of the guys running Dade Phelan. And the Texas House Dade Phelan is an alleged Republican. He is at the beck and call of leftists like James Talarico and, like Jean Wu, the Communist sympathizer in Houston. Here’s Tallarico bashing Governor Greg Abbott over Governor Greg Abbott’s very strong stance on universal school choice for every child in the state of Texas. Here is the left winger Talarico.
“Before I was a politician, I was a teacher in an underfunded public school. I taught 45 Kids in one classroom. I was a middle school teacher. So that’s 45 middle schoolers in one classroom, and it was right after lunch. So you can imagine chaos. There weren’t enough desks for all of my students. So I had kids sitting on the air conditioning unit in the richest country in human history.”
By the way, the richest country that has $33.7 trillion in debt that spends the most per capita. That means for those of you who are government-educated, this means we spend the most money per student out of any nation on planet Earth. We spend the most, and we get the least look at generation after generation after generation, using the GOV ed system that is cranking out dumb kids who can’t read who can’t write basic, basic sentences, basic grammar can’t do basic math. And James Tallarico is a big defender of that failed system.
“In one of the richest states in that rich country, in the 21st century, children sitting on the air conditioning unit.”
Now, folks, we have no way of knowing whether or not this story is even true. But it’s pretty typical. These leftists they come in they tell these tall tales like Joe Biden, I mean, the man can’t tell the truth to save his life. And it’s just a continuation of a narrative, a narrative or facts and narrative over news. As a matter of fact, James Talarico gonna tell a whopper right now.
“Our schools are $40 billion. Behind the national average, Texas Teachers are making less than they did 10 years ago that property taxes are through the roof.”
Yeah, that’s what the property taxes are through the roof. But it’s just a lie. It’s a specious lie. They just got a raise in the last legislative session, they get raises all the time. Now, they deserve more, but not not raises without merit, not raise it just because hey, you’re a teacher, you deserve a raise that you deserve, raises on merit and school choice turns our teachers into into a valuable commodity that they are and they’re rewarded by success. That’s just one of the side effects of having school choice and having parents dictate where the money goes and not selfish, self-interested leftists like James Talarico, who is also out there claiming that, you know, not having gov ed in charge of your kids: That’s a threat to democracy. He claims. It’s absolutely absurd. We’ll expand on this coming up next on the Salcedo store podcast.
Here’s how it works. You elect a whole bunch of folks to the legislature. You send them there to represent you, they fail. They create a gov ed system that well that churns out a bunch of anti-American freaks over two generations, maybe even longer. And then all of a sudden we wake up one day in our country isn’t what it used to be. So it’s all related. There. The reason, folks, the reason why we have so many uneducated people is because well, we have failed the biggest mistake this nation ever made, was allowing the government to educate our children, biggest mistake bar none. How else can you explain a bunch of Jew-haters storming in a Hamas direction? That the Capitol yesterday and oh, we call that a First Amendment activity. Meanwhile, the January Sixers, some folks who never even entered in the building, had their lives turned upside down by a federal government that says this is the double standard we’re going to impose on you. And the lion’s share of our people except it, how else does that happen? It happens because gov Ed has diverted from educating your children to indoctrinating your children and have done so at least two generations, maybe dating back to mind, maybe dating back because I can remember now, now that I’m looking at as an adult indications of the infection of Gov Ed, even back during Generation X my generation, and then bring on Jason Bendrick. He is a research fellow with the Heritage Foundation Center for Education Policy. Mr. Bendrick, thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for having me.
Let’s talk about school choice. You wrote in your wrote a piece, which I found was fascinating. And this was this was the title of your piece. School choice is better for democracy than government schooling. What prompted your observation here?
Well, there was a state representative in Texas, who had made this claim recently, that school choice was actually going to destroy the public school system, and therefore it was going to ultimately destroy democracy. I’ve written I think, 100 articles about how school choice has actually improved the public school system, because when you have more choice and more competition, you see improvements in across the board. So there’s more than two dozen studies of school choice policies around the country and their effects on public school performance. And what we find is that the public school system actually responds to competition by improving. But what I have not addressed is this question of democracy. Now, obviously, in all the states that still have that have school choice programs, they still have functioning self-government. But really what it’s important to get at school choice is much more in line with our founder’s vision. There was no government-run school system. In the founding era, there were a lot of founding fathers who were very supportive of education, but not necessarily that the government should be the one running the schools. That was something they were very skeptical of. Because they were concerned that ultimately, if the government was running a school system, the government would end up indoctrinating the students. And so a system where families are choosing the schools that align with their values and are best for their children is much more in line with democracy.
Yeah, the representative you were talking about as James Talarico. He’s a leftist, who and you know, let’s just examine this for a minute, because I want to take it even more, because you did an eloquent job of explaining why school choice and education freedom is better for democracy better for the government-run schools, actually, then then is purely the monopoly that government has had on education. But let’s just take it down to its bare essence, democracy, democracy, and we don’t have a pure democracy in the United States. We have a representative Republic again, James Talarico, is an uneducated man, he doesn’t even really even recognize that so he shouldn’t, he has no room to be commenting on this. But anyway, democracy is choice, right, which is what school choice represents what is totalitarian, which is anti-democracy is having zero choice, which is what gov Ed is, am I wrong?
No, you are 100%. Right. And look, what the other side says is that it’s necessary to have a government run the schools, if you want everybody to come together, if you want, you know, a school system that’s going to be teaching civics, what we argue in the pieces that actually, it is not sufficient nor necessary for the government to run the schools. If you want to have an educated populace. Obviously, it’s not sufficient, because nine out of 10 adults went through the government school system. And yet fewer than half can name the three branches of government. A quarter can’t even name one branch at all. So clearly having if you want a civic-minded, physically literate populace, the government school system is insufficient. Now that they may say, Okay, well, it may not be doing its job, but you want everyone to come together. If you don’t want balkanization, then what you need is a government school system that you know, we’re all on the same boat, right? But that doesn’t seem to be the case either. No There is a whole host of research that compare school choice policies versus government run school systems of the 93 findings 60% show a statistically significant advantage for school choice. Only 3% Find an advantage for government-run schools. Now, what am I talking about in terms of these findings? I’m talking about effects on political tolerance, political participation, civic knowledge and skills, volunteerism, social capital, a whole host of different measures. So in other words, the students that are getting access to school choice, are they have higher levels of civic literacy and knowledge and even higher levels of political tolerance? Sure. Now, how do they measure that I didn’t get to this in the article, but it’s a very interesting thing. What they do is they ask you to think of a group that you dislike. Fortunately, in America, the group that people disliked the most is the KKK. Now, the question is, do you think that this group should be allowed to vote? Do you think that they should be allowed to hold a public protest in front of town hall? All sorts of should they have free speech? One of the interesting findings is if you look at Hispanics, the group that they disliked the most is LGBTQ activists. And the type of school that they’re most likely to go to when if it’s a private school is a Catholic school. The students you would think, well, maybe if they’re going to a Catholic school, they’re going to be even less tolerant of LGBTQ. No, actually, it’s the reverse. Those Spanish students that are going to a Catholic school, are more tolerant of LGBTQ activists, because they learn at schools like this, Hate the sin but love the sinner.
Exactly. You know, and I can attest to this. They learn they learn biblical teachings, which lead to harmony, which lead to understanding your fellow man, rather than the Democrat way, which is to rip down, shred and kill your fellow man. Let me let me play something for you. By the way, folks, we’re talking about school choice. It’s all tied into the problems that we’re having. And you said something, Mr. Bendrick, that, that that struck a chord with me, because you’re saying that, that the left-wingers claim Well, we’ve got to send everybody to Gov ed. So we’re all on the same page, this country has never been more divided. And it is because of Gov Ed. And some British analysts said they knew why listen to this.
“Truth has become a right-wing concept. You cannot say it, because if you say it, you are considered right-wing. And to be right-wing is to be in league with the forces of evil education that was turned from being the transmission of a culture down through the generations into the overturning of a culture on the basis that the culture was illegitimate, racist colonialist and all the rest of it.”
Yeah. So in essence, guv, Ed, which, in the old days used to be a raid toward continuing the continuation of the United States of America, our way of life, our culture was valuable. It was a good American culture, it was a free American culture. Gov Ed has turned that on its ear and use the same resources that we gave it to basically teach at least two generations, maybe three JSON of of students to hate their country, hate America, hate our representative Republic hate white people. I mean, it’s everything that the government is about is hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Where am I going wrong?
No, I think that’s right. Unfortunately, the left is far ahead of the right. When it comes to thinking about education. For far too long, I think the Republican Party has been worried about you know, let’s let’s talk about tax cuts, and, you know, foreign policy, and we’ll let the left worried about educating the children. But a conservative movement, you know, at the center of conservatism has to be conserving the culture, that means education always has to be a top priority. And you can’t just assume that the local public school is going to be sharing your values. Increasingly, it is not parents need to look very closely. I’ve seen even in deep red areas, rural areas where they’re teaching that, you know, gender is a spectrum, that there’s an infinite number of genders. They’ve got great policies that they hide from the parents that were, you know, they will change the names and pronouns of students and keep two different sets of records, one to show the parents and one that they’re working with the child. You know, there’s schools that are putting biological males on the girls sports teams and integrals, locker rooms, that are teaching critical race theory in the classroom. These concepts that, you know, race is immutable, and it is your defining characteristic and you’re divided into two groups, oppressor and oppressed. We actually just did another study Looking at former campus radicals, there’s a fantastic group out there called Canary mission that is tracking a whole bunch of these campus radicals. And we said, Well, look, we’re seeing all these protests. We’re seeing these campus radicals, chanting, genocidal slogans like, you know, Palestine will be free from the river to the sea, which means the destruction of the world’s one Jewish state. Where did these campus radicals end up on.
Capitol Hill? Well, seriously, they were all there yesterday, including some elected members. And you know what I want to Jason, I want to get to that here in a second, I got two more requests.
Really quickly. 40% of them 40% end up in higher ed or in K-12 education. So you end up in your child’s classroom teaching your kid indoctrinating. Exactly teaching your kid to hate Jews, teaching your kids to hate white people. That’s it. That’s what Critical Race Theory, by the way, here in Texas, we have a law against teaching critical race theory, but it’s still being taught, because the wizards of smart in the Texas Capitol said we’re going to pass a law but we’re not going to put down any punishment for anybody who violates it. Great Law guys, this was to get conservatives off their back so they can continue to allow gov ed to harm our children. Really quickly. Jason bendrick. Our guest right now fellow with the Heritage Foundation Center for Education Policy. My count I’m hearing anywhere between 27 to 32. States are among the civilized states that allow parental school choice and education freedom, what number do you have just really quickly?
It depends how you count it, but I would say there’s 32 states plus Puerto Rico in Washington, DC that have some form of school choice.
Okay, there you go. So, you know, in Texas, we’re trying to get out of the knuckle dragging states here, but our legislature won’t get out of our way. We’re trying to get out of the knuckle dragging states and turn into the to a civilized state and join those other 30 G’s 32 states in the union. And that leads to my last question now, I mentioned the GOV Ed is all about hate hating America hating white people hating Jews hating hate, hate, hate, hate hate division, division, division division. Yesterday, we saw at the US Capitol as, as I would rationalize, multiculturalism that is also pushed inside of Gov Ed, came home to roost in the United States, as the Hamas insurrection played out in front of our very eyes with a whole bunch of Jew haters that showed up and took over the Capitol. Am I wrong to peg that on a gov ad system that is perpetuated division perpetuated hate for the last two generations?
No, I don’t think so. Now, the vast majority of adults went through that system. Unfortunately, a lot of people still have an nostalgia for that system, even though it’s not the system that we went through the the teaching colleges have been almost entirely taken over by radicals. You’ve got people, you know, a young student who goes in and comes out spouting about intersectionality, and D, colonialism and all sorts of stuff there. They have changed the mission of teaching, from educating, to, you know, cultivating social justice warriors, and then they’re putting them in these classrooms. And they’re pushing ideological messages at earlier and earlier and earlier ages so that now they’re already radicalized before they get onto the college campus. And one of the professors are even scared of their students. It’s a deplorable situation.
It is in brought to you by a Democrat party that is fully funded by a Republican Party. Folks, his name is Jason bendrick. He’s a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation Center. For for education policy, folks want to find out what you do follow what you do support what you do, Jason, where can they go?
They can find us@heritage.org Or I’m on Twitter at Jason fedrick.
@ Jason Bedrick. Cool, man, thank you very much, folks, that’s gonna do it for this Salcedo Storm podcast. Do me and yourself a favor, visit a couple of websites, Texas scorecard.com. That’s number one, the latest in the fight, to take back education to give power of the purse to the parents where it should never have been taken away. To begin with. That’s going to unfold right there on the pages of Texas scorecard. Also check out the Chris Salcedo shows presence on the web. Chris salcedo.com. Again, the Salcedo shows and the podcast can all be found right there a whole bunch of information and including our radio presence, the TV presence and our social media presence. It’s a one stop shop and it’s a brand new website. I hope you can go there and check it out. Until we visit again my friends remember this a society’s worth isn’t measured by how much power is stolen by government. It is measured by how much power is reserved for you and me. We the People, you stay safe out there my friends.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
