The private school accountability fallacy (06-20-2024--Hour2)

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[00:00:29] End of the last hour, I talked about this statement based on the legislative agenda from Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. Legislative agenda there. This is these are their priorities that they send up to Raleigh.

[00:00:42] They have lobbyists that, you know, talk to the lawmakers up there to try to get what they want. And they were opposed to the expansion of the funding for the school vouchers. And I read the quote from school board member Summer Nunn, and she said the original intent

[00:01:03] was to assist families who needed that assistance. But now it seems to have gone to where it is just subsidizing families who are already affording private school. So first off, not to get too nitpicking on the word smithery here, but when you say it

[00:01:20] is just subsidizing families, that's not true. It's not just subsidizing the wealthy families. I talked about how it's not actually subsidizing wealthy families because they're actually paying more in taxes than it costs to educate their child in the system.

[00:01:36] So they're actually if they're sending their kid to a private school, they're paying into your system and they're not getting anything for it. So them getting some of the money back would be a refund or a rebate even. But that's not a subsidy.

[00:01:50] But the idea that she thinks that, oh, this is just subsidizing families who already were affording private school. That's not just what it's doing. There are four different tiers. It is a progressive voucher system. So if you make less money, you get the largest voucher over seven grand.

[00:02:14] Seventy four hundred I think is roughly what it is. And there are four different tiers. And so incrementally, as you make more money, you then go into a higher tier and the higher tier means you get less money back.

[00:02:29] So the wealthy aren't getting the seven thousand dollar annual refund. They're only getting half of that. And even that's too much, right? Even that's too much. And here's the thing, though. The more people and this is sort of a Streisand effect, the Barbra Streisand effect, where

[00:02:48] if you're not aware, she was upset about a story that aired or was published in a paper or something about a house that she had bought and she was all upset about it and made a big deal about it. But nobody had seen the original story.

[00:03:02] And so that's called the Streisand effect is when you draw more attention to the thing by criticizing the thing. Right. Which she actually just did like last week. Literally. Anyway, she did Barbra Streisand and did it again last week.

[00:03:18] But regardless, the point is here that by drawing attention to the voucher funding issue, you're now alerting more and more people because there's more coverage of it. So that's why I'm fine with Democrats arguing about the vouchers and the funding for it,

[00:03:36] because it means more people become aware that the vouchers are out there. And if you have a lot of people coming in that say, oh, wow, now I can get vouchers. You're going to have more. Say you have an influx in the tier one, the poorest quarter.

[00:03:53] You have more and more people in that lower tier. Well, that means you're going to get more funding in that tier because the ones in tier four and three, they're a lower priority.

[00:04:05] So if there's no money for them, they don't get the money, which is why they're supplementing the funding this year, is because the program is growing. Because before they used to be able to get it more at the tier one and tier two.

[00:04:17] Some of the tier twos didn't even get money. So anyway, so they're funding it more so the lower income and then the second tier can get their full amounts or what they're entitled to.

[00:04:28] And then you've got the third and four tiers that's now been opened up for them. So I'm okay with them criticizing this. There's another quote here from CMS board member Lisa Klein. She says it's gotten out of hand. I think she's actually a Republican, by the way.

[00:04:44] I think we need to ask the General Assembly to reexamine what they're doing. Go right ahead. Make a lot of noise. I encourage you to do so. CMS's board proposed a legislative agenda asking the General Assembly to require all

[00:05:00] schools that receive voucher money to be held to the same standards as public schools in North Carolina, including testing and teacher qualifications. You keep hearing this on the voucher issue. There's this fatal conceit, I would call it. There is an underlying assumption here that the standards are effective.

[00:05:28] I know I've just probably shocked people in education land. Oh, of course they are. That's what I mean by a fatal conceit. You don't even realize you're the fish that's wet. You don't even realize you're wet.

[00:05:42] You're assuming that the testing and the teacher qualifications and all of the standards that you guys have constructed over more than a century of government-run schools, that somehow or another these are the best standards. And this is the way that you have accountability and educate all the children.

[00:06:00] But if I just look at your model's product, your results, it does not prove that. It just doesn't, right? I saw a study that came out of Chicago. 55 schools up there don't have a single student at grade level in math or reading. 55 schools. Not a single kid.

[00:06:29] The model is the problem, guys. They're doing something wrong. So demanding that all these other schools, if they're going to get government money, like first off, they're not getting government money, right? They're getting private parents' money.

[00:06:44] Just because the parents got taxed and then the government gave it back to them and then the parents turned around and used it at the private school doesn't mean that's taxpayer money. It was their money.

[00:06:55] It was the taxpayers' money before the government took it and gave it back to them. That's still their money. That's theirs. This is not, these are not public institutions run by government. That's why they don't have the same teacher qualification and testing standards.

[00:07:15] Now, oh, that means that some schools might have low standards. Indeed it does. Oh, that means some schools may have bad teachers. Indeed it does. You cannot control everybody in the world. You just can't do it, guys. This is the fatal conceit.

[00:07:30] You think that you know all the answers and you can control all of these outcomes and you can make a model that's going to address every single situation, and you can't. I remember having a discussion a long time ago with Dr. Susan Agruso.

[00:07:48] She used to be the assistant superintendent at CMS in charge of testing, and she went on to become a superintendent someplace. I forget where. She was presenting data for the end of year grades and test results and all of that, and

[00:08:07] they kept saying like, you know, we're going to, you know, we got to keep doing this and we have to do more of that so we can make sure that every student passes.

[00:08:16] And so I asked her afterwards and I said, well, how is that an achievable goal, right? That every single student is going to pass unless, of course, you dumb down the test. Is that what you're saying? No, no, no. We're not talking about dumbing down tests.

[00:08:29] Okay, so you're not lowering standards. So how are you going to get every kid to pass every test? Because that flies in the face of the normal bell curve, right, of results. There was a teacher I had. He was a social studies teacher way back in high school.

[00:08:48] Mr. Peacock was his name. I've told this story before. He was from South Carolina and he is one of the best teachers I had, but he was tough. He was a very tough teacher, but he was also a straight shooter.

[00:09:00] He said at the very beginning, he's like, I have to have a certain number of A's, B's, C's, D's and F's. And so he would put the numbers on the board and they stayed there the whole semester.

[00:09:13] So you knew what he had to basically get because that was the bell curve distribution. And if you have too many A's, then the administrators come in and say, oh, you're obviously making the class too easy.

[00:09:24] If you have too many F's, let's say, oh, it's too hard, right? Because that's how they're looking at the data. And so he knew that this is how they look at the data, the bell curve.

[00:09:33] And so he's got to say, well, I got to have a certain number so I don't get the poo as it rolls downhill. The problem is the model, right? And the idea that you're like, oh, you should have the same standards as us. Why?

[00:09:48] Are you saying that you're educating every single child? You're not. We know you're not. So why should every school that's trying to teach kids in a different way, why should they all have to be under the same standard that you guys use?

[00:10:05] Maybe there might be some really awesome people who can teach kids in a different way and they're not certified teachers. That's possible. What if they're great communicators? I would submit that's probably better. People who can communicate ideas might actually be better at imparting those ideas into kids.

[00:10:25] I'm not saying they're perfect. They're going to be bad ones too. There always are, just like government schools do, right? They've got bad teachers and they got bad results too. It's like perfection is not one of the options available to us here, people.

[00:10:43] The arguments against vouchers and private schools and homeschooling even, I'm going to get to the homeschool argument in a second here because what used to be called, the publication formerly known as Scientific American, not so scientific anymore, well it happens when

[00:11:01] they go woke, which is David Berg, aka Iowa Hawk Blog. What he has described as the playbook here for leftists is that you identify an institution, you kill it, you gut it, and then you wear its carcass as a skin and demand the respect

[00:11:20] that the previous institution had earned. That's essentially what has happened in the colleges, it's happened in K-12 schools. That's kind of what we're watching right now. You've got leftists parading around in the carcass of this institution and demanding

[00:11:39] people respect it as if it deserves it because of the reputational benefits that have accrued to that institution over the previous decades. So the logical fallacy though that is employed against these private schools and homeschools

[00:11:58] is that the public school standards are effective, and that these are the things that guarantee the outcomes. And you don't have any arguments when it comes to the school choice debate unless, if you're

[00:12:12] on the public school side and you're saying no to vouchers and you're saying no to homeschools and they need to be at our standards, that is an assumption that your standards are working. And I would submit that that is not proven.

[00:12:28] It does work for some, but it doesn't work for all. I think even honest defenders of the public school system will tell you that it doesn't work for all. That's why they need more money and you need to pay them more money, and they need more

[00:12:41] money and you need to pay them more money. And every year just the same thing over and over and over again. And then we'll be able to educate all kids even though the bell curve distribution dictates that that's actually not possible. So what are you lying about this?

[00:12:58] And here's a fair point. This is from Stan who says, although we all passed all the tests, you cannot assume that all of us out here know what a bell curve is. Okay, that's it.

[00:13:12] It's the way the data looks when you plot it on a line graph right on a chart and you're like okay, you got ABCDs and Fs and how many you're going to have like on one end of the

[00:13:23] spectrum or the chart you're going to have in a class of 25 let's say, you'll have two As, you'll have like a lot more clustered around the Bs and Cs and then the low Ds and like two Fs.

[00:13:39] And so you have more people clustered in the middle because that's where most people are by definition. By definition you're going to have more people clumped in the middle because that's the average. That's the mean. Okay, so that's the bell curve.

[00:13:55] So there is this fallacy at the heart of these arguments. CMS went on to say the program's expansion or sorry, the News & Observer said that the voucher program's expansion produced demand that far exceeded available funds as applications more than doubled from years prior, which indicates what?

[00:14:13] A market signal. Now I understand it's not fashionable for people who work inside government to understand market forces, but in the private sector this indicates a signal and people who are wise and can read signals which are usually very obvious such as demand like wow there are

[00:14:34] a lot of people that want this good or service this product so let's make more of it. Let's increase the supply because the demand is so great. Private schools that receive state funding are not required to conduct the same standardized

[00:14:46] testing as public schools or adhere to the same scheduling or teacher qualification requirements, which assumes a lower standard doesn't it? That's what their argument is predicated on this assumption also that because you as a

[00:15:03] private school don't have the same public school standards that we have to live by that somehow or another that means your standards are lower when in fact what? They're oftentimes higher. They're higher. Private schools are not required to adhere to the Senate Bill 49 also referred to as

[00:15:22] Parents Bill of Rights or new legislation proposed this month that would require public schools to post all materials, lesson plans online within 10 days of being taught. If it's such a good idea for the student to attend public schools then why does it stop

[00:15:37] at the threshold of private schools? They're not bound by any of these rules said Charles Jeter, former state lawmaker now a CMS, a lobbyist. Well here's the thing if you don't like that your school is trying to trans your kid without

[00:15:52] your knowledge you get to pull your kid out of that school. That's accountability. If you want to see the lesson plans and stuff you get to pick a school that does that and if the school doesn't do that you don't have to send your kid there.

[00:16:10] The problem is you don't have the choice when government is in control. And by the way I don't like the model of government control anyway. So if you're interested in having this discussion about giving parents all of the control over

[00:16:25] these types of decisions or freeing schools from these types of decisions here's the solution. Blow up the government run model but until you're giving up confiscatory taxes in order to fund your program you don't get to then say don't look at how we're running the show.

[00:16:44] Don't look at how we're spending the money. You don't get to do that. Now if you're taking private money that's a different operation. So on the one hand the rich are using this to go to schools.

[00:16:57] They're taking the money and using it to go to schools and then on the other hand it's but they don't have any standards. Well then why on earth would the rich be doing that? Okay if you're listening to this podcast you are obviously paying attention to the world

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[00:17:54] Will you be ready when the lights go out? So a piece appeared at Scientific American sorry the publication formerly known as Scientific American. They have since rebranded as unscientific American. That coincided by the way when they went woke.

[00:18:14] So the number of children they say being educated at home has been growing for the past few decades. No one knows by how much and that's part of the problem. Homeschooling is barely tracked or regulated in the United States. But children deserve a safe and robust education.

[00:18:35] Whether they attend a traditional school or are educated at home. Enter GovCo because bureaucrats and politicians care more about your kids than you do. Okay, I added I added that part at the end there. They go on to say by the way this is from the editors.

[00:18:54] This was a full blown editorial with very like no data or actual science to back up their their claims. But they have all of the feels and that's the important thing here. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that by last count in 2019 nearly

[00:19:13] 3% of US children 1.5 million were being homeschooled. That number calculated from a nationwide survey is surely an undercount though. Surely it's an undercount. The federal government they say must develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in homeschooling across the country.

[00:19:38] That's what they're calling for the federal government to develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in homeschooling. Good luck with that. You realize the reason people are homeschooling is because they don't want anything to do with you. GovCo.

[00:20:03] They say that the number is likely an undercount of those who are being homeschooled because the homeschooling population is notoriously hard to survey and more children have been homeschooled since the COVID pandemic began.

[00:20:15] I still think this is one of the bright spots one of the unintended consequences on the one of the benefits side of the ledger was that people realized what exactly was going on in the schools and a lot of people were like screw this I'm out.

[00:20:31] They got so fed up with the government run schools and failure to open and the hybrid classes and the masking and all the other stupidity and so they were like we're gonna we're just gonna teach our kids ourselves.

[00:20:43] When they hear here you go they say when a traditional classroom setting cannot meet the educational social or emotional needs of a child homeschooling can allow parents to take over. Note that assumption homeschooling can allow parents to take over.

[00:21:07] See you're assuming that those are your kids in the first place and they're not if the parent feels like another educational setting is going to be of greater benefit to their child they can allow you to educate their child.

[00:21:27] See that's how that's that relationship right but so right so embedded with this status quo are these educrats and leftists like this is just the automatic assumption is that we are the thing that you're supposed to do and if for some reason it's you know not working

[00:21:52] out for you then okay we can allow parents to take over and it's the exact inverse. It's the exact inverse and the problem here for the government schools is that the more you try to control people's decisions in forcing them to send their kids to an ever

[00:22:14] deteriorating public school system and model the more parents leave. It's like the harder you grip the more stuff squeezes through your fingers. Let me go to Steve on the phone lines here hello Steve welcome to the program. Hi. Hello.

[00:22:35] Hi I just wanted to call and say that my mid-20s son when he was in the second grade in a good school Fort Mill schools we were unhappy we pulled him out my wife's home schooled

[00:22:51] him he ended up getting an academic scholarship for four years of college at public university and he's currently in a master's program where he got a full scholarship for the master's program. She has a two-year college education and she educated him because the schools were just too inadequate.

[00:23:16] Well that no that congratulations to you and your wife and and to your son for benefiting from that decision so much as he has that's awesome and there are a ton of these success

[00:23:27] stories that are out there I see teachers talk about this all the time at a college level professors talk about this where the kids that they are getting that are home-schooled they are some of the best students that they've ever had so it's not it's not an anomaly.

[00:23:42] I appreciate the call Steve and again congrats and kudos to you and your wife for doing that and look I know that not all parents are going to be able to do it but see this is why I'm

[00:23:53] like libertarian live and let live if you can't do that or don't want to do it or whatever fine like I'm okay with that decision too. I'm not trying to tell you to do anything that's the difference right you get people

[00:24:09] though that defend the status quo government model and they're demanding that everybody abide by what they demand and I just I think it's a self-defeating approach but I probably shouldn't say that because I want you to continue making I want you to continue making

[00:24:28] these arguments because I feel like I feel like it benefits my side of the argument when you keep doing it the way you're doing it. Scientific American.com the editors say many parents are attracted to home schooling because

[00:24:43] they want to have more say in what their child learns and what they do not. Those monsters nearly 60% of homeschooled parents who responded to a 2019 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics said that religious instruction was a motivation in their decision to educate at home.

[00:25:11] Just to make that clear. Total monsters. They're very worried some kids may not be receiving any instruction at all and the government school defenders like that's our job. They say oh you know what homeschoolers could be hiding you know abuse they could be abusing

[00:25:33] kids which we know never happens in the public school system. Not one state checks with Child Protective Services to determine whether the parents of children being homeschooled have a history of abuse or neglect.

[00:25:47] So they suggest having the feds do background checks on all parents that want to homeschool their kids. They're not your kids. They're not your kids. I understand teachers grow close to their students and they they love and care for their kids will take a bullet for their kids.

[00:26:08] I understand all of that but they're not your kids. You don't get to make those decisions for the kids for the rest of their lives. You don't get to do it you get them for eight months nine months out of the year. That's it. Not your kid.

[00:26:21] It's the parents kids. They had them. Dave welcome to the program. Hello Dave. Hey I don't know if you can hear me or not. I can yes sir. Okay great. I hear what you're saying but you're talking all about the positives and none of the cons.

[00:26:39] I'm going to bring up something that you may not have addressed and these the voucher system sends into private schools correct. It gives parents options on where to send the kid so they could be religious school could be a private school.

[00:26:55] Yeah well here's the thing I'm worried about that most of the private schools here have a Christian and have a Christian base and I'm just wondering if that's going to you know destroy diversity and you know possibly having you know a Jewish person feel on you

[00:27:15] know I guess unsympathized or on you know uncared for in that environment. You know would that be a problem you think. Well if I I think if a Jewish student goes to a Christian school they're going to understand that they are going to a Christian school right.

[00:27:32] So they've made a decision right at the outset to say I'm going to go to a Christian school and at that Christian school says we are totally fine to admit anybody of any religion but recognize that we're teaching from a Christian perspective.

[00:27:44] If that's not something the parents or child want then they don't have to go. The other side of that is if they say OK we are going to go but then they get like bullied or harassed which we know never happens in public schools.

[00:27:56] So then that would be on the school administration to yes to protect that kid and to punish the bullies. Right. But we're taking away the diversity that a you know public school would have. Are we are we saying we're going to do away with public school altogether.

[00:28:14] Why do you think that only Christian schools would exist. Why wouldn't there be schools that don't teach from a Christian perspective which I can tell you spoiler alert there are. So why why do you assume that. Huh. Not in Charlotte.

[00:28:29] Well do you recognize also that it's been this model for over 100 years now that there are vouchers there are now more and more schools that are opening up in order to serve and more students and to then get those vouchers to come in.

[00:28:44] It's now you're getting more schools because the money has been freed up. People have choices now. We're at the very beginning of that we're at the very beginning of this of this curve.

[00:28:55] There's an S curve in business where you get your early adopters you have you know you have your invention your early adoption and then it explodes and then you have more and more

[00:29:03] supply and the and then eventually the market kind of settles and then that's the top of that S curve. Right. So it's like a it's like a flattened S. That's what it kind of looks like a slope almost where

[00:29:15] it starts slow and then it builds real rapidly and then it kind of levels off. And so all industries follow this same sort of curve. And so that's that we're at the beginning of that curve in the in the private school voucherized system.

[00:29:29] I so I have I have no doubt they're going to be way more schools opening up that are going to take vouchers and are going to offer different types of education. Yeah and I'm all for that.

[00:29:40] I just don't think there's going to be enough equity for say non-christian. What does that mean? And if they do away with the vouchers. What does that mean that there's not going to be equity? What does that mean? Well they would feel uncomfortable let's put it that way.

[00:29:56] And there's no if there's no public school or no other school to go to and you're saying they will open up. But if they do away with the voucher system after this kid's been educated for like nine years or whatever in Christian school.

[00:30:12] And where is this person going to go? And that's that's one of the things. So you're afraid. So you're afraid of you're afraid of allowing the vouchers to continue because ostensibly Democrats might get back into control and do away with all the vouchers and send all

[00:30:26] of the kids back to public school? No I'm afraid that they will do it'll do away with public schools and teachers will end up quitting. And the money would stop going into the public school. And for good reason.

[00:30:41] That's them just don't measure up let's put it that way. All right Dave I got to run. I appreciate the call. So the teachers would go work in the in the private schools. And by the way there are a lot of private schools that are Jewish.

[00:30:53] Yeah there are Jewish schools too. All right that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:31:04] So if you'd like please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepeatcalendarshow.com. Again thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.