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- [00:02]
A
Hello and welcome to the Mountain State Liberty cast. I am your host, Ty Ward. Today I am joined by Katie Switzer. Hello, Katie.
- [00:10]
B
Hey, Ty.
- [00:11]
A
Hey. So, yeah, Taylor's not here. He had to do. He had to play rent a cop at church or something like that. So he's not here. But I'll try to think of the maybe one question that he might have that I wouldn't have. So, yeah. So, Katie, tell us a little bit about yourself. You are an advocate in the state for school choice, but you're more than that. Tell us your a little bit about your history and how you got interested in school choice.
- [00:38]
B
So my name is Katie Switzer. I have lived in West Virginia for almost 10 years now. My husband and I moved here. Our first child was a baby. And now we have five children. Four of them were born here. One of them was actually born right in the bathroom at her house in Matagalia county, which if you ever meet her, you should ask her about it because it's a funny story that she tells. Like she remembers it. But we, my husband and I, you know, never really talked a lot about the schooling we were going to use for our kids. I guess I always kind of assumed they would go to public school because I went to public school school in another state where I grew up. And the first time I kind of thought about school choice was when our second child, the first one that was born here, was transitioning out of birth to 3. That's the early intervention here in West Virginia. She had a, or has, I guess it never really goes away. Like a motor neurological disorder called apraxia of speech, which is basically like you got the sounds in your brain and you can't get them to your mouth. So like, it's usually diagnosed when, you know, if you're trying to make the S sound, they might swap out sounds. It's not like a consistent wrong attempt at the sound. She doesn't always make an F instead of an S. It might be an H or it might be, you know, something different. So anyway, we had worked with Bertha 3 for a couple years and she was transitioning out and she still only had, you know, maybe five or ten words at most at three. And so we were candidates. We were told that she was a candidate for early preschool at our local county school. So Bertha 3 helped set up a meeting with like the special needs coordinator with the school. And we got on the phone with her because it was like it was Covid times. So I'm not sure if that was a time normally that's in person or what. But in our case, it was like a conference call with our speech therapist and the psychologist that helped her because she would have a lot of tantrums because she couldn't talk at first. And, you know, Birth to three really helped us with that, come up with some strategies to help her. One of the biggest ones was sign language, actually. And she still signs, and she's eight now.
- [03:07]
A
Cool.
- [03:08]
B
But it is really cool. But, yeah, we had, you know, our birth disease coordinator and all, you know, these people that we had worked with for, you know, a year or two years, we really trusted them. They had, you know, helped us figure stuff out. They were helping us transition to a new speech therapist that specialized in apraxia, which was an enormous help. So I was kind of shocked when we got on the phone with this special needs coordinator and she was just very abrasive. She, you know, we would be trying to talk about Ruth, and she would interrupt our Birth to three team member and just be like, this is what I think. Or, you know, specifically I had said, you know, hey, I think she's ready to transition away from psychiatry, psychology, the psychologist, she hasn't really needed it in a while. And our psychologist from Birth to three was like, yeah, she's made really great improvements. And this woman kind of said, well, I'm going to test her for whatever I think is necessary, and then you can either pick nothing or everything that we tell you. So right off the bat, she was kind of taking away any participation of the parent, I guess. And it really bothered me because I'm thinking, this is my daughter, and she's barely verbal, she's only got five or ten words, and. And I'm going to trust her with this person who's already overriding my trusted Birth to three team members and, you know, basically doesn't seem to have any respect for them or for me, for that matter, as a parent where she's telling me what. What she thinks matters more than, like, me, the person who's with her all the time. And I was bothered enough by that that I got off that call and decided not going to do this early preschool program. And, you know, I'm going to. I'm going to think about some options. So I'm from New York State, and I called up my cousin who had a special needs child with more extreme special needs, and her child was attending a charter school that she just raved about. And so I called her up and I asked her, you know, hey, how'd you end up at the charter school. And what do you think of it? And she's like, oh, our local school, like wouldn't accommodate at all. They refused to, you know, let her aid, meet her at drop off. They wanted her to get out with all these other kids. And she was overwhelmed by it. And there was some, there was some physical, you know, disability issues there with navigating stairs at the entrance of the building. And I thought, well, you know, maybe a charter school won't be so bad. So I had heard that there was a charter school opening in West Virginia. And I'm trying to remember the timeline for this because I really, I think it was around the same time is why I called my cousin. I must have heard about the charter school around the time that we're talking to the special needs person. And there was like a public information session for this charter school or whatever. And you know, charter schools were kind of new to the state. I thought, you know, I think I'm going to go to that. So I went to this thinking it would be a meeting. This is how naive I was, Ty. I thought this would be a meeting where you would go and they would tell you like the school hours and like, who's going to, how they're going to serve lunches and like what grades they're going to serve. And you know, will they have bus transportation available or do I have to drop off? And I pulled up with two kids in tile. I can't. My husband must have been working that night or something. I brought the kids with me. I think I had a five year old and a three year old with me, or maybe it was four and three. And I got out and there was a rally, a literal political rally outside the door. And it was a gubernatorial candidate who was holding a rally for teachers union members outside the school where this public information session for a new charter school was being held. And I thought, you know, I really want to bring my kids in this. But also like, if I turn around and leave now, it's like they're whatever, they're trying to win. They're winning if I leave. And I'm kind of stubborn. That's like my personality, right? And I'm also kind of nosy. So I was like, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna go to it anyway. So I went in and I saw, I signed up for the, you know, you had to sign up to ask questions. And I did that and I go in and I'm sitting there and the charter school board members are like, just trying to present their idea for the school. And I remember thinking, like, gee, there's not a lot of information here. Like, I've got a lot of questions, like what? You know, just practical ones. And they said, okay, now it's time for the. The question time. And I'm not joking you, like, teacher after teacher got up and just like, verbally abused these people that were sitting up there that wanted to start the charter school. And they're like, you're gonna take my job? And it was all me, me, me. Like, I remember thinking, not a single one of these teachers has said anything about, like, they're concerned about the kids, or they're worried about the kids that might go here, or, you know, they're worried about the quality education. Every teacher was like, me and my. And, you know, my friends might leave to go work here, and you're going to take away, you know, jobs from us. And it. I was kind of shocked. And when I got up to do mine, I don't think I even asked him a question. I just said, boy, I can't believe the way you're talking to these people up here in this meeting. I can't remember what I said, but it was like, I was like. I think I said how shocked I was and that I was really disappointed in it and frustrated, who knows, Because I'm a loudmouth. But that was my first taste of, you know, West Virginia school choice politics.
- [09:11]
A
Yeah.
- [09:12]
B
And. Yeah. I don't know. Do you remember?
- [09:15]
A
No, that. That's. I'd like. I'm, like, actually embarrassed, like, listening to you tell that story. It's just. Yeah, I come. I'm. I say on this podcast all the time. I'm a recovered Democrat, and I have lots of family members that are still Democrats. I'm originally from California, so I'm not sure which is where it's California or New York. New York. But they. I. They're pretty progressive people in my family, and, you know, they talk about charter schools like they're just a part of education and. And like you said, they're just a. A means for people with kids that, you know, might have a special interest or a special need or something like that to be able to go to a school that can focus on those. Either those skills or those, you know, you know, again, not say setbacks, but, you know, differences in education and in West Virginia is just. It's. It's funny because it's the Democrat Party that is. Is just so abjectly opposed to these charter schools and school choice in general. And it's, it's embarrassing to me that they would, you know, like you said, just on a personal human level, act that way. But they get, it's something I'm sure you've learned. But like with our West Virginia, our 55 strong strike we had for teachers back in, I think it was 2016, I don't know if you're here for that, but it, it was just fervor like you've never seen. And a lot of them are really impassioned and I understand where they're coming from, but just the, the, the stronghold that teachers unions and the psyop that they put on these teachers is just so strong here that it's hard to get past that. And for somebody, for somebody like me who's been here for, I've been here since 1998, so I'm kind of used to that whole world and having teachers in my family and knowing teachers and, you know, some that, you know, agree with that kind of thing and some that don't. And, and because teachers, that's a, that's the other thing we could talk about a little bit. But teachers in West Virginia aren't a monolith. I mean, there, there's lots of teachers that don't have a problem with school choice and think it's a good thing. And, and maybe they would have liked to have, if they weren't retired or something, they would have liked to have taught at a private school if they could, you know, afford it with more students being able to attend and get, do their job a little bit better. But it just, that's the, that's the main thing I can think is just the word embarrassed about that experience that you had and people coming in here and thinking West Virginia is this, you know, first free loving state, and then hearing them, you know, just come advocating for just complete control for the government over schools.
- [11:51]
B
I just, I like, I have a genuine question for teachers in West Virginia and I haven't found one that will answer it, but if you would and you find me on Facebook or whatever, please answer it. If you're a teacher listening to this, I want to know why the teachers think, think the union is helping them here. Because your pay is lower than every other state around us. I'm pretty sure your insurance costs are higher or maybe comparable. And they truly don't treat teachers well here. Like, they don't back you up on discipline. They don't back you up to the parents who have real problems at home, and they don't give you the Tools you need to, like, keep control of your classroom. And, like, isn't that what the union is supposed to do is, like, back the teachers up? Like the problems with Raley's Law and cps, Right. A teacher puts in a complaint, an allegation of abuse. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that Raeley's teacher passionately advocated for her and put in a complaint pretty much every week for 19 weeks saying, this girl needs help. And she was absolutely ignored by CPS for other. Other things. Whether why that happened, I don't know. I heard there were some personal conflicts there associated with Rayleigh's stepmother. But why don't the teachers get backed up? Like, if a teacher says there's abuse, then that should be investigated, like, immediately. And, and who, who is not advocating for these teachers to make that happen? Like, the union doesn't seem to advocate for the teachers. It really just seems to advocate for the union. And when I say advocate for the union, I mean their focus seems to be primarily on quantity of jobs and not the quality of the jobs for the teachers. And I don't get that because I haven't. I've lived in seven states between, like, New York. I've lived in California, by the way, too. I've lived in Texas, Minnesota. I briefly lived in Missouri. I'm an engineer. Before I got married, we moved a lot. We lived in Iowa before we moved here. So I've seen a lot of different things. Now, I didn't have kids in those states and I didn't see education. But as a young adult, it was discussed, you know, at work or whatever, other people out, what was their life like in school, blah, blah, blah. I just, I don't understand why teachers don't say, you're not improving my quality of life. You're not improving my pay, you're not improving my classroom. You're not. Why are they so supportive of this union that is, like, not good. I. I go. I don't know. Maybe you know the answer, Ty. But I'd love to hear a teacher who would tell me why they think it's so great. Because I don't see it from the outside looking in.
- [14:39]
A
Yeah, that, that is something that I need to dig more into because I have lots of teacher friends and, and unfortunately, you know, now I think it's like most unions I've been in. I've been in two unions now, Boilermakers and the ibew, the Electricians union and, you know, the, the, the boilermakers just from where I worked it, the, the main premise to me of unions, the positive thing is you've got this organization that is helping provide skilled labor. They train you, you know, before, first week I was there, they had me in a booth learning how to weld. I knew how to weld, but you know, learning how to weld the way they weld. And, and they're able to provide trained people that they, their selling point is we're going to train these people and provide these companies quality workers that they can guarantee are good workers. And then they work for the employee, the worker, the member of the union to get the best rate of pay, you know, benefits, you know, things like that. That's the idea of it. And that's when unions are working the way they should be. But like teachers unions, I don't know if there was a time in West Virginia when that was the case. I, that would be an interesting history to hear from maybe an older teacher, somebody that experienced that. I don't know how long teachers unions have existed in West Virginia or public unions in general. But like you said, I think now, you know, they've gotten the things I know. I mean it's there, it's not easy to fire a teacher for no reason. And I know that's because of the work teachers unions did to, to craft code in this state which, you know, they, that's good and bad, but also it protects teachers that, you know, might be retaliated against or whatever. There is a process that an administrator has to go through and prove that there is some kind of reason to fire this teacher. The pay, the, the vacation time, the, the benefits and those things. But again, the two. And I'll, you know, steel man. The argument for them is there's only so much a teacher's union can do to influence the legislature. And everybody wants to blame Republicans for this, but Republicans have had power for 10 years and this system hasn't changed a whole lot over that time. So almost everything that we see, the issues with school, the school system, public school system, it happened before Republicans took over this state had a 80 year Democrat supermajority. And so, and you know, in West Virginia, I mean most, most Democrats in West Virginia, they're not your typical, you know, California Democrat, they're Blue dog union Democrats. And the majority of them are. And now, I mean, I think most of the Democrats in the state now are kind of the remnant of the, the progressive Democrats that were in the party. And most of the Blue Dogs have gone over to the Republican Party. But that, that was the idea of it, I think and I think that's probably still the idea. But this is funny inside baseball, Katie, but that 55 strong strike, do you remember that?
- [17:31]
B
Yeah, yeah. That happened like right around the time that we were looking to move here and I think it had just, just kind of ended when we moved here because we moved here in early 2017. So it was still, it was still like a topic of discussion and we heard about it at least on the radio when we came out here to interview for jobs.
- [17:48]
A
Yeah. And so I'd, I need to have Mike Folk former delegate in the, the, in West Virginia House of Delegates, but he was involved in that whole process. Well they, that was that year they actually had, you know, made a deal with the unions and negotiated 1 or 2% pay raise for teachers and it was over. They were in the process of crafting the budget and getting that into their, their budget for the legislative session. Well it just so happens Katie, that in that same year there was two bills and this, I've told teachers this and they didn't know about this and they were involved in that, that strike. But there was one bill because as it stands right now and they didn't get these bills through by the way because they had to concede to them and the unions got what they wanted. But as it sits right now, there was two teachers unions at the time, now there's only one. Well those two teachers unions had presidents or whatever CEOs of the, the teachers unions and they have to be former teachers. Well the way the code sits right now and then as well their retirement, their state funded pension is based on their whatever the percentage I think is 75% or whatever the percentage is when they retire of their pay is based on what they make in that teacher's union. And if you have any idea what they make, it's upwards of $200,000. So they're making, they're getting a retirement based on that $200,000 will say, well what, what sorry, what, what that legislation said was no, you're going to retire based on what your highest salary was as a teacher. And you could see why that would ruffle some feathers. The second bill was, and again this one didn't pass either. But right now teachers, when they sign up for the union, their dues are taken out of their state check. Well what they wanted to do is and now and then they don't have to re up that. So until they like go in and purposefully take that off of their pay, it just keeps coming out of Their check, you know, forever. And so what they wanted to say is every year the teacher would have to sign an agreement that, that would continue to come out of their check.
- [19:57]
B
Oh, they'd have to actually do something instead of defaulting.
- [20:00]
A
So those two bills, feelings about that. Yeah, those two bills get presented and all of the sudden there's a huge issue. And the unions and the teachers, a lot of them will tell you, oh, no, the union had nothing to do with that strike that was teacher led. Well, a lot of letters went out talking about pay raises and stuff to teachers. And then all of a sudden, teachers decide to strike, and we get this strike and they end up with, I think it was a 3% pay raise that year. And those two bills get killed. So like you said, that's what these teachers unions are for, is to fight school choice. That's one thing they do well, Katie, is they fight any change, any opposition to what is the status quo, to changing anything about our school system. Anytime a legislature tries to change anything substantive, they get shot down by the teachers unions and they send all kinds of people in paid, you know, advocates for public schools to come in and squash those bills. You know, Katie, like, you're a paid advocate for school choice.
- [21:04]
B
Oh, yeah.
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A
Inside joke.
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B
What Ty is referring to is someone who accused me of being a paid lobbyist on Facebook, to which I am absolutely threatening to go out to my mailbox with my, My, my analog watch and have my daughter take a photo of me waiting for my lobbyist paycheck. I don't know when that's going to come. I, I've never received my hope handout either. And it's been three years. I, I don't know where that check is.
- [21:32]
A
Well, they just can't fathom, fathom the concept of a, a private citizen being informed. So it's beyond their comprehension.
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B
Most recently, I think yesterday, somebody accused me of acting apart, and I thought, oh, should I get. Maybe I should be getting a paycheck from one of those, like, acting unions.
- [21:51]
A
Yeah.
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B
And so I'm just gonna stand by my mailbox and just wait for the checks to come in the mail and like, maybe eventually, right, like, well, you
- [22:00]
A
should get a Golden Globe because you, you play the part well. So, yeah, since we're talking about it. So about four years ago, maybe five years now, the West Virginia legislature passed the HOPE Scholarship. And I think that's was it the year before they passed the charter school bill.
- [22:16]
B
No, it was okay. How. This is. Yeah, this is getting okay. So in 2019. So this is how. So just full disclosure. I think I have probably identified myself as a little L. Libertarian since I was a teenager. Like, I was born a difficult person. Yeah, I just. I. I look at everything under a microscope. I really struggle with, like, as a. As a younger person, before I had kids, I really struggled with black and white thinking. And I have always been a person who, like, looks at every issue independently of, like, other things. So, like, I have a hard time voting because I'm not a single issue voter. And, like, I'll agree with somebody on this thing. And then I'm like, which of these issues do I care more about? And it really bothers me that there's no candidates that I can be like, yeah, this candidate is not going to trample people's rights and is also a moral person. Like, I have a hard time finding that. But Anyway, so around 2019, when I moved here, I started getting stuff on my Facebook feed from this. This place called the Cardinal Institute. And I was like, you know, it was probably a year or two after I moved here. I think they started doing stuff in 2019. And I was like, I agree with all this stuff. Who is this guy Garrett Blangy? Like, he seems like a guy that I'd like to talk to, and I think I annoyed him a lot on Facebook because I would, like, comment on their stuff. And, like, I just. But I, like. At one point, Garrett reached out to me on Facebook. I'd never met him. I'd never really. I don't think I'd even talked on the phone with him. It was like a message or something, and he was like, hey, you know, would you be interested in talking to the senator about some options? Because at that time, I was trying to figure out what to do with Ruth. It was around the time that we met with that Birth to Three coordinator right before it, and he was talking about school choice because I was worried about. I had learned from her involvement in Birth to Three that apraxia is a very specific disorder. And you can't use a typical speech therapist for it because it requires, like, literally reprogramming your, like, motor connection to. To repeat the sounds over and over again and build that motor memory connection. And a typical speech therapist doesn't even. A good one doesn't have that specific training. Like, it really is, like, more of a neurologist situation.
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A
Right.
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B
And so I was thinking to myself, like, how are we going to afford the speech therapist? Because at the time, there was only one in the entire state. And she just happened to be in Morgantown. And it's a. It's a disorder that you have to. You can't really do the speech therapy over zoom. It has to be in person. And she didn't take insurance, so, you know, I was able to submit for, like, a partial reimbursement with her of insurance and. But it was really expensive. At one point, even after insurance, I think my husband and I were spending close to 1000 doll a month on speech therapy for her.
- [25:28]
A
Wow.
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B
And it was worth every penny. Like, I'm not complaining, but, like, some of our relatives helped us. I mean, we. We. We went to the bat for her, and it was worth it. Like, I mean, she's. She went from, you know, five to 10 words when she turned three to, like 50 within three week, three months. And it just. It, like, exploded from there. And she still sometimes, like, you can't tell if you talk to her and she's comfortable with you, and she's, like, very social. You wouldn't even be able to tell. But when she gets into, like, an environment where there's a lot of kids or whatever and they all talk, she will shut down. And she has trouble getting the words out. And don't ever tell her this. Don't ever play this for her. She. My husband and I privately call it chipmunking. Because she'll lose, like. She'll lose her ability to, like, get the words out. And she sounds like an angry chipmunk, like, Chipfindale. She's like. And when she's sad and she still does it, and she'll probably do it her whole life because it's like, it doesn't. Apraxia, you can't really cure it. It doesn't really go away. It's like. It's actually, apraxia and dyslexia are highly correlated because they're similar neurological things, like wiring things. So anyway, you know, when Garrett reached out and told me about this Hope scholarship, and I was like, would you be able to use that for therapies like you could get in a school? And he's like, well, yeah, probably. I'm thinking, okay. So I could get her out of, like, overwhelming environments, and then I could use some of her educational money to help pay for the speech therapist. That is specific for apraxia, which she would never get in public school. I had already investigated that and basically been told by our Birth to three team, like, that's not going to happen. They don't have apraxia specialists in school. They don't have them in birth to three. It's just because it's so rare. It's like 1 in 10,000 children. Like, it doesn't make sense to allocate resources to train somebody on something that requires extensive training and is, like, not very common. And I get that. I do. It makes sense what they told me. I'm not criticizing the schools for that because it would be, you know, probably an inappropriate use of resources and it would be too much to ask on my part.
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A
Right.
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B
So anyway, I thought, well, this sounds really great, because I could use a speech therapist that knows what they're doing with Apraxia. I could, you know, do some classes. At that time, I don't think I knew anything. Like, I didn't know about co ops. I knew nothing. Like, I was just, like, going into this blind. So, I mean, Garrett was like, will you talk to the senator? And, like, they're going to do, like, a hearing on Zoom. Because it was during COVID and I was like, cool, whatever. And I remember sitting in the Senate hearing, and I never. I don't think I even got asked to speak. And I was kind of, like, disappointed by that because I wanted to tell them about my daughter and, like, how this could, like, really change her life. And I don't think I even got a chance to. But I think from that moment on, after I sat in that hearing and I listened to all the other people talk, I thought, you know, this is, like, a program that could be amazing for, like, my daughter. Kids like her. Could you imagine how many kids are out there that just. They just struggle in the classroom? Like, I got bullied because I'm a typical engineering personality. My husband did. I mean, what could this do for. For kids that just, you know, they don't fit in, or they've got some thing like Ruth and they need extra help? And I think that was the point where I kind of, like, took that battle on. Like, sometimes, you know, I don't know what religion is there, but, you know, sometimes God just speaks to you, and it is not like an in your face thing. It just kind of gradually happens. And by the time that you get there, you're fighting, like, this epic battle, and you're like, how did I even get here?
- [29:18]
A
Yeah.
- [29:20]
B
And that's kind of how it felt for me. So I don't know. Anyway, I. I think that the charter schools in Hope were first introduced in 2019, but it wasn't called Hope. It was called the Educational Reform Act. And I actually went back and was watching some of these videos because I'VE got a website going and I'm putting some history in there and I'm documenting voting records for people and stuff. And that original bill did not pass. Or there actually there was two of them. There was like, one that was in the regular session and then there was one in 2019 during the special session.
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A
Right.
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B
And neither one of them passed because. Because both of them were too big. They were everything, all in one thing. It was like Hope Scholarship, it was charter schools, and it was like there was other reforms in there. And I think it was just too big a bite for them to chew. Yeah. But it started the conversation. And actually, like, if you go back and watch those 2019, like, educational committee meetings and the arguments on the floor, I gotta give a call out to Senator Roberts. Like, he. Six years, seven years later. I watched that, like, this week, literally. And I almost cried when I heard his speech on the floor in 2019 about this, because he got it. Like, he understood. He understood why it was needed and he was there for the kids. And that's like the biggest theme that I see through this whole thing when I'm, like, going back and thinking about my history with other people's history with it. I. I think what makes me the maddest about the whole thing is every time that they try to put down school choice, they don't talk about the kids because they know the kids benefit from it. They really don't, because they can't argue that, oh, it's hurting the kids. They have no evidence of that. So the arguments are almost always. I'm sure there's been a couple exemptions, like, oh, this one kid, some. I don't know, there's anecdoted stuff that I wouldn't be surprised is out there. But most of the time it's like, well, we're upset that our schools are closing and we're losing jobs and this and that. And it's very adult focused. And it's like they just lost touch of, like, who they serve and why. Why the schools exist in the first place. And if we could fix that, I mean, 75% of the kids in West Virginia are probably always going to be at a public school. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that other than you have to step up for those kids, too. And they really just don't seem to go anywhere with it. And if you look at the history of these bills that go out and the ones that get passed for the schools, let's not talk about the financial ones, but like things like the third grade literacy act from 2023. That sounds amazing, right? It's kind of modeled after what happened in Mississippi. Mississippi and West Virginia used to battle it out for, like, who was the worst education in the Nation back in 2013. And West Virginia just, you know, won, Lost, you know, but they won for the worst. And Mississippi integrated this amazing, like, systemic approach with like actual. Not just benchmarking, but actual metrics that they used that made systematic change. So things that they did included, like, they put. They taught every teacher, not just the first, second and third grade teachers that were in certain subjects, like reading and ela. No, they taught every teacher in the elementary schools how the science of reading works. And they integrated science of reading into every type of class. Like history, math, like, reading, word problems, all of that. Every teacher knew about the science of reading and helped kids with, you know, sounding it out and blending and, you know, that every teacher. So it was consistent. And it was the same program from class to class. So, like, if you went from second grade to third grade and you have a new teacher, you don't have, like, a whole new reading curriculum that you have to get used to. It's exactly the same at every school, in every classroom, with every teacher.
- [33:44]
A
Well, that's.
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B
And that was huge.
- [33:45]
A
That's the crazy thing. We can talk a little bit about the combination of the critiques, but that's the thing that we. And we've kind of, you know, poked fun at that here. You know that you're. You have legislation to teach literacy. Like, isn't that the thing they're supposed to be doing? Like, like, if they're not teaching literacy, what are they teaching? So to me, like, what you're talking about, like, I remember that being just the thing. Like, yeah, no, you. Everybody learns how to teach kids like you. Isn't that why you go to college, to be trained how to be a teacher? Like, you learn. This is how you teach. Like, to me, like, that's the. And you can be know, black pilled all you want on it, but. And I'm glad that they're doing something. But like you said in Mississippi, like, oh, this novel idea that every kid, every teacher should know how to teach. Like, that's what you're saying is, like, teachers should all know how to teach. Like, that's.
- [34:36]
B
There's no, I think there's more nuance to it than that. Right? Because. So there's a great podcast on this. So I don't want to get too detailed on it, but, like, surprisingly NPR did this. It's called Sold a Story. If you've never listened to it and you're interested in literacy, you should go right now and download it. It's amazing. But, like, the condensed version is that at some point, these big companies started getting in, lobbying the schools, one in particular. And they were teaching, like, three queuing instead of phonics. So it was, like, guessing, basically. And my. My oldest is amazing at guessing, and that, like, he. Okay. So I had a kid I knew had died, dyslexia. And I didn't know that her older brother did. I thought he was just resistant to reading until I had his. Her tutor evaluate him because I knew he was behind, and I was having trouble motivating him. And I thought, well, maybe somebody else can, like, not be the. Because sometimes not the mama is a better teacher. And, like, I accept that. So I asked for help. And she was like, he's more dyslexic than she is. And I was like, oh, my God, how could I have not known that? And she's. She said he was one of the best masking kids she's ever seen, because he'll look at all the contacts, like, the first and last letter and, like, the picture or whatever, and he'll guess, and he's really good at it. But anyway, they were encouraging kids to do that. Now, the difference between, like, the Mississippi Third Grade Literacy act, or whatever they called it there, and the West Virginia one is that ours, like, doesn't have that consistent thing. It doesn't have. It has benchmarking and assessments and money and identification, but there's nothing on the back end. Which probably sounds familiar to you because that's literally every piece of legislation that I feel like we've ever passed since the time that I started paying attention to this. They're, like, really good at spending a bunch of money on, let's identify the problem, and then they don't execute on the back end. And their plan to execute is, like, we'll dump it with somebody in whatever department, and then we'll never revisit it to see if it worked.
- [36:43]
A
Yeah, a committee to evaluate the evaluation of the committee.
- [36:47]
B
Yeah, like. Like, well, it's not even us. Like, they're not willing. Like, normal people do that. Like, they. They say, well, let's try this, and then we'll see if it works, and we'll adjust it and make it better. Like, it's like, we're unwilling to do that here. And I don't know if it's, like, a pride Thing, cultural thing or like what? But explain to me, Ty.
- [37:05]
A
I don't, I don't know. I agree. And that's the thing is they, they dust their hands and, and move on and you know, it's a different topic. But with abortion, you know, they, they pass this abortion ban and then next year, next couple years, they see that the numbers of West Virginia women getting abortions have increased because they're going to other states and they go, well, what are you going to do? And I'm like, well, okay, I mean, whether you agree with that or not, like, like you said, you, you pass a bill and then you're just done forever. Like that's just you, you solve the problem, you're done. No, that's not how anything works. And if you're going to make government control things, like no business runs that way, no business just puts, well, I mean a successful one, they don't just put a policy in place and just assume it's working. Like that's not how anything works. And, and with education, again, like West Virginia's literacy didn't used to be this bad. So, you know, there's people, I tell the story all the time. My wife's grandfather, he didn't go past the eighth grade and he read all the time like he was, he worked, ran equipment in a coal mine, but he would read like he didn't have a problem reading and he understood it and he could read to you. He could read the Bible in church out loud and didn't have a single problem. Somehow by 8th grade he was a good reader. How did that happen in rural West Virginia in a one room schoolhouse? How did they do it? Like, and I'm not saying we need to go back to the old ways, like, you know what I mean? But it's just like at some point, like you just said, we've industrialized schooling and we've created this whole mess of bureaucracy where, you know, it's a, it's, what do they call for, you know, any, any kind of expertise. It's a appeal to authority that. Well, and, and teachers get this in their mind too. Well, you're not a teacher. You don't know. And I'm like, they just had to pass a bill to teach you how to teach kids how to read. So I'm really kind of not wanting to hear you belittle me about teaching when you evidently don't know how to teach kids how to read. Like, so that's, that's my main issue is like, and back to my point, before is that, you know, that was a big push by Amy Grady, Senator Amy Grady, who is a teacher, and, and she got that through. And I don't, I think most teachers are positive about that. But every time I talk to a teacher, one of their biggest gripes is, is they're not allowed to teach. They have to do this curriculum and, and, and they buy these books and half the time they don't even use all of it because some of it's not good. And so they're, they're teaching for, not only, not just teaching for the test, they're teaching out this curriculum. They're reading a script. I don't know if you've seen some of this curriculum, Katie, but it's literally has like say this to the student.
- [39:48]
B
Yep.
- [39:48]
A
And some homeschooling curriculum has that. But you would expect that because you're not a teacher and you're trying to be a homeschool and it's helpful for somebody like that. But if you're supposed to be this trained teacher with a four year degree and you're reading a script, I think most teachers would feel kind of, you know, insulted by that. And a lot of them really do they want to be able to teach the way they want to teach and sure. Have your standards and have, you know, this is, this is the curriculum in West Virginia that our school, our, our universities are going to teach our teachers how to teach. And this is the standard, basic standard. And then, you know, every teacher finds their own way to do it. The way they do it and the bet the way that they work the best as a teacher, that's how it should work. But like you said, it's not, there's no standardization. But there's also so much standardization that it's like. Well, I don't, I don't know how you fix any of that.
- [40:44]
B
Well, I think a lot of it is driven by the West Virginia summative assessment. So like the summative assessment, if you go and look at it, you. So just. I went, like I said, I went to public school in New York State and we had something called the Regents Exam that you would take every year.
- [41:02]
A
Yeah.
- [41:02]
B
And it was like you literally sit in a gym at the end of the year, but it was almost like a whole week because it was all five subjects. In West Virginia, the general summative assessment is normalized only over like the 200, you know, 50 ish thousand kids in West Virginia. So like divide that by 13 grades. Right. And you know, how many kids are approximately in Each grade. And that's what it's normalized over. And really that is not like a huge group of, of normalization. And plus you're normalizing it against kids that are literally at the bottom of the nation in education. So that's going to push your curve up. You know, you're like, you're moving your curve so that it's, it's favorable to these kids that are, are in a terrible.
- [41:48]
A
Yeah.
- [41:49]
B
No one can argue that their results are, their outcomes are bad. So they only take that test from third to eighth grade and it's only in two subjects, ELA and math, except in eighth grade they add science. So they have to teach the curriculum to the summative exam. That's, I mean they, they, they learn the curriculum to that summative exam in those subjects like that year and they have to teach to it because that's what's expected. And I don't understand how, how they like performance wise, they do it because the results are dismal. They're like 30%. Only 30% of kids like mid-30s are considered at like their grade level reading comprehension and math comprehension, which is like if you look at comparable. I don't even, I looked at this, I tried to figure out how do they do it when they don't have West Virginia take nationwide generalized normal like nationally normed generalized exams like Stanford or Iowa. So I have no idea how they get these scores. They might evaluate the test and then modify the score to match the test difficulty. I don't know. But like if you look at like US World News Report or some of these places that, that actually try to compare across the nation. West Virginia is just, it's sad. And like the public school that I went to in New York is, I thought, I thought for sure I went to like a really good public school in New York. And I was like, I must have gone to like the top 10% in New York because I'm really like stuck up. No, the public school I went to in New York is not even in the top third of the schools in New York for scores and they still scored in the low 90s for both of those, whereas West Virginia is in the mid 30%. And when I looked that up, that was part of my decision to not send my kids to public schools here because I remember being totally shocked. I thought, oh, it can't be that bad. Oh, it is, it is. And explains, it explains a lot of how people interact with each other on social media. And sometimes I can't even understand what people are trying to say because of the run on sentences and the misspellings and the lack of punctuation and capitalization, I cannot.
- [44:08]
A
I'm right here, Katie.
- [44:10]
B
Come on.
- [44:13]
A
No, I'm with you. And I understand. And that's. That's the thing. That's why I always tell my wife, I'm like, if I know that something's wrong in a sentence, you're really, really wrong. So, yeah, because I was. And again, no California public schools. I don't know. Again, I don't know if I just went to the worst public schools ever, but I didn't. I. Spelling. I'm atrocious, Katie. And a lot of people. This blows their mind. I never learned my times tables. To this day, I don't know them. Nobody made me learn them. I'm bad at math. Horrible at math. I just never learned them. And nobody made me.
- [44:46]
B
Yeah, you went to school.
- [44:49]
A
Yeah, until I was 12. And then we moved here and still just continued on and graduated with a 3.7 GPA. Just never knowing my times tables.
- [44:58]
B
Well, you know, Ty, they just graduate anyone. Unless we have the. We have the lowest reading and math comprehension scores and some of the highest graduation rates in the country.
- [45:07]
A
The thing I say is, yeah, and you can. And that's one thing. But that's the thing. We have like a 93% graduation rate, but, like 40% of our college attendees have to take remedial classes. So what does that tell you? They're not learning what they need to learn to go, to move on. And that's. And I get that part. And it is what it is. And, you know, public school. And that's. That's the thing. And I'm sure you agree, you know, I'm a libertarian, and Taylor and I say all the time, in the perfect libertarian utopia, you know, public anything wouldn't exist. But we have a state constitution which pretty clearly spells out. And people can have their arguments about it. I know there's all kinds of cases with charter schools that, you know, it's unconstitutional or whatever, but I think it's pretty clear that anybody reading the Constitution says we're supposed to have public schools and free public schools. And so that's fine, but it's free and efficient. Right? Right. Yeah, Right. And. And so that. That efficient part is what we should be focusing on. And I think you and I would love nothing more than to think we don't need school choice because our public schools are so fantastic that there's no reason to go to a private school. Unless you have some religious reason. I'm sure you and I would love for that to be the case, but that's not the case in any way, shape or form. And I'm not. And I'm not a snoot. I'm not snooty. I'm not a snob. Our, our kindergartner went to public school this year because, you know, she needed, you know, the socialization. We have a four year old that is home and they don't learn together. They're. They're, you know, cats and dogs with each other. And so she went to school. She loved it. She's improved immensely. She's learned, you know, the. Every milestone you would want from kindergarten, she's exceeded it with her public school teacher, Mrs. Burkhouse. She's fantastic. She's done a great job. No problem with that. We took her out during that last snowstorm because we got tired of the nonsense that is the problem with public schools. Our, our county for two years now, they didn't apply for the. I always forget what they call them, the alternative learning days where they get to take a packet home or they didn't apply for them, so we weren't able to. We weren't allowed to use them. So that's the stuff you deal with. And so, you know, Erica and I'm a little bit more even keeled sometimes than she is. But she said, enough, I'm done with this. We're not going to school till June. We're not doing this. I'm taking her out. We're just going to homeschool for the rest of the year. Don't want to. And Millie was like, yeah, that's fine. I want to. I want to homeschool. And she hasn't had a problem since. But it wasn't, it wasn't the teacher, it wasn't the classroom. It was the nonsense of public schools. And I will say there's plenty. There's. And any teacher will tell you this, and I don't back down from this because every teacher knows it's true. They all have a teacher they teach with that should not be teaching. I had plenty of teachers in public school that made me feel like I was an idiot because they didn't know how to teach somebody that was a little bit slow in math. I had a teacher call me an idiot, Katie. And again, I don't get offended. And even then I thought it was kind of funny that a teacher would say something like that. And maybe he was joking, you know what I mean? Like in a seven, seventh grader didn't understand he was joking. But like, that's not something a teacher should say to a kid ever. I think this is my opinion.
- [48:24]
B
Yeah.
- [48:24]
A
And I'm. I agree, but I'm not soft. But maybe telling a kid that's kind of bad at math that he's an idiot probably isn't the best thing in the world to do, but. So that. That's part of it. But our thing is, and I'm sure we can talk about this, but it's not, it's not saying that teacher. The public school teachers are less than, or we want to take their job or whatever. And, and that's what I want to talk about. Hold on a sec. Sorry. Taylor's trying to get in. I don't know how to let him in a little bit. How the sausage is made. The sausage is not made. Well, because I don't know how to make sausage.
- [49:04]
B
Usually it's under. If you click under participants, it'll show you like, somebody's in the waiting room.
- [49:13]
A
You can't get in.
- [49:16]
B
You want me to get out? You let him in and then you could let him start his house.
- [49:22]
A
Usually he just lets him in. Oh, I don't know. Anyway, we'll. I'll text with him as we're talking, but so I'll just let you talk and text him. But. So basically my question is, what are some of the biggest things you hear people complaining about? And, and we'll stick at this first part. We'll stick with the, the money part. Contrasting with public schools, what are the biggest, you know, misconceptions people have about how, how the HOPE scholarship affects public schools financially?
- [49:57]
B
Okay. So I think a lot of people think that first of all, that HOPE kids get like some, like they're actually kind of taking money from the school and it's like, immediate and it's horrible and it's, you know, it's so detrimental. So the school funding formula is. Is quite complicated, but it's not that complicated. So when they pass the actual HOPE bill, they decided that they were going to base hope only on the part of the formula that it was easiest to touch, which is obviously the state aid portion, because trying to take money from county property taxes and redistributing it is not going to go well. And it might not even be illegal. Who knows? The federal part is usually allocated for certain programs, so they really can't touch those because the federal aid is usually like school launch programs, some vocational stuff, like a little bit of administrative Money and stuff for, like, schools for the deaf and blind and some programs like that. And it's usually based on the actual, like, federal money that goes to a public county school is usually based on population demographics. It's not based on enrollment, and it's
- [51:09]
A
really not as much as people think it is. I was kind of surprised by that.
- [51:12]
B
It's a tiny point, fortunately, like, $1,500 to $2,000 a year per student on average, across the state. And it's like. It's mainly. It's mainly based on, you know, how many kids have disabilities or are like, like, significant disabilities. Not usually. It's like, physical disabilities, things like that. And then how many of them are on, like, public welfare programs like SNAP and tanf. And they. They look at that, and that's how some of that federal money comes in. So, you know, like, the. The school lunch money comes from the. Actually the, like, federal agricultural department. It doesn't come from education, but it's kind of managed through there, and it's based on that. That's why we have so many schools in West Virginia that have free school lunches for every kid, which I have a whole argument about. This super bothers me that they waste all these resources on kids that can afford school lunches just because their argument is like that. That way the kids aren't embarrassed. And I'm like, give them all a debit card. They could buy lunches with, like, a pin number. Like, then nobody knows who's got funding and who doesn't from the state. They just know there's funding there and it doesn't go away or anyway, or
- [52:18]
A
make all parents feed their kids anyway, keep going anyway.
- [52:22]
B
So then there's the. The county property tax portion, which, like, HOPE kids don't get any of that. And actually, like, it is adjusted on each county. So there are counties like Doddridge that are so rich that they don't get state aid funding, like, at all.
- [52:39]
A
I didn't know that.
- [52:40]
B
And that's not. Yes, because they get so much property tax. So, like, there's an adjustment, which I'm going to talk about in the state aid portion of the formula for the amount of money that comes in from property taxes. And that's why they had to base the HOPE funding on a statewide average instead of county by county, because HOPE kids would have gotten nothing in rich states in rich counties and, like, an enormous amount of money in poor counties. And they were like, okay, we can't do that. So when they looked at hope, what they did was they looked at the portion of the state funding that's only based on enrollment. So the state aid portion of enrollment is like basically step 10. So all the steps that come before step 10 tie into the step 10, like, total amount. And they're basically things like they take. They take. They look at how many thousands of kids by 1,000. Right. And they do all these calculations, like, you get. You get funding for this many professional educator salaries per thousand kids, and then they do an adjustment based on how sparse or dense the population of students is in the county. It's. It's crazy complicated in that way. I don't like, this is like. And this is all based. We'll get to that in a minute. But anyway, so it's like. It's like professional educators, support staff, transportation, buses, the number of square footage of school buildings. That's also adjusted for the, you know, how many thousand kids are in those buildings. And like, all of that ties into step ten. And they take out the county property tax as a levy adjustment. And it used to be that it was. It was 98% of what that county collected on property taxes. Now it's 90% because the school said, we need more money. True story. And that was like, not. That was in the recent, like, recent past, like in the last 10 years. Yep. So the reason why they adjust based on the county levy amount is because of this really, like this 1970s or 80s, like in that time frame, there was this woman that sued the school board because she. She lived in a poor county, and she said that my kids are not getting a free and efficient system of school. And this. This judge called Judge Recht, he had all these experts come in. And I think by the time this was said and done, it might have been 1984 or so. But he. He spent like years on this where he had all these experts come in and talk about it. And, you know, he basically agreed with this woman and said, yup. You know, the counties that have less property taxes are not getting as good of an education as the kids in the rich counties. Right. And so that's how they came up with this complicated formula that adjusted for, like, how rural the county was and how that has the levy or the county or the. The property tax adjustment. Now, that adjustment does not include excess levies. So ignore me if I said the word levy, because I should not have.
- [55:47]
A
Right.
- [55:47]
B
But it's just your basic property tax base levies are outside of that. So anyway, and then after that, step 10, so, like, hope kids get that step 10amount that's pretty much all enrollment based. And it is. They divide it by the number of public school kids. Not HOPE kids, not kids outside of the public schools, public school enrollment kids. This is important. And that's the number they give to HOPE kids. So this is, it's so interesting to see. That's why the HOPE funding has gone up every year. Because even though theoretically the state aid portion of step 10 should be falling in total amount because there are fewer enrollments because of HOPE kids leaving, birth rates, you know, people moving out of state, whatever. The funding for public schools has gone from like 1.7 billion in total state aid to over 2 billion in total state aid from the year before Hope until now, this school year. And the reason why is, first of all, they've made adjustments to some things there. But also the stuff that comes after step 10 is like a whole bunch of fluff. It's like English is a second language. I'm not saying this is fluff, like it's worthless. I'm just saying it's like, it's like things that are hard to understand, like why they are there or like what they mean. A lot of them are not all of them. So there's like peia, right? They can't not fund that. They can't give that money. So that's outside. That's why they chose. That's part of why they chose step 10. Like, we can't not fund PIA. That's just inhumane. Then you've got, then you've got like English as a second language programming, but you also have like a ton of like teacher professional development and the required trainings that they've decided they have to do, which, by the way, they spend like a stupid amount of time doing. There's. There's a meeting that I listened to back in December from inner meetings that was like talking about how many days they spend in professional development. And it is, it is, it is really eye opening. Then, you know, it's just like all those little and like academic improvement programs, all that stuff is outside of step 10. So when a kid leaves a public school for any compulsory school exemption, and I want people to understand this because I see people go, oh, I've been homeschooling for 10 years. And like, my school's never gotten money from my kid. And then they roll for hope and now the school's getting money. No, no, no, no. Nope. Your school is getting that average amount of money from the federal county and outside the tent step 10 pool, regardless of what compulsory school Exemption you choose because the pool is not based on enrollment. So like, just by leaving, you are leaving that money and increasing their per pupil tuition amount that they get on average. It doesn't just get like created and sent to the school because you enrolled in hope. Like you've always helped the public schools increase their per pupil tuition by using your own money outside of public education, right? Yeah, but when a child opts into hope, they start getting money out of a separate pool, which is the HOPE pool. And when people go, Hope is gonna bankrupt everybody. Like, that's like saying we couldn't afford to put every child in West Virginia in a public school. Think about that for a minute. You're admitting that constitutionally we can't afford our Constitution because we're not willing to fund every child in a free and efficient. Like what? So if you want to argue that, then that's got some really scary implications. And then you have the other people over here who are like, oh, well, all these high income families, like, shouldn't get it because, you know, they're high income and we're just, we're just padding their pockets. And then I'm thinking, okay, so are you going to start charging them to attend public school?
- [60:05]
A
Yeah.
- [60:06]
B
Are you going to start like, are you going to start charging their families the step 10 funding to go to a public school? And like when you ask that question, it's like you can almost see like, like the stuff like oozing out of their ears. Like no one, no one has ever answered that question for me, Ty. Like they literally just glaze past it. Like they will not even acknowledge the question. It horrifies them so much. It's like, it's like, stick your head in the sand. I didn't hear it.
- [60:40]
A
Well, and that's the, and you've seen me comment a lot of this stuff and a lot of it's, I'm just parroting what you and like the Cardinal Institute and stuff I've heard. And, and I, I don't think I've never had anybody, you know, correct me that in any substantive way other than just hyperbole. But most of the time people, when, when you have sufficiently schooled them and not in a mean way, just, you know, literally informing them, they just go silent because they don't. And that's the thing. I don't even know why. And I've told this to you, I'm like, I don't even know why we try because most of these people don't want an answer. They just The. The status quo. But I think the positive note is there's a lot of people that are the silent majority that are happy this is happening. And you know, I'll. I'll tell this story about our county, Roane county, and I've told it on here before, before, but you know, there's a lot of people in southern Roan county that are very happy that hope came when it did. And it's been a godsend in perfect timing because, you know, our school, you know, during COVID times, they spent a lot of COVID money on, you know, partially a new school and re turfing the football field. And they use coveted money to keep teachers on staff that they should have been riffing gradually, but they didn't want to. So they used coveted money to pay for their salaries. And then when that went away, they couldn't afford. Afford it all of a sudden. And now, and then all of a sudden there are $3 million in the hole for the county and they can't afford to keep the two schools in southern Roan county open. And so these schools are closing. And now these kids, a lot of the kids in our area, they're going to have to ride the bus for, you know, an hour sometimes more technically, and barely make it to school on time to the Spencer in, in Roan County. And a lot of parents just don't want to do that. And they're already taking their kids out even before it's happened. And here's the thing I tell everyone because, because our, our superintendent, Michelle Stellato, she's been kind of. It's. For some reason she's had the ear of the. The legislature in doing some things with. With school fund funding source. And I don't. I don't know if it's been positive or not. I mean, it's hard to tell. But you know, her thing is talking about how many kids are leaving and well, you should see the budget and you can come in and see how much this is taking away. Well, I remember, I think the first year that it actually started, people could actually get on and apply for hope and get money. Roan county had like 35 kids that participated and it was a total of like $75,000 or something. And so when you compare that to $3 million lost, $75,000 is next to nothing. I mean, that's not a small amount of money, but that's $75,000 that they got. And then you go back and review what Katie just said about all the money they still get and the Hope portion that they still get, they really didn't lose that much money. And so Hopes exist for five years. And Covid happened well before Hope was even a thing. You know, like you said 2019. And it didn't actually, I don't even think it did start in 21 is when people actually could.
- [63:46]
B
It started in 22.
- [63:48]
A
Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, you already started this, this financial mismanagement in Roan county, at least well before Hope was even a thing really. And so you're going to blame it on Hope Scholarship, because that's an easy scapegoat. And Cardinal Institute put out a really good graphic about all the counties, all the biggest offenders in the, in the state that were having, you know, mismanagement and just straight up fraud. And Hancock county being one notable because of, you know, some funding they got from the state legislature. But when they go over how much they were in the hole compared to how many kids got Hope, not one of them was even one, not even 1% of that money that they lost. So the argument, and I'm, I don't think I'm saying anything incorrect, the argument that Hope is taking is, is taking their money and these, that's why these schools are closing. And it's just a hindrance. It's not even close to being true. It's like when your legs chopped off you. But you've got a splinter in your thumb and saying this, this, this splinter is killing me. Like, no, man, your leg's gone. Like, no, you've completely screwed up and got your leg chopped off and that splinters the least of your problems. That splinter is actually going to help help you. That analogy goes nowhere with this. But yet kids are going to be able to get an education now in southern Roane county, aside from getting on the bus at six o' clock in the morning, which means they have to wake up at, you know, at least five and then gotta go, go try to learn something. No. So now they can homeschool or there's, there's already two Christian schools that are opening up in southern Roan or they can go to a different county, which is again, public. But luckily we have that option. So it's, it's a, it's a really silly argument and we don't have time to go into the, the other parts of it. But when, when people hear that stuff, I think we're making some headway because you're starting to get more into the. Well, homeschoolers are abusing their kids. Like when they're down to that, you know, we're making at least a little bit of headway, so. Can you hear me? How did that happen? Well, Katie got kicked out, so I guess she'll try to get back in. Oh, technology. Sorry. So I was rambling, so I don't know how much of that she even heard. All right, well, I'm not sure what happened. Well, anyway, that was Katie Switzer. She corrected me, but. Yeah, so we'll have her on again to talk about some of the other stuff with Hope and maybe Rayleigh's Law, but. Yeah, so thanks for tuning in. Hit us up on. Oh, no. Here's. Here's Katie. Katie, are you there? Hello? Okay, do you. You there?
- [66:54]
B
Yep. There we go. Sorry, Sorry.
- [66:57]
A
Okay, so, well, we'll. We'll just. I don't know even how much you heard of my rambling, but we'll. We'll wrap it up there and we'll get you back on again to some. Talk about some of the other portions. We're at about an hour. Yeah, so tell. Go ahead.
- [67:08]
B
No, I just had one thing I wanted to say, which is, like, if you think about the. The full budget, right? If you're talking about state, state, county, and federal aid to schools, and this counts everything, like, it's not just the public county schools. It's also, like, vocational and some of the deaf and blind schools, things like that, including the school lunch program. The total budget is like 2. It's 2 billion with a B for the state. But when you added all the other sources, it's. It's $4 billion.
- [67:42]
A
Yeah, buddy.
- [67:43]
B
So do the math. What percentage? And. And the Hope funding is not in that $4 billion.
- [67:50]
A
No.
- [67:51]
B
So, like, I mean, the 300 million for Hope as a ratio to the $4 billion. Somebody do that math for me, because I'm tired and I don't have a calculator in front of me. But, I mean, that's what we're complaining about. And. And then to top it all off, like, I'm pretty sure, and I'm trying to go back and listen to this, but it's lost. And. And of course, the House side does not keep track of their agendas, so it's easy to find. When they were discussing the. The budget bill, Delegate Hornbuckle got up and was like, well, I'm going to propose this amendment once again to put an income limit on Hope. And I. I got to go back and listen to it. So don't take my word for this. But I'm pretty sure he's done so many. I have trouble keeping track of them. I'm pretty sure it was $150,000 gross AGI. It didn't count any adjustments for kids, nothing like that. And he said something like, oh, this will only save $20 million out of the Hope budget. First of all, I don't know how he got that number, because the HOPE legislation is supposed to protect people from their private information. Being a member of hope. So, like, there's really. I don't see how there's a legal way that they could have swapped information with the tax department to figure out who these families were and what their AGI were. But let's just assume somebody did that and that it was legal. That's less than 10% of the hope budget. And you're going to just keep introducing this amendment over and over again to try to save 10%, and then you're going to tell everybody that these families and HOPE are billionaires. Yeah, come on now. Like, I run a group of like 5,000 parents, and I'm going to tell you, most of these people are low income. Most of them are giving. They're partially low income because they give up a job to homeschool or even if they go to private school, a lot of them can't afford before and after care. And they're going to like these tiny little Christian private schools that are living on a shoestring budget even with hope, because it's hard to run a school for less than $6,000 a kid. And I want to do. I'm working on collecting as much information as I can about the private schools in West Virginia and their tuition, because I'm pretty sure that there's only a handful of schools in West Virginia, maybe, maybe five to 10, maybe two handfuls that charge more tuition than the average state public school tuition per kid, which is around 16,500 or so this year.
- [70:27]
A
There's private schools that charge $16,000.
- [70:31]
B
There's I know of one that charges more than that, but they're a boarding. They're a boarding school.
- [70:35]
A
Oh, okay.
- [70:37]
B
I'm trying to make a list of HOPE providers that are private schools, because I want to know the average private school tuition in West Virginia. And then show people like, they're all way cheaper, like, and some.
- [70:51]
A
And somehow they're able to educate kids. And the standardized testing shows that they're well above the public school. Somehow they're able to educate kids for a quarter of what the state spends.
- [71:02]
B
Boy. And Delegate Williams was super mad about it because they did. They are like, aggregating the private school standardized test scores. And, like, a lot of these delegates don't understand what I explained to you before about nationally norm versus state normed and teaching to the curriculum versus generalized. And he was like, but I can't see the individual school scores. And I'm thinking, like, you're gonna whine about this. And it's like, pretty much on par or better than the public schools, and they're charging, like, half or less.
- [71:32]
A
I guarantee he's never looked at the standardized test scores for the schools in his district. Oh, I guarantee.
- [71:40]
B
I went on that. I went on that Zoom site that they used to track them all, and I was looking at the special needs ones because my kids are special needs. And I was like, most of those kids don't even take it. Yeah, they don't even take it. They've got like, 54, 000 kids labeled special needs in West Virginia. And in my county, less than 10% of them. There's like 2, 400, I think, special needs. In Cabell, only, like, 200 of them even took it. And their scores were like. They got like, 10 competency.
- [72:11]
A
Yeah.
- [72:12]
B
And I'm thinking, like, you guys are not serving these public school or these. These special needs kids.
- [72:18]
A
No.
- [72:18]
B
And I was. That was something that I advocated hard for. Like, okay, so when I was at the Capitol, I wasn't just advocating for hope. Like, I went to talk to people about, you got to fix these schools. Because a lot of these parents, they don't even want to use hope. They. They want to go to a school. Like, they want their kids on the bus. I get that. And so, like, I advocated super hard to anyone who would talk to me. Like, when you do the school funding formula and you say special needs funding increases, you have to say it has to be used for special needs in the classroom, not this, like, esoteric stuff of like, oh, but you can also use it anywhere you want to know. It has to say specifically for, like, classroom aids, you know, interventions like teachers, whatever, I don't care. It has to actually serve those kids. And you know what? For the first time ever, those little. That little parenthesis that says or you could use it for whatever you want to, was gone. In Amy Brady's version, the Amy Grady's version that went. That had the. The ratio increase, like, the weighing instead. And I. I bugged daily. I caught daily in the cafeteria of the Capitol and accosted the poor man who was probably embarrassed to be seen with me. And I was like, like, dude, please, like, Please, please, special needs funding go to special needs kids. That's how you will get kids like mine back in the school district. Now, like, I've had a taste of the freedom and my kids probably would never go back to public school because we, we like the, the, the flexibility. But if I had never known about that, I might not have ever realized. But now that I've realized that, it's like you've had the Pandora's box opened of, like, I can go visit my dad in New York and they could do school sitting at his kitchen counter 100 mile, you know, like, whatever. But I bugged Daley about it. I bugged Amy about. I think I talked to like probably a dozen senators or delegates and like, put that bug in their ear. And I'm not taking credit for it, but I'm like hoping that that was my influence so that more of these kids could actually see that funding.
- [74:29]
A
Right. Well, that's great.
- [74:30]
B
Okay, I'm done with that. Thank you for listening.
- [74:32]
A
No, no, it's good. No, it's all good information. I know we can talk for hours, but people stop listening. So they've been. They've all got devices and clips are what they like. So. Yeah, no, but thanks for coming on, Katie. Tell people where they can find you or get a hold of you if they want more information.
- [74:52]
B
Thanks. Thanks for having me. You mostly can just find me on Facebook. It's Katie Switzer. Spelled like Switzerland with no land. You'll know me because I have in my little profile thing on the worst lobbyist in West Virginia. And if you're interested in hope, come to my Facebook group. It's called Hope Schoolers in West Virginia. And I do have a brand new website. Do not judge me. I am trying to make it mobile friendly. It has some. I'm not like a super expert in this, but it's called stories of choice.com and I've got like a survey that I've sent out to pretty much all of the Senate, West Virginia Senate delegates or West Virginia Senate candidates. I have gone through a few of the House of Delegates candidates. I'm still working on them. I've gotten some of those survey responses back. They're going to be on the website along with like voting records, like a scoring system for how supportive of hope they are just so that people can go on. And if they're interested in school choice, eventually I'll probably expand it to all school choice. Right now I have five kids and I'm just trying to keep it what I can handle which is still a lot for hope. But you can kind of go check out that website. You can shame me about how it is not mobile friendly for at least the next week or two because I'm going on vacation on Saturday and it's not going to get fixed by then. But I am doing my best and I'll be happy to see you out there in the interwebs.
- [76:31]
A
Awesome. Yeah. So if you want to get hold of us, we're on Instagram, Facebook, xlpwv.org hit me up@mountain statelibertycast gmail.com and until next time, don't hurt people and don't take their stuff.