Ep. 386 - Gluing School Choice Back Together (and Kicking Teachers Unions Out for Good)

Summary

The Tony Kinnett Cast – Ep. 386

“Gluing School Choice Back Together (and Kicking Teachers Unions Out for Good)”
Host: Tony Kinnett (Senior Investigative Columnist, The Daily Signal)
Guest: Marilyn Muller (Parent advocate and “FAPE Mom”)
Date: August 14, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the fracturing and potential reconstruction of the education system in the United States, with a particular focus on school choice, the failures of special education (SPED), and the ongoing harm caused by bureaucracy and teachers unions. Tony Kinnett, drawing on his experience as both a former teacher/administrator and investigative journalist, hosts a frank, nuanced discussion with parent and advocate Marilyn Muller. Their conversation critically examines the promises vs. realities of special education, the science of reading, and the challenge of aligning the interests and language of parents, teachers, and policy-makers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Education, Rot, and Reform

• Tony recounts his pivot from teaching and school administration to burning bridges as a whistleblower and then investigative reporter, motivated by endemic dysfunction in public education.
• He frames today’s fight over education reform as one populated by various movements and coalitions, often with divergent grievances and objectives.

“What you find out in any kind of a movement is that there are those who come to torching that particular old rotten establishment…with their own gripes, with their own concerns, with their own data…and the goals don’t mesh or the ways you get to the goals don’t mesh…” (01:16)

2. The Broken Promise of FAPE & SPED Loopholes

FAPE—Free and Appropriate Public Education

• Marilyn details how federal civil rights law (IDEA) was meant to guarantee appropriate education for all children, including those with disabilities.
• But the law, she argues, has been undermined by bureaucratic loopholes exploited by school districts, “sidestepping those civil rights requirements while keeping the federal funding…using it for other purposes.” (03:18)
• Kids have become “money making machines for districts.”
• Parents are often allies, not adversaries, of teachers, but both are let down by poor educator preparation.

3. Teacher Preparation and the ‘Science of Reading’ Gap

• Marilyn argues that most teachers were “denied a working knowledge of the methods and programs that prevent reading failure,” quoting a DOJ/OJJ report (12:04).
• Tony disputes that this is an act of “malice” or conspiracy, invoking Hanlon’s Razor (“Don’t attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance or apathy or general laziness”) (06:13).
• Both agree teacher prep programs “just suck” and rarely prepare teachers in evidence-based reading instruction.

Notable Quote

"Most classroom teachers don’t have that knowledge…how to teach phonics in direct, explicit, multimodal, structured, sequential way. At least that’s my understanding.”
— Marilyn (11:13)

4. The Language of Denial – Parsing Malice from Apathy

• Detailed, collaborative examination of a 1993 DOJ/OJJ report and the use/meaning of the word “denied.”
• Tony challenges the idea of a shadowy conspiracy (“I need evidence. It’s very easy to say, oh, well, it’s the shadowy boogeyman…” 13:12).
• The episode highlights the harm of rhetorical escalation (“denial” vs. “inaccess” vs. “apathy”).

5. Analogies & Social Shifts: Why ‘Science of Reading’ Faded

• Tony uses the analogy of checking a car’s oil—once a common, taught practice; later fell ‘out of vogue’ (26:05)—to illustrate how societal habits (like direct reading instruction) can disappear through cultural drift, not top-down malice.

6. A Parent’s Journey: Early Intervention Failure

• Marilyn shares her story: her daughter Lauren’s early speech delay, encounters with early intervention, and repeated dismissal by schools (“she’ll catch up”, “different timeline”), only to be later identified with severe dyslexia after private evaluation.
• Procedural compliance trumps meaningful student progress: Teachers/districts follow rules but avoid meaningful evaluation and timely intervention.
• The “it’ll probably be fine” attitude prevails, squandering crucial years for literacy development (39:14).

Notable Moment

“...after school restraint—she would get in the car and completely melt down…she would all of a sudden be coming out of school, not like little Lauren. The first thing I noticed was a change in her behavior.”
— Marilyn (37:47)

7. Dyslexia, Misdiagnosis, and the Over-Assignment of IEPs

• Tony and Marilyn discuss the over-assignment of IEPs and 504s (education disability accommodations), both from misdiagnosis and as an administrative “easy out.”
• The school often fails to evaluate accurately; parents bear the burden (62:02).

Notable Quote

“So who is disabling the children?”
— Marilyn (73:50)

8. The Three-Pronged Solution (Marilyn’s View)

1. Overhaul educator prep programs to require direct, structured, sequential literacy instruction (the ‘science of reading’).
2. Tier 1 instruction: Ensure all K-3 teachers deliver explicit reading instruction, citing research that 95% of kids can learn to read by end of first grade with such instruction (51:28).
3. Early, accurate identification: Focus policy and resources on preschool to third grade.

9. Barriers to Reform: Bureaucracy, Teacher Licensing, Union Power

• Tony asserts that government policy solutions “never work,” and that licensure should be abolished in favor of local/district control and parental input.
• Government funding comes with compliance-based stipulations, often out of sync with what works (68:57).
• Teachers unions and lawsuit culture are significant roadblocks to change (74:51).

10. Civil Rights, Accountability, and Systemic Inertia

• Disparities in enforcement: Civil rights investigations are prompt for racial disparities but not for SPED violations (78:16).
• Both skeptical that IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and similar policies will fix the system; consider deregulation and decentralization.

11. Toward a Working Truce: Parent–Teacher Unity

• A major theme: misunderstanding and mistrust between “FAPE moms” and teachers could be healed by better communication, grace, and shared goals.
• Both camps need to acknowledge that apathy, not malice, is often the enemy.
• “Handshake agreements”—not more policy—are needed. “Rebuild trust with parents…you got to rebuild an institution. Sucks, but here we are.” (104:05)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Institutional Apathy:

  “It’s so much easier to say, ‘It’ll probably be fine.’ That is the motto of our society, is it not?”
  — Tony (39:14)

• On Bureaucratic Compliance:

  “Districts are focused on procedural compliance because it’s the easiest, lowest friction thing.”
  — Tony (46:47)

• On FAPE Law and False Promises:

  “I would be all for repealing the IDEA because it’s a false promise. It’s symbolic law. It’s a false hope that the system is policing itself.”
  — Marilyn (81:10)

• On Collaboration Possibility:

  “…if we actually get together and glue some of these crews together, oh, we might actually…[get] so much done.”
  — Tony (93:09)

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Important Timestamps

• [01:16] – Tony’s journey from teacher/admin to whistleblower and journalist
• [03:18] – Marilyn: SPED law exploited, children as “money machines”
• [06:13] – Hanlon’s Razor: attributing education failure to apathy, not malice
• [11:13] – Marilyn: Teachers lack structured phonics knowledge
• [13:12] – Tony: Dangers of rhetorical escalation (“the shadowy boogeyman”)
• [26:05] – Tony’s analogy: Car maintenance & the fading of vital habits
• [36:26] – Marilyn: Her daughter’s path through the system; missed diagnoses
• [39:14] – “It’ll probably be fine”: the curse of educational complacency
• [51:28] – Marilyn: 95% of children can learn to read with structured literacy
• [74:51] – Unions and lawsuit culture as obstacles to reform
• [78:16] – Enforcement discrepancy: OCR vs. SPED civil rights
• [81:10] – Marilyn calls for repeal of IDEA as “false promise”
• [93:09] – Collaboration optimism: “if we glue these crews together…”

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Tone & Style

• Candid, occasionally confrontational, but fundamentally respectful: Tony and Marilyn tackle thorny issues head-on, challenge each other, but continually circle back to common ground.
• Rich in personal stories, analogies, and in-the-weeds policy debate.
• Vivid language: “rot and maggots,” “Karens that came in and said, no, what kids need are like hugs and feelings…”—captures the visceral frustration of stakeholders.

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Conclusion

This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about education reform, special education, or the debate over school choice. Kinnett and Muller’s frank, detail-laden exchange peels back the rhetoric, revealing a surprising amount of potential consensus once malice is put aside and apathy is confronted. Both the failures and promises of American education are dissected—leaving listeners with both a sobering critique and cause for hope that cross-movement bridges can still be built.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

[A]

An official message from Medicare.

[B]

I'm saving money on my Medicare prescriptions.

[A]

Maybe you can save, too.

[B]

See if you qualify for Medicare's extra help. It pays.

[A]

To find out, go to ssa.gov extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Tony Kinnit, Tony Kinnit. Tony Kennett.

[B]

Tony Kennett.

[A]

Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett.

[B]

TONY Kennett, host of the Tony Kennett Cast.

[A]

Let's get down to business. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93WibcyTV here on welcome back to the Tony Kinnick Cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated first on 93 WIBC. Many of you know that before I was doing whatever this nonsense is for a living, I was in the education publication Investigatism Journalism side of of Education expose in which as a former teacher and administrator, I decided after I was fired by Indianapolis Public Schools to just burn everything down on the way out. And since then, focused, or I guess I should say the next period of my life was dedicated to exposing various education things that were filled with rot and maggots and mold and termites and the rest. And what you find out in any kind of a movement is that there are those who come to torching that particular old rotten establishments thing that has been left to set in stone for a long time that come to it from completely different places that you do in the movement with their own gripes, with their own concerns, with their own data and the goals don't mesh or the ways that you get to the goals don't mesh or something else just doesn't quite fit. And that's why we've got on Marilyn Muller. So she is a what what I would best describe is an advocate for parents and for kids who struggle with the public education's dispassion towards making sure that kids with special needs in sped environments in the broad range that you can describe that as which is obviously part of some of the contention they don't get exactly what it is that they need despite being promised free and appropriate public education. And so feel free to tell me if I got any of that kind of description wrong. Marilyn, thanks for joining us.

[B]

Thank you, Tony. I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to have this conversation with you. Yes. So really what we have is this huge juggernaut of a federal law, civil rights law, that's intended to ensure every child gets an appropriate education so that they can be proficiently literate at at least grade level, prepared for further education, employment and independent living. Right. Sounds awesome, right? Sort of like the bedrock of the, you know, American dream. Right. And I think that while the, the act has great intentions, it's unfortunately has some loopholes in specific language that our local education agencies, school districts have exploited essentially to sidestep those civil rights requirements that come with the federal funding while keeping the federal funding and using it for other purposes. So I look at it this way. Our kids are money making sort of machine for districts and they're, but they're not getting what they need or what we were promised and the laws are not being enforced. And there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that come into play there. I guess the, there's a couple things I want to focus on. Number one, parents are allies with teachers. And I don't teach, just say that to say that. Like for me, I advocate for improving and overhauling our educator preparation programs. So at the teaching college level, because I know and the data show and reports show that teachers are not prepared. They've been denied a working knowledge of the methods and programs that prevent reading failure.

[A]

When you say denied, what do you mean, what do you mean by denied?

[B]

So denied they were. It's, it's not covered or discussed in their preparation programs.

[A]

So, and so first of all, and this is, this is where I already kind of start to see kind of the gap. So the gap between kind of the more academic former teacher or administrator side is that right now we have parents who really, really, really need better for their kids. And that can come from a million different places because the mom who has four or five kids in Baltimore, none of whom are in sped, is going to be a very different series of needs than perhaps the child in Baltimore in a different neighborhood who has two children and they both have two different kinds of SPED difficulties. One might have very severe dyslexia. One might have very severe, you know, neurochemical dysregulation, mentally, which can result in a couple different kinds of autism. You know, something on the more life skills side of sped and the needs are just going to be a little bit different. But the, the, the reason that I bring that up is that I ask that you talk about the juggernaut. Right? And what it sounds like just right off the bat is that you are suggesting that there is an active act of, that is almost out to get parents and kids because they're money making machines. So there. Are you, are you familiar with like the, the term of Hanlon's razor?

[B]

No.

[A]

So it's, it's just a name. It's actually kind of a bastardization of Occam's Razor. Occam's razor is the simple explanation is most often the thing that happened. Hanlon's razor is kind of a play on words to that and it means don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance or apathy or, or the general laziness of people. So for example, the person didn't cut me off because they hate me. The person cut me off on the street because they weren't paying attention. And people are naturally selfish. So like right off the bat, the reason that I'm kind of putting a slight pause here is that I don't think it's that teachers have been denied like denied teaching real. And by the way, I'm despite some of my colleagues, I very much do subscribe to the science of reading. I am a very phonetics heavy. I'm at a. I wrote a very scathing review when I was in my curriculum development master's program about Abeka was like this Christian self teaching learning platform for homeschooling and small Christian schools. And I said they get a ton of stuff wrong, but they get one thing right better than anybody. Like phonics education. I love Science of Reading stuff. Love it. I don't think that it is. When I was in my teacher education preparatory program which is at a small Christian university and did a really good job. I don't think that it was like they were denying me like literacy education. I think I just got into the fact that I don't think we were denied anything specifically. It just felt as though teacher prep programs suck. Like they're just, they're just not good. They don't prepare you for anything.

[B]

Right. Okay, so. But did you learn the science of.

[A]

Reading when I was in undergrad, no, but I don't think. Well, did I learn Science of Reading if it wasn't, if it wasn't called that. I mean, the science of reading. So I mean, I guess according to the rote history we got into the 70s and the 80s, we got into like the, the, the sitcom era in American culture and everyone decided that it was more about what you feel rather than what it is that you're learning. And it was, I think that the, according to the, at least the documents that we have, Gloria Ladson Billings, when she was doing all of her critical race theory insane crap in the early 90s, she tried to co opt it and say like it's super necessary that we learn by feeling. But it was really, it was the rise of this do gooder social worker psychologist era who suggested that what kids really need is to feel and to learn and to be accepted. And like you've seen the Santa Claus, right?

[B]

Yeah. Vibes based learning instead of evidence in space.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but it wasn't as much malicious as it was just so much easier to be lazy and go, you just gotta like, you know, you gotta feel, man. And I, I mean that's from what we see from the data, like the actual writings at the time you had this major. Well, we had two things. Number one, you had like the, the number of women in higher academia tripled and it just. You, you got mommy education out of it. And there's there, I'm not trying to be crass or sexist when I say it, but like triple the number of women in high academia and they all became mommy. And it's like, well, it's just not what you said, it's how you said it. It's like, but that's not how. That's not going to teach a kid to be literate. I mean like harsh but fair school marms were the bedrock of solid education. And it's because like Catholic education, they were strict, they expected things. And instead of coming up with a diverse way that we expected things from kids, like a kid with dyslexia, well, you still create rigorous standards, but you don't drag him through the glass that it isn't working for how his brain is trying to interpret the symbols in front of him. But like there's a difference between rigor and cruelty. And the entire academic world decided that any kind of series of rigorous instruction was cruelty. And so we just abandoned it altogether. And I mean that's one problem. I mean the whole system became apathetic. I think that's the big issue here, is that the entire system of education became lazy, if that, if that makes sense. And then when you try to pull it tight, it didn't really do much.

[B]

Yeah, well, I mean, so the, my point is the science of reading has been around a hundred years. We know how the brain learns. It doesn't matter if it's a, a dyslexic brain or a neurotypical brain. Like the best way to teach kids phonemic. Phonemic awareness, phonics. Right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Decoding are important for proper orthographic mapping, which is word automaticity.

[A]

Right. And then wrote from that to the other subjects. Rote pattern psychology is how we end up transferring historical knowledge. And then you link everything to a.

[B]

Narrative in presto so the, the. The. The bigger picture is most classroom teachers don't have that knowledge of how to teach phonics in direct, explicit, multimodal, modal, structured, sequential way. And at least that's my understanding.

[A]

And I mean, you're definitely right there. They don't have that knowledge.

[B]

Right. So they've been denied that knowledge. That's my point.

[A]

See, no, I disagree there because it's the, The. The assumption of the denial is the issue because when we look at the 20th century, I mean, it's not that we started cooking everything in Jello in the 60s because we were denying everyone access to good nutrition for the first time. We had access to really weird kinds of food preservation. And so we started experimenting with crazy crap. We did the same with psychology. You had all these wackos.

[B]

But. Okay, so. But I'll tell you where I get the language is a quote specific from the Department of Justice and the Office of Juvenile justice and Prevention. The quote is that teachers were. Are denied a working knowledge of the methods and programs that prevent reading failure.

[A]

Okay, but even so, I didn't make that up. Okay, I didn't say that you made it up at all. What I'm saying is the problem is this. This assumes that there's some shadowy person at the Department of Justice that has said, oh, they're being denied it. Well, I don't even care if that's the great horrible FBI Hoover himself who said it. That doesn't make it true any more than, you know, Jasmine Crockett getting in front of the country and saying Republicans are trying to restrict votes from the white people. It doesn't matter. I mean, I need evidence. And this is the real issue is that it's very easy to say, oh, okay, well, it's the shadowy boogeyman that's trying to deny people access, when in reality it's that we have the evidence that shows people are lazy. We reached this sexual revolution that permeated all American society and chose feel good. Like, why are you being so harsh and mean, man? That became the groundwork for American culture. Because it's easier. Because sex sells, hedonism sells, comfort sells.

[B]

Yes, sure.

[A]

And so like. But like the act of denial. So the third out of three things what I use to operate based on society is Watergate theory. So Watergate theory was explained in this really phenomenal revivals sermon I heard ages ago that said the reason that they believed that they had consequential evidence that Christ did in fact rise from the grave is because all of his Disciples, after being boiled, tortured, hung upside down by the Romans, by the Pharisees, etc. They refused to say anything other than Christ died. He rose from the grave. He is the son of God. Then you take Watergate, 14 guys whose best interest it would have been to shut their mouths and never speak of it ever, could not keep it to themselves for 72 hours. And so it's my logic for conspiracy. Even during the Fauci era of COVID we knew it was going on because people in his office were expressly saying, here's the stuff, doing it. But then when we look at the education thing, I don't see the administrators. I don't see the. Other than this quote of this person at the DOJ that you're talking about, which I fully believe. Whoever you say the DOJ said it, I believe you. But people say really crazy crap all the time without evidence. They say, oh, well, they're being denied. I mean, how many times have you heard a politician take six, someone doesn't have access to something, and then say, ah, it's because they're being denied this? Because that's. You exaggerate when you're in politics. I mean, that's just. I mean, you. You and I have talked like we were talking about this with like, Marjorie Taylor Greene before the interview, right? That, like, sometimes she's good, sometimes she's like, ah, it's the Jews from space. And you're like, oh, my God. Like that kind of a thing, right?

[B]

So. So poor choice of words by the Department of Justice because from this individual.

[A]

This wasn't an official Department of Justice memo, was it?

[B]

An official. It's an official report from 1993. Can you.

[A]

I gotta look this up. Yep, looking it up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The United States received complaints D, E, N, I. Is this the AEDY program's basis of disability?

[B]

No, it's from 1993. The OJJP report.

[A]

I can say OJJP report. Gosh.

[B]

1993 OJJP.

[A]

Thank you. Okay. 1993 annual deport denied. Okay. The supports needed by most status offenders, guidance counseling and parental supervision were often denied through isolation from family of school community. Okay, so that is according to in prior in re de Gault, U.S. code 37. 1 unafforded certain due process constitutional affections. Okay, so the paragraph that this is a part of is talking about the federal formula grants program has worked as intended. Meaning that they allowed grants to go to state and local jurisdictions in compliance with JJDP Act. Manifest has benefited status offenders and thousands of other juveniles before juvenile courts. So what this is saying is that initially the juvenile system treated status offenders in the same way it treated agitated delinquents. In some ways, status offenders received treatment worse than adult criminals because prior to in Regalt 387, U.S. code 1, 1967, juveniles were not afforded certain due process constitutional protections afforded adults. Essentially you at the time as a juvenile, you know, you go into a supermarket and you say, ah, yes, I'm going to shoplift. And then they would arrest you. Cops wouldn't read you Miranda rights as you were being hauled to the police station. They assumed you were immediately guilty and then they release you to your parents with programs. Right. Juveniles didn't used to be treated as a special class of criminal. So what this simply says is the supports most often needed by kids who are delinquents, guidance counseling and parental supervision were often denied through isolation from family, school and community. Essentially, it's like you take a 15 year old who commits a violent crime and they send him to jail, then they don't have the supports needed to rehabilitate. This has nothing to do with the department of education though. It's the only time the word D E N I forming denial or denied appears in the, in the document. So this is the issue that I have.

[B]

It should say it again. If you go on to pay, I can find the exact page. If you go to page seven.

[A]

Oh, I was looking at page 13.

[B]

Yeah. Which is actually page 12 of 78.

[A]

Oh, I see it here. The link between seven.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I can. The link between academic failure and delinquency is strong. There is a disproportionate involvement in delinquencies by those youth failing in school. Schools are apparently contributing to their delinquency problem by continuing to provide traditional programming, though it has failed repeatedly.

[A]

So this is the school to prison pipeline argument.

[B]

Yeah, whole language. Yeah, but that's like whole language. Balanced literacy 1993. Think about where we are.

[A]

But this. Yeah, but this isn't. But this. Okay, so, so the issue with, with this accusation is that it suggests that it is a targeted removal of the fed by the federal government of education curriculum based on the school to prison pipeline argument. And that just didn't happen. It didn't. I mean, first of all, the federal government has never successfully implemented mass curricula into public schools until 2004. It wasn't until George Bush started getting freaky with the no child left behind stuff that we actually saw federal top down curricula outside of kind of Cold War anti Soviet propaganda. In fact, the Soviet Union made a very excellent point about this. So after the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachev made the point that the only top down intervention in American society through the education system that ever functionally worked was that the Soviet Union convinced American children that they were colonialists and imperialists. And they did that through university psychology programs. But as for, like throwing down the science of reading from the federal government level through like accurate and directed denial, there's no evidence of that in this report. This just sounds like some person at the DOJ in a liberal administration like Clinton's. Wait, George. With George Bush first. Right? Because Clinton served 92 to the odds. Yeah. So this is somebody in the Clinton DOJ going, oh, man, they're sending all the kids to prison. How could they be doing this? And like refusing them all of their educational opportunities, those white people? Because that's who Clinton hired for his do, his DOE, and his doj.

[B]

Okay, so if you go and I hear everything you're saying, go to the abstract page.

[A]

You got it? Is that at the bottom?

[B]

No, it's towards the top.

[A]

God forbid they actually. Oh, the abstract. I thought you. For some reason, my brain thought you meant like the citations. Abstract.

[B]

Abstract page. Not the page five. It's page five of 78 on my formatting.

[A]

Thank you. Page four. Is this the concentration of federal effort program?

[B]

It says abstract. Reviews of the research literature provided ample evidence of the link between academic failure and delinquency.

[A]

I'm not even getting the word abstract. So this.

[B]

It's after the table of contents at the very beginning. Okay. Do you see the table of contents up there, Teacher?

[A]

Yeah, it says number three, forward from the administrator, chapter one, introduction.

[B]

Right. Do you see a three teacher miseducation?

[A]

No, ma'.

[B]

Am. On the table of contents.

[A]

Could you send me this? I'll send you what I have on Twitter.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Thanks, pal. And no, I'm not at all offended or disgruntled or at all by looking at this kind of stuff at all. Not even a. Oh, yeah, no, no, no.

[B]

I mean, hey, look, we're trying to fix this for teachers and kids. That's my. That's the way.

[A]

100. Oh, from the OJP. All right, let's see here from the abstract. This is right from. From the publication of the file of the Office of Juvenile justice and Delinquency Prevention. Okay, yeah, I know where this is from. Oh, fun fact. That office is on Indiana Avenue.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Just as a little fun little Hoosier fact. Nobody was Asking for. All right. I'm looking at the abstract.

[B]

What am I looking so you see. So go to. You're looking at the type. Yeah.

[A]

Abstract. Yep. Reviews of research literature.

[B]

Reviews of research. Okay, so we're at the same page. Okay, just, just read that page. Yep.

[A]

So this is, you know. Reviews of the research literature provided ample evidence. Again, we're in the 90s of the link between academic failure and delinquency. Ah, yes, because that's why kids committed crimes. They didn't learn enough in school. Oh, of course.

[B]

No, no. I would say that they didn't learn how to read. Go ahead.

[A]

No no, no. I'm just, I'm, I'm, there's a lot of. I'm heaping a lot of sport on this.

[B]

Yeah, no, no.

[A]

On this theory. I, I, I remember reading this kind of crap showing this link to as well did to reading failure propose that the research recidivism blah blah blah. Re examination of the research literature and interviews with the reading instructions for teaching juvenile offenders sustained frustration. Academic standard reading failure.

[B]

Accurately grammatically.

[A]

What steps to be taken to supplant current instructional practices with the methods theories revealed Is most likely reading failure cause for the frustration that can and does result in delinquent behavior? Oh wow. Correlation equals causation. I love the stupidity here. Inordinately high percentage of wards are unable to decipher accurately and fluently. Right. Legibly. Oh man. No way. Oh, they couldn't possibly be unsped. Even though that really shouldn't have. I mean that's just the last gasp of eugenics. Once again again the idea that we knew how to read 100 years ago. The issue is that what they assigned your inability to read with and for didn't really fit in conjunction with sor handicap. Readers aren't receiving the type of instruction recommended by experimental research reading teachers as a result of the pre service reading methods courses have been denied a working knowledge. Okay, but this isn't so I see the denial have been denied a working knowledge of the reading programs and methods of instruction that are most successful. Blah blah blah. So the issue with this particular abstract being stated and I'll, I'll look through the rest of the study especially if you highlight or point out any particular things here. The very first issue that I have here is that this is. Yes, okay. Citing. They cite Barbara Allen Hagen's children in custody in 1989. That's some BS right there. I've read that that book is not worth a Sears catalog worth of toilet paper. That thing is garbage. Anyway, so what I'm seeing here is some goober in the Clinton appointed White House who said anyone. So again, we see in the 80s and the 90s this, this equivocation of inaccess and denial. So it's not that the, it's not that the child in the fatherless home grew up not to respect their mother. It's that they were denied having a father who. And no.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, the dad walked out on the mom to go see.

[B]

Yeah, certainly I don't subscribe to a lot of that. However, my point is, in my experience, in the teachers that my child had in an A rated Massachusetts public school.

[A]

Which is not, I mean, you know, Massachusetts is just in their education programs.

[B]

Well, yeah, I mean, back then, you.

[A]

Know, the letter grades meant something.

[B]

Yes, yeah, yeah. Back then, you know, it was 2013, so, you know, the wheels hadn't fallen, fallen off the car yet. So none of her teachers, if they were, if they were trained in phonics, structured literacy, they weren't applying it.

[A]

Correct. Marilyn, when's the last time that you checked the dipstick in your car?

[B]

No, I don't check the dipstick in my car. Someone else does it for me. Why?

[A]

No, no, no, no.

[B]

This is a mechanic.

[A]

Okay, excellent. Let's talk about this. So up until the 70s and the 80s, your dad and grandfather, when they would get home from work on Friday every week, they would open the hood of their car and they would check the oil by looking at the dipstick. And they would do this for a couple of reasons. It was taught to them. Number one, number two, it was relevant for them to be taught this. And number three, it was kind of in vogue. It was in fashion for a man every time he came home from right before, he enjoyed the weekend to check the oil and the basic maintenance of the car. So that even the way my dad.

[B]

Yeah, my dad taught me how to do that, and I know how to do that. When was the last time I did it myself? When I was a teenager.

[A]

Right. I'm going somewhere with this. I promise. And by the way, whenever I go on an analogy, it's not for a gotcha. It's just because I communicate in narratives and analogies.

[B]

I understand.

[A]

No, just, just, you know, just, just for clarity here, because I'm really, really, really enjoying this so far. I'm, I'm, I'm seriously, I mean, this is, this is fun. So much so when your father and your grandfather did that, it was in vogue. It was, it was a thing you did. And Everything even to. There are some interesting theories that have been made about fashion and even the way that driveways are built and sloped in a lot of 90s and early aughts era subdivisions that were to make the process of checking one's oil and basic mechanics of the car easier at the weekend. So also the length of the driveways and why they gained length in the 90s and early aughts. So that stuff said. The reason that I point that out is that after a lot of things in society changed the way that cars were built, the perception of what the average husband or grandfather or patriarch was expected to do as that change the practice, even if learned, became out of vogue until and this is again not a gotcha. I was not taught by my dad how to do the dipstick look in the check until it was on a four wheeler and I was like a junior in high school and it was a necessity. Whereas before that was something that was taught early on. Like even you said like your dad taught you how to do that, made sure you knew how to do that, walked you through the circumstances you would need. Science of reading fell out of vogue in American public education. Not for malice. Nothing in this document that I've seen so far in the abstract suggests that it was phased out incrementally, but it was phased out in a social sense. That what kids. Not that oh we know science of reading works, but actually we're going to use something that sucks to kind of hook kids on some garbage fest for eternal money making the kind of doctors want people to have cancer argument that is like really disgusting, right? And also just provably wrong. So in this case the issue is, well, no, you just had a bunch of Karens that came in and said no, what kids need are like hugs and feelings and have you seen angels in the outfield? And they like that lovey gushy era of Disney. You know what I'm talking about?

[B]

Yes, I do.

[A]

And that is a far not just like likely candidate for who, you know, shot Professor Plum in the drawing room. Again, the denial. The reason that I bring this up, the reason that we parse this out right at the beginning is I don't think for those who are just getting into the movement when, when we use words like and I. I would caution people in education in this. When I got into the school choice move, they'd be like, all teachers are out there trying to deny parents a window into the classroom. And it's like dude, no, no, no, you're looking for the boogeyman I want to help you find him. I can show you the boogieman. Most often it's principals who have a power hungry thing. Then you can really start drawing connections and lines. I can tell you, I was in administration, I saw it. And yeah, you have your crazy wannabe mommy teachers, but in the case of fate, in the case of, of science, of reading specifically, I, I fail to see the malice a lot of the times. And that's why I think that we immediately go into. Well, my experience was. And then we get into anecdotes and anecdotes are worth far more than we give them credit for. But by saying that, well, I saw this thing in like this o. You know, O.J. you know, OJJP report. This OJP report. And so like it kind of fits this kind of weird like red yarn on the corkboard thing. And I just, I don't know, I. And I'm. And by the way, it's not like, like, oh, I'm criticizing you, Maryland. I'm just like, this is kind of my frustration with this gap because.

[B]

You'Re.

[A]

More learned on the reading material than you're being given credit for. And over here I think there's less malice than some of us on our side of the school choice issue debate are being given credit for. And so that's already a step towards one another in the center, if that makes any sense. Like I'm not here going, well, you're not a teacher, Marilyn. Did you read the studies? Like, no, that's ridiculous.

[B]

Right? So I guess where it draw, where it gets would. Where fape moms attach themselves to research is a lot of the times we have this taxpayer funded research. We have these reports, all these things, they're siloed, right. And they're not talking to each other. Why do we have the science of reading, you know, at mit, but you know, Harvard Graduate School of Education doesn't use it in their teacher preparation program.

[A]

Okay, right, but that, I mean, you can answer that one right off the top of the bat in the same way that you and I both know. Out of curiosity, what kind of car do you drive?

[B]

I drive a Lincoln.

[A]

Why don't you drive a Jeep?

[B]

Because we prefer the, the ride of. You know how the Lincoln ride.

[A]

Lincoln's are smooth. They're excellent. In the same way I drive a Corolla because I like mine to last and not be in the shop every other ding ding dong day. And Jeeps are statistically most likely to be in the shop all the time. All the time. They are built with like duct tape and urinal cakes. They're horrible, yet a lot of people still drive them. And Harvard, as you know, is like the most full of itself institution on planet Earth.

[B]

Oh, sure, yeah. No, I'm not.

[A]

I mean, that's the reason they're not using science or reading. Yeah, I mean, oh, I'm here to crap on Harvard. Oh, you bet it. Sorry, I know you're Massachusetts. I, I won't, I won't ask you to, you know, to take that from Florida.

[B]

Now I live in Florida.

[A]

Oh, God bless. Welcome to the promised land.

[B]

No, I have no allegiance to Massachusetts. In fact, I would, would love to see, you know, them receive some justice for their non compliance. But I guess my point, so my point though is that for fape moms, you know, the idea set forth all these protections for, for our, for our kids. But there's a, there's, there's kids like I can only, you know, I'll use my daughter as the example. Right. My child was a pretty normally developing child as far as meeting the milestones. Then all of a sudden at 18 months, she didn't meet her this, you know, she didn't have 50 words, right. So because she didn't have 50 words, her pediatrician referred her to, you know, early intervention. Okay. So that falls under idea part C, I believe. Right. Kids. So what happens? Here I am, this woman, this lovely woman comes to the house, she visits with us. She has a little thing with, you know, Lauren. Now again, Lauren's 18 months old, right. Young. You have kids. If you have kids, you know how an 18 month old, we've got one right now, okay? So imagine a stranger coming into the home and you know, trying to work with them on words, right.

[A]

So big shock, it doesn't work at all, right.

[B]

And you know, here's mommy, stay at home, Mommy is in the other room trying to, not to distract and disrupt, but wanting to be fully engaged about what is going on in, in there.

[A]

With my child, while at the same time the 18 month old was wondering, where the heck is mom?

[B]

Where's my mom? Right?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So you know, this is how the system works, right. So suddenly, you know, oh, well, Lauren's made such great progress and you know, our, our time is done now. You know, it's been 12 weeks.

[A]

Here's my very much the Julius Caesar washing of the hands.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And, or not Julius Caesar, Pontius Pilate. Goodness gracious.

[B]

Right. So now did this woman who's here, you know, from the government, did she say, oh, hey, Mrs. Mueller, you know, you're going to want to make sure that, you know, Lauren has, you know, a, A screening when she enters kindergarten because, you know, keep an eye on her kind of thing. No, none of that. So Mrs. Mueller thinks that Lauren is now caught up. Right. And they've discharged her from early intervention. She's all set. Okay. Mrs. Muller goes on about her life raising her child and her family. Child enters preschool. Child is doing all the things mommy notices that, you know, the child is not able to write her name legibly like her similarly aged peers. Right. Preschool, say, you know, oh, everything's so subjective. Oh, she'll catch up. You know, kids develop a different timeline.

[A]

Yeah. Mitigation. Don't bother me. It's fine.

[B]

Yeah, fast forward. She gets into kindergarten. Okay, right out of the gate. Now, Lauren, at home, we did all the things, the phonics. We did. I even had a preschool prep. We had. Even on times, if she was in the car, she was exposed to phonics and blending and sounds and blah, blah, blah.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Okay. So now she's in formal kindergarten education and they're all beginning to read. And, you know, great. She had this, you know, experienced teacher. Blah, blah, blah. He was the best. Oh, you got Mr. Manini. He's the best. Great, great, great. But Mom's always had an alert up, right? Ever since. As soon as your child qualifies for, like an early intervention, your antenna is going to be up. At least mine was.

[A]

Our son's got, like a really intensive egg allergy. Like a really, like, not like the. Not like the standard kid egg allergy, but like the, the protein abnormality. So EpiPen all the time. Anytime, Anytime you go anywhere, anytime food enters the house, the flag goes up. Yep.

[B]

Where's the EpiPen?

[A]

I get the, the idea of, of like, I'm following you, tracking with you.

[B]

So Lauren, you know, got all of the what we would call typical, you know, exposure to language and sounds and preschool and phonemic awareness and phonics. Kindergarten should be more of an organized. Right. And focused on actually putting that stuff to use. Sounding out words, decoding, beginning readers.

[A]

Basic manipulation.

[B]

Right, Basic. Right. Well, why was she struggling? You know, caught me off guard. Said to the teacher at the first, at the very first, you know, parent teacher conference, she seems frustrated. Why is she frustrated? When I, you know, I come to pick her up from school. Okay. She had what we. What I now know is essentially they call it after school restraint. So she would get in the car and completely melt down. Okay. Every Day she'd be holding it in together. Little girl, very compliant, very like articulate, gregarious, outgoing. She would all of a sudden be coming out of school, not like little Lauren. Okay, so behavior. The first thing I noticed was a change in her behavior. And this is a six year old girl. Okay, so the teacher. Oh yeah, well, you know, she's having a little, she is struggling a little bit with, you know, the reading lessons. Okay, fast forward. We get to, you know, we only have a couple parent teacher conferences. Give to the last parent teacher conference of the year. And the teacher says, well, in hindsight, I should have referred her to the jumpstart reading program. Okay, tell me why, why do they do that?

[A]

So I don't know the situation, but what it sounds like in this case is a teacher that did not at all know what it is that he was doing until it was too late. And when I say did not know what he was doing, I mean, not that he was denied knowledge necessarily. I mean, I guess he could have, but in this case it sounds like there's a class of teachers that, well, I mean, you know, you know, American society as a whole has become far more lax. It's just easier to say, it'll probably be fine. That is the motto of our society, is it not? It'll probably be fine. And then when we get to a moment of. Again, you and I know that the years between, well, really between three and eight are the only years for reading development. You miss the eight window. I know some say ten. They're wrong. It's eight. Sorry, I don't care. It's eight if you miss between three to eight. I know. This is where I disagree with my own colleagues about, they're like, well, it's really 10. I'm like, no, no, I've seen it in practice. I'm not reading anecdotally here. No pun intended. And so this is, this is, this is the issue that I have here. It's so much easier to go, well, it will probably be fine. And then after this, your, your trust in the institution, this whatsoever, is completely shattered. And justifiably so. Because the system failed you. Because this is a guy who likely don't know the guy from Adam, you.

[B]

Know, but 25 year veteran teacher, though. 25 year veteran teacher. This is not a new teacher. Oh, I mean, this is not an experienced teacher.

[A]

To me, that doesn't, to me, it matters very little the level of experience. If you goof, you goofed, don't accept the responsibility. If you're not willing to shoulder the pack. So there was a. I was in junior high as a, as a teacher. It was my second year teaching, and I was showing natural disaster videos because I was a science teacher and I was clicking through tornado videos, and there was one tornado video I showed my kids. And you could see in the video a helicopter get grabbed by the tornado and it whipped it around and a guy fell out. Could you see the guy die? No, but is that close enough? Absolutely. And so I, when the bell rang, I immediately trotted my little butt down to the principal's office and I told Chad Gray, our principal, I did this. I let it happen. I didn't screen the video beforehand or I didn't watch close enough. It is my fault. I'm going to write an email to the parents of that class and apologize and show the parents the video, come what may. He's like, well, they could, you know, someone could complain. You could lose lice. It didn't matter. It is my responsibility. I hate the abdication of responsibility and education because if I am upfront with you about the things that I can and cannot do as a man, as just another one of God's flawed creatures, then if there is a problem with your daughter that you don't, that maybe you have suspicions of, or you don't, because something was fixed early, fixed early on and then left alone because, yeah, I'm from the government, I'm here to help all that stuff. Then, then when I come to you and I say, marilyn, I'm so sorry, like, I, I thought these things were going wrong. We're now two or three weeks in, not the end of the year. What do you suggest? How do we kind of work together? And I, again, my parents took far better care of me than any teacher's union ever because I was always hyper transparent with them. And by the way, I had a couple helicopter moms who were insane for no reason. And I do mean, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what really bothers me is that this is another case in which, yeah, this teacher dude just again, laziness and, well, it'll be fine. And oh, yeah, gee, if I just say at the end, oh, yeah, sure. I probably should have put him in the jumpstart program there. Well, great. Now we've wasted a year of my child's education and reading development time. Their literacy window is not only smaller to jump through. Now because of the disability or the neurological imbalance or whatever it is, you know, kids and their myriad of things, it could be right. My son's arms are turning purple. Is it because he's cold or he's having a reaction, that kind of a thing. Right now the window is even smaller because we're closer to eight. And so I wholeheartedly understand the frustration on that. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. So. But again, procedurally, procedurally the teacher should have said, Ms. Muller, we. I would like to refer Lauren for an evaluation. Right. Why didn't he do that? No, didn't say anything. Oh, she'll be fine. Oh, I said, should we get a tutor? Yeah. Oh yeah, of course. Got a tutor. Guess who he recommended? One of the first grade teachers to tutor her over the summer. Okay. So. And I'm not going to abdicate my own responsibility. I thought I was being the involved parent, but I wasn't. I wasn't aware of or didn't pay attention to the legality, the idea, because essentially that that district is. Was non compliant with child fund.

[A]

Right. So here's where the other side of things get really, really sticky and frustrating. And this is the part where I as a teacher would really upset other teachers in my district because I was the guy who had just worked for Governor Scott Walker's office in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, he made me an education policy and legislation intern and then made me a junior education policy advisor, which is a title about as useful as feed on a fish. And so I learned a lot about education law really quickly and got my SPED certification, which I closely guarded as a secret lest they essentially say, tony, we'll just fix everything. And so I would be in these meetings and I would be arguing with the assistant principal, really, really nice lady, and who was more focused on assessments than she should have been. But you know, assistant principals, that's a day ending in Y. And then the SPED teacher and then the content teacher and I would always advocate to be one of the content teachers and we would argue about what it took to be compliant. The problem is that we've created a system of laws that require compliance and the actual level of compliance for the set of resources which are provided are insane.

[B]

They are, of course, and I agree.

[A]

And we've actually spoken and agreed on this before. In fact, one of the first articles at Chalkboard Review that we had published from a fate mom, which we're still in the process of going through the old Squarespace locally archives that we've found and published was that the system has laws on infrastructure that it's not built to. So in 75, excuse me, 1775, when the Continental Congress was like, let's give the Army Food. And they're like, we're going to give everybody a pound of bread a day and a pound of meat a day. And then everyone's like, okay, now where the is that coming from? And they're like, oh, well, figure it.

[B]

Out, Figure it out.

[A]

Congress wrote it. There you go. And so that's like, idea is like that. And I had parents who come in like, you need to be doing more. And it's like, what is it that you want me to do? And then communication breaks down because the, the, the unstoppable force which should be unstoppable meets the impenetrable wall of there's nothing extra that I can provide that wouldn't then get me in trouble with the rest of the district for un. Unfairly giving resources to one student. When then the mom who has life skill student is going to come in and go, well, why isn't my kid receiving that? And then the two kids, I mean, and before the end of the day it's right.

[B]

Yeah, I get that. But yeah. So districts are focused on procedural compliance.

[A]

Because it's the easiest, lowest.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Friction thing. Yep.

[B]

Versus, you know, attaining progress. You know, they're not, they're more concerned about their compliance than they are about childhood growth and attaining.

[A]

And I would say that depending on the district that you're. That it's halfway. Yeah, of course that it's halfway because it is true that by in fact doing several things with compliance, if I don't comply with things and the district doesn't get any funding and then no one gets to learn. And that is a real thing. I mean we've seen that with several districts across the country where the state has had to come in and take control of the school. And boy, that's gosh, there's a school board in Muncie, Indiana that is, that is run by the state and it is and is an anathema. I mean it's horrible and it's awful and it makes the Chicago public school system look like a, you know, dream education environment. It's. This is why a lot of people in the school choice movement then try to jump in and say, well, the answer is splitting up the education funding and then trying to decentralize and give kids an opportunity to go where their needs are best served. And does it often come across as though we're just trying to say we got to do something fast just to get rid of these people. How does it come across to you when that's the answer? That is to this massive ball of Frustration of all of these different systems failing simultaneously. Because from the inside of the system that's what it feels like.

[B]

Well, very simply, I mean my simple, you know, three pronged approach would be the overhaul of the educator preparation programs to require the science of reading. Okay. And those are for the most part taxpayer funded colleges of education. Right. It should be mandated. It should be in the teacher preparation program. They need the knowledge, practical training, all of that. Okay. We want to make sure they're not denied.

[A]

Which teachers are you going to require to take that training?

[B]

Well, at a minimum, it needs to be our kindergarten through third grade teachers.

[A]

Okay. So for L. Ed majors, again, air quotes galore. Science of reading training required or data based evidentiary education methods kind of a driven thing. Because I again, I know this is where we get into the divide between y' all and for example like the AEI crew and like the Robert Pondicio guys who like a lot of parts of Science of Reading and Pondicio backs a huge chunks of it. But there are some issues of some sections of it that he has and of, of of some of the. I have a different issue with the first prong of your three prong approaches, but it's for, for this conversation. Let's, let's table that one because mine is kind of a more government policy failure issue with the same with this OJP report. Whoever in power is going to get to decide whether or not something is effective and deserves the funding. And that's kind of one of the reasons we got to this problem in the first place. Common Core came from a science of reading mindset. Not with science of reading but with something else saying, oh, in the Seattle suburb, if you tell someone that you love them, they do better in math and so screw math standards, give them.

[B]

The Care Bears and oh, they don't need cursive writing. Oh but yes they do because it also helps with you know, reading and.

[A]

Spelling and pattern functional analysis.

[B]

Right, yeah.

[A]

So, so that was your first prong of the three prongs approach. Sorry, let me hear the other two.

[B]

Yep. So that's, that would be the educator preparation programs which flows into the tier one instruction in the kindergarten, first, second, third grade classroom. The science of reading or however you want, however you want to put this right. You have the cognitive research. We know that when teachers deliver their instruction in direct, explicit, multimodal, structured, sequential ways that the majority of, of the group is going to grasp that if you look researchers, reading Researchers say that 95% of all children can learn to read by the End of first grade with structured literacy. That would include kiddos who have dyslexia. 95% of all kids. So we know we have that 5% that doesn't have, you know, perhaps the intellectual capacity for whatever reason. Right. We have, we have birth defects, we have trauma, we have this, that and the other. The data. The data. If you go to the data of the kids, they're getting funneled into the idea, 34% of them have dyslexia, a reading, A specific learning disability in reading. Okay. Then second to that is. Hold on, where I'm going to get my data.

[A]

You're good, you're good. I'm listening.

[B]

Thinking, speech or language impairment, 19%. Okay. So those two right there represent 50, 52, 53% of all kids who have IEPs, reading disability, speech and language.

[A]

Well, but we're getting into. So, so, so we, we can get into the, the. I'm for a structured based literacy approach. Absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with that. The data, once we get to the IEP stuff, there is a mass. The data shows, based on what we understand about modern developmental disabilities and learning disabilities, there are a massive number of students who are over assigned IEPs and 504s. They're over assigned. Now you have a student with moderate ADHD that's behavioral and not neurological. So like chemical. So you can have like a chemical based adh.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No. So this is, this is where I have, I have experience on both sides. I have a stepson.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Who I was not obviously part of. You know, I was not heavily involved in the early days of his identification. His iep, his this, that, the other.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He was, he was only identified with ADHD at 5 years old and told to what? Oh, medicate him. Right. Fast forward. He continued to struggle even with medication. Well, why is that? Because guess what? The medication isn't going to help you learn. What's going to help you learn is, is appropriate instruction?

[A]

Well, it depends. Is it a, is it a combined presentation ADHD or is it a behavioral presentation adhd? Because there are neurological deficiencies for dopamine pat pathways.

[B]

Right. But I mean, for your stepson, maybe.

[A]

It was, it was a behavior. Like if. So if the kid was raised on screens early on, then he can learn.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no. You know, he, no, he's. He's 26 years old.

[A]

Well, no, but I'm saying, I'm talking about be. I'm talking about there, there are two. There's, well, three kinds of adhd. One of them is behavioral Meaning it's learned. So I'm not talking about your, your steps. I'm saying if it was a behavioral learning approach only as in you learned to only take in dopamine through excessively high levels of stimulation. So you know, you're going to IMAX every weekend. I'm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, no, no, that's, that's a learned approach where neurologically I understand what you're. Yeah.

[B]

He sort of is your classic attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Very. In the old days, it's what my parents, and even I would call. He's a boy. Your typical boy. Right. Short attention span, likes to be active. He's only interested in something that, you know, excites him. He'd rather talk about, you know, army guys than two plus two equals four.

[A]

Yeah, but I mean that, that's not, that's not what. So it misdiagnosis and include. So. So before everything was autism, everything was ADHD or dyslexia. So there was a time when everything was adhd. Oh, he's getting in trouble in class. Oh, I must have adhd. Give him Ritalin. No, but there are cases. ADHD is not actually. It's a very misnomer thing. Right. It's not actually about being attention deficit and hyperactive. Neither of those two things are at all correct. Because if you get a kid, if you give a kid with ADHD caffeine, they don't become hyperactive. And if you give a kid with, with ADHD instruction that excites them, they do in fact maintain attention. It's just dopamine driven engagement.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I mean, I, I agree with you. There are cases where medication does help somebody with adhd.

[B]

Well, I'm not, I'm not.

[A]

No, no, you're fine. I'm just saying, like.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

We might just be on different channels here a little bit.

[B]

Yeah. No, so my point is this. Fast forward through, through my stepson, severe struggles, like just to the point of suicide ideation. By the time he was in middle and high school, he finally got a, A neuropsych through Massachusetts General Hospital where my daughter was. He. He's also dyslexic now that was never identified by the school, never identified a specific learning disability in reading. Okay, so how much of his track in life, in his educational life, was skewed by the district not identifying his specific learning difficulty in reading and focusing in on his ADHD and medicating him?

[A]

So I, I very much agree with the criticism. The problem is in this specific instance, that it is Only partly the school's fault. And this is where we start.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

This isn't about you at all. This is, this is, it's not like it's actually also your parents. That's not where I'm going with that.

[B]

Yeah, no, no, no, no. It's, it's. So when you say that kids are over identified who, who is giving out the, the IEPs and the 504s.

[A]

So in, in most cases the individuals that are giving out the IEPs and the 504s, they recognize that something is wrong. So parents and teachers usually there's something. I have a kid who is not, who's not getting it, not getting it in, in class. You ask him, he's kind of paying attention, kind of not. Maybe he's disinterested, maybe he's interested and just doesn't get it. I have a kid in mind. Actually a perfect example of a kid in mind. Wonderful kid. I will not say his name but you know, even though now he's graduated so I don't want, don't want this come back to him.

[B]

Yeah, no, no, no.

[A]

Troublesome child. And they wanted to sit down for an IEP with the kid. And we sat down for an IEP meeting and we talked about it. We talked about things. Oh, he's showing signs that suggest you might have dyslexia or adhd. And I said, guys, I'm telling. This kid doesn't have, have it. He doesn't have anything. I'm sorry, he just doesn't. He doesn't have anything. He's either dealing with a lack of attention, he has just not. He's dealing with everyone else around him who's acting a little bit different. He's a little bit pudgier, he's not as athletic and he doesn't, he hasn't exactly developed enough of a frontal lobe to be witty or funny at the right times. He's getting in trouble. He doesn't know where to fit in. I don't know if that comes from a broken home or not. I later found out he was from a broken home, having come from one myself. That messes kids up. And so I worked with him over the rest of the year. By the end of the year he was one of the highest performing kids in my class. No IEP. I had to almost square up with Mrs. Roberts, our sped teacher. I mean like almost square up to get him to take the regular final because they ended up giving him an IP anyway. He didn't need it. He didn't need it. And then by just shoving him in a classroom with a bunch of the life skills kids and the LD kids so that she could get out the big blocks and shapes and say, okay class, these are circles. This is a rectangle. Like he's in junior high.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Don't be, you know, for lack of a better term, don't. Don't be a jackass. There's no net, there's no reason for that. And when I say that kids are over identified, that's what I mean is that there's a failure for a taking of responsibility for what might else be going on in the kid's life. And so then in the case of your stepson or your daughter, who needs the instruction, look at Marilyn, she's doing all of this stuff. She's doing the reading thing. She tried hiring a tutor. The government came over with this person to talk to her 18 month old, for crying out loud. Holy 1990s Batman. That's like that era of thinking when, when you do all of that, okay, then presto. Look, there is clearly a high likelihood. Send the child to with Marilyn in the room, advance testing over a period of a couple of days, identify what's going on and then come up with an individualized education plan. But IEPs are high anymore. They're not doing that now. They're exactly. But I, I don't think that it's, it's. I think that there is a dual issue that a lot of parents, not you, clearly not you, but a lot of parents in this, in, in this entire system, at some point they reach the position that that kindergarten teacher was where it's like, oh well heck, what am I supposed to do? And they're like, it's, oh, maybe if you stip them with an iep, they'll be fine. And so what I've seen with James Fury and with a lot of teachers who, in the system that we've all watched arguments flying in and out of between our two communities here is that you recognize the teachers who screwed your kids over because of apathy, because they didn't care, because they had other stuff going on, because it's easier to go, well, sorry, guess I'm never going to see you again. So I just have to get you out of my classroom like the kindergarten guy. And then on our side we see the parents who at the same time are demanding everything of, of the teachers in the classroom to the point where there are many parents who are like, well also I'm going to peace out because you know, I've got pilates at 11, so take care of my kids. See it. And it's. It's as though I'm showing up. It's as though I'm sending you to an awful PTA meeting and then you're going to sit down with, like, the worst teacher in the district.

[B]

District.

[A]

And it sucks because you should be in my classroom with me and we should be working together. Does that make sense?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But we should be getting the best of both drafts.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. However. So the. The issue I have here, though, is that the school never evaluated my child. Okay. I had to go through the gaslight and the struggle and the wonder and wait a year to get a private evaluation, which we paid for out of pocket. Okay. To find out that my child is. Has an above average intelligence IQ and she has dyslexia and dyscalculia and dysgraphia. Some people would probably say, okay, well, is she really dyslexic or does she. Is she a casualty of poor instruction? And at that point I probably would have said, I don't know. Right. Okay, so. So did the poor instruction cause her to struggle with learning how to read? Which turned into Lauren constantly excusing herself from class and going to the bathroom and crying. This is a six, seven, eight, year old kid.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Crying in the bathroom. Okay. Pulling it back together, going back to class, not understanding what's going on. Poor instruction, getting picked up at the end of the day after school, restraint, breaking down, all of that.

[A]

Understandably.

[B]

Okay. So I always say when people talk about behaviors, my first question is, what's the instruction? Are they receiving direct, explicit, structured, multimodal? Because guess what? The science of reading, when applied, is diagnostic and prescriptive. And those are two key things.

[A]

It's diagnostic and it is. It is. It is prescriptive.

[B]

Is prescriptive saying this, this kid needs more.

[A]

Yes, yes.

[B]

Instruction.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And by the way, I'm sorry that my lovely little bit of ADHD coming through and you know, it. The reason that I'm very picky on terms like that and the reason that I did it, I do kind of ask for clarification like that when I. When, for example, like when we've talked together before on Twitter, it's not because I'm trying to be, like a jerk, but because the words that are you. I like building from the ground up.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Because, like, if you argue from the top down, that's like, oh, we came in and Marilyn gave me A scowl. And so therefore she's, you know, kind of a B word. So, like, I know, go from the ground up here. You can do some really cool stuff. I agree with you. And I do. I. By the way, again, as a huge proponent of the science of reading for early education, for secondary education, I'm almost an exclusive adherent of the master and apprentice model, like Johnny Tremaine kind of stuff.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely. But we're not getting there. We're not getting kids.

[A]

I mean, we want to see where I disconnect from a lot of my friends and colleagues, it's there. I'm over here going like, well, you know, maybe we need to get this kid with like a master mason or an electrician or a doctor or a dentist and like, or go around with their parents all day and see what they do. Homeschooling. People never talk about this. Homeschooling is essentially the same as direct public instruction for about the first four years. And then it hits hyperspeed when developmental frontal lobe stuff kicks in. Like, I'm going to take a wild stab here. Let me guess. Your daughter's brain started rewiring. Rewiring some special pathways around dysgraphia and dyslexia in a way that you were able to develop specific instruction that allowed her to learn at far accelerated rates in some subjects than that of her peers.

[B]

Oh, sure, yeah.

[A]

I mean, see, that's such an obvious thing. It's like, oh, well, of course we don't treat the rest of education that way.

[B]

Correct. So my whole thing, though, about the, the. The focus. I wish policy would focus on early and when. I mean early. I'm talking pre K through third. Those teachers should have knowledge, the most skills, the most training. They should be able. They should know this. The, the criteria for disgrace agree with you. Okay, why don't they.

[A]

Ah, now here's a great answer to the question here, I got you. No, no, seriously. We're about to solve the entire issue here. There are two massive barriers in the way. Two massive barriers. Number one is that there has never been a time we have seen a government require a policy and it work. Ever. Ever. There has never been a time that a government said, add something and it'll fix it. Not once through all of human history. Never. So that's an issue. By the way, your solution is correct. We should be requiring teachers to do that. But it's parents. No, no. The reason I say requiring is not the government doing the requiring. And I'm, I'm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In interest of transparency, I'm thinking these things out in real time. That's why I go back and do the scare quotes here. So, so, yeah. So with, with regard to actually requiring it, it's parents who should be requiring, I believe in the abolition of teacher licensure. The abolition of teacher licensure from the state. It's wrong. It does nothing to help. I have, I have. When I was in Indianapolis public schools and I'm in charge of 250 teachers, elementary teachers, teaching science, middle and high schools, teaching all the science and STEM subjects, I would go into classrooms and I would see teachers that were veterans that have amazing certification routes and they sucked. They sucked yesterday and they're going to suck tomorrow. And I would see these teachers that went through graduate weird, bendy hula hoop programs that were in the field. They come in, they're amazing teachers. And I think that a district, a school, that the administration should be focused on what makes a good teacher and that if I'm a principal of a small school, of a mid sized school, I'm going to be bringing in parents and I'm going to say, what do we want our teachers to have? We're going to go find some teachers. I'm going to go cow. I'm going to canvas for local business experts, industry experts. I'm going to hit universities for teacher grad programs. What am I looking for? And you raise your hand if you're not already on like the head of the reading committee because let's be real, you've done the research, you're passionate about it, so therefore you become an expert in it, because that's how that works. You say we need him to be obsessed with the science of reading. That needs to be the standard. So that principal then gets online and goes to universities and grabs those teachers and comes back to you and says, Marilyn, here's the deal. They want a little bit more financially. Parents, are we willing to make this kind of a sacrifice so that our literacy teacher is the best paid here for the district? And that's genuinely how that should work. Genuinely. Okay, so that's the first barrier why that's going to happen.

[B]

But I'm going to interrupt you there and say you're not going to be able to go out and find very many science and reading teachers from colleges.

[A]

And universities according to the free market. You create a need. You create a need.

[B]

I know, but, so, but you're forgetting the reality here that the government funds, right and there's, there's stipulations attached to that funding uh huh huh huh.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And that. So the government doesn't have the science of reading.

[A]

Right. So they're not going to assign the dollars to it. Yes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So this is why I think the Department of Education should be defunded and turned back into an office of Education.

[B]

Yeah, I don't want. I agree totally.

[A]

This is why I also think that teacher licensing should be abolished because one of the ways the government restricts things they don't want, and by they, I mean people in the DOE restrict universities. Indiana University or University of Wisconsin is a premium education college. They'll say, well, hey, if you don't include these things in your state standards. See, here's where I don't. This isn't a conspiracy. This. They're directly operating this. I don't think the bias against the science of reading is bias against it because it works and they know it doesn't. The bias against the science of reading is it's not the touchy feely, good loving and hugs. It's like saying that the reason that the black communities in the inner city suffered in the 1990s, Gloria Ladson Billings is not because they aren't given love in the prison pipeline from the schools. It's because black families in the inner city and white families in Appalachia were the two communities that were most likely, according to the data right here. In discriminations and disparities like Thomas Sowell, the communities in the country and the communities in the inner city were the most high rates of, you guessed it, two things. Number one, not active church service and community involvement, which led to the biggest thing. Broken homes.

[B]

Broken homes. Yeah.

[A]

Yes. As again. And this is why I hate, I hate so much logging onto social media and seeing two people whom I have all of the respect for fighting about this stuff. Because I wholeheartedly, I wholeheartedly agree that kids who need the special attention and instruction need it. I just, we start talking past each other because there are actors in the community who make it really difficult. Like we were just talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene, people who make it difficult at times for us to get this across. Right now, if you'll permit me, I did mention the second barrier, why this isn't going to come to fruition. The school choice issue will not all happen at once. And we in this country, we hear the words experimentation and then we hear the word children in the same sentence and everyone immediately goes freaks out, where are my pearls? There they are.

[B]

Yep, yep, yep.

[A]

Experiment on the children. And instead of saying, I'll tell you what let's take Marilyn here. Let's put Marilyn as the literacy advisor in Elwood High School. And Element or Elwood elementary School. We're going to give her Elwood Elementary School. I just made up Elwood. I know there are Elwoods around the country. Leave me alone. And we're going to put her in charge of it. We're going to have her choose teacher. She's going to put out a call. Hey, are you a Science of Reading teacher? We're going to pay you 75 grand a year to come in and prove everyone wrong. Because that's what Katherine Burble Singh did in the UK with the Michaela School. And then after two years, we're going to look at the data and we're going to see what you have produced. And I'm going to bet, balls to bones, as the oracle from the Matrix would say, that you're going to have the data to support it. But we refuse to do that here because experimenting on children is like Covid and it's bad and terrible. How could you do that clutching the pearls? That's the barrier that keeps us from getting there. You're going to need two, three years of experimentation.

[B]

Right. Well, so you know, that's why one of my goals is when Lauren graduates next May, after we move to our retirement home, I would love to open a charter school for twice exceptional kids.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Because I know can be done. But back up just for a second. My daughter, and obviously this is dyslexia, runs along a continuum and things run on spectrums. And we know this. However, I know now, had my child and most of her, her peers just like her, if they had been exposed to or received the direct, explicit instruction in, beginning in kindergarten, she never would have been labeled disabled. Okay.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So who. Who is disabling the children?

[A]

Okay, here's again. So again, malice and ignorance. This is the thing that bothers me. So allow me a second here. I grew up in. When I was 10, my parents got divorced. Mom took my sister left for Bloomington, Indiana. Right. Completely messed me up. Caused a lot of psychological trauma and social trauma that still to this day affects that. So you can kind of get to the end. And by the way, I say this with teachers and the teacher licensing thing, because I will say we need to abolish teacher training, professional development and teacher licensing requirements and instead allow districts individually to set standards for who we are allowing to teach here and what and why, which then makes that school board, who sets those standards directly accountable to the parents who have to put up with that school board. Right. Again, it adds accountability and responsibility immediately. Immediately. The, the.

[B]

While I can agree with that, you have a, one huge problem in the middle. Unions.

[A]

Well, we'll get to, we'll get to unions in a second. Which, which should. Again, I think that Janice did the biggest sledgehammer drive to the knees of the unions anyway. But if you also want to get rid of unions, then you have to get rid of lawsuit culture in the United States.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

And yeah, we'll get to that. And I agree. But here. So here's, here's the thing. I can. And I've had teachers who have looked at me in the face and say, okay, I hate professional development. I hate teacher licensure, but I had to go through it. So the people underneath me have to go through it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

No, no, you don't do that. I don't want anyone. I will sacrifice anything to make sure that my kids get the kind of home that my dad tried to provide, that my mom would try to provide from a distance, that my grandmother would step in and try to provide, that my church would step in and try. I want them to have everything. I will fight tooth and nail to get it. There is a Adam Coleman, who. I think we both know who he is. Yeah, absolutely. He talks about this a lot with his son. He is giving his all so that his son doesn't have to live through the child that he lived through. Right. And I'm sure that Lauren is going to work nail to the T to make sure that no school is going to say what screwed up your ability and your reaction time to. To solve things before she was labeled in wrong ways, incompletely, you know, incorrectly, etc. How we get to it, obviously getting rid of unions is a huge thing, but that's why decentralizing education, once you decentralize education, you can have a school district in rural Indiana or rural Florida, say, yeah, you're part of a union. You don't get to teach here. Not like it's a requirement. You don't get to teach here. Screw you. You're part of the ista. Get out of here. You part of the nea. Get out of here. No.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, and I think that that's, again, you essentially have to go back to a kind of one room schoolhouse model ish, that kind of size approach. And there are some Christian schools at the parochial level that are already doing this to a degree and some classical learning schools that are doing this, that are incorporating sor. I Think it's attainable, but at the mass level, I just don't see a way that we can do this from the top down that is actually effective and works. We can want it. Sure. But I mean.

[B]

Well, okay, but. And I see where you're coming from and, and I can agree with it to a certain extent. I think a lot of people are concerned about the civil rights system aspect of it. Okay.

[A]

We're going to get into an interesting territory here because.

[B]

You know, you look at, let's just the current environment. Right, sure, sure. There's, there's, there's a, there is for a good reason, you know, a focus on discrimination. Title nine. Right. And the DEI and all of that. So my. Where we come from, the FAPE mom is where is that same vigor and rigor with holding districts accountable for violating the civil rights.

[A]

There's a suspicion that a black student isn't receiving the same level of education as a white student. We turn the district upside down quick. Somebody call the Deputy Secretary of Education. The Office of Civil Rights gets involved. But when my child, who under the law is promised free and appropriate public education, isn't given those things that they are entitled to by law, to quote the Joker, nobody bats an eye. And so I understand. I do.

[B]

And it's not just my kid though. It's seven and a half million kids who qualify under idea.

[A]

So. And then we get to kind of the spicy and the rough part of here things because first of all, to build an accurate case when we're looking at systemic issues, because now we get, we bring in the S word here and things get real, real hairy real quick. Now there's a solution on the way out of this, by the way. The solution on the way out of this is for everyone involved to look at each other, look at them across the small chasm of the school choice movement. And as much as I truly despise Chris Stewart to the core when he says there are some parents that want to have a black only school of black only teachers and they want to teach racist crap. You want to do that? Fine. You want a school that does all signs of reading, Fine. You want a school that does STEM discovery approach. Dear God, I don't know why you would do that. Sure, you can have it. Yeah, go for it, Whatever. I think that by going that way, shaking hands and pushing into that new horizon of deregulation, you do get the way there. The problem with that is you guys in the FAPE industry, and this is a generalization, are like already under the Law right now I'm promised my rights. Where are my rights? I agree with you. You're not getting it. The problem is that there is genuinely we're looking at practical stuff right now. Right. Because there are kids that are suffering in the thing. The quickest way out of this is to deregulate and say it is because of these kids that are screwed over that we are deregulating. And then we may be able to write special provisions in new state and federal legislature that incorporate. There will be no strings attached to literacy education and instruction. You want to run a school that doesn't teach phonics, God help you. It's on you, not us. We're going to set up phonics centric science of reading instruction. That's the quickest way out of the tunnel that I see. And it's a question as to do you want to be right or do you want the solution right here, right now? And then look, you want to hop on my show once a week for the end of, until the end of time and say we were right? Why didn't you listen? Sure.

[B]

Yeah. No, so I'm a, I've gotten to the point. It's, it's a very careful line to toe.

[A]

Ain't it though?

[B]

I, I, I would be all for like repealing the idea because it's a false prime. It's, it's symbolic law.

[A]

No child left behind. Can I get a witness?

[B]

There's, it's a false hope that the system is policing itself, Marilyn.

[A]

It's in the name. It's, it's Social Security.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't want a security for everyone. How could you be so cruel, Marilyn? You would be willing to. Because that's where we're going to get right. You're going to be called Hitler. I'll be called, I don't know, Libs. Don't really know any other leftist dictators or not Fascists, maybe. Maybe Pinochet maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, so we'll be called big stinky evil people. You said you would be willing to do that, but I'm guessing there's a conditional clause with it which there should be.

[B]

Well, well, yeah, the conditional clause is that students who have unique needs, special needs, are more expensive to educate. We know this. Yeah, the, the state knows this.

[A]

Well, I mean, yeah, but that makes sense, you know. You know how easy it is to raise a, a quiet and calm and laid back type B daughter than it is to raise a boisterous type A. Oh, dear God, please quit Chasing after your brother with a hammer. Kind of a boy. They require different levels of energy. Pretending otherwise. Stupid.

[B]

Yeah. So you know what I'm. So the whole thing, though, is there's so much wasted funding and there's so much unnecessary trauma. So again, if I go back to what I.

[A]

Great use of words. Great, great art. Great. Unnecessary trauma is very, very apropos.

[B]

It. I'm sorry. But there is. There's. It's for teachers.

[A]

No, no. To be sorry for. It's unnecessary.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And parents and families. Yep.

[B]

Fam. Society. All of it.

[A]

Because.

[B]

Because.

[A]

Because sin doesn't stay with one person. And. And trauma doesn't.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Environment. Correct.

[B]

No, sure. So like I said, in my situation, had my daughter received the science of reading in kindergarten, she wouldn't have had trauma. You know, this whole trauma informed practice, which is a bunch of jargon, and I wouldn't have had to pull her out, put her in a separate space school which costs $50,000 a year, drain her college education account and all of that trauma. There was so much trauma and all just being able to access appropriate instruction to learn how to read and write and do math. Okay, so once she was remediated, which costs four or five, I don't even know how many times more than appropriate initial instruction. Right. She doesn't look like she's dyslexic on paper anymore, so to speak. Okay. She integrated into your typical college Prep High School AP honors. She's straight A. She has a 4.98 GPA. She got a 34 on her ACT. This is the same kid that the system was labeling disabled, shoving her into high dosage tutoring of, you know, essentially more poor instruction and high doses. If we didn't have the ability to pull her out of that, she was. Where was she going? She was headed towards delinquency dropout, suicide. Because I can tell you right now that track, that track that those kids are on with ieps is not a good track. And it. They don't even need to be on that track.

[A]

I think that there's. No, no, I agree. I think that there's. There's so. So in. In one hour, in one hour of you and I talking about this. Right. Well, an hour and a half. You include the couple of minutes before the things went wonky. We have already solved. Yeah, I'm going to say solved a good 90% of the disagreements between the, quote, two sides of this movement. And Marilyn, allow me to tell you why that really upsets me. Really upsets Me? Have you and I gotten cross with each other one whopping time during this entire conversation? Naturally or unnaturally? No.

[B]

No.

[A]

Has there been any time where either of us have called each other stupid or inexperienced or ignorant or whatever?

[B]

No.

[A]

No. So I'm just saying here what really gets on my. So you were talking about starting, you know, some kind of a school, right? Charter school. I, I, I have noticed that, that you have previously disagreed with the guy who I co founded Chalkboard Review with Daniel Buck. Right. Former English literacy teacher who's whose internal heart's desire is to launch a school for direct, explicit instruction that involves the exact kind of low. He wouldn't call it science of Reading because the nitpicky stuff is ridiculous. Ridiculous. But it is essentially the exact kind of thing that you're calling for and what gets on my nerves, not in frustration with y', all, but in a kind of cosmic stepping away from your body kind of a way where you just kind of look at the situation as a whole and you're like, my gosh, if I actually had in a room James Lindsay and Corey DeAngelis and Chris Rufo and Marilyn Muller and the fake moms and Robert Pondisio and the AEI Education crew and the Heritage Education crew and me there for, you know, because I'm sure the open bar at the thing would be fantastic. We sit back and we plow through with some type of a general compromise. Not because we're compromising what our kids deserve, but because we're saying, look, we all want some different specifics, but in the meantime, something between all of us we could craft is a far some lot better than what's currently being pushed in these large state conventions with state representatives accepting all of these different lobbying firms, Midland teachers union led, simping for Bill Gates, corporate side garbage.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

We, and again, I'm not saying I know that you're going to want more intensive IEP constraints than the classical education crew is going to want for their specific schools and environments. Okay, whatever. I hear you.

[B]

I don't think an IEP is necessary. An IEP is probably, I'm just using.

[A]

IP for general kids with individualized.

[B]

Yeah, probably about 5% of the population needs an IEP.

[A]

Right. Because you've made the case that with proper reading instruction you could solve 95% of the IEPs before we get there. Right. So that we wouldn't have seven and a half million parents, we would have 575,000 parents, if my math is right there, which I think it is. So therefore There is no solution. There is like, so let's go and do this. It's just to those who have stuck around your crew who follows what you do on education, on social media. My crew, who follows me for education Y stuff. The last of them who have made it to the end of this hour and a half interview, whomever they are. My gosh, what an opportunity that we freaking have. What an actual opportunity that we have.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

I'm serious. I mean, yeah, look, I love griping on Twitter as much as the next guy. I do. I love it. It's fun. The dopamine riddled with it. It's a real hoot. But I don't even have a conclusion. I just. I enjoy this. This is good. It shows that there's a momentum behind the stuff that we're doing. And I don't know, am I wrong to be optimistic that at least 10 years from now we could see something better than what we're currently at?

[B]

Oh, I am fully and wholeheartedly optimistic. I think, you know, the current administration and the deregulation and, you know, the school choice, like I said, I'd be all for repealing idea, right? And here I'm a fake mom because guess what? The standards are low. It's. It makes everyone lazy. It gives everyone an excuse. My daughter, I have the highest expectations, and I have the highest expectations for her teachers. I don't ever want anyone to lower the expectation on my child. I only want them to give her the way to get to that high expectation. Are you giving her the. The appropriate instruction? Are you. Are you presenting her with enough strategies to solve a problem so that she can. Something works for her. Right.

[A]

So the other side of that. That has. The other side. I won't say the other side because there's a lot of different factions and movements and subgroups and whatever. So the little proviso that I'll put in there is if the. If the. The collection of FAPE moms, again, to generalize, because I will take the harder side of this argument, because it needs to be more durable. Can recognize that there are teachers who are also just as human as you are. And that while we are on the pathway, God forbid there's a child who slips out from under the radar. Because I have 29 other parents with kids in that classroom who, let's say, 15, are in my inbox constantly. If there's something that slips through the radar, not an entire year. Oh, yeah, I should have. Oh, heavens no. But if there can be a little more grace extended While we work together to make sure your kid gets what they need and the grace is not. Well, you are actively denying because you are not doing X, Y and z right now. Then the. Then we avoid the accusations of. From one side, oh, you're just being an obsessive helicopter parent who wants everything because, you know, you think you deserve all my time. And then the other side saying, well, you're denying my kid education because they're just a money generation machine for the district.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Are there those situations? Oh, I mean, of course. I mean, I'm sure there are. As we've talked about. You've acknowledged that there are helicopter parents. I have acknowledged that there are districts using kids as money making machines.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Well, then, hey, you know, like I said, you should be meeting with me in this ideal situation. Right. The best parents should be meeting with the best teachers, even if we're not fighting each other at the same time. I'm going to warn people in my camp, hey, give the fake moms a bit of a break. They've had a rough time of it. And I've talked to Marilyn. Not that I'm some leader in the school choice movement anymore. I've, you know, cast that aside for the broadcasting that I do these days. But at the same time, while I am still being invited to education conferences and I'm trying to mediate some things here and there with the fate moms who listen and look up to you for admirable reasons, my gosh, it makes me want to reach out and set up a conference because, like, if we actually get together and glue some of these crews together, oh, we might actually.

[B]

So much Done. Yeah.

[A]

With. And once the kid's literate, you can't unliterate the kid just as much as when you screw up the kid. You can't unscrew up the kid.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I'm excited about it. I'm just gonna say it's not. It's not a corporate politeness. It's genuine friendship.

[B]

Yeah. No, I. So the thing is, and I would say to your camp, because there's this huge focus on behaviors, and I still go back to a quote from a guy in the UK who I'm sure Catherine knows or has heard of. Children's behavior is inextricably linked to their level of reading. Okay, so I. When someone talks about behaviors, you're getting.

[A]

Into prison pipeline stuff, though.

[B]

No, no. My first question is going to be, how literate is that child? Did they receive appropriate instruction? Like, okay, okay. And I'm talking.

[A]

I'm not playing along. I'm not playing along. In the mocking you. When I say I'm playing along, I'm playing along. Keep going. I'm here with you.

[B]

Okay, so. And I think you need to. We need to hone in on the age of these behaviors, because we know, like, that behaviors, like 5, 5%, again, we're going to go with about 5% of the population probably have those ingrained things, those behaviors. Right. Okay. And then you're going to have kids who have trauma from home.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That might manifest into behaviors.

[A]

I'm here with you. Yep.

[B]

Okay. You have kids who did not receive high quality instruction.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Behaviors. So where's the behaviors? There I see a huge generalization in behaviors. So. So people will say to me, well, how do you know your daughter's dyslexic and not a casual, you know, casualty of poor instruction?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so I'm going to say, how do you know those behaviors are not. How are you telling me that those behaviors are not the result of poor quality instruction? I'm going to put the same question.

[A]

A fair question, especially based on, like, the construct of the data that you presented. Here's my. Here is how I would. Here is how I would respond from the other side of the camp in a way that I think actually gets the answers that you need, not just want the answers that you need for kids in general. We have agreed up until this point that a lot of the reasons that we have gotten to where we are in education is not just an active and malicious denial, but it is a general laziness that there are in societies, an act of someone else will take care of it. I don't need to care. And unfortunately, that carries to the school. And you have a lot of students whose parents don't care. You do. You have students whose parents do not care. And they take what they see at home, and they take the behaviors that they see at home and with their parents when they're out and about. And if they see their parent acting rowdy in public, they might feel as though it is an appropriate learned behavior to take social manipulation to the level of abusing themselves, others, and the classroom environment as a whole. The problem is that in society right now, according to the reports like you had showed me in the 90s, they said, oh, the only reason that the child is acting bad is because they weren't loved enough. That's why. So you got a gentle parent them. Yeah, that's what they say. The problem is there are people who Believe that. And now I'm in a situation where I have this kid who isn't just acting improperly. The correct term is, as I'm sure you've seen, the kid is acting like.

[B]

Yeah, the kid is.

[A]

They are. They are. They are yelling. They're. They're cursing in front of everyone. They're smacking other kids, and then they are sent to the office. Because I do have 29 other kids who I'm trying to give the appropriate instruction and education to.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But I'm in fifth. I'm in fifth grade. Like, I'm. I'm. I'm working with what I got. Now. I send that kid to the office, the district, because of the socially goofy goobers. They send him back with a cookie and say, why don't you tell me why you did that? Well, my mom doesn't like me. Right. Yep. Now we're back here again. So the issue is that we're essentially. That there are cases of children we're disagreeing on the margins because of studies that say, well, it's inexorably linked to lack of literacy. Here's the issue with that. The issue with that is we have not shown that the lack of literacy itself led to the behavior, because in times before, lots of people were literate. We did not see a commensurate level of people who are getting into big brawls, like in the Midwest, in the West. Right.

[B]

No, no, no, no. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

[A]

Right, right. And you could say, well, it was the standard of active participation in society. And it's like, okay, well, if I have a lot of students in high school, and I did at Lawrence north in Indianapolis, we're getting into trouble. And they could read on their phones expertly, even though they weren't reading on grade level. Something ain't right. Something ain't right here. What do you mean? Well, if they just knew how to read better out of here. Like, that's not. No, no. The kid is an. And is ruining class for everyone.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the idea that I need to keep them in here and give them special attention.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am so anti restorative justice.

[A]

So this is where we're all. We're actually kind of in agreement then. In a good way.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

So the teacher's crowd thinks that when you hear the behavior argument, and they say 90% of classroom problems are an issue with behavior, that the FAPE community sees that and is interpreting that is, well, what if the kid is. Is crying and upset and frustrated and maybe Back talking when they're called on because they don't understand what's going on because they haven't been receiving instruction. And from our side, we're saying read.

[B]

Aloud because they're going to be embarrassed.

[A]

Right. And from our side, we're saying, I'm not talking about your kid. You're not. Your kid's the one that I'm trying to give the instruction to, but I can't because.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

McGee over here.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Is going.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they won't let us learn.

[B]

So. No, And I've seen what. Exactly what you're talking about because I volunteered in my daughter's classrooms and. And I saw it. I saw that behavior and I saw how the teacher was told to respond to that behavior. And it's not how I would respond to that behavior as a parent. Right. I have strict rules, and I expect my daughter to behave even better than she does at home.

[A]

Yep, yep, yep.

[B]

Okay, so, no, I, I get that, but I think that, yes, again, this is where you don't. We're not all talking together. You know, you need to be. As a faith mom, when I hear behaviors, I'm going to go to. Is that kid receiving appropriate instruction that can that kid read? Right. Okay. If you tell me, yes, Literacy aside, this, all my kids in my class can read and write and do math on grade level. And then I have this in class. Who's disruptive of my lesson. That's a different story.

[A]

So. Exactly.

[B]

Way of saying it.

[A]

Exactly. Now, here's the thing. The problem is the academic term from psychological studies for behavior. All use the word behavior, and they don't. Because again, in the 70s, 80s and 90s, instead of saying implicit expressive behavior as opposed to exterior catalyzed behavior, like, again, the difference between the kid doesn't understand what's going on in class, so they're testy and it's easier to set them off because they're mad. Again, why was Helen Keller upset? Because she didn't understand it wasn't because she was misbehaving dumb. It's because she didn't get it. Yes, exactly. So. So, so based on that, the problem is that we're all using the same language that has been provided in the same way that you're like, well, why wouldn't you want to provide care? Because gender affirming care isn't care. It's the same. It's the, it's the. It's the exact same miscommunication that's been caused by, again, a side that is Actually trying to act malicious. But it was in the 70s and 80s and they thought they were being do goodery. Whatever about it, their motives were good for the wrong reason. It was the abdication of personal responsibility. So the answer here is, well, then we're going to need to. The reason the Michaela school has worked well is not because it's like abusing kids with special needs through literacy. It's that everyone in here is going to shut up so that John, who doesn't know what's going to. Who doesn't know what's going on, John gets a chance to learn.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I love for that. Oh, yeah, yeah. So that's the thing. That's why this is funny. That's why I said once we get to. There we are on the same page. Yeah, yeah. That's the funny thing here. So. So whether you have like James Fury and Daniel Buck or Robert Pundicio and those people who are coming to terms, the issue is that we have one out of every 50 teachers in the school choice movement is an. Who wants it just to be like, leave me alone. We're going to do this this way and nobody. And if you can't get it, it's because you're stupid and dumb. Get out of my classroom. One out of every 50 is like that. They're just hiding.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One out of every 50 fate moms just has a little. They won't tell to behave. They don't have a problem. The parent just doesn't parent. And so that's the thing. If we recognize that like in 99% of the cases, we're actually on the same song sheet here. And, and you. You can actually tell my genuine frustration with the unspoken here because I do try to keep my language very clean on broadcasting. And also, as you know, like as a Baptist, we do try to keep our language cleaner.

[B]

I was raised a Mormon, so.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we understand. But like, the reason I'm genuinely frustrated here is it's like it's within the grasp.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And instead I, I mean, I. There's. I'm not gonna school marm and say, well, the answer is quit arguing on Twitter because we're not gonna.

[B]

No, no, no, no.

[A]

But it is true to say that, like, my goodness, we do agree about the behavior things people just don't want to be swept under the rug and that. And from people who have been swept under the rug. Yeah. That's a real fear that needs to.

[B]

That there's a lot of trauma amongst fake moms.

[A]

And it's easy for both of us to say. Well, the answer is I'm going to have my state legislator pass this policy and then I will be proceeding protected, and you won't be able to give me more trauma. And you know how many times that's ever worked?

[B]

Zero.

[A]

Nope. You're going to need handshake agreements where over time, the teachers rebuild trust with parents. Well, that's a lot of work and it's going to require me to be engaged forever. Yeah, it's the card you were dealt. You got to rebuild an institution. Sucks. But here we are.

[B]

Yeah, well, hey, look, I. I've been in this fight. Now my daughter's, you know, senior in high school, and I'm still here fighting for kids. My daughter's fine. My daughter's thriving. She's in a private school, like, getting ready to go off the. You know, I am not in this for my daughter. I. I am in this because of the injustice that I have seen and witnessed and experienced that I hear from all these other parents who come to me and say, can you believe this? That this is what the district. Blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like today I responded to a mom who said that. That they said I can't get services for my daughter because she doesn't have an official dyslexia diagnosis. That's a lie. It's a lie. She can't get an iep. That's what was told to this month. Okay, so, you know, there's. But we, we have an opportunity to work together. And I wish that I can tell you this right now. Fape moms and I know this. They're. They're not involved in enough policy. They're not speak able. Their. Their voice is not heard where it should be heard.

[A]

So believe it or not, there's a pretty good reason why that interview cuts off so abruptly at the end. Marilyn and I began discussing things of a rather personal nature. And we'd gotten so far into the conversation, I allowed myself to share a couple of personal details that you really shouldn't share with various strangers watching an interview on the Internet. And so after we shared those details, and I was going to suggest that producer Nick just cut that out and we move on. There was news that started to break out of the Middle East. Go figure. And so we ended up having to cut the interview there. So I didn't get to record your. Thanks for joining us, Marilyn. Really appreciate the conversation. And we'll be back soon and then do the little outro. So sorry about that. So I'LL do that right here, right now from, from Israel, where the news was breaking from that well ended that interview in the first place. Thank you very much for tuning in to this interview. We will be back tomorrow, God willing. I'm Tony Kennett, and this has been the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated and first on 93 WIBC. Take care.