Podcasts about state education

With Charlie Kirk now gone, who will keep Trump's team working together?Trump is rescinding his endorsement of Marjorie Taylor Green. Tucker and Shapiro are condemning each other's souls.The AIPAC lobby is seeking the ouster of Keith Roberts at Heritage Foundation... for not condemning Tucker Carlson... for not condemning Nick Fuentes... for unspecified reasons.And Oklahoma's elected officials won't get a pay raise until they get a new commission team and schedule a new vote.Adam Pugh is not eligible to run for State Education superintendent until his senate term ends in 2028.And Eddie tells us he's not sure he wants to live to be 100 years old.AUDIOVIDEOCatch all our shows at www.FreshBlack.CoffeeConnect with us at www.facebook.com/freshblackcoffeeOur audio podcast is at https://feeds.feedburner.com/thefreshblackcoffeepodcastOur video podcast is at https://feeds.feedburner.com/freshblackcoffee/videocastWatch the video on our YouTube channel, Facebook, website, or with your podcasting app.   We record the show every Saturday and release it later the same day.Jeff Davis commentary appears courtesy of www.theThoughtZone.comClick here to watch this episode »

State education strides: Down in Alabama Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Maddie Shepard joins Robert and Jazmin to talk about the Protect Our Schools KY effort to increase education spending in Frankfort by $718 million, as well as the recent news about the JCPS budget. Before that, Robert and Jazmin discuss the evolving Democratic side of the 2026 US Senate race and a recent controversy involving a vote by Morgan McGarvey.

A Helena law firm says the state isn't meeting its constitutional obligation to provide a quality education. Missoula schools are the first to sign on to a potential lawsuit over the issue.

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It's Education Week on City Cast Houston! All week long we'll be focusing on how the future of our city is being shaped through education-related developments like early child care, the rise of workforce training, and more. But today, we're looking at how new state education laws are changing Houston's public schools and colleges. Host Raheel Ramzanali is talking to Samantha Ketterer, higher education reporter at the Houston Chronicle, and Jaden Edison, K-12 reporter for the Texas Tribune, about these new state laws and what you need to know for this school year and beyond.  Stories we talked about on today's show:  14 new Texas laws that will transform public colleges and universities this school year From a cell phone ban to Ten Commandments posters, new state laws bring big changes to Texas schools Providing basic care to students does not violate Texas' parental consent law, state guidance to schools says Texas educators praise new school cellphone ban If you enjoyed today's interview with Switchyards' Creative Director, Brandon Hinman, learn more here. Learn more about the sponsors of this September 22nd episode: Texas Renaissance Festival The Village School Babbel - Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com/CITYCAST Downtown Houston+ Wise Want to become a City Cast Houston Neighbor? Check out our membership program.  Looking for more Houston news? Then sign up for our morning newsletter Hey Houston  Follow us on Instagram  @CityCastHouston Don't have social media? Then leave us a voicemail or text us at +1 713-489-6972 with your thoughts! Have feedback or a show idea? Let us know!  Interested in advertising with City Cast? Let's Talk! Photo: Bruno Girin/Creative Commons 

The Vermont State Agency hired a man who had been ordered to pay millions for filming teens undressing. Plus, Vermont filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration to overturn a provision in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"; Vermont's annual sports betting report contains some surprising trends;The city of South Burlington has hired a new police chief and a popular cliff-side hiking and rock climbing area has reopened.

On today's Newswrap, Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's Capitol Journal, shares an education report card for the state, and a four-footed pitcher is the Wildcard!

New state social studies standards are being reviewed by members of the Oklahoma legislature, many of whom are critical of the process and the content.

Listen to Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler. They discuss gangs and immigration, admired cop killers, why to avoid basing financial decisions on politics and ideology, stock market logic, the US being allowed to deport Khalil, illegals on social services, and school officials influence on our children.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Education funding in Washington state remains a pressing issue 13 years after the McCleary decision. Larry Roe and Dick Rylander analyze the financial challenges facing K-12 schools, including unfunded mandates, local levies, and legislative impacts. Read the full opinion piece at https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/opinion-k-12-washington-state-education-funding-overview-part-3/ #EducationFunding #WashingtonSchools #PublicEducation #SchoolBudget #K12Funding #McClearyDecision #UnfundedMandates #LocalLevies #ClarkCountyWa #LocalNews

Washington state's K-12 education funding system has evolved through constitutional mandates, court rulings, and legislative decisions. In the first of a three-part series, Larry Roe and Dick Rylander explore how state, federal, and local funds shape school budgets. Read more at https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/opinion-k-12-washington-state-education-funding-overview-part-1/ #Vancouver #ClarkCountyWa #localnews #K12educationfunding #publicschoolfunding #educationpolicy #WashingtonLegislature #schooldistrictbudgets #schoollevies #educationmandates

In Part 2 of their series, Larry Roe and Dick Rylander break down how school mandates—whether funded or not—affect Washington's education system and local taxpayers. As mandates expand, districts struggle to cover costs, leading to higher levy requests and difficult funding decisions. Read the full column at https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/opinion-k-12-washington-state-education-funding-overview-part-2/ on www.ClarkCountyToday.com #EducationFunding #SchoolMandates #PublicSchools #WashingtonLegislature #ClarkCountyWa #LocalNews

Feb. 25, 2025 - State education officials are threatening to use their authority to strip public funds from yeshivas that aren't meeting the basic, secular education needs of their students. We discuss this development with Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, executive director of Young Advocates For Fair Education, which is looking to bring transparency and minimum standards to private schools serving parts of the Hasidic community.

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A state education board gave the go-ahead to five more public charter schools set to open their doors to Montana students this fall.

Missouri's new governor wants to expand school choice. Governor Mike Kehoe (R) made his comments during his inauguration address two weeks ago, and he's expected to provide more details during Tuesday afternoon's State of the State. "We will face entrenched special interests, a fear of change, and a culture that says we should keep doing things the way we've always done them. But Missourians did not send us here to do what's comfortable. They expect results. They deserve results. And with my administration, they will get results," Kehoe told the crowd at his inauguration. State Sen. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville) joined us live on 939 the Eagle's "Wake Up Missouri". Brattin chairs the Senate Education Committee and this is national school choice week. Chairman Brattin tells listeners that he wants to give children an opportunity to get out of failing districts and into districts where they can receive a great education. Chairman Brattin also tells listeners that there is what he calls "woke indoctrination" happening at many public schools in Missouri, referencing the highly-publicized 2023 incident in Columbia involving three drag queens at the Columbia Values Diversity breakfast, with CPS students in the audience. Chairman Brattin also says the Freedom Caucus is focused on making Missouri healthy again. He says more and more people want to know what is going into our food and that people want to be more healthy:

Jan. 21, 2025 - State education officials want to increase educational opportunities for students around New York and promote operational efficiencies among school districts, so they're promoting deeper levels of regional partnerships among school districts. We discuss this effort and its rollout with Jeff Matteson, senior deputy commissioner for the State Education Department.

Will the tax dollars generated by Amendment 5 (14.3 million annually), allowing a casino at the Lake of the Ozarks, REALLY be used for early childhood literacy programs? Byron Clemens, retired teacher, Officer of the Missouri Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, early childhood literacy expert, and supporter of Amendment 5 joined us to explain the benefits of legalizing sports wagering in Missouri.

Keaton Ross discusses the Oklahoma Department of Corrections' rollout of more than 1,000 body cameras for correctional officers to wear while on duty. Paul Monies looked at how some campaign advertising for Oklahoma Supreme Court elections is hoping to tip the ideological balance of the state's high court. Paul Monies and Heather Warlick talk about how they and Jennifer Palmer reported on an RFP from the Oklahoma State Department of Education asking for bids for classroom Bibles. Ted Streuli hosts.

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa and one of her top deputies join the show to discuss the statewide results from standardized tests administered in the spring, which found that about half of kids grades three through eight were proficient in English and math.

Ravi sits down with Andrew Clark, president of yes. every. kid., to discuss the future of education in America. They explore the state of education reform, changing demographics within alternative school models, and why calls for individualized learning have never been louder. Ravi and Andrew then turn to the political dynamics of Education Savings Accounts, the ongoing debate between public and private schooling, and how competition within education could lower costs and improve quality. Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on the show! 321-200-0570 Subscribe to our feed on Spotify: http://bitly.ws/zC9K Subscribe to our Substack: https://thelostdebate.substack.com/ Follow The Branch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebranchmedia/ Follow The Branch on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebranchmedia Follow The Branch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebranchmedia The Branch website: http://thebranchmedia.org/ The Branch channel: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/the-branch/id6483055204  Lost Debate is also available on the following platforms:  Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lost-debate/id1591300785 Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vTERJNTc1ODE3Mzk3Nw  iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-lost-debate-88330217/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/752ca262-2801-466d-9654-2024de72bd1f/the-lost-debate

The Nebraska Department of Education was awarded an almost $55 million grant to be used over the next five years to create a comprehensive literacy program. Nebraska is one of 23 states to receive the grant from the federal government.

TOP STORIES - DeSantis puts Broward School Board ally on state education board after voters reject him, delivery driver put infant back in stroller after hit-and-run crash in Florida, Florida defeats Chinese Taipei in extra innings in Little League World Series 2024, the Harris-Walz campaign courts women voters in Tampa.

David James Rodriguez is one of my very favorite visionary new Earth builders in the space. I love his vibe, his approach, his ideas and his can-do perspective. It was a real-deal honor/pleasure to get to drop in with him about voluntaryism, exiting and building, and all the incredible work he's doing in the homeschool space. A must-listen for anyone who knows they came here to be the change we wish to see in the world.Part 2:danikatz.locals.comwww.patreon.com/danikatzFind Dani's books, courses and webinars:danikatz.comRegister now for Pop Propaganda digital media literacy course for teens (and grown-ups, too!):www.poppropaganda.comFind David:http://www.homeschoolleader.com/ http://www.thevaloracademy.com/ https://linktr.ee/DavidJamesRodriguezhttps://www.instagram.com/davidjamesrodriguez1https://x.com/FreedomPrinciplShow notes:· Background in the church· Anarchy and Anarchapulco - Intentional neighborhoods· Non-violence is the way in the face of ‘democide'· Understanding cops - Compartmentalization & enrolling· We are the solution - Know your rights· The system is corrupt - let's humanize the people within the system · People want to be peaceful · Agape love and free hugs · Personal responsibility vs. obeying orders· Universal moral code: Do no harm.· Money and life force · NAP and Voluntary Living· Opting out - Travelling & TSA· Sovereignty is an inside game· Teaching self -ownership to children· Exit and build - start local· Origin story - path to here· Education Options Expo· John Taylor Gatto· How to successfully homeschool - education vs schooling· Valor Academy - four phases · The challenge of de-schooling for parents· The Question Curriculum· Saying “I don't know”· Key superpowers to teach kids· What is a good life?· Facilitate and guide their genius· State Education as a cult· Summerhill - voluntary school in England documentary · "It's not what you do, it's what you become”- being vs doing· Language affirming superpower- I AM· What is Dave learning right now?· The racket of property tax· Raising good leaders as free men and women

May 23, 2024 - State education officials are proposing gender-neutral rules for school sports, which could lead to an increase in co-ed sports team. We consider the merits of this idea and potential implementation challenges with Dr. Robert Zayas, executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association.

Today's guest: - David Layman - Samantha Smylie, State Education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago - Ameri Klafeta, Director of the Women's and Reproductive Rights Project at the ACLU of Illinois

Last week an appellate hearing took place, in the fight to prevent the state from imposing tough restrictions on Yeshivas. In this fascinating interview, renowned attorney Avi Schick breaks down last week's hearing, and the latest effort by the state to strike down the Supreme court ruling which favored yeshivas. He discusses the 'disingenuous' claims made the state lawyers, who say that the state is not trying to close down or de-fund yeshivas. He points out that the state was doing contortions to avoid the suggestion that they may close yeshivas, because they fear its a toxic death blow to their case. He also discussed some of the amazing quesions by the Apellate Judges themselves.

Feb. 20, 2024 ~ Republican State Education Board Member, Tom McMillian, joins Kevin and Tom discuss concerns over the Governor's use of Department of Education funds for the new state education agency.

The Florida Legislature is in session and Tuesday Cafe looks at the wide-ranging topic of education in Florida.

Logan & Kyle breakdown the Bi-State Classic, look at other Holiday tournament results and take a look at the Clash coming up this weekend. 0:00 - Bi-State Review 05:30 - Wisconsin Team or Fake Team 08:00 - We got Sponsors!!! Thank you! 10:25 - Bi-State Girls Results12:55 - Bi-State Boys Results23:50 - Holiday Tournament Results48:02 - Clash Preview01:00:30 - Other Matches & Wrap-UpFollow on Twitter & Instagram @JV_Takes & Website - JVTakes.com

December 21, 2023 - We talk with top state education officials about the budget proposal from the Board of Regents, which is looking to smooth the flaws in the Foundation Aid formula and increase the capacity of the State Education Department.

On this week's interview Paul interviews Andrew Handel, Director, Education and Workforce Development Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council about the new report of which he is lead author, "Index of State Education Freedom: A 50-State Guide to Parental Empowerment." Paul and Andrew discuss various aspects of educational freedom and its components. New Mexico is not 50th or even 51st in this index of educational freedom, but how does it perform and what metrics does it do well on and which of them need work especially given the State's poor education outcomes.  

November 7, 2023 - This fall, the State Education Department issued a broad restriction on facial recognition technology in schools. The department's chief privacy officer, Louise DeCandia, explains the rationale for the prohibition and how biometric tools can be used in certain situations.

October 2, 2023 - Zachary Warner, assistant commissioner for the Office of State Assessment at the State Education Department, explains the origin of the state assessments for English Language Arts and mathematics administered in the spring for grades three through eight and discusses the updated expectations that officials set to evaluate test results.

Seth Elkin of Maryland Lottery discusses sports wagering money for state education fund with Nestor

I discuss the emergence of cross-state education commissions that seek to act above state level DOE's and control the licensure of teachers (along with much more) while being accountable to no one; I also discuss Operation Crimson's Contagion and SEERS briefly, that deal with pandemic scenarios that have been run in 2019 and 2022 for what global, federal, state and local governments and agencies have planed in the future.  

May 1, 2023 - In the wake of reporting on the use of corporal punishment in New York Schools, state education officials are updating their regulations governing restraints and seclusion. We discuss the rationale for the updated policies with Angelique Johnson-Dingle, deputy commissioner of instructional support for the state Education Department.

The Dudes explore the world of public education with Texas Education Lawyer, Janelle Davis, and Education Freedom Activist, Aileen Blachowski. These two women are allies of the parent & community led effort to urgently fix Texas Education: Texas Education 911 and are on the front lines educating state legislators and parents about the issues going on in Texas schools.Parents in Texas are growing increasingly concerned about the public education system and taking a more active role in their children's education, including activism focused on the legislative session currently occurring in Austin, TX at the State Capitol. Janelle and Aileen explain the system in lay terms and the distinctions about Texas that parents need to understand.We discuss a few bills currently working their way through legislation (there are ONE THOUSAND just for education alone during this current 6 month session), issues that occur and the parent's recourse (or lack thereof). It will blow your mind what school district officials can legally get away with in the state of Texas. The State Board of Education has had over 7,000 complaints year-to-date and are completely overrun.Key Action Point Bills to Call your Representatives About:House Bill 5290House Bill 1149House Bill 900Have you seen any suspect assessments, assignments or projects given to your kids in school? Have your kids come home asking questions that make you go hmmmmm, where are they learning this type of content? If so, you aren't alone.Why are administrators making 100s of 1000s of dollars when our teachers can't even afford to buy glue sticks and paper for their classes? Don't these teachers deserve more, especially given what they deal with in these schools? Why are parents these days so absent from educating their children on honor, behavior, respect?If everyone (teachers and parents alike) is looking for better outcomes, why can't we come to find the common ground? Why is there so much division? Where does it stem from?What is crystal clear is more parents need to get involved and be more active in talking to their representatives and legislators, while bringing solutions and evidence to bear.GROW YOUR COURAGE!How to Find Your Rep: https://www.txdirectory.com/online/txhouse/Texas House of Representative: https://www.house.texas.gov/**This podcast should NOT be considered legal advice about a specific situation.**Follow us on Social Media! Like/Subscribe/Share!MerchandiseSponsor: Warriors for Freedom[INTRO/OUTRO]“Stomp It Away” by Silent Partner is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.5“Ever Felt pt 2” by Otis McDonald is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.5

A bill making its way through the Kentucky General Assembly would change the way the state's education commissioner is selected.

School Choice Introduction Whenever something sounds too good to be true, the rule of any sane person should be to consider it a scam until proven otherwise. When you get that email from that Saudi Arabian Prince wanting to share his inheritance with you, I’m no financial advisor or Middle Eastern political dilettante, but I advise you to use your trash button vigorously. So when a movement begins picking up steam calling for “school choice,” thoughtful Christians and conservatives should have all their hackles done up for a party and their rhetorical guns at the ready. Remember, we live in a land that celebrates “choice,” and that means murdering babies. We live in a land that celebrates “choice,” and grooms little kids into sexual confusion and madness, secretly castrates teenagers without parental knowledge or consent, and demands you take injections of unspecified content because… shut up, you bigot. That’s the world we live in. So when people begin heralding a new found freedom of choice, freedom to choose whatever school you want your children to attend, dollars following kids, and so on, it would be good, healthy even, to get all of your defenses up, and maybe even pull out a few knives. This is the exact same scene of many crimes in our land. Your cursor should be hovering over that trash button. Don’t get me wrong. I think we should exploit every opportunity to dismantle the government education monopoly. I think we should ride every bit of this wave to press for real educational freedom and parental sovereignty and responsibility, but conservative Christians have a bad habit of being manipulated through soundbites and ending up in worse positions than before. So let’s review. Currently, as far as I know, the way government education works in the United States is that everyone who owns property pays into a state fund, that state fund is augmented by various federal programs and subsidies, which are taken of course from federal income taxes, and then those moneys are redistributed to counties and school districts based on various state guidelines, including number of children enrolled in school. This means that parents who do not want to send their children to public schools, must pay into the government education programs via property taxes even though you don’t use the program, and don’t forget that if you pay rent, you are still paying into the program via your monthly rent. Your landlord is making sure that your rent covers all his property taxes. This is educational welfare, redistribution, and unjust taxation. Millions of Americans have defied this educational socialism and Marxism by bearing the costs of home schooling and private schooling on top of the taxes they are already paying for government schools they don’t use. This is why I tweeted recently: “One of the greatest modern rebellions has been the homeschool/private school movement: millions of Americans making the sacrifice to pay tuition/costs on top of their taxes, effectively paying tuition twice. The next step is getting our tax money back with no strings attached.” Which brings us to the so-called “school choice” movement. I would love to be wrong about this. I would love to find out that some state really is letting parents completely opt out of government regulation, government coercion, and government redistribution for education. But as far as I know, the “school choice” programs being pushed are actually an expansion of government regulation and redistribution and no lessening of the foundational coercion involved in the unjust taxation. The most common program being championed by “school choice” advocates right now are ESA’s – Education Savings Accounts. In these programs, the state agrees to deposit money in a savings account for qualified parents to use on qualified educational programs. The key words in that last sentence are “state” and “qualified” and “qualified.” This tells you most of what you need to know. In these schemes, the “state” is still claiming sovereignty over the educational venture, and this is proven by the fact that the state is determining which families are “qualified” to have some of their money back and which educational programs are “qualified” to receive those monies. Now I’m happy to grant that there may be some short term wins for parents in these programs. A poor, single mom that wants to send her kids to a Classical Christian school suddenly has the tuition dollars and doesn’t feel trapped in the public school where her kids are being brainwashed all day long. I totally get it. But we are Christians, and we have to think further ahead than the next five minutes. But first, while I have all kinds of compassion for that single mom, I want to insist that a community that has not already given her all kinds of resources to pull her kids out of government schools and enroll them in a Christian option of her choice is a community that is not ready for a gush of greenbacks from the government teat. The community that has not already declared war on the communism inherent in government schools and made the great sacrifices to evacuate their children from those occupied territories is not a community that has proven to have the wisdom, discernment, or compassion necessary to see through this minefield. Second, consider the fallout of expanded government redistribution and regulation. We’ve already seen this in higher education. What happened over the last forty years with Pell grants and government loans? Our higher education system has gone to Hell. And I mean that literally. Even most of the so-called Christian colleges and universities are loaded up with Diversity Inclusion and Equity clowns. The current is so strong that even Grove City College, one of the only colleges in the nation that doesn’t take government money, is in the thick of controversy over diversity and woke policies. I know of a young woman personally who was forced to leave during COVID because she refused to comply with their anti-science masking regime. What will the result be of government funding through ESAs? Mass compromise. Why? Because money ill-gotten corrupts. That money being put in your ESA? That’s blood money. Property taxes are an evil and immoral stain on our land since they imply that if you don’t pay taxes on the land and home that you “own,” they may be seized to pay for your back taxes, which essentially means that you are in a long term lease agreement with the government for your so-called property. So much for private property. The impact of these wicked laws is wide ranging, but landing on the elderly and others with fixed incomes the hardest. As communities grow and develop, home and property values tend to rise, and with values rising, taxes rise. An elderly widow whose husband faithfully provided for her will often find it difficult to continue paying rising property taxes and be forced to sell her family estate. This is nothing short of Ahab’s theft of Naboth’s Vineyard in slow motion. If Ahab offers to let you use some of Naboth’s vineyard for a garden, is it moral to take him up on that offer? Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not arguing that all taxation is theft. I’m simply arguing that taxation of property, with the implicit threat of seizing assets if you don’t pay, is highway robbery in a bureaucratic business suit, even if the measure passed by 99% of the vote. It’s never OK to demand someone pay you something they don’t want or use with the threat of stealing their stuff if they don’t pay you.Everything the government funds ends up costing more and driving quality down. If you don’t think that will happen with ESAs there’s a Saudi Arabian prince I’d like to introduce you to. When money is more easily gotten, the pressure to raise prices increases. But when the money easily gotten is not based on real goods and services (real values), those price increases are simply inflation. And when you start down a path of incrementally accepting more money without a corresponding demand for increasing quality or quantity, you are already accepting a downgrade of quality. Again, I refer you to the American college scene, where billions of dollars are not only being spent to brainwash future teachers, doctors, and lawyers into believing Darwinian and Marxist lies, but they are also doing so with waterslides, climbing walls, jacuzzis, and dormitory amenities that keep STD rates high and virginity rates low. Conclusion I’ve heard some proposing “school choice” in the form of tax credits. The plus side of tax credits would be relative lack of strings attached. The downside would still be the government pretending to have the authority to take our money in the first place. This would also likely continue to include some measure of redistribution since tax credits are often awarded based on income levels, granting larger credits to those with lower incomes. If tax credits were matched to actual taxation payments that would be even closer to giving people back the money stolen from them, but then why do we continue to allow our money to be taken in the first place? On what planet is it OK for the government to require you to pay for services that you object to, that you refuse, that you aren’t using? If Christians have gotten their heads around the need to defund Planned Parenthood because we object to our tax dollars funding the murder of little babies, why can’t we get our heads around the right of parents to decide how to spend their own money on the education of their own children? Why can’t we simply demand the right to opt out? The cry and hue goes up that unless the state provides education, the poor will suffer, and the social and economic impact will be disastrous. But this really is ridiculous, government programs have the worst track records. They are bloated with regulations, red tape, and nuisance bureaucracy. The government insisting that if they don’t take care of education, the poor will suffer, is like an obese man insisting that if he doesn’t run the exercise and nutrition programs everyone will be sick and unhealthy. Just look at San Fransisco, Seattle, Portland. Look at those Marxist utopian paradises. Our answer needs to simply be that we will take care of our own poor, thank you very much. You have done quite enough, Mr. Fat Ass Government. Get your greasy paws off our schools. I suspect that there are backroom deals being made with these “school choice” programs. I suspect that Big Tech and Big Business are somewhere in those backrooms pulling strings. Education is a massive business (like health care), and if you don’t think there’s corruption involved have I told you that I’m a Saudi Arabian prince with a gold mine I need to unload? While there is some resistance on the Left that might make “school choice” seem like a real suckerpunch to their beloved Democrat training centers, er, I mean schools, Christians must understand that they do not have any real “school choice,” until they have full and complete choice over how to spend their own money for their own children. If we’re going to make some kind of deal, the deal has to include the right of parents to opt out of the government education system. Since the god of Big Tech and Big Government is Mammon, I would suggest trying to broker a deal between some corporate fat cats and government fat cats. Could we convince the true believers in government education to let us leave this Egypt if they could give all their teachers a raise and every student a laptop and lifetime supply of condoms because Google is buying a few seats on the State Education board? Short of a radical gospel Reformation in our land, we need to be thinking and praying strategically. Can we off them a deal they can’t refuse so that we can get out? But convincing them to let us use some of the money they stole isn’t really a jailbreak; it’s more like building an addition on the jail and letting you invite your school to use the new “wing.”

School Choice Introduction Whenever something sounds too good to be true, the rule of any sane person should be to consider it a scam until proven otherwise. When you get that email from that Saudi Arabian Prince wanting to share his inheritance with you, I’m no financial advisor or Middle Eastern political dilettante, but I advise you to use your trash button vigorously. So when a movement begins picking up steam calling for “school choice,” thoughtful Christians and conservatives should have all their hackles done up for a party and their rhetorical guns at the ready. Remember, we live in a land that celebrates “choice,” and that means murdering babies. We live in a land that celebrates “choice,” and grooms little kids into sexual confusion and madness, secretly castrates teenagers without parental knowledge or consent, and demands you take injections of unspecified content because… shut up, you bigot. That’s the world we live in. So when people begin heralding a new found freedom of choice, freedom to choose whatever school you want your children to attend, dollars following kids, and so on, it would be good, healthy even, to get all of your defenses up, and maybe even pull out a few knives. This is the exact same scene of many crimes in our land. Your cursor should be hovering over that trash button. Don’t get me wrong. I think we should exploit every opportunity to dismantle the government education monopoly. I think we should ride every bit of this wave to press for real educational freedom and parental sovereignty and responsibility, but conservative Christians have a bad habit of being manipulated through soundbites and ending up in worse positions than before. So let’s review. Currently, as far as I know, the way government education works in the United States is that everyone who owns property pays into a state fund, that state fund is augmented by various federal programs and subsidies, which are taken of course from federal income taxes, and then those moneys are redistributed to counties and school districts based on various state guidelines, including number of children enrolled in school. This means that parents who do not want to send their children to public schools, must pay into the government education programs via property taxes even though you don’t use the program, and don’t forget that if you pay rent, you are still paying into the program via your monthly rent. Your landlord is making sure that your rent covers all his property taxes. This is educational welfare, redistribution, and unjust taxation. Millions of Americans have defied this educational socialism and Marxism by bearing the costs of home schooling and private schooling on top of the taxes they are already paying for government schools they don’t use. This is why I tweeted recently: “One of the greatest modern rebellions has been the homeschool/private school movement: millions of Americans making the sacrifice to pay tuition/costs on top of their taxes, effectively paying tuition twice. The next step is getting our tax money back with no strings attached.” Which brings us to the so-called “school choice” movement. I would love to be wrong about this. I would love to find out that some state really is letting parents completely opt out of government regulation, government coercion, and government redistribution for education. But as far as I know, the “school choice” programs being pushed are actually an expansion of government regulation and redistribution and no lessening of the foundational coercion involved in the unjust taxation. The most common program being championed by “school choice” advocates right now are ESA’s – Education Savings Accounts. In these programs, the state agrees to deposit money in a savings account for qualified parents to use on qualified educational programs. The key words in that last sentence are “state” and “qualified” and “qualified.” This tells you most of what you need to know. In these schemes, the “state” is still claiming sovereignty over the educational venture, and this is proven by the fact that the state is determining which families are “qualified” to have some of their money back and which educational programs are “qualified” to receive those monies. Now I’m happy to grant that there may be some short term wins for parents in these programs. A poor, single mom that wants to send her kids to a Classical Christian school suddenly has the tuition dollars and doesn’t feel trapped in the public school where her kids are being brainwashed all day long. I totally get it. But we are Christians, and we have to think further ahead than the next five minutes. But first, while I have all kinds of compassion for that single mom, I want to insist that a community that has not already given her all kinds of resources to pull her kids out of government schools and enroll them in a Christian option of her choice is a community that is not ready for a gush of greenbacks from the government teat. The community that has not already declared war on the communism inherent in government schools and made the great sacrifices to evacuate their children from those occupied territories is not a community that has proven to have the wisdom, discernment, or compassion necessary to see through this minefield. Second, consider the fallout of expanded government redistribution and regulation. We’ve already seen this in higher education. What happened over the last forty years with Pell grants and government loans? Our higher education system has gone to Hell. And I mean that literally. Even most of the so-called Christian colleges and universities are loaded up with Diversity Inclusion and Equity clowns. The current is so strong that even Grove City College, one of the only colleges in the nation that doesn’t take government money, is in the thick of controversy over diversity and woke policies. I know of a young woman personally who was forced to leave during COVID because she refused to comply with their anti-science masking regime. What will the result be of government funding through ESAs? Mass compromise. Why? Because money ill-gotten corrupts. That money being put in your ESA? That’s blood money. Property taxes are an evil and immoral stain on our land since they imply that if you don’t pay taxes on the land and home that you “own,” they may be seized to pay for your back taxes, which essentially means that you are in a long term lease agreement with the government for your so-called property. So much for private property. The impact of these wicked laws is wide ranging, but landing on the elderly and others with fixed incomes the hardest. As communities grow and develop, home and property values tend to rise, and with values rising, taxes rise. An elderly widow whose husband faithfully provided for her will often find it difficult to continue paying rising property taxes and be forced to sell her family estate. This is nothing short of Ahab’s theft of Naboth’s Vineyard in slow motion. If Ahab offers to let you use some of Naboth’s vineyard for a garden, is it moral to take him up on that offer? Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not arguing that all taxation is theft. I’m simply arguing that taxation of property, with the implicit threat of seizing assets if you don’t pay, is highway robbery in a bureaucratic business suit, even if the measure passed by 99% of the vote. It’s never OK to demand someone pay you something they don’t want or use with the threat of stealing their stuff if they don’t pay you.Everything the government funds ends up costing more and driving quality down. If you don’t think that will happen with ESAs there’s a Saudi Arabian prince I’d like to introduce you to. When money is more easily gotten, the pressure to raise prices increases. But when the money easily gotten is not based on real goods and services (real values), those price increases are simply inflation. And when you start down a path of incrementally accepting more money without a corresponding demand for increasing quality or quantity, you are already accepting a downgrade of quality. Again, I refer you to the American college scene, where billions of dollars are not only being spent to brainwash future teachers, doctors, and lawyers into believing Darwinian and Marxist lies, but they are also doing so with waterslides, climbing walls, jacuzzis, and dormitory amenities that keep STD rates high and virginity rates low. Conclusion I’ve heard some proposing “school choice” in the form of tax credits. The plus side of tax credits would be relative lack of strings attached. The downside would still be the government pretending to have the authority to take our money in the first place. This would also likely continue to include some measure of redistribution since tax credits are often awarded based on income levels, granting larger credits to those with lower incomes. If tax credits were matched to actual taxation payments that would be even closer to giving people back the money stolen from them, but then why do we continue to allow our money to be taken in the first place? On what planet is it OK for the government to require you to pay for services that you object to, that you refuse, that you aren’t using? If Christians have gotten their heads around the need to defund Planned Parenthood because we object to our tax dollars funding the murder of little babies, why can’t we get our heads around the right of parents to decide how to spend their own money on the education of their own children? Why can’t we simply demand the right to opt out? The cry and hue goes up that unless the state provides education, the poor will suffer, and the social and economic impact will be disastrous. But this really is ridiculous, government programs have the worst track records. They are bloated with regulations, red tape, and nuisance bureaucracy. The government insisting that if they don’t take care of education, the poor will suffer, is like an obese man insisting that if he doesn’t run the exercise and nutrition programs everyone will be sick and unhealthy. Just look at San Fransisco, Seattle, Portland. Look at those Marxist utopian paradises. Our answer needs to simply be that we will take care of our own poor, thank you very much. You have done quite enough, Mr. Fat Ass Government. Get your greasy paws off our schools. I suspect that there are backroom deals being made with these “school choice” programs. I suspect that Big Tech and Big Business are somewhere in those backrooms pulling strings. Education is a massive business (like health care), and if you don’t think there’s corruption involved have I told you that I’m a Saudi Arabian prince with a gold mine I need to unload? While there is some resistance on the Left that might make “school choice” seem like a real suckerpunch to their beloved Democrat training centers, er, I mean schools, Christians must understand that they do not have any real “school choice,” until they have full and complete choice over how to spend their own money for their own children. If we’re going to make some kind of deal, the deal has to include the right of parents to opt out of the government education system. Since the god of Big Tech and Big Government is Mammon, I would suggest trying to broker a deal between some corporate fat cats and government fat cats. Could we convince the true believers in government education to let us leave this Egypt if they could give all their teachers a raise and every student a laptop and lifetime supply of condoms because Google is buying a few seats on the State Education board? Short of a radical gospel Reformation in our land, we need to be thinking and praying strategically. Can we off them a deal they can’t refuse so that we can get out? But convincing them to let us use some of the money they stole isn’t really a jailbreak; it’s more like building an addition on the jail and letting you invite your school to use the new “wing.”

In contemporary Britain, can a Christian mother and father entrust their child's education to the state? Pastor John William Noble has concluded they cannot. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/state-education-means-state-control-over-the-beliefs-of-the-next-generation-pastor-john

Morehead-Cain president, Chris Bradford, joined Catalyze with scholar host, Elias Guedira '26, to share about the state of the Program after his first year and a half in the role. The president talks about the progress the Morehead-Cain community made in 2022 and what opportunities he sees for the Program in 2023 and beyond.You can learn more about the Program by viewing the online 2021–2022 Year in Review. Chris joined the Morehead-Cain Foundation in the summer of 2021 after 17 years with African Leadership Academy (ALA), an educational institution based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Music creditsThe intro music is by Scott Hallyburton '22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. How to listenOn your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O'Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.

Nov. 4, 2022 - New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa and Senior Deputy Commissioner for Education Policy Jim Baldwin join the show to discuss the results of students grade three through eight in last year's math and English Language Arts assessments and what the data means.

Sept. 2, 2022 - Chalkbeat New York reporter Reema Amin highlights the disconnect between New York's unmatched level of spending on public education and our middle-of-the-pack performance on national tests.

One of Governor Glenn Youngkin's top education officials wants to push back a first review of new history and social science standards for K through 12 students; The ACLU of Virginia is suing to force the state to release a man from prison; A new report says the city of Hopewell, the Richmond-area and much of eastern Virginia will be dealing with even more scorching temperatures in the coming decades; and other local news stories.

In segments one and two Pete reviews an articale by NC Policy Watch on a State Education Advisory Council. Segment three starts with a review of the Republican City Council Candidates plan for protecting CATS drivers. Segment four covers an article from the Cato institute on Daylight Saving Time. Get exclusive content here!: https://thepetekalinershow.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.