May 16, 2024 • 23 mins
In this episode, Karol is joined by Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow of the American Federation for Children, discusses the importance of school choice and the need to rescue children from failing government-run schools. He shares his personal experience with school choice and highlights the positive outcomes it can have on crime reduction, mental health, safety, political participation, and tolerance. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
We're heading into peak political season, and unfortunately that often
means frame of some personal relationships. I was on book
tour for much of the last year for the book
That Stolen Youth that I co authored with Bethany Mendel,
and I can't tell you how many people came up
(00:29):
to me and told me they had fallen out with
their family members. Very often it was their college or
adult aged kids over politics. It was really crushing to
listen to. I mean, these people are so upset that
they're telling this story to me, and there's really nothing
I can say or do about it. For a lot
(00:49):
of them, I just thought it was too late, or
that there really wasn't a road back in the stories
that they told me. The advice I give to parents
with younger kids is you have to lay the foundation
of what matters at home and not count on it
to be filled in.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
At school or elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Almost always the people who come up to me at
my events had not done that. But what if you
did do that? What if you've had all the conversations
and the debates and you've very much spoken your values
but your child still goes a different way. You're going
to love them no matter what, so you have to
find a way to relate. Sadly, in most of the cases,
(01:28):
it was a child fresh from their college indoctrination factory
who pushed the parent away, and there was not a
lot the parent could really do. Again, it's crushing, and
I hope it doesn't happen to any of us. Okay,
a child is their own unique situation. What about falling
out with family or friends, which happens all the time
(01:50):
and I hear stories about it all the time. I
think a lot about that line in the movie Bronx Tale,
where the kid is a huge Yankees fan and the
mobster that he befriends tells him that Mickey Mantle will
never love him or pay his rent. I feel like
that about politics sometimes, and I feel like that about
politicians all the time. I try not to have friendships
(02:13):
dissolve over politics, but of course, yes, that's happened in
my life. Honestly, it happened most often during the George W.
Bush administration, and not so much since. Maybe I cleaned
house then and never had to again, you know, Haha.
They were friends who would become belligerent or nasty. And
often they were the friends who were only peripherally into
(02:35):
politics at all. It's like they needed the negative release,
and I wouldn't allow it to be on me. My
friends on the left who actually are into politics, or
work in politics, or have kind of more of a
stake in it, were able to have more sincere conversations
with a lot less anger or vitual. Look, i think
(02:58):
all of our political issues matter very very much, and
I'm not perfect. I absolutely do have judgment when people
disagree with me on issues I care about. But for me,
it helps to think about the fact that we are
on a rock and space, and we only have so
much time on this rock. If you like someone despite
their bad political views, maybe they're funny, maybe they're kind
(03:21):
to you, maybe you get along well, try to make
your relationship work. And if you love someone who has
all the bad opinions, try even harder than that. I'm
actually quite big into cutting people off who have wronged you.
We'll get into that in a future episode, but not
over politics. Donald Trump and Joe Biden will never love you.
(03:44):
The friend you've had since childhood whose Facebook posts enrage
you does love you, your family does love you. Do
your best not to let politics divide you. Coming up
next and interview with Corey Dangelis. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
(04:05):
guest today is Corey DeAngelis. He is a Senior Fellow
of the American Federation for Children and a visiting fellow
at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He's also the author of
the new book The Parent Revolution, Rescuing Your Kids from
the Radicals Ruining Our Schools. Hi, Corey, thanks so much
for coming on.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Hey, Carol, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So good to be on with you. I was thinking
about this and I first discovered your work. You were
a single guy, and you were really devoted to the
school choice cause. I've always wanted to know, how did
you get into that.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I'm actually married now for listener, now, I have a baby, yay.
But no, I got into this as a researcher actually
at the University of Arkansas. I did my PhD in
education policy, and my first study there linked the Milwaukee
Private School Choice Program, a program in Milwaukee that started
in nineteen ninety allowed families to take their kids designated
(05:03):
state funded education dollars funded by the taxpayer to go
to a private school if that worked better than their
residentially assigned public or government run school. And I found
that after following those students till they're about twenty five
to thirty years of age with my co author Patrick
Woolfe at the University of Arkansas, there was a substantial
reduction in crime. So immediately I was engaged in research
(05:25):
and excited about seeing how getting better educational opportunities for
your children could actually improve outcomes.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Beyond standardized test scores.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So I went on to study improvements and mental health
associated with these programs, improvements and safety, political participation, tolerance
of others' views, volunteer activity as well, and so a
lot of these civic outcomes were really interesting to me.
I also experienced school choice growing up in San Antonio, Texas,
(05:56):
where I live now. I went to government run schools
unfortunately all through K to twelve education, but in high
school I had the opportunity to go to something called
a magnet school.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
A lot of states have magnet schools.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
They're run by the district, but you're not residentially assigned
to them. They can have admissions processes, they could have
specialized missions, and that was a.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Good opportunity for me.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
They don't have a geographic monopoly, so they have to
cater to the needs of their customers. They have to
attract customers because you don't just get people to go
there because they live in your district.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
And so that was a good opportunity for me.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And I think other families should have educational opportunities shouldn't
be limited to the government. You should be able to
take your kids' education dollars to the school that works best,
whether that's a public, private, charter, or.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Home school option.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And so now I'm at the American Federation for Children,
where we're winning so much. I'm almost getting tired of winning, Carol.
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
We're not so exhausted from all the way, honestly, but.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
No, we're winning in red states.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
We need to get cracked down on how to unleased
education freedom to places like New York and California as well.
And I talk about a little bit of a roadmap
of how one how we're winning so much now in
the parent revolution. What caused the change for us to
go from zero to one hundred on school choice? Basically
in the past past few years alone, and then where
(07:18):
do we go from here? And what are also some
things that you could do to improve the public school
system as well.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I love when you have a politician who is speaking
out against school choice and then you comment that that
politician went to private school. Why is it that so
many people who had the opportunity of school choice don't
want to give it to others.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Well, there's a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
One, it's usually because these are Democrats who vote against
school choice. And unfortunately, even though Democrat voters, all voters
from all backgrounds, Republicans, Democrats, independence, majorities of them support
the concept of school choice. The latest real clear opinion
research pulling finds super majority support actually Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
(08:02):
The problem is the Democrat Party is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the teachers' union. Because if you think about
Randy Weingarten's union, for example, the American Federation of Teachers,
she's the lady that fought to keep the schools closed
as long as possible. You wrote a lot about this,
Carol at the New York Post and other places at
Fox News as well, where they lobbied the CDC to
make it more to make it more difficult to reopen schools.
(08:24):
They were threatening safety strikes. They had local affiliates saying
that the push to reopen schools is rooted in racism, sexism,
and misogyny.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean, they threw every buzzword at the wall to
see what would stick.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
But you have so much hypocrisy because their position of
power relies.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
On them being hypocrites.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
I mean, Democrats should support school choice in Polize the
at least advantaged or stuck in the worst government schools.
Democrats want taxpayers to pay for everything else, but Kate
the twelve education choice threatens their special interest that controls them,
the teachers unions.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that's all that this is about.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And one other thing, Carol, before we move on, is
that I think it's also rooted in paternalism that they
think they're smart enough to choose for their own kids
to get a better education, but those low income families
they might not have the wearwoth all issues.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And I've actually shared.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Videos of these elitists making this argument. But the problem
is with that logic is that parents are the ones
who should be in the driver's seat. They have the
most on the ground knowledge. They know their kids educational
needs better than anybody else, particularly more than bureaucrats.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Sitting in offices hundreds of miles away.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Absolutely, and you're so right, it should be a Democrat issue.
It's almost bizarre that it's kind of flipped that it's
a Republican issue and not a Democrat one. I think
that the idea that you know, you always say these
public schools don't serve the public. You can't just come
and debt whatever school you want. You have to be
zoned for it, you have to live there, be by
zip code. It seems like exactly the kind of thing
(10:00):
that they would normally not be into. But because you're
you know, they're beholden to this special interest group, they
end up doing whatever they want. So a question that
we ask everyone on this show, and I feel like
I know what you're going to say, what I want
to hear you say it is, what do you think
is our largest cultural problem?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Well, we ware house fifty million kids in factory model,
government run schools each and every year, when they learn
to be little brats, to bully each other, to be
involved in gang activity, and to be around danger. I
mean this is a large scale form of state sanctioned
child abuse in some forms, where you force kids to
(10:42):
go to schools that are not working for them academically,
just based on where you live.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And like you pointed out.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Earlier, Carol, we should call them government schools, not public schools,
because families have actually lied about their address to get
into better so called public schools, and some of those
families have gone to jail or have been fined for
the crime of trying to get their kid into a
better so called public school. If they were so public,
(11:10):
it wouldn't be a crime to do so. So that
giving family erasing those district lines, giving the money to
the families, it's an equalizer. It allows for more families
to access educational opportunities. And if we had more families homeschooling,
if we had more families getting to choose the school
that works best for them, we would live in a
(11:30):
more cohesive society. In fact, the latest meta analysis published
in a top peer reviewed journal that came out a
couple of weeks ago, actually just found that if you
look at all of the evidence that links school choice
to civic outcomes like tolerating others' views, and being able
to have a civil conversation. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that
(11:53):
this leads to a more cohesive society. Lo and behold
families getting to go to as a safer school for
their kid, a school where they learn logic as opposed
to critical race theory and dividing people based on immutable characteristics.
Will Guess what when you disagree in the future, you're
more likely to say, Hey, maybe there's a problem with
(12:15):
the logic sequence going on, and maybe I won't go
to ad Hominem Instead, I will have learned to have a.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Civil debate and have civic discourse.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And so I think school choice would be a not
a silver bullet, but it would be a step in
the right direction at breaking the stranglehold that the teachers'
unions and the control that they have on the minds
of other people's children.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Right now, this is a.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Large scale form of the left almost doesn't even have
to have kids anymore. They can control and infiltrate the
school system and still direct the direction of the country
by controlling a large institution, which happens to be the
government run schools system that educates or in doctrinates millions
(13:04):
and millions of kids each year. There's no fighting against
that as a conservative, as a libertarian, as an independent,
there's no fighting against that leftward drift if you don't
take back the schools, or if you don't just educate
your own kids and have them grow up with a
set of values that's more pro American or just aligned
(13:26):
with your own.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Absolutely, and I think even even from a conservative perspective,
i'd be even maybe like not less concerned about the
values push. I mean, obviously i'd be concerned about that,
but I think that the academics are just so poor
that they don't like the fact that they're adding additional
things like pushing their values is just a detriment in
(13:48):
every single way. If our math scores were higher, maybe
you could spend some time talking about climate change, but
they're not, and so maybe you know, stick to what
you know or what the kids need to know. And that's,
you know, I think a giant problem that the academics
have just failed to such an extent that I think
that they can't be doing other things.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They have no time for it.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Right, If you can't figure out the ABC's, maybe you
shouldn't be focusing on the LGBTs. There's only so much
time in the day, and the families want the schools
to focus on the basics. And quite frankly, and you
know this, Carol, the reason that the parent revolution has
started is because the teachers unions overplayed their hand. They
held children's education hostage by fighting to keep the schools
(14:33):
closed as long as possible. They got the ransom payments,
they got the money, they got a one hundred ninety
billion dollars in so called COVID relief. But their plan
quickly backfired because families, through remote learning, which we really
just should have called it remotely learning, there wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Lot of learning going on.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Families got to see what was going on, and they
they were surprised at first.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now they're no longer surprised.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
As body bacham and said, we cannot continue to send
our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised
when they come home as Romans. The good news is
parents aren't surprised anymore. And it is beyond academics. By
academics is a huge problem too. In places like Baltimore,
they have dozens of schools with zero percent proficiency.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No kids can do.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Math and yet in the US we spend now about
twenty thousand dollars per kid per year. It's probably even
higher now that data is from twenty twenty one from NCS,
but the private school tuitions on average about twelve thousand
dollars a kid. I mean, the school choice could save
taxpayer money. And I think parents are finally realizing that
(15:41):
the jig is up for the teachers' union. The parents
can become their own union, the kids' union, by fighting
for their own right to educate their kids as ac fit.
And this is what happened in Virginia with Glenn Youngkin,
who beat Terry mccauliff in twenty twenty one in a
state that went ten points to Biden. Glenn and the
Republican won on education. That never happens. Republicans are usually
(16:04):
down on education by double digits. That has flipped, and
even the Democrats for Education Reform put out a couple
polls recently showing that the decades long kind of advantage
that the Democrats have had on education has vanished, and
they've pointed to school choice as the solution. Terry mccauliffe,
that Democrat in Virginia who said, I don't think parents
(16:26):
should be telling schools what they should teach. He was
the former governor, basically an incumbent, and he had the
school closer. Randy Weingarten, acted as his campaign closer. The
night before the election, she was stumping for him, and
the night and this next day on CNN, a mom
in Virginia said that was the nail in the coffin
(16:46):
moment for her. And so the Republicans can really get
some victories on this if they follow Glenn Youngkin's blueprint
at being the parents' party, and whether the politicians want
to or not in the Republican Party, they're going to
continue with that moniker because the voters, the parents who
saw what was happening in the classroom, are going to
(17:07):
hold them to it.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Got it. Yeah, that's all the parents should be doing
right now is focusing on that. We're going to take
a quick break and be right back on the Carol
Marcowitch Show. I think parents need to understand that they're
the last line of defense. I think that that's not
clear to parents where or maybe just clearer now. I
think pre pandemic even I don't think I realized how
(17:30):
much I needed to be overseeing what my kids are
learning in school and now obviously I think our eyes
are open to it. So I wanted to ask you
your newly wet how is married life going.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's fantastic. As we're coming up on a year of marriage.
We actually had two weddings. We had one the big
wedding in October of last year, and that was the
fun when we went on the honeymoon, went to Malfy
Coast right after that and had a lot of fun.
But we didn't want to wait so long, so we
went in early, got the paperwork done in May of
(18:04):
last year. So we're coming up on a year of
marriage and we've had a great time, and we got
started right away on wanting to have a child. And
Angelina is due in August, coming up pretty soon and exciting.
Wife is happy. Miranda is having a great pregnancy. The
first trimester not so much.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
We were in.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Spain at the peak of the hormones and we weren't
able to adventure as much, but we did get to relax,
and yeah, everything's been going great. We are excited to
join the parent revolution on the front lines and we
planned them in school of.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Course, right, that's so great. So you have multiple books.
Your books are success. Your success. Randy Weingarten hates you.
That's really such a point of pride. You're married, you
have a baby on the way. Do you feel like
you've made it?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Well, I haven't because I'm I mean, Randy Winegarten beat me.
She's the school choice MVP of the past few years.
So I can't say I've made I'm not number one.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I would say I'm number two.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Maybe maybe because Randy Winingarten has inadvertently done more to
advance the concept of school choice and homeschooling than anyone
could have ever imagined by fighting to keep the schools closed.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Waking parents up, and sparking the parent Revolution.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
We're finally freeing families from her clutches once and for all,
and it's glorious to see unfold. I've actually sent her
a book. It arrived yesterday at the AFT offices, and
I posted it on my Twitter or X, and people
made fun of my handwriting. I quickly responded that, well,
it's because I went to government schools.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Obviously I'm going to have horrible handwriting.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I can't use the defense that I'm a doctor, because Carol,
I'm not a real doctor.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I'm more like a Jill Biden doctor. I mean, if she.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Gets to call herself doctor, so do you, Corey.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Someone responded by saying, you know, a PhD is a
little more more rigorous than an education d she which
she has, so hey, I'll take the w. But at
the end of the day, I think all this signaling
is a bunch of bologney. Anyway, just having that kind
of uh, that name of doctor doesn't actually make you
any smarter than anybodybody else. It doesn't make your arguments
(20:20):
more compelling. And in some cases, people will display it
on their bio, they'll put it in their Twitter handle,
and they'll use it as an argument of authority, which
I absolutely hate. So I like to backtrack whenever I
point out that I do have a PhD's. That's not
what makes my arguments compelling, right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Unless you are able to save somebody's life on an airplane,
like if I can't.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And I had to deal with that recently. There was
there was a baby that I was having issues. That
baby was fine, baby was okay, but they they were
asking for a doctor. And I turned to my wife
and said, Nope, not that kind of doctor.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
He's going to be able to have today.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
So and here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So you know we're on the education theme.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So I would say to homeschool your children because you'll
never regret it. You can get positive forms of socialization
by engaging in community activities and rolling in a sport
with your child. There are other ways to capitalize on
positive forms of socialization with homeschooling while avoiding all the
(21:34):
negative forms of socialization that happened in government schools bullying, drugs,
gang activity. I went to public schools and there was
a lot of that going on. People would fight in
the restrooms, they'd get rolled into gangs. You'd have to
get beat up to be in the gang. I mean
there was I didn't get involved with this stuff, but
it's not hard to think, like people can get lost
(21:56):
in through the cracks. And so with homeschooling you could
avoid and curate forms of socializations that are great. And
by the way, you don't have to waste a lot
of time wasting for the waiting for the rest of
the kids and for things to kind of move from
one thing to the next.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
In the school system. You can learn more at.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
A fraction of the time. With homeschooling, obviously it would
be more easy. It would be easier to figure out
with education savings accounts where the money follows the child. Hey,
we spend twenty thousand a kid in the government schools.
Why not allow ten thousand to follow the kid. That's
more than enough to cover homeschool expenses or maybe a
micro school if you know, if that's more, if that's
(22:35):
more feasible for your family. But I think the best
way to improve your life off the education topic is
to make sure you exercise every day, and you know,
make it like brushing your teeth. That's something that you
know you want to go to bed without brushing your teeth,
So make sure you don't go to bed without exercising
throughout the day. You can pick up a hobby like running,
(22:57):
or maybe just the staremaster or anything if you like weightlifting,
whatever it is. I think that will help you in
other forms of life too. It has helped me just
having more sanity. I deal with a lot of enemies
in my field of work, and so having it's almost
a form of meditation, and it's also has the benefit
(23:19):
of benefiting you mentally. And physically almost in a spiritual
way as well, if you do it.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
The right way.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
See, I know you're right, but I think I'm going
to pull my kids out of their schools in the
homeschool instead instead of having to work out. So he
is Corey D'Angelis. His new book is called The Parent Revolution,
Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining our Schools. Thank
you so much for coming on, Corey. You were fantastic.
Thank you so much, Carol, thanks so much for joining
(23:48):
us on the Carol Marcowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get
your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
We're heading into peak political season, and unfortunately that often
means frame of some personal relationships. I was on book
tour for much of the last year for the book
That Stolen Youth that I co authored with Bethany Mendel,
and I can't tell you how many people came up
(00:29):
to me and told me they had fallen out with
their family members. Very often it was their college or
adult aged kids over politics. It was really crushing to
listen to. I mean, these people are so upset that
they're telling this story to me, and there's really nothing
I can say or do about it. For a lot
(00:49):
of them, I just thought it was too late, or
that there really wasn't a road back in the stories
that they told me. The advice I give to parents
with younger kids is you have to lay the foundation
of what matters at home and not count on it
to be filled in.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
At school or elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Almost always the people who come up to me at
my events had not done that. But what if you
did do that? What if you've had all the conversations
and the debates and you've very much spoken your values
but your child still goes a different way. You're going
to love them no matter what, so you have to
find a way to relate. Sadly, in most of the cases,
(01:28):
it was a child fresh from their college indoctrination factory
who pushed the parent away, and there was not a
lot the parent could really do. Again, it's crushing, and
I hope it doesn't happen to any of us. Okay,
a child is their own unique situation. What about falling
out with family or friends, which happens all the time
(01:50):
and I hear stories about it all the time. I
think a lot about that line in the movie Bronx Tale,
where the kid is a huge Yankees fan and the
mobster that he befriends tells him that Mickey Mantle will
never love him or pay his rent. I feel like
that about politics sometimes, and I feel like that about
politicians all the time. I try not to have friendships
(02:13):
dissolve over politics, but of course, yes, that's happened in
my life. Honestly, it happened most often during the George W.
Bush administration, and not so much since. Maybe I cleaned
house then and never had to again, you know, Haha.
They were friends who would become belligerent or nasty. And
often they were the friends who were only peripherally into
(02:35):
politics at all. It's like they needed the negative release,
and I wouldn't allow it to be on me. My
friends on the left who actually are into politics, or
work in politics, or have kind of more of a
stake in it, were able to have more sincere conversations
with a lot less anger or vitual. Look, i think
(02:58):
all of our political issues matter very very much, and
I'm not perfect. I absolutely do have judgment when people
disagree with me on issues I care about. But for me,
it helps to think about the fact that we are
on a rock and space, and we only have so
much time on this rock. If you like someone despite
their bad political views, maybe they're funny, maybe they're kind
(03:21):
to you, maybe you get along well, try to make
your relationship work. And if you love someone who has
all the bad opinions, try even harder than that. I'm
actually quite big into cutting people off who have wronged you.
We'll get into that in a future episode, but not
over politics. Donald Trump and Joe Biden will never love you.
(03:44):
The friend you've had since childhood whose Facebook posts enrage
you does love you, your family does love you. Do
your best not to let politics divide you. Coming up
next and interview with Corey Dangelis. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
(04:05):
guest today is Corey DeAngelis. He is a Senior Fellow
of the American Federation for Children and a visiting fellow
at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He's also the author of
the new book The Parent Revolution, Rescuing Your Kids from
the Radicals Ruining Our Schools. Hi, Corey, thanks so much
for coming on.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Hey, Carol, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So good to be on with you. I was thinking
about this and I first discovered your work. You were
a single guy, and you were really devoted to the
school choice cause. I've always wanted to know, how did
you get into that.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I'm actually married now for listener, now, I have a baby, yay.
But no, I got into this as a researcher actually
at the University of Arkansas. I did my PhD in
education policy, and my first study there linked the Milwaukee
Private School Choice Program, a program in Milwaukee that started
in nineteen ninety allowed families to take their kids designated
(05:03):
state funded education dollars funded by the taxpayer to go
to a private school if that worked better than their
residentially assigned public or government run school. And I found
that after following those students till they're about twenty five
to thirty years of age with my co author Patrick
Woolfe at the University of Arkansas, there was a substantial
reduction in crime. So immediately I was engaged in research
(05:25):
and excited about seeing how getting better educational opportunities for
your children could actually improve outcomes.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Beyond standardized test scores.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So I went on to study improvements and mental health
associated with these programs, improvements and safety, political participation, tolerance
of others' views, volunteer activity as well, and so a
lot of these civic outcomes were really interesting to me.
I also experienced school choice growing up in San Antonio, Texas,
(05:56):
where I live now. I went to government run schools
unfortunately all through K to twelve education, but in high
school I had the opportunity to go to something called
a magnet school.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
A lot of states have magnet schools.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
They're run by the district, but you're not residentially assigned
to them. They can have admissions processes, they could have
specialized missions, and that was a.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Good opportunity for me.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
They don't have a geographic monopoly, so they have to
cater to the needs of their customers. They have to
attract customers because you don't just get people to go
there because they live in your district.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
And so that was a good opportunity for me.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And I think other families should have educational opportunities shouldn't
be limited to the government. You should be able to
take your kids' education dollars to the school that works best,
whether that's a public, private, charter, or.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Home school option.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And so now I'm at the American Federation for Children,
where we're winning so much. I'm almost getting tired of winning, Carol.
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
We're not so exhausted from all the way, honestly, but.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
No, we're winning in red states.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
We need to get cracked down on how to unleased
education freedom to places like New York and California as well.
And I talk about a little bit of a roadmap
of how one how we're winning so much now in
the parent revolution. What caused the change for us to
go from zero to one hundred on school choice? Basically
in the past past few years alone, and then where
(07:18):
do we go from here? And what are also some
things that you could do to improve the public school
system as well.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I love when you have a politician who is speaking
out against school choice and then you comment that that
politician went to private school. Why is it that so
many people who had the opportunity of school choice don't
want to give it to others.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Well, there's a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
One, it's usually because these are Democrats who vote against
school choice. And unfortunately, even though Democrat voters, all voters
from all backgrounds, Republicans, Democrats, independence, majorities of them support
the concept of school choice. The latest real clear opinion
research pulling finds super majority support actually Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
(08:02):
The problem is the Democrat Party is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the teachers' union. Because if you think about
Randy Weingarten's union, for example, the American Federation of Teachers,
she's the lady that fought to keep the schools closed
as long as possible. You wrote a lot about this,
Carol at the New York Post and other places at
Fox News as well, where they lobbied the CDC to
make it more to make it more difficult to reopen schools.
(08:24):
They were threatening safety strikes. They had local affiliates saying
that the push to reopen schools is rooted in racism, sexism,
and misogyny.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean, they threw every buzzword at the wall to
see what would stick.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
But you have so much hypocrisy because their position of
power relies.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
On them being hypocrites.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
I mean, Democrats should support school choice in Polize the
at least advantaged or stuck in the worst government schools.
Democrats want taxpayers to pay for everything else, but Kate
the twelve education choice threatens their special interest that controls them,
the teachers unions.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And that's all that this is about.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And one other thing, Carol, before we move on, is
that I think it's also rooted in paternalism that they
think they're smart enough to choose for their own kids
to get a better education, but those low income families
they might not have the wearwoth all issues.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And I've actually shared.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Videos of these elitists making this argument. But the problem
is with that logic is that parents are the ones
who should be in the driver's seat. They have the
most on the ground knowledge. They know their kids educational
needs better than anybody else, particularly more than bureaucrats.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Sitting in offices hundreds of miles away.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Absolutely, and you're so right, it should be a Democrat issue.
It's almost bizarre that it's kind of flipped that it's
a Republican issue and not a Democrat one. I think
that the idea that you know, you always say these
public schools don't serve the public. You can't just come
and debt whatever school you want. You have to be
zoned for it, you have to live there, be by
zip code. It seems like exactly the kind of thing
(10:00):
that they would normally not be into. But because you're
you know, they're beholden to this special interest group, they
end up doing whatever they want. So a question that
we ask everyone on this show, and I feel like
I know what you're going to say, what I want
to hear you say it is, what do you think
is our largest cultural problem?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Well, we ware house fifty million kids in factory model,
government run schools each and every year, when they learn
to be little brats, to bully each other, to be
involved in gang activity, and to be around danger. I
mean this is a large scale form of state sanctioned
child abuse in some forms, where you force kids to
(10:42):
go to schools that are not working for them academically,
just based on where you live.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And like you pointed out.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Earlier, Carol, we should call them government schools, not public schools,
because families have actually lied about their address to get
into better so called public schools, and some of those
families have gone to jail or have been fined for
the crime of trying to get their kid into a
better so called public school. If they were so public,
(11:10):
it wouldn't be a crime to do so. So that
giving family erasing those district lines, giving the money to
the families, it's an equalizer. It allows for more families
to access educational opportunities. And if we had more families homeschooling,
if we had more families getting to choose the school
that works best for them, we would live in a
(11:30):
more cohesive society. In fact, the latest meta analysis published
in a top peer reviewed journal that came out a
couple of weeks ago, actually just found that if you
look at all of the evidence that links school choice
to civic outcomes like tolerating others' views, and being able
to have a civil conversation. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that
(11:53):
this leads to a more cohesive society. Lo and behold
families getting to go to as a safer school for
their kid, a school where they learn logic as opposed
to critical race theory and dividing people based on immutable characteristics.
Will Guess what when you disagree in the future, you're
more likely to say, Hey, maybe there's a problem with
(12:15):
the logic sequence going on, and maybe I won't go
to ad Hominem Instead, I will have learned to have a.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Civil debate and have civic discourse.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
And so I think school choice would be a not
a silver bullet, but it would be a step in
the right direction at breaking the stranglehold that the teachers'
unions and the control that they have on the minds
of other people's children.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Right now, this is a.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Large scale form of the left almost doesn't even have
to have kids anymore. They can control and infiltrate the
school system and still direct the direction of the country
by controlling a large institution, which happens to be the
government run schools system that educates or in doctrinates millions
(13:04):
and millions of kids each year. There's no fighting against
that as a conservative, as a libertarian, as an independent,
there's no fighting against that leftward drift if you don't
take back the schools, or if you don't just educate
your own kids and have them grow up with a
set of values that's more pro American or just aligned
(13:26):
with your own.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Absolutely, and I think even even from a conservative perspective,
i'd be even maybe like not less concerned about the
values push. I mean, obviously i'd be concerned about that,
but I think that the academics are just so poor
that they don't like the fact that they're adding additional
things like pushing their values is just a detriment in
(13:48):
every single way. If our math scores were higher, maybe
you could spend some time talking about climate change, but
they're not, and so maybe you know, stick to what
you know or what the kids need to know. And that's,
you know, I think a giant problem that the academics
have just failed to such an extent that I think
that they can't be doing other things.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They have no time for it.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Right, If you can't figure out the ABC's, maybe you
shouldn't be focusing on the LGBTs. There's only so much
time in the day, and the families want the schools
to focus on the basics. And quite frankly, and you
know this, Carol, the reason that the parent revolution has
started is because the teachers unions overplayed their hand. They
held children's education hostage by fighting to keep the schools
(14:33):
closed as long as possible. They got the ransom payments,
they got the money, they got a one hundred ninety
billion dollars in so called COVID relief. But their plan
quickly backfired because families, through remote learning, which we really
just should have called it remotely learning, there wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Lot of learning going on.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Families got to see what was going on, and they
they were surprised at first.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now they're no longer surprised.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
As body bacham and said, we cannot continue to send
our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised
when they come home as Romans. The good news is
parents aren't surprised anymore. And it is beyond academics. By
academics is a huge problem too. In places like Baltimore,
they have dozens of schools with zero percent proficiency.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No kids can do.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Math and yet in the US we spend now about
twenty thousand dollars per kid per year. It's probably even
higher now that data is from twenty twenty one from NCS,
but the private school tuitions on average about twelve thousand
dollars a kid. I mean, the school choice could save
taxpayer money. And I think parents are finally realizing that
(15:41):
the jig is up for the teachers' union. The parents
can become their own union, the kids' union, by fighting
for their own right to educate their kids as ac fit.
And this is what happened in Virginia with Glenn Youngkin,
who beat Terry mccauliff in twenty twenty one in a
state that went ten points to Biden. Glenn and the
Republican won on education. That never happens. Republicans are usually
(16:04):
down on education by double digits. That has flipped, and
even the Democrats for Education Reform put out a couple
polls recently showing that the decades long kind of advantage
that the Democrats have had on education has vanished, and
they've pointed to school choice as the solution. Terry mccauliffe,
that Democrat in Virginia who said, I don't think parents
(16:26):
should be telling schools what they should teach. He was
the former governor, basically an incumbent, and he had the
school closer. Randy Weingarten, acted as his campaign closer. The
night before the election, she was stumping for him, and
the night and this next day on CNN, a mom
in Virginia said that was the nail in the coffin
(16:46):
moment for her. And so the Republicans can really get
some victories on this if they follow Glenn Youngkin's blueprint
at being the parents' party, and whether the politicians want
to or not in the Republican Party, they're going to
continue with that moniker because the voters, the parents who
saw what was happening in the classroom, are going to
(17:07):
hold them to it.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Got it. Yeah, that's all the parents should be doing
right now is focusing on that. We're going to take
a quick break and be right back on the Carol
Marcowitch Show. I think parents need to understand that they're
the last line of defense. I think that that's not
clear to parents where or maybe just clearer now. I
think pre pandemic even I don't think I realized how
(17:30):
much I needed to be overseeing what my kids are
learning in school and now obviously I think our eyes
are open to it. So I wanted to ask you
your newly wet how is married life going.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's fantastic. As we're coming up on a year of marriage.
We actually had two weddings. We had one the big
wedding in October of last year, and that was the
fun when we went on the honeymoon, went to Malfy
Coast right after that and had a lot of fun.
But we didn't want to wait so long, so we
went in early, got the paperwork done in May of
(18:04):
last year. So we're coming up on a year of
marriage and we've had a great time, and we got
started right away on wanting to have a child. And
Angelina is due in August, coming up pretty soon and exciting.
Wife is happy. Miranda is having a great pregnancy. The
first trimester not so much.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
We were in.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Spain at the peak of the hormones and we weren't
able to adventure as much, but we did get to relax,
and yeah, everything's been going great. We are excited to
join the parent revolution on the front lines and we
planned them in school of.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Course, right, that's so great. So you have multiple books.
Your books are success. Your success. Randy Weingarten hates you.
That's really such a point of pride. You're married, you
have a baby on the way. Do you feel like
you've made it?
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Well, I haven't because I'm I mean, Randy Winegarten beat me.
She's the school choice MVP of the past few years.
So I can't say I've made I'm not number one.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I would say I'm number two.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Maybe maybe because Randy Winingarten has inadvertently done more to
advance the concept of school choice and homeschooling than anyone
could have ever imagined by fighting to keep the schools closed.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Waking parents up, and sparking the parent Revolution.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
We're finally freeing families from her clutches once and for all,
and it's glorious to see unfold. I've actually sent her
a book. It arrived yesterday at the AFT offices, and
I posted it on my Twitter or X, and people
made fun of my handwriting. I quickly responded that, well,
it's because I went to government schools.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Obviously I'm going to have horrible handwriting.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I can't use the defense that I'm a doctor, because Carol,
I'm not a real doctor.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I'm more like a Jill Biden doctor. I mean, if she.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Gets to call herself doctor, so do you, Corey.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Someone responded by saying, you know, a PhD is a
little more more rigorous than an education d she which
she has, so hey, I'll take the w. But at
the end of the day, I think all this signaling
is a bunch of bologney. Anyway, just having that kind
of uh, that name of doctor doesn't actually make you
any smarter than anybodybody else. It doesn't make your arguments
(20:20):
more compelling. And in some cases, people will display it
on their bio, they'll put it in their Twitter handle,
and they'll use it as an argument of authority, which
I absolutely hate. So I like to backtrack whenever I
point out that I do have a PhD's. That's not
what makes my arguments compelling, right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Unless you are able to save somebody's life on an airplane,
like if I can't.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And I had to deal with that recently. There was
there was a baby that I was having issues. That
baby was fine, baby was okay, but they they were
asking for a doctor. And I turned to my wife
and said, Nope, not that kind of doctor.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
He's going to be able to have today.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
So and here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So you know we're on the education theme.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
So I would say to homeschool your children because you'll
never regret it. You can get positive forms of socialization
by engaging in community activities and rolling in a sport
with your child. There are other ways to capitalize on
positive forms of socialization with homeschooling while avoiding all the
(21:34):
negative forms of socialization that happened in government schools bullying, drugs,
gang activity. I went to public schools and there was
a lot of that going on. People would fight in
the restrooms, they'd get rolled into gangs. You'd have to
get beat up to be in the gang. I mean
there was I didn't get involved with this stuff, but
it's not hard to think, like people can get lost
(21:56):
in through the cracks. And so with homeschooling you could
avoid and curate forms of socializations that are great. And
by the way, you don't have to waste a lot
of time wasting for the waiting for the rest of
the kids and for things to kind of move from
one thing to the next.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
In the school system. You can learn more at.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
A fraction of the time. With homeschooling, obviously it would
be more easy. It would be easier to figure out
with education savings accounts where the money follows the child. Hey,
we spend twenty thousand a kid in the government schools.
Why not allow ten thousand to follow the kid. That's
more than enough to cover homeschool expenses or maybe a
micro school if you know, if that's more, if that's
(22:35):
more feasible for your family. But I think the best
way to improve your life off the education topic is
to make sure you exercise every day, and you know,
make it like brushing your teeth. That's something that you
know you want to go to bed without brushing your teeth,
So make sure you don't go to bed without exercising
throughout the day. You can pick up a hobby like running,
(22:57):
or maybe just the staremaster or anything if you like weightlifting,
whatever it is. I think that will help you in
other forms of life too. It has helped me just
having more sanity. I deal with a lot of enemies
in my field of work, and so having it's almost
a form of meditation, and it's also has the benefit
(23:19):
of benefiting you mentally. And physically almost in a spiritual
way as well, if you do it.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
The right way.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
See, I know you're right, but I think I'm going
to pull my kids out of their schools in the
homeschool instead instead of having to work out. So he
is Corey D'Angelis. His new book is called The Parent Revolution,
Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining our Schools. Thank
you so much for coming on, Corey. You were fantastic.
Thank you so much, Carol, thanks so much for joining
(23:48):
us on the Carol Marcowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get
your podcasts.
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