A Talk With California Policy Center’s Lance Christensen on Why Clovis Unified Teachers Shouldn’t Unionize

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've been talking a little bit on the show about
this controversy in Chicago that has been a particular interest
to me as a Catholic, and I think for all
any of us who are Christians and look at longstanding
Christian institutions and how they relate to and interact with
powerful people, powerful politicians. I'm thinking of, you know, not

(00:22):
not just to keep it on the Catholic side of
the street, but I'm thinking about, you know, Barack Obama
meeting with Rick Warren and you know, cozying up with him,
Rick Warren giving the invocation at Obama's two thousand and
eight inaug year old how cozy. A lot of folks
from the Southern Baptist Convention have been with, say Francis Collins,
the former head of the National Institutes of Health, and

(00:45):
Anthony Fauci, And I think there's this constant, there's this
desire by the church, by the Catholic Church, certain people
in the Catholic Church anyway, as well as certain figures
within Evangelicalism, who want to cozy up with persons in power,

(01:08):
try to have some sort of relationship influence, but wind
up doing so in a way Often that sort of
compromises our witness because we are standing talking, hobnobbing, fawning
over these very powerful people and ignoring the fact that
they are stomping on various kinds of principles of justice
that are really really important. Now, frankly, maybe someone wants

(01:32):
to argue that more conservative leaning Christian leaders fawning up
to Donald Trump can be excessive. I do think there
are some people who go kind of overboard as far
as the religious embrace of Trump, and they're like all
convinced that Trump was directly sent as a messenger from

(01:53):
God to save the well. I think God's providence can
work all things for good, and maybe even God in
his providence could use Trump to do good things. But
it also doesn't mean that Trump is perfect, or that
every single thing he does is immune from criticism or whatever.

(02:14):
This sort of debate on what are the limits of
Christian appreciation for cozying up to politics has reached a
real flashpoint in Chicago, where the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal
Blaze soupitch one of the worst picks that Pope Francis made,
I think for a bishop and a cardinal, and it's weird.

(02:39):
Pope Francis was a very mixed bag. Actually, he picked
a decent number of cardinals were actually quite good and
resulted in Pope Leo getting elected. I think people are
sort of pleasantly surprised at how moderately conservative he seems
to actually be. I think the College of Cardinals wound
up being more conservative than maybe people thought. Anyway, Cardinal

(03:00):
Supitch was not one of those good picks. Cardinal Supic
announced he's giving a Lifetime Achievement award from his diocese's
office of It's like Social Justice and Life or something.
They're having this fundraiser for their immigration ministry and he's
going to give a lifetime Achievement award to Senator Richard

(03:23):
Durbin from Illinois. Richard Durman Durbin has been a very
very prominent Democrat in Congress for years and years and years,
been a Senator for years and years and years. He
was a member of the House of Representatives for years
and years and years before that. And Durbin has been
very consistently in favor of abortion for decades, so much

(03:43):
so that since two thousand and four. Durbin, who lives
in Springfield, Illinois, not Chicago, so he's a little further south,
kind of more in the middle of the state. His
bishop in Springfield, Illinois has refused to give him holy community,
and since two thousand and four, actually the last the

(04:04):
current bishop and the prior bishop have both consistently since
two thousand and four said no, we're not going to
give you. You are barred from receiving Holy communion. So
Senator Durbin is a Roman Catholic but consistently opposes what
the church teaches on abortion, on gay marriage, and he's

(04:26):
had this quote journey, a very politically expedient journey. Might
I add with regards to his positions on the abortion
issue where he shifted slid from early in his career.
When he first started, he was a pro life Democrat,
and then he switched to saying, well, I'm not a

(04:47):
well you know, I'm personally pro life, and I wouldn't
have an abortion. I discourage a family member of having one,
but I'm not going to take away that choice from
other people, and i want to protectively recognize that people
should have that che choice to in twenty twenty three
tweeting out that abortion is a fundamental right. So he's

(05:09):
gone from pro life to well, I personally don't like abortion,
but maybe people should be able to have it. To
full throated abortion is a fundamental right. That kind of
advocacy almost as if, perhaps as if maybe he might

(05:30):
dispute my characterization of it. But when you say abortion
is a fundamental right, that sounds kind of to me
like you're saying that this is a positive good. I
don't know. Maybe he's he would say, no, the right
to choose whether or not you are going to have

(05:50):
an abortion. I'm not saying abortion is good or not,
but you should have that choice fundamentally anyway. Regardless, Durbin
took this very politically expedient path where basically all all
of his policies and priorities have lined up with the
party platform of the Democrat Party just very conveniently. And
here's Cardinal Soupicch coming along to say, I'm going to

(06:11):
give him a Lifetime Achievement Award for his promotion of
the Catholic Church's social teaching in the areas of immigration,
care for the poor, war and peace, which that's laughable.
War in peace, I guess it's because Durbin voted against
the war in Iraq, and he has recently started voting

(06:36):
against military funding for Israel, although he voted for military
funding for Israel for the prior several decades, and for
military funding for Ukraine and for the Afghanistan war, and
for supporting Kosovo and supported you know, I don't know
that he's You might think his views on those things
are right or wrong, but I don't know that he's
the poster child for world peace. That was what the

(06:59):
cardinal said. Anyway. Now, I think this is ridiculous. I
think it's preposterous. I think it's ridiculous to say we're
going to give someone a Lifetime Achievement award for supporting
the church's social teaching while ignoring the fact that he
has utterly trampled on various principles of social teaching in

(07:20):
this other area in a way that has led to
the murder of tens of thousands of his fellow Illinois
citizens every year, babies, unborn children, and millions and millions
of children throughout the country. Now you can guess what
I think about this. I think this is bad. I

(07:41):
think this is exactly the kind of you know, the
fawning attention to those in power that most fundamentally weakens
the Church's witness. However, I saw an opinion piece about
it that I think it was very poignant because of
who wrote it. Piece in First Things written by Dan Lipinski.

(08:04):
Daniel Lipinski, now Lapinsky was a member of the House
of Representatives, a Democrat member of the House of Representatives
until twenty twenty he got primaried out by another Democrat.
Leapinsky was one of the few pro life Democrats in

(08:25):
the House. He was a member of the House of
Representatives in Illinois. Well, he was a member of the
US House of Representatives and he was based in Illinois.
So Leapinsky seems to be a man of sort of
a similar age to Durban. Similar you know, he's an

(08:47):
Illinois politician. Both had been members of Congress for years.
Both had started their careers as pro life Democrats, and
it's kind of astonishing to see these two rows. Durban
took the broad and easy path where he changed his

(09:09):
political viewpoints on abortion to more comfortably fit within the
Democrat party as a member of the House, Lipinski did not.
Lepinsky basically said, well, I'm a Catholic. I believe abortion
is wrong. I think that is a matter of reason.
I think that is a matter of revealed theology. But

(09:30):
I also think we can know this by unaided human reason,
that murder is wrong, and that abortion is a form
of homicide, and therefore I believe it's wrong. So I
see these too, sorry, going through puberty on the radio.
I see these two men very similarly situated, very similar circumstances,

(09:52):
almost of a similar political generation of Democrats in Illinois.
Durbin embraces legal abortion, he embraces legal gay marriage. What
happens to Durbin. Durbin's career advances and thrives. Durbin goes

(10:15):
from being a member of the House to being elected
a US senator. Durbin is a very powerful senator today.
He's a very long serving senator. He has at different
times been I think at different times he's been either

(10:35):
the chair or the ranking Democrat. But it just depends
on which party is in control of the Senate. Of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is incredibly powerful. It oversees
judicial nominations. So Durbin has become you know, he's probably
one of the top five most influential Democrats in the Senate.

(10:59):
I'd say, yeah. He has served since two thousand and
five as the Democrats whip in the Senate, he's the
minority whip. So he's been in leadership in the Senate,
not just you know, not just a senator, but a

(11:21):
very prominent senator. Now on the other hand is Lepinsky.
Lepinski gets elected to the House of Representatives, he sticks
with his pro life viewpoints, and he becomes marginalized within

(11:45):
the Democrat Party. More and more he is marginalized, he
is shoved to the side. He's just not a prominent figure.
He served in the House of Representatives for sixteen years

(12:06):
and never advanced, never considered for the Senate. You know,
it wasn't like after Barack Obama got elected president, no
one was clamoring for him to run for that seat
or to get that seat. No why because he was
a pro life Democrat and he was never going to
have the prominence within the party that Durbin had. And

(12:29):
in twenty twenty, Lipinski got primaried out by another Democrat
who had the support of the party. I believe she
was actually supported by the party against him, Marie Newman.
And Marie Newman got his seat in the House of Representatives.

(12:51):
So here's this man, I mean, you don't get elected
to the House of Representatives without having a lot of
ambitions and a lot of long seeking goals. Here's his
man who had great ambitions for his life, a great
future ahead of him, charismatic, energetic, wants to represent his community,

(13:12):
wants to be a public servant, wants to be a
prominent person, and he realized what the price would be
to become as prominent as Durban. Now, he's actually a
good bit younger than Durbin. I think he entered the
House in two thousand and five. Durbin was just getting
started as the Senate minority whip in two thousand and five,

(13:32):
so there's slightly different generations. Lipinski's probably a good fifteen
or so years younger than Durban. But Lepinsky sort of
showed us in his career like this was the price
of discipleship for him, was you know, you're going to
get all this prominence, You're going to be a member

(13:53):
of the House of Representatives, respect, you know the public
acclaim that comes with it. And I'm sure at very
points in his career Lepinsky was presented with you either
change your opinion on abortion or take a hike. You
either change your views on abortion and gay marriage, or

(14:18):
you go get a new job, you lose your house seat.
You who had all these ambitions for yourself, all these desires.
You either change your views on abortion, abandon what your
faith tells you, or else you lose your job. And
what did Lipinski do. He stayed faithful to Jesus Christ.

(14:39):
He stayed faithful to the church. He stayed faithful to
the gospels. He stayed faithful to what was right. He
didn't change his views on abortion, and he got primary.
That is fidelity, that is this profoundly faithful witness to

(15:00):
the gospel. Now, look, you know, I probably disagree with
Lipinsky on several other kinds of political issues, but that
is a man who's incredibly I mean, what an inspiring thing,
what an inspiring model to show, like, you know, the

(15:23):
first will be last and the last will be first.
Lepinsky embraced that I will not be first. If I
am faithful to the Gospel, I have to accept that
I will not be the first. I will have to
accept not being the first. And he did. He did.
Like it's incredibly inspiring. And to see this contrast between

(15:45):
these two men, one of whom lost his dream job
because of his fidelity to the Gospel. And Durbin, who
never made a decision in politics that wasn't advantageous to
a number one I e. Himself, unborn children be darned,

(16:06):
his faith, his convictions be darned. That I think is
all the more scandalizing to see the Archbishop of Chicago
give this Lifetime Achievement award for upholding the Church of
Social Teaching to Durban when there's poor ol Dan Lipinski
sitting right there. He lost his seat in Congress just

(16:28):
five years ago because of his fidelity to the Gospel.
Just how outrageous it is to see a Catholic archbishop
honoring someone who just lived this cozy, comfy career abandoning

(16:48):
the principles of his faith. It's that's what makes it
to me all the more despicable when you see the
example of a guy named Dan Lipinsky, and I retweeted
Lepinsky wrote an article about this. He does doesn't dwell.
Lipinski doesn't dwell on his own circumstances. He doesn't dwell
on the fact that he could have You know that
what he gave up, what he sacrificed out of fidelity

(17:10):
to the Gospel. He doesn't dwell on it on himself.
He's just talking about the award in general. But I
would say, just to see his example, it's so moving,
and it's just heartbreaking to see leaders within, specifically this

(17:32):
Archbishop of Chicago, to see him trying to cozy up
to someone in a position of power and ignoring that
person's extremely convenient abandoning of the Gospel for the sake
of his political career. It's just heartbreaking. When we return,
I want to talk about how this has afflicted evangelicals,
this whole faithful witness thing, and the greatest example of it,

(17:56):
Francis Collins. Next on the John Girardi Show. We've been
discussing how the Catholic Archbishop of Chicago is giving this
Lifetime Achievement award for a quote supporting the church's social
teaching on a bunch of other things, ignoring his views
on stomping on the rights of unborn children and things
like that to Senator Richard Durbin, and it makes me

(18:16):
think of this. You know, I don't want to give
you evangelicals a free pass here. If I'm going to
criticize Catholics, you guys have to take some of this also,
and one of the worst examples of this on the
evangelical side was the way that like the Southern Baptist
Convention and other groups embraced Francis Collins. Probably not like

(18:39):
rank and file people in the Southern Baptist Convention, but
a lot of the leadership of Southern Baptist Convention Ethics
and some of their the ethics and religious liberty colligues,
which I think represents them on public policy stuff, they
loved Francis Collins, who is the head of the National
Institutes of Health, and Francis Collins was like all over
the place with the ELC folks during COVID and was

(19:01):
really weirdly pressuring the Southern Baptist Convention to try to
like get all of its churches on board with vaccines
and with this and that in a way that was
really antagonizing for a lot of folks within the Southern
Baptist Convention because Southern Baptists are pretty darn conservative, and
Francis Collins was sort of shown to be more and
more of a snake. The thing that just makes me

(19:26):
laugh so much, well not laugh sort more, it makes
me want to cry. Francis Collins was always a snake.
He was aggressively in favor of embryo destructive stem cell research,
of fetal tissue research using the bodies of aborted children.
That's why Barack Obama appointed him to the National Institutes

(19:50):
of Health in the first place. In two thousand and nine,
Obama gets in, he immediately rescinds all of George W.
Bush's bioethics restrictions with regards to to federal funding for
embryo destructive stem cell research, which, by the way, turned
out to be a massive flop. Remember around two thousand
where everyone was saying, oh, Christopher Reeves, we'll be able
to walk again if we have embryonic stem cell research

(20:11):
didn't happen. Embryonic stem cell research was a complete dead
end research wise. It was just an absolute money pit.
Obama picked Francis Collins specifically to reverse those policies. So
here's the Southern Baptist leadership just cozying up to this
guy egregiously wrong on bioethics questions, which is like one

(20:36):
of the core aspects of his job at the National
Institutes of Health. It's funding scientific research, and if you're
wrong on the bioethics, you're fundamentally wrong. So but I
guess it's because Colin sort of self defined himself as
like a born again Christian and would play guitar at
his church or something. So the Southern Baptist Convention was like, Oh,

(20:56):
he's the most wonderful guy anyway, Just so you know,
this happens on both sides of the Christian street. Just
want to lay that out there, all right. When we return,
I want to talk about unionization for Close Unified and
play an interview I did yesterday when I filled in
for Trevor of Lance Christensen from the California Policy Center,
talking about is Clovis Unified going to unionize and issues

(21:19):
related to that. That's next on the John Growardy Show.
There is tons of news about whether or not Close
Unified teachers are going to unionize. Close Unified School District
is the largest school district in the state that is
not whose teachers rather are not represented by a teachers union.
So this is a big deal statewide. I had yesterday

(21:40):
I filled in for Trevor and I interviewed Lance Kristensen.
Lance is a researcher and scholar for the California Policy
Center and does a lot of work focused on education policy,
and he's been following the unionization movement throughout the state
and tracking what teachers unions do, how they actually harm

(22:02):
education in various ways, and following the Clovise Unified story
in particular. So I'm going to run that. Here's my
interview with Lance Kristensen from the California Policy Center has
Clovis Unified School District CHAZ schools in Clovis and a
bit of Fresno. Their teachers are considering unionizing. Here on
the phone with us to discuss it. He's the vice

(22:23):
president of Government Affairs and education Policy for the California
Policy Center works. He has worked as a legislative consultant
in the State Senate for years and years and years,
budget analysts for the Department of Finance, and just an
all round expert on education policy. Lance Kristensen, Welcome to
the Trevor Carrey Show, and here you are with John Rody.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
What's up, Lance, Hey John to talk to you.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yeah, Well, I really appreciate you coming on. Our mutual
buddy Jonathan Keller has talked about you a lot over
the years, and I've been hearing some of your work
with Will Swam through his his podcast he does for
National Review, and I'm a big fan more and more
of your work, and especially your work on education policy.

(23:07):
So you've been following what's been going on at Clovis Unified.
It seems like they're at a bit of a crossroads
about wanting to unionize. Seems like they have a couple
of choices between an independent union the California Teachers Association,
or not unionizing. So I lay I'll lay out and

(23:28):
give you the floor for what are some of the
interesting things about this story that you're seeing as from
the more detached view from relative dust in Fresno, No.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
I appreciate that looking state wide, pretty much every school
district out of the nine hundred and forty four school
districts in the state is unionized, and so most districts
think that that's a better way to educate their kids.
But if you look at the most recent NATE scores
and the balanced assessments, the smarter bout balance assessments that

(23:59):
the state and then that governments do, you're seeing that
we're failing in every metric letter see numeracy, science, maths,
or city's history. That the teachers unions think that they
can approve all these categories is just its faults. They
haven't been able to do it. And in fact, teachers
unions are designed to protect the teacher's interests. So when

(24:22):
we want to say about schools, it really should be
about the students. And what's been most oppressive about Close
Unified is they've stayed independent of this for so long
and as a matter of fact, have done better than
many of their school district colleagues across the state. But
it's not good enough of the Teachers Union. They like power,
they want control of our classrooms. And frankly, a lot

(24:44):
of teachers are seeing through the whole guys of the
Teachers Union really wanting their best interest, and they're saying
that if they're going to join a union, the California
Teachers Association is the worst of all worlds.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
Well, what so right now for the teachers in Clovis,
it's like we were saying that the options are they
can join this independent union, the independent Clovis Unified Educators,
or they can join the Association of Clovis Educators, which
is affiliated with the California Teachers Association. Now, what are

(25:19):
the drawbacks to the California Teachers Association. I despise the
CTA with every with all my heart and all my
soul and all my strength, well all my mind. But
maybe you can explain for folks why they are so.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Despicable absolutely, I mean on a national stage, because they
all it kind of all silos up to, you know,
one big national blob of teachers unions across the country,
and every local jurisdiction has their own flavor. The national
unions were in favor of keeping schools closed for a
long time, but the CTA itself went further.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
And this is during COVID, During COVID specifically, yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, correct, And so how many parents across the state
were just absolutely frustrated by this. But yet teachers who
were in say Los Angeles Unified in their own teachers' union,
tried to disaffiliate or do other things, but five hundred
of them were fired because of decisions on their conscience.

(26:18):
The CTA never stood up for these people. They never
went back and tried to protect their jobs. They only
protect the jobs of the people who were actually not
fit to be protected.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
WHOA Okay, and I didn't know about that story. So
the CTA affiliated union with LA Unified. They had teachers
who I presume didn't want to do COVID vaccines or something,
and the union didn't. The union didn't stick up for
them at.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
All, five hundred of them.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
And if you think about that, you've paid dues for
your whole life, for your whole career, and you get
to a position where you have to make a really
serious decision. Why wouldn't the union stand up for you,
especially in a decision based on your conscience.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Yeah, well, that's the whole point of a union is
trying to protect its members from getting unjustly fired, you know,
or any kind of defense when someone's getting fired.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
You would think so, but only if it fits the narrative.
And that's part of the problem. The next problem the
CTA is highly affiliated with the Democratic Party. Now I'm
not here to spout partisan points. What I'm saying is
ninety nine percent of their donations go to Democratic candidates.
So if you're a Republican member of the union, you

(27:33):
have almost zero representation. They'll give crumbs to Republican groups
from time to time, but most of the time they
expect that the money is going to go towards Democratic politicians.
And the CTA also likes to really heavily influence the
local school district board elections. Well, when you have the
CTA that owns these, it's very difficult to have independent

(27:56):
board members that will vote accordingly, especially when it comes
to things like and curriculum.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Right, And that's that's always my line during election season
when people say, see a billboard that's oh, so and
so endorsed by Fresno teachers, and they say, oh, well,
they're running for the school board and the teachers support them,
so that must be good. No, you've effectively given the
same party both sides of the negotiating table, and they're
negotiating over your money. So it's like you should almost

(28:23):
vote against them purely, like as a matter of principle
if the.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Union's adorse these Yeah, yeah, exactly the Henhouse problem here,
And you can't trust a school board trustee who's going
to be checked in by the union on almost a
weekly basis. And so again, I have a lot of
friends who are union members who think that they're doing
the right thing by the kids voting. You ask or
press them on really hard issues, especially when it comes

(28:48):
to their curriculum and literacy and numeracy. They're not willing
to step back and do things like the Signs of
Reading or other programs actually improve education in California.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Well, and that's the thing, Like, I feel like teachers
unions do this big thing of presenting themselves as if
what they're doing is beneficial for kids, and that's not
the job of a union. The union's job is more members,
more pay, better hours. It's about jobs for adults. If

(29:19):
a kid happens to get educated, maybe that's a happy byproduct.
But just as you know, the function of a knife
is to cut, the function of a union is to
make money for the union members. So it's not I
think people act as though, like, oh, yes, this is
definitely good for kids. Well, there's nothing about the actual
function of a union that makes it actually teach does

(29:42):
anything to necessarily teach kids better.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well, and teachers' unions will care about kids when the
students start paying dues. Until the money talks, the teachers walk.
And that's the problem we have with a lot of
these unies, especially the CPA.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Now one of the things that's in front of the
closed teachers right now, it seems that there's more support
for this ic UE Independent Clovis Unified Educators Group that
it seems like if the teachers are going to go
for unionization. As of you know, a recent story published

(30:18):
in ed Source from last week, it seemed like more
fres more close unified teachers were leaning towards them. I
want to ask you, what's your opinion. I don't know
if you have much of an opinion about this specific
union or the options between. I mean, my guess is
no unionization is best, an independent union is less bad,

(30:39):
and CTA is the worst.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Well, I guess it just to it depends on your
terms of surrender. Sure, if you really think that you
are going to get a better deal out of this
quote unquote independent union, waiting until the union is around
for about three or four years, then you'll realize it's
not that independent. Sure, it may not have the same
change means that the CTA or that ANYA would have,

(31:02):
but it's gonna have significant constrictions for teachers who want
to do the right thing. My wife's a fourth grade teacher.
I top fourth grade, and I know that when the
union wants to protect its own interests, it demands that
teachers stop teaching the students and start playing by the rules,
and so if these teachers like the billy club approach,
either union will do. One will probably be billy club

(31:25):
less than the other, but both they're both going to
be billy clubbers.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Okay, so you're not viewing then, you know, because it
seems like there are some like charter schools and things
like that that are represented by some of these like
more independent non affiliated with California Teachers Association things, you're
not seeing this as really anything meaningfully better other than
you know, I guess you're not giving money to the
monster that is the CTA, but not as far as

(31:51):
the structure, it's not anything meaningfully better.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
I guess I would ask the question all these teachers,
for ninety percent of them, have they had meaningful and
good relationships with the administration. And it's my understanding again
I'm looking from a distance, but that they have had
for many years. So the fact that were this place,
that means that the unions have successfully seduced a lot
of teachers to believe that if they just had the

(32:17):
union representation, everything would be better. The problem is in
the most school districts, enrollment is down, the funding for
the state budget is down for education for lots of
reasons subtle. Guvernment's pulling back the money, there's going to
be fewer dollars to get to teachers. And if you
now are employing teachers who shouldn't be in the professional works,

(32:38):
they're terrible, but the union is protecting them, then how
is that going to benefit the eighty five ninety percent
of the teachers that actually want to do the job.
That's the question needs to be asked and answered, and it's.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Not right well, and that does seem to be when
I look at some of these unionized schools, the entry
level teachers are just not making much. And then it's
people who just kind of run gid out in the system.
They hang around, the hang around, the hangarround, and it's
near impossible to fire them. They're making six figure salaries

(33:09):
not doing much. And the motivation to work or the
idea that you would say, hey, maybe we should have
more accountable standards based on student performance, you know, they
act as if you just you know, committed a great blasphemy,
you know, the greatest of all blasphemies. It seems, it
sort of seems to change the whole conversation around a

(33:31):
school district from this is about teaching kids to employing adults.
And I think that's the thing I hate the most
about it.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
One hundred percent. It's an employment and adult employment programs
when it becomes Yeah, and if people don't believe me,
I encourage them just go read the bargaining agreement to
the MOUs and what they'll understand is that these are
hundreds of pages of stipulated agreements about how many hours
the teachers can be in the classroom, and how many
hours or minutes the teachers can engage with parents or students.

(34:03):
How many out of our extracurricular activities can the teachers
be involved with. What are their mandatory arrest and meal times. Again,
we want to treat teachers fairly. We don't want to
put them in dangerous situations. We don't want them in
classrooms with students who imperil other students. We don't want
them to take the abuse of parents who have never
learned to grow up. Sure you can do that with

(34:24):
a good administration and probably some sort of bargaining unit
within your school.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Sure well.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
And doesn't mean that you should give up all your
rights for that thing.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Yeah well, And it's also I mean to you know,
you could we could probably speak to the theoretical side
of this. More like unions make more sense in a
private sector setting where you know, an individual worker work
in the line at General Motors doesn't have the negotiating
power against the CEO of General Motors, that all the
workers working together, the interests of management, the interests of

(34:51):
the workers are you know, separate and going in opposite directions,
and it's a legitimate negotiation. Whereas the teach nutures are
you know, voters elect the leadership who are paying the
teachers ultimately, and voters generally like teachers making decent money
and having good conditions. The kind of adverse that the

(35:15):
adversarial interests set up that characterizes a lot of private
sector union relationships just isn't there with teachers. It just
it's fundamentally never really made sense.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
To me, and it's not rocket science. This, in fact,
was the argument that FDR made years ago when he
said that the public sector should not have unionized workers
because they're basically negotiating. It's a taxpayer and there's nobody
on the side of the taxpayer really off for that
alternative view. And that's the problem we have here at

(35:46):
the teachers unions.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Well, Lancey, I really appreciate you coming on. I got
to get to a break here before I go over
the hour. Where can people read more of your work
and learn more about California Policy Center. You guys do
really interesting stuff, really great conservative think tank based in California,
doing all kinds of good work. Where can they read
more about your stuff?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:07):
I appreciate it so much, saying go to Californiapolicycenter dot org.
They can follow me on X I'm at Lance Lands
or just search Lance Christensen. I post a lot there
and I just tried to get out and share with
people the idea that we can actually have a successful
and prosperous government if we keep.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
It small, all right. And that was my interview with
Lance Kristensen. Our appreciation the Lance for being on Trevor's
show yesterday. We return, we'll have our closing thoughts on
the whole Clothes Unified business that's next on the John
Gerardy Show. I'm totally totally with Lance Kristensen, whom we
had on. He came on Trevor's show when I was

(36:44):
filling in for Trevor yesterday and we discussed unionization within
Clothes Unified. Lance as a scholar with the California Policy Center,
I'm totally with him on this, Like to have some
sort of representation for teachers collectively for their concerns and
issues makes sense. But there's this fundamental thing about why

(37:05):
I don't think a union needs to exist. Closest teachers
are compensated pretty well. People like working there, they do.
They really like working there. It's really nice, the benefits
are super nice. And it's this thing where, again, because

(37:26):
you don't have the market forces that you have in
a private sector thing like Close Unified wants to retain
good teachers. Politically speaking, it's to the incentive of the
school board to get good teachers, to pay teachers well.
They're paid well. Unionization is usually a good thing for

(37:49):
an industry where people are paid criminally poorly. That's just
not happening here. So it's not like we're denying teachers
some fundamental justice if they don't get to unionize. No,
it's not unionization for the sake of unionization. Unionization is
for the sake of getting paid fairly. Close Unified teachers
are paid quite fairly. And that's all I have to
say about that. The words of force comp that'll do it.

(38:09):
John Girardi Show, We'll see you next time on Power
Talk