The Harsh Truths Why Kids Can’t Read

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It doesn't happen as much nowadays because homeschooling, I think,
is a much more common decision that parents make, and
it's not as isolated to the right to people who
are super socially conservative or you know, basically quasi amish weirdos,
which was the case when I was a kid growing

(00:22):
up and my parents homeschooled me, and my mom had
to face I think, a lot more judgment and a
lot more scrutiny for our education than I have to
face for my kids. But there's this sort of underlying
current of criticism for homeschooling that's continuing to endure nowadays,

(00:43):
and in fact, it might be getting louder nowadays, because
I think homeschooling is becoming a bit is a bit
more threatening than it was, which is that you know,
what are you doing? You don't have the expertise for
teaching kids? You know, what do you you know? What

(01:03):
do you know about the theory of childhood education? You know?
Blah blah blah blah blah. You and a lot of parents,
I think, get intimidated out of homeschooling because of that
kind of rhetoric. Well, I don't know what I'm doing
with homeschooling, and I would say that those criticisms are

(01:28):
lame because I mean, you can look at the statistical
outputs that homeschoolers do great in essentially, you know, in
the aggregate, on average, homeschoolers do really, really well relative
to kids in public schools. In fact, probably by pretty
much every metric, they do better. And the critique of well,

(01:55):
you're not an expert in education, let me temper this
for you guys. All right, So we need to look
at two stories to get the context for this. First
from the New York Times, Reading skills of twelfth graders
hit a new low by Dana Goldstein. The reading skills
of American high school seniors are the worst they have

(02:18):
been in three decades, according to new federal testing data,
a worrying sign for teenagers as they faced an uncertain
job market and information landscape challenged by AI. In math,
twelfth graders had the lowest performance since two thousand and five.
So the reading skills of American high school seniors are

(02:40):
reaching an all time low. It was a sign that
among other skills, they may not have been da dah
da da da. The results from the National Assessment of
Educational progress, long regarded as the nation's most reliable gold standard,
exam showed that about a third of the twelfth graders
who were tested last year did not have basic reading skills.

(03:03):
It was a sign that, among other skills, they may
not be able to determine the purpose of a political speech.
In math, nearly half of the test takers scored below
the basic level, meaning they may not have mastered skills
like using percentages to solve real world problems. The test
scores are the first of their kind to be released
since the COVID nineteen pandemic upended education. The school closures

(03:28):
accompanying COVID nineteen, which were not necessary, upended education anyway.
They are yet another sign that adolescents are struggling in
the wake of the virus. No, they're struggling in the
wake of people closing the schools when schools were closed
for months or more. They also arrive at a time
when Americans overall are abandoning printed text for screen time

(03:51):
and video dominated social media, which experts have linked to
declining academics. I love how this is a thing for
which we allegedly need expert advice. Oh, kids, watching more
screens and you know having their attention spans ruined by

(04:12):
short social media videos. Ah, this is bad for education.
We did a survey to determine you didn't need to
do a study to figure that out. Everyone with a
brain in their head does it. And this, my friends,
is why you can homeschool your kids. Here's the second story.

(04:32):
People were sharing this on Twitter. My wife found this.
Holly Girardi, shadow producer of the John Girardi Show. This
segment is entirely brought to you by my wife, Holly.
Someone shares this Wonders. Wonders is a K through sixth
grade English language arts curriculum developed by McGraw hill. It's

(04:53):
a popular education publisher. This curriculum, a K through sixth
English language curriculum, includes zero chapter books for kids to
read between third grade and sixth grade. No chapter books.

(05:17):
Sixth graders read only passages and excerpts from things. The
average text is only seven point three pages long. The
longest text that a kid's reading through sixth grade using
this new English language English curriculum, the longest text a

(05:41):
kid's going to read is eighteen pages long. This, my friends,
is why you can homeschool Because some of the people
in charge of American primary secondary education are morons. In fact, you,

(06:07):
the person listening to this radio show, you, dear listener,
you sitting there in your car.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
You are less of a moron than thousands and thousands
and thousands of professional educators, thousands of experts in curriculum
and development. McGraw hill is a major publisher, major education publisher.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Clearly they've got hundreds of people on staff with education backgrounds. However,
many people developed this curriculum. They're seeing, Okay, kids reading
scores are not doing so hot. Kids are constantly on screen,
They're constantly in social media. This obviously is ruining their

(07:03):
attention spans. It's obviously deteriorating their ability to read. What
are we gonna do. We're giving into that trend. We're
not gonna have kids develop longer attention spans with things
like chapter books. Nope, snippets clips of reading, snippets of reading.

(07:27):
Never have them have the experience of reading a whole
book from beginning to end. This is I mean, anyone
with a brain in their head should be understanding this.
In the context of education of primary secondary school education,

(07:48):
we need kids to develop longer attention spans. We need
to get them away from screens. We need them to
not have cell phones in school, not have cell phones.
Maybe more broadly, probably lots and lots of Americans would
do well to get screens out of their faces to read.

(08:11):
And yet this is the education elite. These are these
are you know, McGraw hills is big national publisher. They're
developing stuff for schools to use, and they're developing programs
that specifically don't counteract all these big national trends. This

(08:32):
is why you can home school, because we have entrusted
American education. Two morons to liberals. Chiefly, this was the
frustrating thing about American conservatism in the nineties, eighties, nineties,
two thousands, twenty tens. You had all these states that

(08:54):
became very red states. But the emphasies, the interests, the
thrust of Republican policy making just did not care for
some reason about education. It Republicans for years and years,

(09:15):
in this sort of pre Trump slash DeSantis world, we're
just totally okay with affording liberals huge institutional spaces for activity,
even within the context of Republican dominated government. The schools
all belongs to the liberals. Colleges and universities that all

(09:39):
belongs to the liberals. What wait a minute, even like
colleges and universities in red states, they're going to be
just bastions of liberalism. Well, yeah, you know it's the universities.
They're crazy. Yeah, but you're Republicans. You control both houses
of your state legislature and the governor's mansion. This is
a state university that depends on the state for funding,

(10:02):
and you control you Republicans control all state funding. Why
aren't you doing something about ah? Whatever? I mean, honestly,
it's taken the Trump vibe ship vibe shift and then
Ron DeSantis and guys like Chris Rufo to sort of

(10:25):
show conservatives, hey, you realize you don't have to if
you have a red state. It's not like some dictate
from on high that liberals have to control your public schools,
liberals have to control your public universities. You can take
control of those things. And I think the example of
DeSantis at the state level in Florida has sort of

(10:49):
woken up Republicans in the rest of the country. I
do really think DeSantis deserves enormous credit for this. I
think there is there was a sort of Trumpian vibe
sh shift that DeSantis sort of worked out at the
state level that yeah, we don't have to accept it.

(11:10):
So Ron DeSantis, instead of just accepting the status quo
of what education was in the state of Florida, aggressively
flexed as muscles, endorsed slates of candidates for school boards
all up and down the state of Florida, completely changed
the whole makeup of public school education in Florida. Same

(11:31):
with their universities. He's going to the University of Florida,
going to Florida State, changing the makeup of their boards
of trustees, et cetera. We have but for years, you know,
that's all happening in some red states, but blue states
completely under the control of the left. They're morons. Their

(11:53):
educational priorities are not really around our kids reading, our
kids able to do math. They have all kinds of
insane social agendas for their education, and they're just not
good at educating. I mean, you look at you know,
I cannot fathom how people who live in California, in

(12:16):
Fresno or La, you know, some of these places that
have these enormous school districts that are enormously failing. Why
would anyone judge a homeschooling parent today, Oh, you don't
know what you're talking about, really, because the people who
allegedly do know what they're talking about, who teach in
presne Unified, they're pumping out kids seventy percent of whom

(12:37):
can't read at grade level, seventy percent of whom can't
do math at grade level, Like the overwhelming majority of
kids at presnew Unified come out without grade level you know,
without basic grade level reading and math skills. The idea

(12:57):
that a homeschooling parent's gonna do worse is insane because one,
if you have a brain in your head to realize
that your kids should have fewer screens and more reading
and more memorization of you know, multiplication tables and learning

(13:18):
basic math, you're gonna do better. These are very basic
education ideas that have been rejected by the mainstream of
American public educators. And they're just morons for having rejected this.
They're idiots. The average American parent is smarter, has a

(13:38):
better idea of what education should be than a lot
of the education establishment. And I want to say I'm
not you have to do this bowing and scraping, which
I just detest. Not many teachers are very good. Not
all teachers are bad. Okay, yes, bow and scrape, Yes
many teachers are good. You actually, you know what, I'm

(13:58):
not gonna say that. I'm gonna say there are a
few teachers that are really excellent, and there are a
lot of teachers that stink, And there are a lot
of teachers in the middle, which is basically the breakdown
of every job in America. All right, Every job in
America has people who are elite, has a bunch of
people in the middle, and then some people who stink.
And I think teachers are no different. I think teachers

(14:21):
that I think a lot of professions are that way.
I don't know this desire we have to paint public
school teachers all as you know, mother Teresa, I think
is silly, and I think teachers themselves will tell you, yeah,
there are a lot of teachers weren't that good at
teaching anyway. But you, you parent listening because you're not

(14:47):
twisted by these stupid ideologies and have a basic bit
of sense in your head that maybe screen time is
not a good idea and learning to read sooner rather
than later is a good idea. You're like gonna be
miles ahead of the public school. And it also ultimately
lands on this. A big reason why homeschoolers do well

(15:13):
is because you're their parent. You're their mom, you're their dad.
You're not a hireling. You're the shepherd who knows the
voice of his sheep, not the hireling. Nobody is gonna
be more invested in your kid's success than you. Nobody,

(15:33):
It's impossible, and I think that's why you see homeschooling
parents do well. Love makes up whatever skill gap there is,
very very very often love and effort and caring. I mean,

(15:54):
your kid is one of thirty students bopping between you know,
five or six different classes in a high school that
your kid is nobody's top priority, but your kid is
your top priority. This is why homeschooling works. It's not
rocket science. The combo of parents not being twisted by

(16:18):
the stupidest ideas that are commonplace in American public education. Plus,
you actually care about your kid, and I don't care
how good of a teacher you are. You don't care
about every single kid the way a mom cares about
her own kid. A dad cares about his own kid.

(16:40):
That's the secret. So that is why you are able
to homeschool your kid. Yes, you you specifically listening in
your car. Who's not sure if you could do it?
You can do it. It's a lot of work, it's
a lot of effort. Not sure that two parents could
work full time and homeschool their kids. But it is doable.

(17:00):
It's doable, and it's doable in no small part because
the public schools are run by complete morons. Their curriculum
is formulated by complete morons. When we return, how equity,
the concept of equity is actively harming education in California

(17:25):
and beyond. That's next on the John Jerrardy Show. There
are new results out nationwide standardized testing results from high
schoolers showing that math skills, but particularly reading skills among
American high schoolers, have drastically declined over the last four years.
This is stuff that comes out basically looking at twenty

(17:49):
twenty four results from kids the worst reading score since
nineteen ninety two on thistional, the National Assessment of Educational Progress,
and one of the things I these results are the
fruit of is equity, Diversity, equity, and inclusion. All the

(18:10):
DEI concepts have really taken hold by this point when
you're looking at kids from the class of twenty twenty four,
kids who are entering high school in twenty twenty graduating
in twenty twenty four. This was the Biden years, were
sort of the height of the Dei era, and we
have to assess what that means in education. What does

(18:31):
equity mean in education? The word Dei, the word equity
refers to a certain set of beliefs that involve active
discrimination in favor of people from certain dis you know,
historically oppressed allegedly or or truly backgrounds, Active discrimination in

(18:53):
favor of certain groups of people. There's something I say
allegedly only because I think there are some people who
have had more historical oppression than others. Well, you know
that this has always infuriated me. The idea that Dei
stu that DEI requirements allow you to, in fact, perhaps

(19:16):
require you to discriminate in favor of Latinos, But the
same DEI mindset allows you mandates you to discriminate against Asians,
against kids of Chinese or Japanese descent. That that is okay.

(19:42):
As if the experience of Latinos was worse than the
experience of the Chinese and Japanese in the United States.
I mean, I'm not saying Mexicans had it easy. Mexican
immigrants or other Latino immigrants that had it necessarily easy
in the United States. Many of them came to this country,

(20:04):
many of them faced unfair discrimination in certain ways. Many
of them worked grueling conditions. But so did the Japanese
and Chinese. And I feel like the Japanese kind of
have this trump card of hey, who was put into

(20:24):
internment camps during World War Two? Not you? Oh okay, See,
that's the insane thing with DEI like, we have this
sort of structure that's in place because of African Americans,
that African Americans have the ultimate trumpet. Look at the
African American experience in the United States was uniquely bad
because Africans were enslaved, and their historic experiences justify make

(20:52):
sense of the idea of whether it's reparations or preferential
treatment in college admission or whatever. But that sort of
breaks down when you're comparing Latinos or you know, Latinos
versus Asians, Like there's absolutely no reason we should be

(21:15):
discriminating against Asians. But for Latinos, I don't actually know
that the historic experience of a man of Latinos versus
Asians in the United States, were that much better or
worse between one or the other. I'm not sure when
you play that comparison game, it doesn't make sense what

(21:37):
DEI really means, what equity really means, at its core,
is we want to flatten the results. If there's any
kind of end results, whether it's in education, college admissions,
and in many other facets of American life, criminal law, application,
et cetera, where bad outcomes are disproportionately happening to one

(22:03):
race relative to its share of the population, then the
only explanation for it is racism. The only explanation for
it is the systemic racism of American culture, or racism
inherent in whatever process it is. If African Americans are
being arrested at a high rate, arrested or charged or
convicted or incarcerated at higher rates than whites, well the

(22:26):
answer is very simply racism on the part of the cops,
on the part of the DA, on the part of
the court system, on the part of juries. Whatever that's
been applied to education, where you have California eliminating certain

(22:47):
higher track math programs, why because too many white kids
and Asian kids were in them. You've got public schools
trying to get rid of Standardized, to getting rid of
the SAT why because they want to be able to
accept more black kids and Latino kids. And both California
law and now federal law say that you can't discriminate

(23:09):
on the basis of race and college admissions. So I
think there needs to be looked. There needs some looking
into of how has the flattening effect of equity policies
which drove things like getting rid of higher track math programs.

(23:35):
Has the drive for equity also contributed to declining American
kids' math and reading scores. I would guess that it
probably did. When we return insane new abortion bill language
being inserted into California bills at the end of the
legislative session this week prescriptions of abortion with no patient

(23:58):
name on them next on the John Roardy Show. Well,
a couple of things over the weekend. I was texting
with my buddy Jonathan Keller, who co hosts Right to
Life Radio with me and a couple of our other
friends who follow California state legislation regarding abortion, and we
saw that Assembly Bill two sixty was being amended, amended

(24:21):
with all kinds of weird language regarding MIFA pristone, which
is the abortion pills, the abortion drug, and with a
lot of stuff about pharmacists and basically lots of different
kinds of information that wouldn't be shared as part of
a prescription of mipha pristone. We thought, this is bizarre.

(24:43):
Then I also, I had my birthday last Friday, and
my mom for my birthday, said well, what is a
publication that I could get you a subscription to that
would be helpful for radio and writing? And I thought
about it, and as much as I hate them, I said, well,
I think probably the New York Times. Well, that investment
turned out to bear fruit really quick, like basically yesterday.

(25:05):
It was like the day after the day of me
activating my subscription for the New York Times. Low and behold,
I realized that the New York Times is basically the
press outfit. It's basically the pr department for the American
abortion movement. So lo and behold. Immediately I get this

(25:25):
story that explains what's happening in California with AB two sixty. Now,
one of the things for you guys to note the
California State legislature, our state Assembly and our state Senate.
Their legislative session runs from the beginning of the year
to in non election years like this one mid September,

(25:48):
so this Friday is the deadline for the state legislature
to pass all of the laws it's going to pass.
All the bills that they are going to pass this year,
they have to complete, they have to finish passing them.
I think by when the clock strikes midnight for Saturday morning,

(26:09):
September thirteenth, so Friday night by eleven to fifty nine pm.
That is the deadline to get all the legislation passed
for the year that they want to get passed. After
that they go into recess. All the bills head to
the governor's desk, and then the governor has about a
month to sign or veto everything that they passed. Okay,

(26:30):
So that's the schedule. And what Democrats love doing is
they've had all year to introduce legislation and have it
be opened to some level of public scrutiny, have legislative
hearings that are public and report it on, have themselves
take votes on things in committee on the floor. Sometimes.

(26:53):
What they love to do is this process where at
the very end of the legislative session they bills stick
in all kinds of new stuff that has had no
chance for review, no chance for scrutiny, no chance for
expert testimony, no chance for investigation, not a and then
expect a vote on it right there and then, and

(27:15):
for the governor to sign it. This is a common
tactic of the California state legislature and it's gross. It's
this horrible thing they do. So what they've done is
what they it seems like they are poised to do,

(27:36):
is to pass a new kind of abortion shield law.
Let me explain what these shield laws are. Right twenty
twenty two, the Dobbs decision comes down, Every state can
regulate abortion how they want. Red states pass laws with
criminal penalties for docs doing abortions, criminal penalties, civil penalties,

(28:03):
et cetera. Well, there then becomes this question of interstate
cooperation participation. All right, if someone violates Texas state law
by robbing a liquor store in El Paso, and they

(28:25):
immediately then get on what is in Interstate ten, They
get on Interstate ten, and they drive all the way
to California, Okay, and they're hiding out somewhere in La. Well,
if Texas police realize where this criminal is who knocked
over the liquor store in El Paso, they realize he's
in La, Well, what will happen. Well, LA cops, LAPD

(28:50):
or California Highway Patrol can arrest the guy and they
will cooperate with the Texas authority to get the guy
back to Texas and to face Texas justice. So states
will be cooperative with one another in enforcing the laws

(29:13):
of one of the states. California is willing to cooperate
with Texas authorities who are trying to enforce the law
in Texas. And this could even apply to something like Okay, well,
you know, one state the age of consent might be seventeen.

(29:33):
Another state, one state the age of consent might be eighteen,
another state the age of consent might be sixteen. Okay,
if someone if an act of statutory rape happens in
California with a seventeen year old and the guy who
perpetrated it flees to a state where the age of
consent is sixteen, well that doesn't matter. If this you

(29:57):
know the state of Arkansas might have a lower AI
for the age of consent than California. But Arkansas authorities
are still going to cooperate with California to enforce California law. Hey,
this guy committed a crime in California. He fled to Arkansas.
We're going to cooperate with California authorities to get this
guy back to California to face California justice. Okay, so

(30:17):
states will work together to enforce their laws, not abortion.
What happened after the Dobbs decision was basically a bunch
of blue states, a bunch of pro abortion states passed
what's called shield laws, basically to say, if a doctor
in Texas commits an abortion and flees to California, we
are not going to cooperate with Texas authorities to hand

(30:39):
him over. If someone in California facilitates somehow an abortion
in Texas, we're not going to cooperate with Texas legal authorities,
judicial authorities, criminal, civil you know, whether it's a civil
lawsuit or a criminal charge. Nope, California is not going
to cooperate. And this isn't the thing that can be

(31:00):
decided by local government either. By the way, local governments,
including local police departments, local county sheriffs. They are effectively
creatures of state government. So if the state says you
cannot cooperate, then they cannot cooperate. They don't have any
independent The Sheriff's department of Fresno County has no independence

(31:25):
from state government. If state government says you have to
do X, then they have to do X. Okay, they
are creatures organs of state government. So California has passed
a law like this, and what has happened as a
result of these shield laws is the abortion pill has
been utilized to basically allow women in red states to

(31:50):
have abortions and no one can be arrested because basically
the way these abortion laws were structured was they didn't
want to criminal they didn't want criminal penalties to fall
on the women. I think a reasonable judgment was made that, look,
a lot of these women are turning to abortions because
of difficult life situations and circumstances. They're not the ones
profiting off of this. Doctors are profiting off of this.

(32:13):
You know many of these women what they need is help.
The sort of smarter, strategic, compassionate way to direct criminal
law enforcement if we're going to criminalize abortion is to
direct that at doctors and others who perform abortions. That's
that's what we should do, and that's a reasonable judgment,
except if there's no doctor involved. What's happening is women

(32:36):
are going online. They're getting prescriptions for the abortion pill
to be shipped from California prescribers. The abortion pill gets
shipped into Texas. A woman in Texas takes the abortion pills,
has an abortion Whom do you prosecute if you're Texas well,
the California doctor who prescribed it is beyond the reach

(32:59):
of your law. California authorities are refusing to cooperate with you.
You can't get the guy. You can't send in the
Texas Rangers, either the baseball team or the law enforcement officials.
You can't just send them into La to arrest people
and take them back. No, you can't do that without

(33:19):
the cooperation of the California authorities. So it's rendered state
abortion laws toothless. People are able to get abortion pills
email to them. Now there's more and more beefing up
that Texas is trying to do to pierce some of
these abortion shield laws. And the response from California is this,

(33:48):
they want to do as much as they can to
insulate their prescribing doctors or pharmacists, whatever from any kind
of potential lawsuit, scrutiny whatever from Texas. And there's a
thought that the Supreme Court is going to intervene in
this dispute between states. Basically, Louisiana and New York are

(34:10):
bringing this case that I think is going to reach
the Supreme Court. You know, a doctor from New York
prescribed an abortion pill, to prescribe the abortion pill to
someone in Louisiana. The mom gave this abortion pill to
her daughter against the daughter's will, without the daughter knowing

(34:33):
that it was an abortion pill killed this woman's baby.
Louisiana wants to get the New York doctor. They can't
because of New York's shield laws. They're trying to pierce it.
But now what California has done is this new is
trying to do and New York has already done this
new kind of shield law to say that for the

(34:53):
packet or bottle of abortion pills, like any other prescription,
you get what is on the prescription bottle. It includes,
among other things, the patient's name. We're not going to
put the patient's name on mifepristone anymore. This new law,

(35:15):
this amendment to AB two sixty the California is considering,
it would allow the abortion pill to be sent with
no doctor, no prescribing doctor's name, and no patient name.
When we return, we'll talk about the risks of this. Oh,

(35:35):
a boyfriend doesn't like it. Oh, you have some extra
abortion pills. A boyfriend doesn't like that his girlfriend got pregnant.
Here you go. How safety always seems to be the
thing that gets sacrificed in the modern day pro abortion world.
That's next on the John Drurardy Show. California is considering
passing a law trying to basically allow doctors to send

(35:59):
a b abortion pills into Texas so that people in
Texas can get abortion pills and it can evade Texas law's.
California refuses to cooperate with Texas authorities who want to
enforce their criminal laws and civil laws against abortion. California,
in this desire to circumvent Texas law, is now going

(36:19):
to let prescriptions of the abortion pill. If this bill
passes this week and if Governor knew some signs, it
will allow the abortion pill to be shipped through the
mail with no patient name on the bottle and no
doctor's prescribing name on the bottle. There are all kinds
of health risks with this. If you don't have identifying

(36:43):
information on the bottle, it could go to the wrong person.
The wrong person could take it. People could get the
pills and give them to someone who maybe doesn't want
to have an abortion. I mean, a lot of the
legal controversy that's happening around mifa pristone right now in
states not cooperating with each other, and involved a case

(37:05):
of a Louisiana woman who gave her daughter the abortion
pill against the daughter's will, with a prescription of MiFi
pristone she obtained for her daughter from New York. And
this is the thing with pro abortion movement. They no
longer say they want abortion to be safe, legal and rare.
You all remember that phrase from the nineties. We think

(37:27):
abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Well, they don't
want it to be rare. They absolutely don't want it
to be rare. They want it to be accessible. That's
the real buzzword today abortion access. Basically, any person who
has any difficulty getting an abortion any place, anytime, anywhere,
that difficulty should be knocked down, and the abortion pill

(37:49):
is the way to do that. The abortion pill and
the ability to prescribe it and to prescribe it through
telemedicine and ship it through the mail makes the abortion
pill accessible, makes abortion accessible to anyone with a mailbox
and a smartphone. And here's the thing, though, with all
that drive for access, you know what gets sacrificed safety

(38:10):
Because it's not safe to get an abortion without seeing
a doctor in person. It's not safe to get a
bottle of abortion pills with no patient name on it.
Safety gets sacrificed in the name of access. That'll do it.
John's already show see you next time on Power Top