May 6, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode Dr. Jon Becker joins Stephanie and Zac to wrestle with another round of Head Start on the chopping block and the Supreme Court's impending decisions on what makes a public school...public...(or private?) and whether or not parents can opt their kids out of inclusive literature.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Zach Chase.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
And I'm Stephanie Melville.
SPEAKER_03 (00:17):
Welcome to Academic Distinctions, a podcast to make
sense of American education.
(00:47):
PhD in the politics of educationfrom Teachers College, Columbia
University.
As always, in this episode, weare going to build some context
around three stories affectingpublic education in America.
We're so glad to have John withus to build some context to pull
apart some of the thorny legalissues woven into each.
John, it's good to have you.
SPEAKER_02 (01:09):
Good to be here.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_03 (01:11):
As we were looking at the news going on around the
country with public education,we realized that neither
Stephanie nor I had the legalchops necessary to really
provide context.
So we're glad you're here.
We hope you'll come back.
We'll hope this is not apainful, painful process for
you.
SPEAKER_02 (01:24):
It shouldn't be.
And maybe this is when I add myusual disclaimer, which is that
while I have a law degree, I'mofficially retired from the
practice of law.
So what that means is I canrender my understanding and my
opinion, but nothing I sayshould be construed as legal
advice.
So there you go.
SPEAKER_03 (01:45):
And nothing Stephanie or Ash ever say should
be construed as legal advice atall.
Definitely.
So jump in.
Our first story comes from theland of Head Start.
A month ago, federal grants werefrozen, causing many Head Start
branches to shut downoperations.
We were recording on Monday.
(02:05):
There was a pretty goodindication at the end of last
week that Head Start was goingto be completely zeroed out in
the proposed education budgetfor this year.
That budget has come out.
The But as we were planning thisepisode, we said, we think it's
probably a good idea becauseit's not going to be the last
(02:27):
time.
And it certainly wasn't thefirst time that Head Start was
on the chopping block.
So we're going to tackle thisone, look a little bit into Head
Start and why it's important andwhat this willingness to put the
future of America's youngestchildren at risk kind of
indicates for the world in whichwe live and what the shift in
(02:50):
policy might indicate forpotential optimism.
Stephanie, what do you thinkabout this Head Start
possibility of elimination?
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Yeah, so as somebody who has used Head Start services
before, so first of all, itshould be noted that Head Start
talks about or offers servicesfor early learning, providing
meals for students, vision andhearing services, benefits,
(03:22):
developmental screenings, dentalcare for almost a million
children across the country,which is kind of a big deal.
And this proposed, the leakedproposed budget said that the
federal government should not bein the business of mandating
curriculum locations andperformance standards for any
form of education.
(03:43):
So for me, just looking at thisand thinking about it as a whole
as somebody who, like I said,has used Head Start services for
one of their children as itpertained to mental health
services and parenting classesfor myself.
I have a child who deals withsome big feelings and I needed
(04:04):
some support services on how tohelp my kiddo get through those
big feelings moments.
And without Head Start, I wouldhave had to maybe go through my
insurance, which sounds like notthat big of a deal, but it is a
big deal because I don't know ifanybody's tried to get mental
(04:25):
health services support sincepandemic, but there's months and
months of backlogs.
And it was something that hitclose to home here.
And I think besides thatinformation and the resources
that they provide in thatregard, You know, it's not just
(04:45):
health services, but it's alsopreschools and, you know,
putting a preschool out ofbusiness prevents a parent to go
to work.
You know, it's a way to keeppoor families poor.
And, you know, when you thinkabout the fact that we're
(05:06):
already battling with droppingassessment scores and
proficiencies across thecountry, why are we taking away
a resource for students to get ahead start at learning?
It just, it didn't make sense tome.
So I'm actually really glad thatso far it has seemed to avoid
the chopping block.
SPEAKER_03 (05:27):
John, hot takes.
SPEAKER_02 (05:29):
I have trouble reconciling this with an agenda
that's pro-life, that'spro-natalist.
I mean, if we really want peopleto have more healthy, thriving
children than we need to givethem supports.
And the other piece of it is, Idon't believe we've learned very
much from the pandemic.
(05:50):
And Stephanie mentioned thepandemic.
And if there's one thing welearned, it's that parents need
help in raising their kids.
And here we have the government,at least initially, proposing to
take away a really importantsource of help.
So I just think it's...
That it was even on the choppingblock is hard to reconcile with
(06:12):
other parts of the agenda that'skind of dominating today.
SPEAKER_03 (06:16):
Such as a week and a half ago, how can we induce...
it's pun intended, people tohave more babies, right?
So there's this, like thejuxtaposition right now of
saying like, we want everybodyto have more kids.
And also we want to take awayany supports and hope that they
might have for being successful,reading, dealing with their
(06:40):
emotions, any of those things.
Yeah.
What else?
I
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
would add to, I would second Stephanie's point
about kind of keeping poorfamilies poorer.
Frankly, we've never invested inhigh-quality early childhood
education in this country atscale.
And I think part of the reasonis I believe certain elected
officials and parts of theelectorate realize that
(07:06):
high-quality early childhoodeducation would level the
playing field in ways that makecertain people uncomfortable.
I've long believed that.
There's a good bit of, you know,a lot of research about kind of
the...
Tremendous benefits of a highquality
SPEAKER_03 (07:23):
early childhood education.
But Stephanie, as you said, thisis preschool, this is mental
health, this is parenting help,this is really giving the head
start that's necessary to eventhe playing field.
(07:44):
John, you took great pains ingymnastically avoiding words
like poverty and people of colorand equity.
It's okay.
in, in the administration ofthis particular podcast, those
are all words we can use.
Uh,
SPEAKER_02 (07:57):
but I'm in Virginia.
I'm not, I'm not sure I can usethem in Virginia.
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
Oh, that's okay.
Uh, we're recording across thecountry, so we'll find you a
sanctuary.
Um, but in, in doing research ofheadstart, I thought, well, but
where do they fall down?
And I was hard pressed to findany quality research that says,
you know, headstart doesn'treturn on investment.
And I think that's a reallyimportant piece is pointing out
again, we, we talked in our lastepisode, uh, A bit about civil
(08:24):
rights.
We talked about the use of TitleVI.
We talked about these wordsabout efficiency.
Head Start returns on theinvestment we make in children,
right?
And it keeps...
Not only does it help thembecome more academically
successful, right?
But we are keeping...
adults out of the prison system,right?
We are keeping people out ofjail by giving them the
(08:46):
headstart that they need whenthey are young, right?
So you are much more likely togo to jail, to go to prison if
you have these tools for successthat you need to gain when you
are very, very young.
And so if we're talking aboutreturns on investment and
efficiencies, then this seems tobe one that you wouldn't want to
mess around with.
And I think that that's reallyimportant.
(09:07):
I think it's also reallyinteresting to talk about
overreach.
So as Stephanie, as you noted,the idea that Head Start is some
sort of federal overreach.
Well, if that's true, there aremany, many ways in a system to
reform something and pull backon the aspect that you thought
was overreach.
I think we know that it is bunk,right, that they didn't do that
(09:28):
because we're going to delete anentire program.
I think that just supports yourargument, John, that this wasn't
about overreach or saying thatthey're controlling a
curriculum.
This was about saying we want tokeep the playing field unlevel
for folks.
It is federal overreach in thatthe executive branch is...
(09:51):
supposed to carry out the willof the people, the will of
Congress, and that Congress hasapproved a budget for Head
Start, that Congress hasapproved the programs for Head
Start, that this is somethingthat the nation has said is
important.
And a very, very small group ofpeople are playing around with
children's futures as though itis the will of a larger group of
(10:11):
people.
SPEAKER_02 (10:12):
My mother was a longtime public school teacher
in the Bronx in New York City.
And shortly after she retired, Iremember I asked her, I said, if
you could change one thing aboutpublic education, what would it
be?
And she thought about it andthen said, kindergarten
readiness.
She said, I would not havekindergarten started at a
(10:33):
particular age.
I think we should make sureevery kid is ready for
kindergarten to start that way.
And that I thought about that,and I remember there's some
research about how the academicachievement trajectory of kids
is pretty much the same for allkids.
It's just that some start at aplace where they're not quite
(10:54):
academically or developmentallyready, and some start quite
ready, maybe even beyond ready.
And so they track in parallel,but the ones that started
unready are don't do as well asthe ones who started ready.
And so, you know, again, I thinkearly high quality, early
childhood education would maybeclose that gap at the beginning
so that we don't end up with thegaps that we have at the end.
SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Yeah.
And I think it's also worthnoting, John, kindergarten is
not compulsory across the entirecountry.
You know, there are many stateswhere kindergarten in and of
itself is not mandatory for kidsto go to.
So when we talk aboutkindergarten readiness in We're
really talking about first gradereadiness at that point in time.
And then when you take away asupport system, taking that
(11:40):
away, so many kids are not setup for success when they start.
And that's oftentimes somethingthat we don't look at for when
we look at things like whyaren't our test scores as great
as we want them to be.
SPEAKER_03 (11:54):
Stephanie, as you're looking at this particular news
story and moving forward, whatare we hoping?
Knowing that Head Start is inthis proposed budget right now,
what are you wondering as youlook at how this story plays
out?
SPEAKER_00 (12:06):
I want to know why it survived, but also I want to
know what the through line is.
We talked about it last week inour previous episode about why
things are happening and whycertain...
things are being cut or proposedto be cut, what's the through
line?
(12:26):
It can't really be that we'regiving states power.
I just don't buy that.
SPEAKER_03 (12:33):
John, what do you wonder as you look at this
story?
SPEAKER_02 (12:36):
I wonder if we'll ever truly invest in high
quality early childhoodeducation.
And to Stephanie's point, Iguess I wonder if the
demographics of the familiesserved by Head Start?
And is it disproportionatelymaybe in some redder areas?
And so those members of theelectorate sort of got with
(12:58):
their elected officials andsaid, Maybe this is something we
should keep in place.
That would be interesting toknow.
SPEAKER_03 (13:05):
I did a little digging in preparation for this
episode.
And yes, these impacts aredisproportionately affect rural
areas, affect places where thereare high instances of poverty.
One of the things I think mightplay out in answer to your
question, Stephanie, and a pointyou made early on, is that Head
(13:26):
Start also provides child careservices where there is no
childcare, right?
And so the elimination of HeadStart programming and the Head
Start budget would create newchildcare deserts across the
country, thus impactingemployment, thus impacting the
ability to pay your bills, allof those things.
So that Head Start is helpingchildren, but it is also helping
(13:48):
families and caregivers andparents to make sure that they
can do the things they need todo to be able to help kids from
a very functional perspective aswell.
One of the things I'm curiousabout is, is this one of those
points where people werestretched too far, that this was
too painful, that earlychildhood education, that mental
health care, just child care inand of itself, right?
(14:10):
The functional piece that Ithink most many people find in
there.
I wonder if that stretched folkstoo far and that they did call
and write and talk to theircongresspeople to say, nope, we
can't do that.
So I'm curious if that is a noteand a place for optimism in
what's going on right now um i'msure hopeful that it is all
right our second story and johni'm so glad you're here for this
(14:34):
one in 2023 saint isidore uh inoklahoma wanted to open a
catholic online charter schoolin oklahoma and the state's
charter school board approved ithowever oklahoma's attorney
general a truly oklahoman firstname here gentner drummond i
mean that just you know uh It'sa wonderful name.
(14:56):
Sued, arguing that this violatedthe state's rule against
religion in public schools.
The charter school board, St.
Isidore, and the Trumpadministration all countered
that St.
Isidore isn't a public school,so public school religion rules
don't apply.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett didnot take part.
She recused herself from thiscase, which is interesting to
(15:18):
me.
John, as our resident legalscholar...
Help us understand what's goingon here.
Why does it matter?
SPEAKER_02 (15:26):
It is a complicated case, raising two big issues.
One, are charter schools publicschools?
Can I
SPEAKER_03 (15:33):
give you my knee-jerk reaction?
SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:35):
Yes, they are.
I
SPEAKER_01 (15:38):
think so, too.
SPEAKER_03 (15:39):
All right.
Well, why did we even need to goto the Supreme Court on that
one, John?
Done.
Move on.
But you're about to tell ussomething we don't want to hear.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02 (15:48):
Well, there's...
conflicting case law and that'smaybe part of why the supreme
court took this case so we had acase in arizona saying public
schools are not uh and in northcarolina we had a case saying
public schools are public orcharter schools are public
SPEAKER_03 (16:04):
well in my understanding is that in north
carolina their state law alsosays that public that charter
schools are public isn't that
SPEAKER_02 (16:12):
that's true in either arizona or oklahoma oh
okay state constitution there'sthe Every state that has charter
schools has an enabling statute,the statute that allows for
charter schools.
And in multiple states, itexplicitly says charter schools
are public schools.
So you can understand whyStephanie and I
SPEAKER_03 (16:33):
are pretty sure that charter schools are public
schools.
So we're going to get a ruling.
We think, we don't know what thejustices are going to put in
their decision, but we arelikely to find out what
constitutes public versusprivate in a charter school
setting on this one?
SPEAKER_02 (16:53):
We will get a Supreme Court decision about
whether charter schools arepublic or private.
That's something we've beenwaiting on for a long time,
actually.
SPEAKER_03 (17:01):
And do you think it's going to be that clear cut?
Because given what you justexplained, right, that if state
statutes say charter schools arepublic and we have cases that
say, in some cases, charterschools are not public, do you
think that they're going to puta plate of spaghetti in their
decision that says like, yeah,sometimes they're public and
sometimes they're private.
SPEAKER_02 (17:22):
If I had to guess, I would say where the Supreme
Court comes down on this issueis it's state-specific.
And so depending on how theenabling statute is written will
determine whether it's public orprivate.
And then, so then they mightlook at Oklahoma specifically
and say, well, in this case, itis one or the other because of
(17:44):
the way that the system is setup, which is about questions
like how much control does thestate have over what the private
entity does?
So in this case, it's thediocese of Oklahoma um, Oklahoma
or something.
Um, and how much control doesthe state have versus the, the
(18:05):
entity that's being contractedto for providing the education.
So once we get, yeah,
SPEAKER_03 (18:12):
if we find that, that all charter schools are
public schools, then I thinkthat ends the conversation for
the second question you broughtup.
Um, but let's assume, um, thatperhaps I don't have as much
reason to be optimistic here andthat in some cases, charter
schools are private.
They can get public money forreligious reasons?
SPEAKER_02 (18:34):
It's a bit more complicated than that.
SPEAKER_03 (18:36):
That's unexpected as an answer.
SPEAKER_02 (18:38):
Well, yeah.
So Oklahoma, like other states,has a statute that says we can't
use public funds for religiousinstruction.
That's not a federal law.
That's state law.
And so...
they could defer to state lawhere but really either way
there's still whether it'scharter schools are public or
(18:59):
even if they're private, there'sstill a consideration about
whether religious instructioncan occur in these schools.
And this is about, we have manyclauses of the First Amendment.
There's the free speech clause,the free association clause,
free press, all that.
We also have two, not one, buttwo religion clauses in the
First Amendment.
(19:19):
There's the establishment clauseand the free exercise clause.
The establishment clause isbasically like, you know, comes
from our history of leavingEngland and leaving the church
there and saying like, we don'twant our government telling us
how and what to worship.
Free Exercise Clause says,however, we have, it doesn't say
(19:39):
however, it says we have theright to kind of really practice
our own religion.
And often those are intention,and I believe it was Chief
Justice Roberts in one of thesecases said there's play in the
joints between those twoclauses.
One argument is that theEstablishment Clause suggests
that we shouldn't be– if statemoney is funding religious
(20:02):
instruction, then that's thestate promoting establishing
religion.
SPEAKER_03 (20:06):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (20:07):
Yes, but– No,
SPEAKER_03 (20:09):
I hate it.
Stop–
SPEAKER_02 (20:11):
Stop
SPEAKER_03 (20:12):
doing that.
SPEAKER_02 (20:13):
Yeah, I got a butt here.
So there's multiple cases nowthat suggest that the free
exercise clause, and I'm makingthis pun on purpose, the free
exercise clause trumps theestablishment clause.
Your
SPEAKER_03 (20:28):
puns are bad and your answer is unsatisfying.
SPEAKER_02 (20:32):
Yes.
Yeah, and so the idea is thatfor...
a state to say these funds can'tgo to a religious institution is
to a number of members of thisSupreme Court, it is
discrimination against religion.
And so it violates the freeexercise clause.
SPEAKER_03 (20:51):
So I was looking at some of the prep materials
around this issue.
And the idea being that justbecause you are religious
doesn't mean you shouldn't beable to throw in to run a school
like someone who is notreligious.
SPEAKER_02 (21:06):
And that's consistent with two of the more
or three of the more recentSupreme Court cases.
One example being, it was inMissouri, I believe, there was a
program where you could getfunds to upgrade your
playground.
And there was a church schoolthat applied for this funding.
But similarly in Missouri, theyhad a law that said we can't use
public funds for religiousinstruction.
(21:28):
And so this church school wastold that they did not win the
lottery and did not get thefunds because state law says we
can't give funds to you.
They sued and went to theSupreme Court and the Supreme
Court said, this church schoolwas denied the money simply
because they are a religiousentity and that's discrimination
against religion.
That's a violation of the freeexercise clause.
(21:49):
So that's the first of threecases like that, which is
really, again, getting us to thepoint where the courts are now
saying for all intents andpurposes, the free exercise
clause, again, trumps the, Theestablishment clause, and the
establishment clause is the onethat puts this so-called wall
(22:09):
between church and state.
But what we have over time withthese court decisions is the
free exercise clause justchopping away at that wall.
It's now a rickety old fence.
And I think by the time thiscase is decided, it will be
maybe a single fence post atbest.
SPEAKER_03 (22:29):
I don't care for that imagery as somebody who
likes that part of theConstitution a
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
lot.
Yeah, right.
I'm on the same
SPEAKER_03 (22:40):
page.
John, why would you as aneducator, would I as an
educator, would Stephanie as aneducator care if this is not an
issue local?
Is there something larger atplay here that we should be
thinking about?
SPEAKER_02 (22:54):
Yeah, I mean, the most negative...
association I would have is thatit's part of a Christian
nationalist agenda.
And so we should care aboutthat.
It's opening up the doors to allof our funds going to promote
that kind of agenda.
That's maybe super cynical.
(23:17):
But I also think we know thatfunding is limited,
unfortunately.
And so if more of the funds nowgets spread out to, if we allow
all these private religiousschools to now just convert to
charter schools, now I've got tokind of spread the pie of
funding even further.
And so we have less availablepublic funding for the existing
(23:39):
public schools.
SPEAKER_00 (23:40):
If charter schools are considered this weird kind
of in between public or privatespace, that it would almost
behoove them or behoove aprivate school, private
religious school to say, Oh, wedon't want to be private
anymore.
We want to be charter becausethen we can get our hands on
(24:02):
some of that money instead.
And it sounds
SPEAKER_03 (24:04):
like they can, they'd be both now, right.
That I can be a private charterschool and get public money.
Is that kind of where we'reheaded?
A private religious charterschool receiving public money
SPEAKER_02 (24:16):
the same way.
I mean, it would essentially be,I don't know, sort of wipe away
the distinction between publicand private altogether, which
is, you know, another part ofthe agenda here is that some
would say this is part of thelarger agenda to privatize
public education.
SPEAKER_00 (24:30):
What does that mean?
To privatize education.
I really have a hard time withthat.
Like when I hear it, when Ithink about it, I have a hard
time wrapping my brain aroundit.
And if I have a hard timewrapping my brain around it, I
imagine others do too.
SPEAKER_02 (24:44):
I've long had a hard time kind of operationalizing
what it means too, but I thinkit's moving toward a full kind
of school choice agenda so thateverything becomes a charter
school where we have vouchers.
A lot of the school choice stuffgoes back to Milton Freeman,
whose idea was just give moneyto the parents and let them make
(25:05):
a decision about where they wanttheir kids to go to school.
SPEAKER_03 (25:09):
That assumes that everybody has all of the
information necessary to make aninformed decision.
SPEAKER_02 (25:15):
Yes.
Free markets assume perfectinformation.
Yes.
And it
SPEAKER_03 (25:19):
also assumes...
everybody can get the servicesthey need, right?
So one of the pieces here that Ithink is important and key is
that if you are a family ofsomebody who receives special
education services, right?
Private schools do not have thesame requirements around them to
provide those children withservices.
You can say in many cases, wedon't have the resources
(25:41):
necessary to meet your child'sneeds.
You'll have to go somewhereelse.
And as we have moved much ofthat money in from traditional
public schools and folks haveleft them, then we have less
money left to to provide theservices that those students
need, not to mention they aren'tgonna be around their peers in
the same way as if we kind ofdistribute kids across a system
(26:01):
that's driven by the market.
SPEAKER_02 (26:03):
And can they even access the services that they
need?
A full choice system might workin a Boston or New York where
there's public transportationand that sort of thing.
But in a lot of areas, if a kidneeds services, special
education services, they're notoften kind of right around the
corner or on a stop on thesubway somewhere.
(26:27):
So it wouldn't work for a lot ofkids.
SPEAKER_03 (26:30):
All right.
Our last story of Ed in the Newsis another– Another tribute to
the First Amendment.
This one is another SCOTUS case,which stands for Supreme Court
of the United States, is hearinga case from parents of
Montgomery County in Maryland.
They wanted to opt theirchildren out of reading some
books.
(26:51):
Our friends at the 74 Millionwrite, the dispute began almost
three years ago in the 22-23school year.
when the county unveiled a listof LGBTQ plus inclusive texts
for use in the classroom,including books for grades as
low as kindergarten and pre-K.
So the argument here that theschool board is making is like,
we're just reading some books.
(27:12):
We are not actually trying tochange people's minds about
their religious beliefs or whatthey want.
The parents groups say we shouldbe able to opt our kids out of
reading these materials.
They go against our faith.
It should be noted here alsothat this is an interfaith group
of parents, right?
So we have Muslim parents,Catholic parents, and Ukrainian
(27:36):
Orthodox parents who are part ofthe plaintiffs in this case.
I'm going to go first here.
As somebody who ran Englishlanguage arts at a district
level, I read this case and Ijust say to myself, just let
them opt out.
Build that in.
from the very beginning, letthem opt out.
And then I would also say, keepparents in the loop, right?
(27:59):
So the story, especially for theway the 74 million writes it, is
talking about unveiling thislist, right?
So making it come as a surpriseto a community that we know
could have some friction withthis list versus building an
inclusive coalition in as muchas you can to let that happen.
And I know Stephanie, you comeat this a little bit differently
(28:21):
than I am.
I
SPEAKER_00 (28:25):
have a hard time with it.
You know, I don't think talkingabout families that exist in the
real world is coercion.
And there's this argument thatkids are too young to talk about
it because it's sexuallycharged.
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
None of it's sexually charged.
You grew up in a family that hasa mom and a dad.
Do you talk about anything elseabout that when you're young?
(28:46):
No.
You wait until...
You mean the sex?
What?
SPEAKER_03 (28:49):
You mean the sex?
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
Yeah, the sex part.
That part.
In the
SPEAKER_03 (28:52):
same way that we can talk about racism and inequity
in the podcast, we can say theword sex.
I don't think the preschoolersare on the podcast right now.
SPEAKER_00 (29:00):
No, they're not.
Hopefully not anyway.
But like, yeah, the...
It's the grownups that are doingthe sexualization when we talk
about relationships and how theyexist.
You can have a conversation withyour preschool kid.
I know because I have one and wehad this conversation earlier.
I have a friend who has twodads.
Cool, good for you.
(29:21):
And that was the end of theconversation.
It's not a moral conversation tome.
It's a thing that happens out inthe wild, right?
Like just because you want youreyes to be closed does not mean
that it is not happening.
SPEAKER_02 (29:33):
Let me see if I can moderate for this.
Yeah, he's going to bring in allthe...
Yes, please.
The response to Stephanie wouldbe, if I'm putting on my
plaintiff's hat here, theresponse is, okay, that's great
if you think that way and you'redoing what you want to do as a
parent, but that's you being aparent.
(29:53):
We in the school shouldn't haveto have those conversations in
schools.
If you want to talk about awedding between two men, feel
free to do that as a parent, asan individual, you have the
right to do that, but weshouldn't do it in school.
Now, I'm just saying that's whatthey would argue.
To Zach's point, why not letthem opt out?
(30:14):
I actually listened to the oralarguments in Supreme Court live.
That was pretty fascinating.
And the school districtattorney, school board attorney
in Montgomery County, I thoughtdid a pretty good job And one of
his arguments was, and I thinkthis is contested a little bit,
but he said that, so the historyhere is they had an opt-out
(30:35):
policy, like most districts dofor all these things.
A lot of families that opt outof like sex ed class and that
sort of stuff.
And Montgomery County did havean opt-out policy, but they
rescinded it recently becausepost-pandemic, mid-pandemic, to
post-pandemic, we have thisparental rights movement, right?
(30:56):
And suddenly we have all thesefamilies who are like, wait a
minute, we get to decide how ourkids are educated and what they
learn in schools.
And so what they said inMontgomery County is amidst that
movement, the opt-out thingbecame untenable.
They had so many requests offamilies trying to opt out that
(31:16):
they had to...
staff that request with a wholeperson whose whole job was
trying to manage all theseopt-out requests.
And so they decided that theyhad a mission and they had to
fulfill that mission.
And so they were going toeffectively rescind their
opt-out policy.
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
Can I ask a question to clarify?
So you said that the parentssaid they have the right to
decide what their kids arelearning.
I feel like that's calledhomeschooling.
SPEAKER_02 (31:46):
I'm totally understanding.
I'm empathetic to that argument.
The trouble I have with it isnot everyone has the ability to
homeschool.
So if you say to them, well, ifyou don't want that, go to
private school, homeschool.
That's against the purposes ofpublic education, really.
So it's a difficult argument.
SPEAKER_03 (32:09):
If you don't like it, then leave.
Isn't quite the welcomingatmosphere that you want in a
public school system.
SPEAKER_00 (32:15):
Yes, yes,
SPEAKER_03 (32:16):
yes.
SPEAKER_00 (32:17):
But that's also, school boards approve it, right?
School boards approve.
Members of the community cancome in and give their testimony
and then the school boardultimately votes one way or
another, right?
I mean, that's how it happens inmy little neck of the woods.
SPEAKER_03 (32:31):
Sure.
I think down to the book listingisn't always a school board
piece.
What I would say is that thisdidn't ever need to become a
legal problem.
And I think maybe that's my letthem opt out piece is like this
shouldn't have gotten to theSupreme Court and it's not
really helpful.
I don't think it's going to behelpful to us when this
(32:52):
particular Supreme Court decideson this case.
I don't think it is going to behelpful to those of us who want
to increase equity,representation, and inclusivity
because this court doesn't seemto think that's important in
education and they aren'tteachers.
There's a process piece in herethat says bring the folks along
(33:12):
with you.
Because if you're getting thatmany folks opting out, then we
just don't know how to have aconversation anymore about these
pieces.
I don't know that everybody'sinterested in the conversation,
but I think that's the piece oflike, if this is where we went
with Pride Puppy, the story of apuppy who gets lost at a pride
(33:35):
parade, if that's where thatwent for folks, then I think
other pieces broke before we getto the who decides what we read
question.
SPEAKER_02 (33:43):
Yeah, I hear that, but here's where I think I'm
more with Stephanie.
No, I
SPEAKER_03 (33:48):
want you on my side, John.
SPEAKER_02 (33:50):
Reading The Pride Puppies is consistent with the
district's mission and values.
And that one book is exposingkids to the realities of the
world.
It's not the reality of theworld that every parent has a
(34:10):
mother and a father.
SPEAKER_03 (34:11):
So I'm a person who has made that argument as a
single gay dad.
I feel like people who arelistening to the podcast for the
first time are going to be like,I hear that white straight man
talking.
I just got to know.
People know I have skin in thisgame.
I hear that.
I've made that argument.
The argument that comes back tome on that one is, okay, there's
(34:32):
a lot of reality in the world.
Why does this have to be the onewe're talking about right now?
The entirety of the world iscomplex.
Why does it have to be this?
Does the mission of theMontgomery County School Board
say LGBTQ plus is job one?
SPEAKER_02 (34:50):
No, but part of the mission of the Montgomery County
Schools is to prepare kids to beproductive members of society.
And so
SPEAKER_03 (35:02):
you're saying that LGBTQ plus people are inherently
part of society and we're
SPEAKER_02 (35:09):
everywhere you go?
I'm radical like that.
SPEAKER_03 (35:12):
And you're saying that it's possible when we go
about our business at thegrocery store and such, we
aren't inherently talking aboutour sex lives?
SPEAKER_02 (35:21):
Oh, well, I can't.
I mean, I assume you're walkingaround.
I assume you're walking aroundon speedos.
Is that right?
SPEAKER_03 (35:27):
No, I'm not.
Nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that ever.
So in that humor, right?
Every piece of humor is rootedin truth.
Is it this?
Do we think that this argumentcomes from a misunderstanding?
Right?
And so these preconceivednotions of what these books are
going to be talking about aren'tnecessarily problematic?
Yeah.
But we assume they are becausewe think we have to talk, I
(35:48):
think to your point, Stephanie,parents think they have to talk
about every aspect of sexualitywhen talking about who people
love?
SPEAKER_02 (35:55):
Well, you know, there's an important part of the
legal issue here, which is thatthe language of the First
Amendment is that the statecan't burden the free exercise
of religion.
And so a lot of what was beinglitigated in front of the
Supreme Court was, what does itmean to be burdened here?
And so is...
seeing a picture in a book oftwo men holding hands does that
(36:19):
burden someone's exercise oftheir religion does being read a
book about those two men burdentheir religion
SPEAKER_03 (36:29):
because i can still read that book and see that
picture and think oh that'swrong if that is how i believe
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
that's that's the argument of the school district
yes
SPEAKER_03 (36:38):
which is as also a former english teacher We often
talked about that.
There's a whole literarycriticism branch on reader
response, and it's superimportant.
John, you listened to thearguments here.
You listened to the justices.
How are you thinking this isgoing to come down?
SPEAKER_02 (36:57):
I'm not hopeful because on matters of religion,
the Supreme Court is not as...
objective as they would like.
So there was a decision not longago.
This is about the football teamthat was praying kind of at the
direction of the coach.
Kennedy v.
Bremerton was the case.
And if you read all the lowercourt opinions, you read all the
(37:22):
pleadings, and then you read theopinion that was written.
I think it was Neil Gorsuch whowrote the opinion.
he kind of manipulated the factsof the case to get to the
decision he wanted to get to.
It's really one of the moredisconcerting things as someone
who likes to believe in thecredibility of the court.
(37:44):
That opinion really shook mebecause I believe, I really do
believe that he, in his majorityopinion, wrote of the facts
correctly.
in ways that are not reallyrepresenting what actually
happened.
And so I'm not hopeful that thisSupreme Court will look at
religion issues in a truly ballsand strikes kind of way.
SPEAKER_03 (38:09):
That's not what I wanted you to say.
SPEAKER_02 (38:11):
Yeah.
Sorry.
SPEAKER_03 (38:13):
What are we wondering as we think about this
in the larger context?
And what do we think for folkswho are listening?
What would be some pieces youhope they're wondering about?
I
SPEAKER_00 (38:21):
wonder at what point in time do we just acknowledge
that it's okay to talk about thefact that people exist and are
worthy of our time andconsideration, even if they are
different from us.
SPEAKER_02 (38:35):
Can I turn my wondering back onto the two of
you quickly?
Because you've been classroomteachers.
Oh, no.
I mean, what would it be likefor you if you were teaching a
book and, I don't know, let'ssay eight out of the 25 kids had
to opt out?
SPEAKER_00 (38:51):
What's the point?
SPEAKER_02 (38:52):
What would you do?
SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
Yeah, I'd pick a different book, right?
I'd pick a book where myclassroom was in swing the
opposite direction, you know,because otherwise I'm teaching a
unit for eight out of 25 kids.
in San Diego, it would be 36,right?
(39:14):
And so eight out of 36, thosemargins are not great.
And so when I say kind of tonguein cheek, what's the point?
It's real.
What is my lesson and what otherbook or, or whatever, what other
material can I use that wouldallow me to have more students
to participate in that learning?
SPEAKER_03 (39:34):
I mean, I was an English teacher, um, I did this,
but I did it not out of fear.
I did it realizing that my goalwas to get people reading.
That opening up books and justgetting them reading was the
biggest piece.
So when we did a shared text, Itried to make it a text that we
(39:58):
could all find access to.
And when I wanted to includebooks that were broader and
perhaps more challengingideologically.
I tried to make sure that it wasbroad and ideologically
challenging across multiplegroups, right?
So that every kid had to readsomething that maybe made them
think differently about theworld and the people in it.
(40:21):
But if they weren't ready for aspecific topic or they didn't
feel comfortable, right?
There are also reasons you mightnot want to read a book about a
gay person if you are a closetedgay kid, right?
So there are other reasons,right?
that might not have anything todo with kind of your religious
beliefs on something.
It could just be about your owninternalized pieces.
(40:46):
So I tried to make sure that noteverybody was forced to do a
certain thing when I thoughtthat the content might be the
thing that people had problemswith.
So every book was challenging.
Every book made us thinkdifferently.
Part of the craft and practiceof a teacher is to get us
thinking, how does this apply toother things?
in a textual form.
But anticipating that peoplemight want to opt out of
(41:07):
something, I always made surethat we gave options so that I
didn't have to rejigger thatthinking.
My worry is that we don'tnecessarily have a lot of
teachers who have embraced thosepractices, or we have a lot of
folks who are still married tothe whole class novel.
It takes time, and it takessupport, and it takes...
(41:30):
trial and error to move that andshift that practice.
So instead of doing that or in asystem where I don't have the
supports I need, I'm going topick the safer book.
I'm going to keep teachingGatsby and I'm going to keep,
which is, immensely problematic,but nobody seems to notice, or
I'm going to keep teaching MobyDick, or I'm going to keep
(41:50):
teaching Of Mice and Men.
I'm going to stay with thosebooks if I don't have the
support I need to thinkdifferently about my practice.
And that's my worry.
Because I don't know if you'veseen the rest of the budget, but
we're not putting a lot of moneyinto upskilling and giving
teachers the professionalsupport they need.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
Unless it's for AI.
SPEAKER_02 (42:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like what I'mhearing from the two of you is
that should the Supreme Courtdecide that these families did
have the right to opt out, it'snot necessarily unmanageable and
it's pedagogically something wecan overcome.
My worry to that is that it'sokay to think that way in the
(42:36):
context of this one case, butwhen you put this case together
with the Oklahoma case and theother cases, what we're getting
is more and more decisions thatprivilege religion over other
things.
And so it's hard for me to lookat this case on its own and not
(42:56):
part of some larger agenda inthis country.
SPEAKER_00 (43:00):
This is where I'm immensely grateful.
that I was a former mathteacher.
Most of the time, people do notget all bent out of shape when I
start to teach the Pythagoreantheorem, right?
SPEAKER_03 (43:10):
What if I talk about new math?
SPEAKER_00 (43:12):
Hey, you know what?
New math should have been themath all along.
SPEAKER_03 (43:16):
Whoa.
See, that's going to be what weget email about, Stephanie.
That's going to be the one thingpeople are like.
As this is the story that Ibrought to the table, I do want
to say this, and it came up insome conversations Stephanie and
I had offline.
don't necessarily want folks tobe compelled to read these books
i want people to not want toavoid these books and i and i
(43:40):
think that like when i keepsaying this shouldn't go to the
supreme court i think it is anindicator of the conversations
we're no longer having to helppeople get to a place of like oh
it's okay if my kid does thatand they can still like my faith
is strong enough that I canencounter something that I maybe
don't understand or necessarilyagree with right off the bat,
(44:01):
but I can see the humanity inthat person.
And that's the piece, right?
The Supreme Court's going todecide what they decide.
We have some real work to do increating conversations that help
people have conversations.
SPEAKER_02 (44:14):
And my concern is that they took up this case
specifically to head off theconversations that you want to
have, Zach.
SPEAKER_03 (44:21):
Yeah.
But that's okay.
We've got a podcast now.
John Becker, it has been apleasure.
And I will say, because of thelegal system in America, deeply
unsatisfying to have thisconversation with you.
Thank you so much for makingtime to talk with us.
SPEAKER_00 (44:41):
Yes, yes.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (44:43):
We hope that you liked it enough to come back
later when we don't understandthe law again.
SPEAKER_02 (44:46):
Happy to do it.
I often say I have a face forpodcasting, so I'm happy to come
back.
SPEAKER_03 (44:53):
You're the one who wanted me in a Speedo.
And now that I've brought backthat ridiculous image, thank you
to everybody listening to thisepisode of Academic
Distinctions.
Please remember to subscribe.
And if you could just take aminute to give us a five-star
review and let us know you lovethis.
It helps us to spread the wordof academic distinctions to new
(45:15):
listeners across the world.
Join us next time in a couple ofdays where we have a mini
episode examining somethingcalled Bloom's Taxonomy.
Pretty familiar to anybody inthe education sphere, but you've
probably never heard of ifyou've never been a teacher.
Join us then.
For Stephanie Melville, I'm ZachChase, and thanks again to John
(45:40):
McElroy.
Hi, I'm Zach Chase.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
And I'm Stephanie Melville.
SPEAKER_03 (00:17):
Welcome to Academic Distinctions, a podcast to make
sense of American education.
(00:47):
PhD in the politics of educationfrom Teachers College, Columbia
University.
As always, in this episode, weare going to build some context
around three stories affectingpublic education in America.
We're so glad to have John withus to build some context to pull
apart some of the thorny legalissues woven into each.
John, it's good to have you.
SPEAKER_02 (01:09):
Good to be here.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_03 (01:11):
As we were looking at the news going on around the
country with public education,we realized that neither
Stephanie nor I had the legalchops necessary to really
provide context.
So we're glad you're here.
We hope you'll come back.
We'll hope this is not apainful, painful process for
you.
SPEAKER_02 (01:24):
It shouldn't be.
And maybe this is when I add myusual disclaimer, which is that
while I have a law degree, I'mofficially retired from the
practice of law.
So what that means is I canrender my understanding and my
opinion, but nothing I sayshould be construed as legal
advice.
So there you go.
SPEAKER_03 (01:45):
And nothing Stephanie or Ash ever say should
be construed as legal advice atall.
Definitely.
So jump in.
Our first story comes from theland of Head Start.
A month ago, federal grants werefrozen, causing many Head Start
branches to shut downoperations.
We were recording on Monday.
(02:05):
There was a pretty goodindication at the end of last
week that Head Start was goingto be completely zeroed out in
the proposed education budgetfor this year.
That budget has come out.
The But as we were planning thisepisode, we said, we think it's
probably a good idea becauseit's not going to be the last
(02:27):
time.
And it certainly wasn't thefirst time that Head Start was
on the chopping block.
So we're going to tackle thisone, look a little bit into Head
Start and why it's important andwhat this willingness to put the
future of America's youngestchildren at risk kind of
indicates for the world in whichwe live and what the shift in
(02:50):
policy might indicate forpotential optimism.
Stephanie, what do you thinkabout this Head Start
possibility of elimination?
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Yeah, so as somebody who has used Head Start services
before, so first of all, itshould be noted that Head Start
talks about or offers servicesfor early learning, providing
meals for students, vision andhearing services, benefits,
(03:22):
developmental screenings, dentalcare for almost a million
children across the country,which is kind of a big deal.
And this proposed, the leakedproposed budget said that the
federal government should not bein the business of mandating
curriculum locations andperformance standards for any
form of education.
(03:43):
So for me, just looking at thisand thinking about it as a whole
as somebody who, like I said,has used Head Start services for
one of their children as itpertained to mental health
services and parenting classesfor myself.
I have a child who deals withsome big feelings and I needed
(04:04):
some support services on how tohelp my kiddo get through those
big feelings moments.
And without Head Start, I wouldhave had to maybe go through my
insurance, which sounds like notthat big of a deal, but it is a
big deal because I don't know ifanybody's tried to get mental
(04:25):
health services support sincepandemic, but there's months and
months of backlogs.
And it was something that hitclose to home here.
And I think besides thatinformation and the resources
that they provide in thatregard, You know, it's not just
(04:45):
health services, but it's alsopreschools and, you know,
putting a preschool out ofbusiness prevents a parent to go
to work.
You know, it's a way to keeppoor families poor.
And, you know, when you thinkabout the fact that we're
(05:06):
already battling with droppingassessment scores and
proficiencies across thecountry, why are we taking away
a resource for students to get ahead start at learning?
It just, it didn't make sense tome.
So I'm actually really glad thatso far it has seemed to avoid
the chopping block.
SPEAKER_03 (05:27):
John, hot takes.
SPEAKER_02 (05:29):
I have trouble reconciling this with an agenda
that's pro-life, that'spro-natalist.
I mean, if we really want peopleto have more healthy, thriving
children than we need to givethem supports.
And the other piece of it is, Idon't believe we've learned very
much from the pandemic.
(05:50):
And Stephanie mentioned thepandemic.
And if there's one thing welearned, it's that parents need
help in raising their kids.
And here we have the government,at least initially, proposing to
take away a really importantsource of help.
So I just think it's...
That it was even on the choppingblock is hard to reconcile with
(06:12):
other parts of the agenda that'skind of dominating today.
SPEAKER_03 (06:16):
Such as a week and a half ago, how can we induce...
it's pun intended, people tohave more babies, right?
So there's this, like thejuxtaposition right now of
saying like, we want everybodyto have more kids.
And also we want to take awayany supports and hope that they
might have for being successful,reading, dealing with their
(06:40):
emotions, any of those things.
Yeah.
What else?
I
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
would add to, I would second Stephanie's point
about kind of keeping poorfamilies poorer.
Frankly, we've never invested inhigh-quality early childhood
education in this country atscale.
And I think part of the reasonis I believe certain elected
officials and parts of theelectorate realize that
(07:06):
high-quality early childhoodeducation would level the
playing field in ways that makecertain people uncomfortable.
I've long believed that.
There's a good bit of, you know,a lot of research about kind of
the...
Tremendous benefits of a highquality
SPEAKER_03 (07:23):
early childhood education.
But Stephanie, as you said, thisis preschool, this is mental
health, this is parenting help,this is really giving the head
start that's necessary to eventhe playing field.
(07:44):
John, you took great pains ingymnastically avoiding words
like poverty and people of colorand equity.
It's okay.
in, in the administration ofthis particular podcast, those
are all words we can use.
Uh,
SPEAKER_02 (07:57):
but I'm in Virginia.
I'm not, I'm not sure I can usethem in Virginia.
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
Oh, that's okay.
Uh, we're recording across thecountry, so we'll find you a
sanctuary.
Um, but in, in doing research ofheadstart, I thought, well, but
where do they fall down?
And I was hard pressed to findany quality research that says,
you know, headstart doesn'treturn on investment.
And I think that's a reallyimportant piece is pointing out
again, we, we talked in our lastepisode, uh, A bit about civil
(08:24):
rights.
We talked about the use of TitleVI.
We talked about these wordsabout efficiency.
Head Start returns on theinvestment we make in children,
right?
And it keeps...
Not only does it help thembecome more academically
successful, right?
But we are keeping...
adults out of the prison system,right?
We are keeping people out ofjail by giving them the
(08:46):
headstart that they need whenthey are young, right?
So you are much more likely togo to jail, to go to prison if
you have these tools for successthat you need to gain when you
are very, very young.
And so if we're talking aboutreturns on investment and
efficiencies, then this seems tobe one that you wouldn't want to
mess around with.
And I think that that's reallyimportant.
(09:07):
I think it's also reallyinteresting to talk about
overreach.
So as Stephanie, as you noted,the idea that Head Start is some
sort of federal overreach.
Well, if that's true, there aremany, many ways in a system to
reform something and pull backon the aspect that you thought
was overreach.
I think we know that it is bunk,right, that they didn't do that
(09:28):
because we're going to delete anentire program.
I think that just supports yourargument, John, that this wasn't
about overreach or saying thatthey're controlling a
curriculum.
This was about saying we want tokeep the playing field unlevel
for folks.
It is federal overreach in thatthe executive branch is...
(09:51):
supposed to carry out the willof the people, the will of
Congress, and that Congress hasapproved a budget for Head
Start, that Congress hasapproved the programs for Head
Start, that this is somethingthat the nation has said is
important.
And a very, very small group ofpeople are playing around with
children's futures as though itis the will of a larger group of
(10:11):
people.
SPEAKER_02 (10:12):
My mother was a longtime public school teacher
in the Bronx in New York City.
And shortly after she retired, Iremember I asked her, I said, if
you could change one thing aboutpublic education, what would it
be?
And she thought about it andthen said, kindergarten
readiness.
She said, I would not havekindergarten started at a
(10:33):
particular age.
I think we should make sureevery kid is ready for
kindergarten to start that way.
And that I thought about that,and I remember there's some
research about how the academicachievement trajectory of kids
is pretty much the same for allkids.
It's just that some start at aplace where they're not quite
(10:54):
academically or developmentallyready, and some start quite
ready, maybe even beyond ready.
And so they track in parallel,but the ones that started
unready are don't do as well asthe ones who started ready.
And so, you know, again, I thinkearly high quality, early
childhood education would maybeclose that gap at the beginning
so that we don't end up with thegaps that we have at the end.
SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Yeah.
And I think it's also worthnoting, John, kindergarten is
not compulsory across the entirecountry.
You know, there are many stateswhere kindergarten in and of
itself is not mandatory for kidsto go to.
So when we talk aboutkindergarten readiness in We're
really talking about first gradereadiness at that point in time.
And then when you take away asupport system, taking that
(11:40):
away, so many kids are not setup for success when they start.
And that's oftentimes somethingthat we don't look at for when
we look at things like whyaren't our test scores as great
as we want them to be.
SPEAKER_03 (11:54):
Stephanie, as you're looking at this particular news
story and moving forward, whatare we hoping?
Knowing that Head Start is inthis proposed budget right now,
what are you wondering as youlook at how this story plays
out?
SPEAKER_00 (12:06):
I want to know why it survived, but also I want to
know what the through line is.
We talked about it last week inour previous episode about why
things are happening and whycertain...
things are being cut or proposedto be cut, what's the through
line?
(12:26):
It can't really be that we'regiving states power.
I just don't buy that.
SPEAKER_03 (12:33):
John, what do you wonder as you look at this
story?
SPEAKER_02 (12:36):
I wonder if we'll ever truly invest in high
quality early childhoodeducation.
And to Stephanie's point, Iguess I wonder if the
demographics of the familiesserved by Head Start?
And is it disproportionatelymaybe in some redder areas?
And so those members of theelectorate sort of got with
(12:58):
their elected officials andsaid, Maybe this is something we
should keep in place.
That would be interesting toknow.
SPEAKER_03 (13:05):
I did a little digging in preparation for this
episode.
And yes, these impacts aredisproportionately affect rural
areas, affect places where thereare high instances of poverty.
One of the things I think mightplay out in answer to your
question, Stephanie, and a pointyou made early on, is that Head
(13:26):
Start also provides child careservices where there is no
childcare, right?
And so the elimination of HeadStart programming and the Head
Start budget would create newchildcare deserts across the
country, thus impactingemployment, thus impacting the
ability to pay your bills, allof those things.
So that Head Start is helpingchildren, but it is also helping
(13:48):
families and caregivers andparents to make sure that they
can do the things they need todo to be able to help kids from
a very functional perspective aswell.
One of the things I'm curiousabout is, is this one of those
points where people werestretched too far, that this was
too painful, that earlychildhood education, that mental
health care, just child care inand of itself, right?
(14:10):
The functional piece that Ithink most many people find in
there.
I wonder if that stretched folkstoo far and that they did call
and write and talk to theircongresspeople to say, nope, we
can't do that.
So I'm curious if that is a noteand a place for optimism in
what's going on right now um i'msure hopeful that it is all
right our second story and johni'm so glad you're here for this
(14:34):
one in 2023 saint isidore uh inoklahoma wanted to open a
catholic online charter schoolin oklahoma and the state's
charter school board approved ithowever oklahoma's attorney
general a truly oklahoman firstname here gentner drummond i
mean that just you know uh It'sa wonderful name.
(14:56):
Sued, arguing that this violatedthe state's rule against
religion in public schools.
The charter school board, St.
Isidore, and the Trumpadministration all countered
that St.
Isidore isn't a public school,so public school religion rules
don't apply.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett didnot take part.
She recused herself from thiscase, which is interesting to
(15:18):
me.
John, as our resident legalscholar...
Help us understand what's goingon here.
Why does it matter?
SPEAKER_02 (15:26):
It is a complicated case, raising two big issues.
One, are charter schools publicschools?
Can I
SPEAKER_03 (15:33):
give you my knee-jerk reaction?
SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:35):
Yes, they are.
I
SPEAKER_01 (15:38):
think so, too.
SPEAKER_03 (15:39):
All right.
Well, why did we even need to goto the Supreme Court on that
one, John?
Done.
Move on.
But you're about to tell ussomething we don't want to hear.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02 (15:48):
Well, there's...
conflicting case law and that'smaybe part of why the supreme
court took this case so we had acase in arizona saying public
schools are not uh and in northcarolina we had a case saying
public schools are public orcharter schools are public
SPEAKER_03 (16:04):
well in my understanding is that in north
carolina their state law alsosays that public that charter
schools are public isn't that
SPEAKER_02 (16:12):
that's true in either arizona or oklahoma oh
okay state constitution there'sthe Every state that has charter
schools has an enabling statute,the statute that allows for
charter schools.
And in multiple states, itexplicitly says charter schools
are public schools.
So you can understand whyStephanie and I
SPEAKER_03 (16:33):
are pretty sure that charter schools are public
schools.
So we're going to get a ruling.
We think, we don't know what thejustices are going to put in
their decision, but we arelikely to find out what
constitutes public versusprivate in a charter school
setting on this one?
SPEAKER_02 (16:53):
We will get a Supreme Court decision about
whether charter schools arepublic or private.
That's something we've beenwaiting on for a long time,
actually.
SPEAKER_03 (17:01):
And do you think it's going to be that clear cut?
Because given what you justexplained, right, that if state
statutes say charter schools arepublic and we have cases that
say, in some cases, charterschools are not public, do you
think that they're going to puta plate of spaghetti in their
decision that says like, yeah,sometimes they're public and
sometimes they're private.
SPEAKER_02 (17:22):
If I had to guess, I would say where the Supreme
Court comes down on this issueis it's state-specific.
And so depending on how theenabling statute is written will
determine whether it's public orprivate.
And then, so then they mightlook at Oklahoma specifically
and say, well, in this case, itis one or the other because of
(17:44):
the way that the system is setup, which is about questions
like how much control does thestate have over what the private
entity does?
So in this case, it's thediocese of Oklahoma um, Oklahoma
or something.
Um, and how much control doesthe state have versus the, the
(18:05):
entity that's being contractedto for providing the education.
So once we get, yeah,
SPEAKER_03 (18:12):
if we find that, that all charter schools are
public schools, then I thinkthat ends the conversation for
the second question you broughtup.
Um, but let's assume, um, thatperhaps I don't have as much
reason to be optimistic here andthat in some cases, charter
schools are private.
They can get public money forreligious reasons?
SPEAKER_02 (18:34):
It's a bit more complicated than that.
SPEAKER_03 (18:36):
That's unexpected as an answer.
SPEAKER_02 (18:38):
Well, yeah.
So Oklahoma, like other states,has a statute that says we can't
use public funds for religiousinstruction.
That's not a federal law.
That's state law.
And so...
they could defer to state lawhere but really either way
there's still whether it'scharter schools are public or
(18:59):
even if they're private, there'sstill a consideration about
whether religious instructioncan occur in these schools.
And this is about, we have manyclauses of the First Amendment.
There's the free speech clause,the free association clause,
free press, all that.
We also have two, not one, buttwo religion clauses in the
First Amendment.
(19:19):
There's the establishment clauseand the free exercise clause.
The establishment clause isbasically like, you know, comes
from our history of leavingEngland and leaving the church
there and saying like, we don'twant our government telling us
how and what to worship.
Free Exercise Clause says,however, we have, it doesn't say
(19:39):
however, it says we have theright to kind of really practice
our own religion.
And often those are intention,and I believe it was Chief
Justice Roberts in one of thesecases said there's play in the
joints between those twoclauses.
One argument is that theEstablishment Clause suggests
that we shouldn't be– if statemoney is funding religious
(20:02):
instruction, then that's thestate promoting establishing
religion.
SPEAKER_03 (20:06):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (20:07):
Yes, but– No,
SPEAKER_03 (20:09):
I hate it.
Stop–
SPEAKER_02 (20:11):
Stop
SPEAKER_03 (20:12):
doing that.
SPEAKER_02 (20:13):
Yeah, I got a butt here.
So there's multiple cases nowthat suggest that the free
exercise clause, and I'm makingthis pun on purpose, the free
exercise clause trumps theestablishment clause.
Your
SPEAKER_03 (20:28):
puns are bad and your answer is unsatisfying.
SPEAKER_02 (20:32):
Yes.
Yeah, and so the idea is thatfor...
a state to say these funds can'tgo to a religious institution is
to a number of members of thisSupreme Court, it is
discrimination against religion.
And so it violates the freeexercise clause.
SPEAKER_03 (20:51):
So I was looking at some of the prep materials
around this issue.
And the idea being that justbecause you are religious
doesn't mean you shouldn't beable to throw in to run a school
like someone who is notreligious.
SPEAKER_02 (21:06):
And that's consistent with two of the more
or three of the more recentSupreme Court cases.
One example being, it was inMissouri, I believe, there was a
program where you could getfunds to upgrade your
playground.
And there was a church schoolthat applied for this funding.
But similarly in Missouri, theyhad a law that said we can't use
public funds for religiousinstruction.
(21:28):
And so this church school wastold that they did not win the
lottery and did not get thefunds because state law says we
can't give funds to you.
They sued and went to theSupreme Court and the Supreme
Court said, this church schoolwas denied the money simply
because they are a religiousentity and that's discrimination
against religion.
That's a violation of the freeexercise clause.
(21:49):
So that's the first of threecases like that, which is
really, again, getting us to thepoint where the courts are now
saying for all intents andpurposes, the free exercise
clause, again, trumps the, Theestablishment clause, and the
establishment clause is the onethat puts this so-called wall
(22:09):
between church and state.
But what we have over time withthese court decisions is the
free exercise clause justchopping away at that wall.
It's now a rickety old fence.
And I think by the time thiscase is decided, it will be
maybe a single fence post atbest.
SPEAKER_03 (22:29):
I don't care for that imagery as somebody who
likes that part of theConstitution a
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
lot.
Yeah, right.
I'm on the same
SPEAKER_03 (22:40):
page.
John, why would you as aneducator, would I as an
educator, would Stephanie as aneducator care if this is not an
issue local?
Is there something larger atplay here that we should be
thinking about?
SPEAKER_02 (22:54):
Yeah, I mean, the most negative...
association I would have is thatit's part of a Christian
nationalist agenda.
And so we should care aboutthat.
It's opening up the doors to allof our funds going to promote
that kind of agenda.
That's maybe super cynical.
(23:17):
But I also think we know thatfunding is limited,
unfortunately.
And so if more of the funds nowgets spread out to, if we allow
all these private religiousschools to now just convert to
charter schools, now I've got tokind of spread the pie of
funding even further.
And so we have less availablepublic funding for the existing
(23:39):
public schools.
SPEAKER_00 (23:40):
If charter schools are considered this weird kind
of in between public or privatespace, that it would almost
behoove them or behoove aprivate school, private
religious school to say, Oh, wedon't want to be private
anymore.
We want to be charter becausethen we can get our hands on
(24:02):
some of that money instead.
And it sounds
SPEAKER_03 (24:04):
like they can, they'd be both now, right.
That I can be a private charterschool and get public money.
Is that kind of where we'reheaded?
A private religious charterschool receiving public money
SPEAKER_02 (24:16):
the same way.
I mean, it would essentially be,I don't know, sort of wipe away
the distinction between publicand private altogether, which
is, you know, another part ofthe agenda here is that some
would say this is part of thelarger agenda to privatize
public education.
SPEAKER_00 (24:30):
What does that mean?
To privatize education.
I really have a hard time withthat.
Like when I hear it, when Ithink about it, I have a hard
time wrapping my brain aroundit.
And if I have a hard timewrapping my brain around it, I
imagine others do too.
SPEAKER_02 (24:44):
I've long had a hard time kind of operationalizing
what it means too, but I thinkit's moving toward a full kind
of school choice agenda so thateverything becomes a charter
school where we have vouchers.
A lot of the school choice stuffgoes back to Milton Freeman,
whose idea was just give moneyto the parents and let them make
(25:05):
a decision about where they wanttheir kids to go to school.
SPEAKER_03 (25:09):
That assumes that everybody has all of the
information necessary to make aninformed decision.
SPEAKER_02 (25:15):
Yes.
Free markets assume perfectinformation.
Yes.
And it
SPEAKER_03 (25:19):
also assumes...
everybody can get the servicesthey need, right?
So one of the pieces here that Ithink is important and key is
that if you are a family ofsomebody who receives special
education services, right?
Private schools do not have thesame requirements around them to
provide those children withservices.
You can say in many cases, wedon't have the resources
(25:41):
necessary to meet your child'sneeds.
You'll have to go somewhereelse.
And as we have moved much ofthat money in from traditional
public schools and folks haveleft them, then we have less
money left to to provide theservices that those students
need, not to mention they aren'tgonna be around their peers in
the same way as if we kind ofdistribute kids across a system
(26:01):
that's driven by the market.
SPEAKER_02 (26:03):
And can they even access the services that they
need?
A full choice system might workin a Boston or New York where
there's public transportationand that sort of thing.
But in a lot of areas, if a kidneeds services, special
education services, they're notoften kind of right around the
corner or on a stop on thesubway somewhere.
(26:27):
So it wouldn't work for a lot ofkids.
SPEAKER_03 (26:30):
All right.
Our last story of Ed in the Newsis another– Another tribute to
the First Amendment.
This one is another SCOTUS case,which stands for Supreme Court
of the United States, is hearinga case from parents of
Montgomery County in Maryland.
They wanted to opt theirchildren out of reading some
books.
(26:51):
Our friends at the 74 Millionwrite, the dispute began almost
three years ago in the 22-23school year.
when the county unveiled a listof LGBTQ plus inclusive texts
for use in the classroom,including books for grades as
low as kindergarten and pre-K.
So the argument here that theschool board is making is like,
we're just reading some books.
(27:12):
We are not actually trying tochange people's minds about
their religious beliefs or whatthey want.
The parents groups say we shouldbe able to opt our kids out of
reading these materials.
They go against our faith.
It should be noted here alsothat this is an interfaith group
of parents, right?
So we have Muslim parents,Catholic parents, and Ukrainian
(27:36):
Orthodox parents who are part ofthe plaintiffs in this case.
I'm going to go first here.
As somebody who ran Englishlanguage arts at a district
level, I read this case and Ijust say to myself, just let
them opt out.
Build that in.
from the very beginning, letthem opt out.
And then I would also say, keepparents in the loop, right?
(27:59):
So the story, especially for theway the 74 million writes it, is
talking about unveiling thislist, right?
So making it come as a surpriseto a community that we know
could have some friction withthis list versus building an
inclusive coalition in as muchas you can to let that happen.
And I know Stephanie, you comeat this a little bit differently
(28:21):
than I am.
I
SPEAKER_00 (28:25):
have a hard time with it.
You know, I don't think talkingabout families that exist in the
real world is coercion.
And there's this argument thatkids are too young to talk about
it because it's sexuallycharged.
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
None of it's sexually charged.
You grew up in a family that hasa mom and a dad.
Do you talk about anything elseabout that when you're young?
(28:46):
No.
You wait until...
You mean the sex?
What?
SPEAKER_03 (28:49):
You mean the sex?
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
Yeah, the sex part.
That part.
In the
SPEAKER_03 (28:52):
same way that we can talk about racism and inequity
in the podcast, we can say theword sex.
I don't think the preschoolersare on the podcast right now.
SPEAKER_00 (29:00):
No, they're not.
Hopefully not anyway.
But like, yeah, the...
It's the grownups that are doingthe sexualization when we talk
about relationships and how theyexist.
You can have a conversation withyour preschool kid.
I know because I have one and wehad this conversation earlier.
I have a friend who has twodads.
Cool, good for you.
(29:21):
And that was the end of theconversation.
It's not a moral conversation tome.
It's a thing that happens out inthe wild, right?
Like just because you want youreyes to be closed does not mean
that it is not happening.
SPEAKER_02 (29:33):
Let me see if I can moderate for this.
Yeah, he's going to bring in allthe...
Yes, please.
The response to Stephanie wouldbe, if I'm putting on my
plaintiff's hat here, theresponse is, okay, that's great
if you think that way and you'redoing what you want to do as a
parent, but that's you being aparent.
(29:53):
We in the school shouldn't haveto have those conversations in
schools.
If you want to talk about awedding between two men, feel
free to do that as a parent, asan individual, you have the
right to do that, but weshouldn't do it in school.
Now, I'm just saying that's whatthey would argue.
To Zach's point, why not letthem opt out?
(30:14):
I actually listened to the oralarguments in Supreme Court live.
That was pretty fascinating.
And the school districtattorney, school board attorney
in Montgomery County, I thoughtdid a pretty good job And one of
his arguments was, and I thinkthis is contested a little bit,
but he said that, so the historyhere is they had an opt-out
(30:35):
policy, like most districts dofor all these things.
A lot of families that opt outof like sex ed class and that
sort of stuff.
And Montgomery County did havean opt-out policy, but they
rescinded it recently becausepost-pandemic, mid-pandemic, to
post-pandemic, we have thisparental rights movement, right?
(30:56):
And suddenly we have all thesefamilies who are like, wait a
minute, we get to decide how ourkids are educated and what they
learn in schools.
And so what they said inMontgomery County is amidst that
movement, the opt-out thingbecame untenable.
They had so many requests offamilies trying to opt out that
(31:16):
they had to...
staff that request with a wholeperson whose whole job was
trying to manage all theseopt-out requests.
And so they decided that theyhad a mission and they had to
fulfill that mission.
And so they were going toeffectively rescind their
opt-out policy.
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
Can I ask a question to clarify?
So you said that the parentssaid they have the right to
decide what their kids arelearning.
I feel like that's calledhomeschooling.
SPEAKER_02 (31:46):
I'm totally understanding.
I'm empathetic to that argument.
The trouble I have with it isnot everyone has the ability to
homeschool.
So if you say to them, well, ifyou don't want that, go to
private school, homeschool.
That's against the purposes ofpublic education, really.
So it's a difficult argument.
SPEAKER_03 (32:09):
If you don't like it, then leave.
Isn't quite the welcomingatmosphere that you want in a
public school system.
SPEAKER_00 (32:15):
Yes, yes,
SPEAKER_03 (32:16):
yes.
SPEAKER_00 (32:17):
But that's also, school boards approve it, right?
School boards approve.
Members of the community cancome in and give their testimony
and then the school boardultimately votes one way or
another, right?
I mean, that's how it happens inmy little neck of the woods.
SPEAKER_03 (32:31):
Sure.
I think down to the book listingisn't always a school board
piece.
What I would say is that thisdidn't ever need to become a
legal problem.
And I think maybe that's my letthem opt out piece is like this
shouldn't have gotten to theSupreme Court and it's not
really helpful.
I don't think it's going to behelpful to us when this
(32:52):
particular Supreme Court decideson this case.
I don't think it is going to behelpful to those of us who want
to increase equity,representation, and inclusivity
because this court doesn't seemto think that's important in
education and they aren'tteachers.
There's a process piece in herethat says bring the folks along
(33:12):
with you.
Because if you're getting thatmany folks opting out, then we
just don't know how to have aconversation anymore about these
pieces.
I don't know that everybody'sinterested in the conversation,
but I think that's the piece oflike, if this is where we went
with Pride Puppy, the story of apuppy who gets lost at a pride
(33:35):
parade, if that's where thatwent for folks, then I think
other pieces broke before we getto the who decides what we read
question.
SPEAKER_02 (33:43):
Yeah, I hear that, but here's where I think I'm
more with Stephanie.
No, I
SPEAKER_03 (33:48):
want you on my side, John.
SPEAKER_02 (33:50):
Reading The Pride Puppies is consistent with the
district's mission and values.
And that one book is exposingkids to the realities of the
world.
It's not the reality of theworld that every parent has a
(34:10):
mother and a father.
SPEAKER_03 (34:11):
So I'm a person who has made that argument as a
single gay dad.
I feel like people who arelistening to the podcast for the
first time are going to be like,I hear that white straight man
talking.
I just got to know.
People know I have skin in thisgame.
I hear that.
I've made that argument.
The argument that comes back tome on that one is, okay, there's
(34:32):
a lot of reality in the world.
Why does this have to be the onewe're talking about right now?
The entirety of the world iscomplex.
Why does it have to be this?
Does the mission of theMontgomery County School Board
say LGBTQ plus is job one?
SPEAKER_02 (34:50):
No, but part of the mission of the Montgomery County
Schools is to prepare kids to beproductive members of society.
And so
SPEAKER_03 (35:02):
you're saying that LGBTQ plus people are inherently
part of society and we're
SPEAKER_02 (35:09):
everywhere you go?
I'm radical like that.
SPEAKER_03 (35:12):
And you're saying that it's possible when we go
about our business at thegrocery store and such, we
aren't inherently talking aboutour sex lives?
SPEAKER_02 (35:21):
Oh, well, I can't.
I mean, I assume you're walkingaround.
I assume you're walking aroundon speedos.
Is that right?
SPEAKER_03 (35:27):
No, I'm not.
Nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that ever.
So in that humor, right?
Every piece of humor is rootedin truth.
Is it this?
Do we think that this argumentcomes from a misunderstanding?
Right?
And so these preconceivednotions of what these books are
going to be talking about aren'tnecessarily problematic?
Yeah.
But we assume they are becausewe think we have to talk, I
(35:48):
think to your point, Stephanie,parents think they have to talk
about every aspect of sexualitywhen talking about who people
love?
SPEAKER_02 (35:55):
Well, you know, there's an important part of the
legal issue here, which is thatthe language of the First
Amendment is that the statecan't burden the free exercise
of religion.
And so a lot of what was beinglitigated in front of the
Supreme Court was, what does itmean to be burdened here?
And so is...
seeing a picture in a book oftwo men holding hands does that
(36:19):
burden someone's exercise oftheir religion does being read a
book about those two men burdentheir religion
SPEAKER_03 (36:29):
because i can still read that book and see that
picture and think oh that'swrong if that is how i believe
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
that's that's the argument of the school district
yes
SPEAKER_03 (36:38):
which is as also a former english teacher We often
talked about that.
There's a whole literarycriticism branch on reader
response, and it's superimportant.
John, you listened to thearguments here.
You listened to the justices.
How are you thinking this isgoing to come down?
SPEAKER_02 (36:57):
I'm not hopeful because on matters of religion,
the Supreme Court is not as...
objective as they would like.
So there was a decision not longago.
This is about the football teamthat was praying kind of at the
direction of the coach.
Kennedy v.
Bremerton was the case.
And if you read all the lowercourt opinions, you read all the
(37:22):
pleadings, and then you read theopinion that was written.
I think it was Neil Gorsuch whowrote the opinion.
he kind of manipulated the factsof the case to get to the
decision he wanted to get to.
It's really one of the moredisconcerting things as someone
who likes to believe in thecredibility of the court.
(37:44):
That opinion really shook mebecause I believe, I really do
believe that he, in his majorityopinion, wrote of the facts
correctly.
in ways that are not reallyrepresenting what actually
happened.
And so I'm not hopeful that thisSupreme Court will look at
religion issues in a truly ballsand strikes kind of way.
SPEAKER_03 (38:09):
That's not what I wanted you to say.
SPEAKER_02 (38:11):
Yeah.
Sorry.
SPEAKER_03 (38:13):
What are we wondering as we think about this
in the larger context?
And what do we think for folkswho are listening?
What would be some pieces youhope they're wondering about?
I
SPEAKER_00 (38:21):
wonder at what point in time do we just acknowledge
that it's okay to talk about thefact that people exist and are
worthy of our time andconsideration, even if they are
different from us.
SPEAKER_02 (38:35):
Can I turn my wondering back onto the two of
you quickly?
Because you've been classroomteachers.
Oh, no.
I mean, what would it be likefor you if you were teaching a
book and, I don't know, let'ssay eight out of the 25 kids had
to opt out?
SPEAKER_00 (38:51):
What's the point?
SPEAKER_02 (38:52):
What would you do?
SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
Yeah, I'd pick a different book, right?
I'd pick a book where myclassroom was in swing the
opposite direction, you know,because otherwise I'm teaching a
unit for eight out of 25 kids.
in San Diego, it would be 36,right?
(39:14):
And so eight out of 36, thosemargins are not great.
And so when I say kind of tonguein cheek, what's the point?
It's real.
What is my lesson and what otherbook or, or whatever, what other
material can I use that wouldallow me to have more students
to participate in that learning?
SPEAKER_03 (39:34):
I mean, I was an English teacher, um, I did this,
but I did it not out of fear.
I did it realizing that my goalwas to get people reading.
That opening up books and justgetting them reading was the
biggest piece.
So when we did a shared text, Itried to make it a text that we
(39:58):
could all find access to.
And when I wanted to includebooks that were broader and
perhaps more challengingideologically.
I tried to make sure that it wasbroad and ideologically
challenging across multiplegroups, right?
So that every kid had to readsomething that maybe made them
think differently about theworld and the people in it.
(40:21):
But if they weren't ready for aspecific topic or they didn't
feel comfortable, right?
There are also reasons you mightnot want to read a book about a
gay person if you are a closetedgay kid, right?
So there are other reasons,right?
that might not have anything todo with kind of your religious
beliefs on something.
It could just be about your owninternalized pieces.
(40:46):
So I tried to make sure that noteverybody was forced to do a
certain thing when I thoughtthat the content might be the
thing that people had problemswith.
So every book was challenging.
Every book made us thinkdifferently.
Part of the craft and practiceof a teacher is to get us
thinking, how does this apply toother things?
in a textual form.
But anticipating that peoplemight want to opt out of
(41:07):
something, I always made surethat we gave options so that I
didn't have to rejigger thatthinking.
My worry is that we don'tnecessarily have a lot of
teachers who have embraced thosepractices, or we have a lot of
folks who are still married tothe whole class novel.
It takes time, and it takessupport, and it takes...
(41:30):
trial and error to move that andshift that practice.
So instead of doing that or in asystem where I don't have the
supports I need, I'm going topick the safer book.
I'm going to keep teachingGatsby and I'm going to keep,
which is, immensely problematic,but nobody seems to notice, or
I'm going to keep teaching MobyDick, or I'm going to keep
(41:50):
teaching Of Mice and Men.
I'm going to stay with thosebooks if I don't have the
support I need to thinkdifferently about my practice.
And that's my worry.
Because I don't know if you'veseen the rest of the budget, but
we're not putting a lot of moneyinto upskilling and giving
teachers the professionalsupport they need.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
Unless it's for AI.
SPEAKER_02 (42:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like what I'mhearing from the two of you is
that should the Supreme Courtdecide that these families did
have the right to opt out, it'snot necessarily unmanageable and
it's pedagogically something wecan overcome.
My worry to that is that it'sokay to think that way in the
(42:36):
context of this one case, butwhen you put this case together
with the Oklahoma case and theother cases, what we're getting
is more and more decisions thatprivilege religion over other
things.
And so it's hard for me to lookat this case on its own and not
(42:56):
part of some larger agenda inthis country.
SPEAKER_00 (43:00):
This is where I'm immensely grateful.
that I was a former mathteacher.
Most of the time, people do notget all bent out of shape when I
start to teach the Pythagoreantheorem, right?
SPEAKER_03 (43:10):
What if I talk about new math?
SPEAKER_00 (43:12):
Hey, you know what?
New math should have been themath all along.
SPEAKER_03 (43:16):
Whoa.
See, that's going to be what weget email about, Stephanie.
That's going to be the one thingpeople are like.
As this is the story that Ibrought to the table, I do want
to say this, and it came up insome conversations Stephanie and
I had offline.
don't necessarily want folks tobe compelled to read these books
i want people to not want toavoid these books and i and i
(43:40):
think that like when i keepsaying this shouldn't go to the
supreme court i think it is anindicator of the conversations
we're no longer having to helppeople get to a place of like oh
it's okay if my kid does thatand they can still like my faith
is strong enough that I canencounter something that I maybe
don't understand or necessarilyagree with right off the bat,
(44:01):
but I can see the humanity inthat person.
And that's the piece, right?
The Supreme Court's going todecide what they decide.
We have some real work to do increating conversations that help
people have conversations.
SPEAKER_02 (44:14):
And my concern is that they took up this case
specifically to head off theconversations that you want to
have, Zach.
SPEAKER_03 (44:21):
Yeah.
But that's okay.
We've got a podcast now.
John Becker, it has been apleasure.
And I will say, because of thelegal system in America, deeply
unsatisfying to have thisconversation with you.
Thank you so much for makingtime to talk with us.
SPEAKER_00 (44:41):
Yes, yes.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (44:43):
We hope that you liked it enough to come back
later when we don't understandthe law again.
SPEAKER_02 (44:46):
Happy to do it.
I often say I have a face forpodcasting, so I'm happy to come
back.
SPEAKER_03 (44:53):
You're the one who wanted me in a Speedo.
And now that I've brought backthat ridiculous image, thank you
to everybody listening to thisepisode of Academic
Distinctions.
Please remember to subscribe.
And if you could just take aminute to give us a five-star
review and let us know you lovethis.
It helps us to spread the wordof academic distinctions to new
(45:15):
listeners across the world.
Join us next time in a couple ofdays where we have a mini
episode examining somethingcalled Bloom's Taxonomy.
Pretty familiar to anybody inthe education sphere, but you've
probably never heard of ifyou've never been a teacher.
Join us then.
For Stephanie Melville, I'm ZachChase, and thanks again to John
(45:40):
McElroy.
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