Education Smackdown! Linda McMahon Enters the Ring

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Educational Warfare. I'm Dr. Jordan Lauer with my partner Dr. Ryan Jackson.

(00:17):
Today we're back with you today. We're excited to talk about our topic today, but a very
special thank you first to our producer, Tommy Ruth. Thank you for doing everything in the
back and leading us and our director, Matt Paff, and shouting out to tell us what to do and make
sure this all goes smoothly. So thank you so much guys. Remember everybody, we are on Blue Sky,

(00:38):
we are on X at EDU Warfare, and now you can watch full video episodes of our show on Spotify and
the Educational Warfare YouTube channel. Let's go. That's right. You can watch and listen to us,
take on the issues that are tacking education. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you

(01:00):
for being with us. What's up Dr. J? Why don't you lay at the smack down on us about today.
Hey man, it's great to be back in here. Lots going on. Tons going on today. This is a special
packed episode, but let's start off real quick, man. I've got to give a heartfelt shout out to
all of our educator friends in California right now. Wildfire is just leveling Los Angeles in

(01:24):
particular. So educators, friends on the West Coast, California, we are with you. Our hearts
go out to you. Prayers uplifted for them. We also, I know this is kind of starting on a dour note,
but we also just had the passing of President Jimmy Carter, former President Carter just passed
away. Of course, incredible legacy there, which is going to dovetail into this episode. I may even

(01:50):
have to pop quiz you on that, but we just had the passing of President Carter. Of course, we now
have a new presidency. So we got the Trump presidency. We just passed J6 a couple of days
ago, a historical day in our history, but we've got President Trump again. He's back, the new
president, which ties us into the episode today, which again, this impacts all educators. It's a

(02:14):
hot button topic, hot button issue, and it is about, and I think we've even got this queued up,
so this may be the best way to introduce it, but it's about the president's new appointment as
director of education for the country. Can we queue that up and see who our new director of

(02:35):
education is? Yes. For our audience, which one? Oh, that's her. That's our new director of education.
Right there. Just smacked her child. That is Linda McMahon. So the wife of Vince McMahon, of course,

(02:55):
the son of the original founder, now world wrestling, entertainment guru. What an interesting

(03:17):
precedent this is kind of setting right here, at least with these videos. So yeah, that's bringing
us into it. That's Linda McMahon, new Donald Trump appointment for director of education for the
United States. And I'm torn on this issue, man. I know we're going to really unpack this, but I'm

(03:37):
torn on this issue for a lot of different reasons, pros and cons. I can't wait to dig into that with
you, man. But yeah, yeah, big episode for us today. Yeah, absolutely. She's come in here and like you
said, it's controversial. She has a world outside of education. We'll get into kind of her
qualifications for education, but obviously very visible in a very polarizing thing. You know,

(04:00):
professional wrestling is not exactly, it's not a hot TV show. It's you love it or you think it's
dumb or you're fanatical about it. And she's there and she's been on screen being slapped by
our daughter, fighting her son, saying some things that probably most educators have, we had a video
saying that on TV, we probably called into an office. So she is very controversial and having

(04:24):
this is divided, you know, has already divided educators and standard people and made a whole
just wealth of questions about how she's going to do this, what she's going to do, what's President
elect Trump's plan for education, the Department of Education, how is that going to trickle down
and affect not only teachers? You know, you know, I got to, I got to jump in real quick, man, because

(04:46):
it's kind of ripped from the headlines here. But if I'm, if I'm correct, man, and fact check me on
this, but you know, Netflix and WWE just launched to massive, I don't know if you're gonna call it
success, but it was a big launch for sure. You know, the Macaulay Culkin kind of thing is going
viral. I mean, they've got everybody that's there. It's the massive WWE Netflix collaboration, big

(05:11):
launch. So I'm thinking business model success, the longevity and sustainability of that organization.
Right. And it's back to kind of what you said, you know, their, their plan, the outcomes. And I'm just
thinking, here's this person that's been behind the scenes in this massively successful business

(05:32):
is now being charged, you know, with leading education, something just considered so serious,
right? I mean, a pillar of sort of our institutions and our systems in this country is now going to
be run by somebody who, I guess, negotiated the Netflix WWE deal. Right. Talk to me about that.
That's the business qualities that you're going to get here. And that's kind of the one things

(05:54):
you're looking at. Business acumen. Is that you look at wrestling, and we grew up with it. It has,
it was a staple of, you know, kind of cable TV, the various networks. And this does show, let's
put this in the positive column. This does show that the McMahons, Linda being a huge part of that,

(06:14):
are able to adapt, understand their audiences, you know, wrestling is gone. Now they are untied
from a network channel, which a lot of people don't really, you know, there's certain segments
of society who are still on their satellites and their YouTube TVs and their foobos who have those
networks like USA, TBS, TNT. I remember staying up late on Saturday nights watching WCW raw or

(06:37):
WCW Nitro on TNT in the late version because they showed again at 10 45 on Saturdays. And I'd stay
up late now that shows that they've adapted to a streaming service, which is what young people do,
which is one young people want. So they do show that. So they're showing adaptability, evolution,
sign of the times. We know what our audience wants. I mean, again, kind of putting this in the pro

(07:01):
column. It sounds like that there is an ability here to take education possibly to a different
place because for all intents and purposes, if you think of all the things over the years that have
faded, that were popular, wrestling has, you know, dipped, has shot up, but they're keeping it
relevant by putting it on these services. So that is a, I think, man, and I want to continue to stay

(07:26):
in this vein. I think what you have to get past though, is this initial knee jerk reaction,
right? This initial knee jerk that no way can't be, could never happen. What are we talking about?
So I think it's man moving through those like stages of grief almost, you got to get to acceptance
pretty quickly because it sounds like this is going to happen. So if it is, then let's start

(07:50):
addressing the facts. And one of those facts is in terms of a business model, WWE has been highly,
insanely successful, sustainability, pop culture, brand awareness, all of those things, you know,
versus an archaic model that for generations now it feels like we've been saying, is this working?

(08:15):
It's not working. How can we fix it? We can't keep doing the same status quo, same old thing.
So here we are doing something radically different, it feels, and yet kind of to keep it interesting.
To keep it in wrestling terms, friend or foe, right? You know, heel or hero kind of deal. I mean,
where does she fall on that? I think as an educator, I'm going to assume here, you're going to say,

(08:38):
no way? Right. It's very scary. I mean, because what type of change she bringing? You know,
the thing with business is it's cutthroat. You know, it is adapt or die. You know, they've eaten,
WWE has absorbed basically the other, when we were growing up, ECW, WCW, they didn't adapt. You know,

(08:59):
you think of them just like boxing, you know, where boxing was the sport, but they stayed with
the come in person, pay-per-view style where wrestling was like, hey, we're going to be on
network shows, we're going to have pay-per-views. Now they're on streaming, so they're keeping
relevant. Hey, but this, this, this again ties into something that I believe Trump said, and you may
want to verify this, but you know, I'm going to use your quote here, adapt or die. And I like that

(09:25):
kind of mindset because again, we have been stagnated in public education. You know, I'm a
former principal, assistant principal before that, dean of students, teacher, you know, I've been in
that world for 15 plus years. I know you've been in public education for a long time as well.
So we know that that evolution needs to happen. We know about just the bureaucratic, you know,

(09:49):
just grinding halt that our system can come to at times. So here we are, we're going to take this
radical approach, but can we get enough people on the front end, the educators, this critical mass
to buy in, or is it back to your point, adapt or die. And this ties into what I think Trump said

(10:11):
earlier, which is he may very well or not dismantle the department of education. And if so it's back
to your question. So if we don't adapt, then we are talking about, yeah, then it, then it's going to
fade away or it's going to crumble or we dismantle it explicitly. I mean, talk to me about that.
And what does that mean? So let's, before we get into that, let's kind of break down a little bit

(10:34):
about this, go a little chronologically so we can understand it. So, you know, just like any great
wrestling match, it's quiet. You know, there's a little murmur right now. We're kind of curious.
We're wondering, and then you hear that music, right? Of your favorite wrestler, the glass
shattering of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Wolf Hall of the NWO Wolf Pack. Before we jump into

(10:54):
that, let's take a, let's take a quick commercial break, man. We're going to jump in real quick and
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(11:20):
other art. Pop catalog.com, elevate your collection. All right, Ryan, and just like when
in the arena, you hear that music and the crowd goes nuts, right? People cheer if they love the
person, they boo and sometimes throw things if they hate the person. That is what the announcement

(11:41):
of Linda McMahon as secretary of education was like. It sent shockwaves across the education world,
of course, but also just the political sphere of what does this mean? It was announced in November
of 2024, so not long ago, shortly after the election in a statement on true social.
Uh, president elect Trump said of secretary of education, McMahon will fight tirelessly to

(12:06):
expand choice to every state in America and empower parents to make the best education decisions
for their families. Hey, what fascinated me about that was how quickly he came out with that
appointment, right? I mean, new secretary of education announced from the rip. And of course,
the decision, I mean, the choice is polarizing, right? Back to our words, heal or hero. You know,

(12:31):
where does this person fall on that spectrum for you? But he makes that appointment. I mean,
almost immediately, and it could not be more polarizing. Absolutely. It was as soon as you
hear that as an educator, I'm currently in education. So where president elect Trump is
talking about possibly dismantling, you know, in his campaign and stump speeches, possibly

(12:53):
dismantling the department of education, anybody in that job in that realm got scared. What does
that mean? You know, does that mean my job? But take me, you're a public education teacher,
right? And take me real quick into that mindset. So that knee jerk reaction, here's the appointment.

(13:14):
Whoa, here's what that person has done previously. Now take me into that mindset of like doomsday.
Why? Right. Yeah, it's you. We know the way president elect Trump wants to be a disruptor,
right? He's almost the antithesis of, you know, Obama was hope and change. You could see it as

(13:35):
Trump has changed, but we don't know what type of change. What's the end game? Is this truly to make
education better? Is it to slow down the bureaucracy or is it just to simply take power from the
possibility of future administrations who may not be Republican to run that? You know, is this a long

(13:57):
game? But this is feeling a little bit man, like, you know, the devil, you know, versus the one you
don't write because man again, former principal, former teacher here. I mean, I understand this
world and its orbit. There's a lot of complaining that goes on. There's a lot of this isn't working.
What are we doing? So here we come with this massive disruptor, right? And all that comes

(14:23):
with it. And I get it. It's loaded. I do, but it just kind of feels like, well, pick one,
which, which do you want? Is it fundamentally broken and we've got to have massive change?
Right. Or is it, no, we need to stay the course and figure this out. And I know what's happening
right now as people are listening, I know what's happening. They're saying it would be if you fully

(14:45):
funded it. I mean, that's, that's going to be the big argument here, right? Which gets us to maybe my
biggest question on this is, is this appointment made for efficiency? Right? You know, Trump has
brought in people like Elon Musk, right? And his whole doge kind of like philosophy here, you know,
we are going to streamline things, trim the fat, focus on efficiency and really figure out how we

(15:13):
can adapt this thing into something better, maybe even profitable. I don't know, man. Fascinating
though. Yeah. And I think it's important to, as you try to, cause we're all in that place, you know,
I'm a teacher. We're sitting there and you're like, what does this mean? So you're in this place of
worry, fear, maybe some anger, you know, maybe some hope. Like maybe if you're supporting this,

(15:36):
like, yeah, let's make some change. I think it's always important to look at what people are saying
kind of in that sphere. So just kind of, man, dude, I would love to know that specifically. I mean,
you know, full disclosure here, you know, we're recording this in the South. We live in Tennessee,
right? Which is a now, I mean, it's all, but turned itself into a full red state, right?
But it's a Ruby red state, you know, really doesn't matter if you're Democrat and you're

(15:58):
voting that way. Cause it's more than likely going to be, you know, a red outcome. So if you're an
educator in Tennessee, I'm just speaking to this cause this is our home. I mean, how are you feeling
about this kind of appointment? You want change, you love this candidate, but now here's the
appointment for new secretary of education, man, you're in that. What's that? What's that feeling?

(16:20):
What's that cognitive dissonance? It was, it's, it's the, again, the fear of what could this do to
everything? Cause the whole point is, and even like some of the, some of the Republicans have said
this where, uh, re, uh, the rep, she's a Republican from North Carolina, Virginia Fox. She's a chair
woman of the house committee of education in the workforce said about McMahon. She's a fighter who

(16:44):
will work tirelessly in service of the students, not the so-called elite institutions or the
teachers unions or the federal bureaucracy. So right there as a teacher, I'm like, okay, one,
how are we defining this? You know, are we would what elite institutions? So we're going to,
that's colleges, I'm assuming that this is Virginia Fox here, who's given her McMahon, all that credit.

(17:08):
She's going to fight for kids. Yeah. And she's a very big, now just to say Virginia Fox is a very
big supporter of president-elect Trump. She has had some issues before things she said. So, you know,
as a source there, it's, it's definitely a Trump ally saying this, but you know, when I read that,
okay, it's like, so now she's going to have to teach her unions. That scares me there. Like she

(17:29):
literally announced that. So teacher unions, what do they do? They help, you know, they protect us,
your thoughts on unions, whatever they may be. Let me, let me pause you real quick. Let's stay on,
let's stay on teacher unions. Again, I've, I've only served as an educator in Tennessee. That's
been my, my full-time designation in Tennessee, started in Nashville, came down to rural Tennessee
a little after that. Teacher unions, dude, do they have power here? I mean, do they, I'm just, again,

(17:56):
man, and I'm not saying, I mean, I'm not even saying pro or con. I'm just asking in my experience
here, I've been principal, I've been teacher. What impact to what effect do the unions really have?
Yeah. And it's, it's an interesting thing is for many other unions are very important because you
kind of, you know, you obviously, for example, my dad was in the labor union, like it was a labor

(18:19):
for years and you know, they basically, what do they do? They establish pay, they establish hours,
they make sure that the individual companies you work for don't push you over, don't knock you over.
Yeah. So, but in education, we only have so much to do because we really don't have a product.
You know, we have a set school day. It's not like all of a sudden they'll make us work till six
because parents, kids would write, uh, pay is, you know, it's not like we're negotiating for a

(18:43):
lot of pay with teacher unions. And so basically what they do is those small little protections
of, you know, how are sick days calculated? How are, what are their salaries based on it? They're
just protecting that there's been many things that teacher unions have fought against. For example,
merit based pay. Some say it's good. Some say it's bad. But if you don't have that teacher union

(19:04):
listening to teachers and then fight going up to their biggest job as they go up to the legislature
as legislature in each state as one voice for the teachers who pay in the dues and say, Hey,
teachers don't want this. Here's why I always tell my students, for example, when I teach unions in
U S history, I always tell them, I'm like, imagine you're working in a factory and you by yourself,

(19:25):
go up to the boss and say, I want to raise. And he's like, you're making enough. And I know I
work hard. The reason this factory is making money is cause I'm working. I want a dollar more an hour.
If it's just you, he may very well go, go back to the floor and work or you're fired. Now same guy
walks up and says the exact same thing, but says we, everybody on the floor behind me want this

(19:47):
cause we work hard. And if you don't, we're not coming to work tomorrow. Now you have power.
Okay. But I got to pull that's what unions do. You say that's what unions do. Yes. Theoretically.
Yes. Wouldn't you or couldn't you say now current climate, I'm talking about where we are January
11th, 2025 current climate. Um, in fact, I'll even pose it as a question to you first, as if I was

(20:10):
going to be speaking to Mrs. McMahon, new secretary of education, this would probably be
top three questions. If not the first one out of my mouth, right? What is the number one problem
currently plaguing school districts and schools? So what's that number one problem currently plaguing

(20:34):
school districts and or schools? Give me a top three answers. You think, what do you think I'm
fishing for here? So I'm answering as Linda McMahon. Okay. All right. So let me get me in my
mindset to be able to slap my daughter on national TV. Right. Okay. Belly to belly suplex me with this
answer. I'm there. If I'm her, I say to be able to push my agenda. I say student achievement. So you

(20:55):
say student, cool student achievement, but I'll peel that onion really quickly. How do we get to
student achievement? I'll even answer that one for you. You're going to get there through
effective teaching and learning scope and sequence curriculum, educators who care, educators who are
trained well, professional, all of that stuff that goes into that piece. I was fishing for, and what

(21:18):
you hope someone would say would be, yeah, I mean, I think funding, but funding impacts what I'm
going to say, which is the teacher shortage crisis. I don't care how you codify this, how you, the
euphemisms you give it, we have a teacher shortage crisis. It brings me back to my point with unions.
The unions theoretically can say, Hey, we can galvanize support this way. We could strike maybe,

(21:43):
but man, it doesn't even have to get to that point now because most principles worth their stault
still can't hire enough teachers for their building. So if I'm McMahon, I'm asking myself, man,
how do we fill these spots to keep this thing going? How can we raise student achievement, man,

(22:04):
the barometer for success, supposedly, right? If we don't have people in their teaching and we just
did an episode on Gen Z, so we know how they feel, we know how they move. I mean, how do you get
past that paramount concern? If the knee jerk reaction is, man, this may go from a dumpster

(22:27):
fire to the apocalypse, I'm out of here. I mean, how do you stop that hemorrhaging? So when you
asked me to answer, I answered kind of thinking as Linda McMahon. So I guess we'll wander into a
conspiracy theory corner here for a second. All right. Is that what they want right now? The

(22:47):
United States of America is 29th in math, 28th in reading. The other tests comparatively to the
other nations in standardized testing, I think we're like 24th overall. The United States of
America only leads categories in two things. Number of incarcerated people per capita and the
number of people who believe angels exist. That is what the United States of America leads the

(23:11):
world. That is a fascinating second fact. Yeah, that's it. That's what we lead. And so
right now you're saying- Like angels and demons.
Yeah, like, yeah, for real, like the angel came down, the guardian angel came down,
the angel came down, the guardian angel, like that's what we lead. Number of people in
car safety per capita, number of people who believe in angels. So that right there is a number. So
I took this from a business standpoint. Here's the kind of conspiracy question that would scares

(23:36):
teachers because of those numbers, which is any teacher listening this knows is due to the like
the plurality of our nation. We're huge. We're very, we're huge geographic nation, but we're also
very different style of people across it. Those numbers are low. There's a teacher shortage.

(23:57):
Is this all to eventually privatize education as a whole? That's my fear. You use those numbers,
you said teacher shortage. I think that's a leverage point for them. And that's the fear
for coming as a business person. You know, if you're thinking again of a, of a actual business-
But I want to, I want to play that out and that's fine. We can stay in that conspiracy
corner for a second. Let's just play it out in terms of timeline. Right? I'm hearing what

(24:20):
you're saying, man. And when you start talking privatization, I just can't help but go here,
man. You know, serving man in an inner city underserved school for a long time, title one.
We always used to hear men, the school to prison pipeline, right? And used to hear about, you know,
these, these graduation rates of like 60% or less, man. And these were just essentially

(24:43):
prison factories, man. I mean, that's what comes to mind when I hear privatization.
Cause we went to the privatization of prisons. When you're a for-profit prison model,
the idea is to keep people in prison to have more bunks. Okay. So let's, again,
let's go back to timeline. So we're going to shift from public education to, you know,

(25:04):
just unilateral privatization of education. I mean, where is that transition though? Because
one thing COVID taught me as a principle, and I've struggled getting over this, man, even,
you know, four or five years later, I've struggled getting over this, that the system was designed
to keep people at work. Right. Right. The system was designed to keep people at work. So you've

(25:29):
got to have kids in school is where I'm going with this. How do we keep this seamless transition
from 200 year old archaic public school model, right? That could run by itself, essentially,
maybe not well, but the system runs, okay, to brand new model, privatized, everything in place,

(25:56):
doesn't stop without a hitch because it can't stop Jordan because then we wouldn't be able to
go to work. Right. So I don't know, man, walk me through that, dude. How does that work? I think
the, I think the interesting idea here is, you know, it is just like you mentioned prisons,
okay. For years, prisons were just, it was a thing that the government ran, the states ran, and

(26:22):
it's a large, large part, like I said, we lead the world and number of people. Yeah. Nice. So
education, I mean, think about that. Like this is the scary thing with a business person taking
over, not an educator. Okay. Come on. You have all these schools in every single state and you're not
making a dime off them. You know how mad and frustrating that has to be for the billionaires

(26:44):
who found a way to get into everything. And this just been this bubble. I'm a pause you there.
There are people profiting. There are, yes. Right. And yes, there are, I mean, man, bro, companies
like Pearson come to mind. There are education companies. Third party assessment companies.
You know, there's always, I've always believed, dude, there's so much profit and failure, right?

(27:04):
Because when I'm not doing well, then I can sell you the supplemental resources, the professional
development, the tutoring, yes. Yeah. And so that is off, that's your standard. Like that is,
there's a very small window, you know, that you need this product and only so many people are
buying it and there's competition there. They're not making money off the fundamental idea that

(27:25):
every student goes to school. There's private schools where those people make money, but they're
not making money off private school or public schools. And that is a way, that's the in route
here I'm thinking is like, Hey, how can we get, how can we open this market? When you say, when you
say they, because, and here's where I'm going, you know, even in the county where we live, where we
have, you know, wheel taxes that they can go towards. Yeah. Right. I mean, so don't some,

(27:52):
depending on where you are back to that geographical piece, which is why it's feast or famine in
certain areas, which again, man would bring me all the way back to the department of education.
Remember Trump appoints a new secretary of education, of course, Linda McMahon, you know,
spine buster, McMahon is now going to be the secretary of education. You know, it would beg

(28:15):
the question for our, for our audience that just don't know, just the lay person, man, what does
the department of education do? And I'm going back to our piece, this Easter famine geographical
deal, you said, well, the department of education is a bit of a standard bearer. Right. They say,
Hey, here is the standard nationwide. So no matter where you are, where you live, you know, your

(28:40):
institution is going to be held to the same accountability model as somebody over here. Right.
Right. Yes. So the department of education, you know, one of the main things it does is obviously
it hands out funds to schools. Those funds are sometimes, you know, there's a categorical grant

(29:00):
is what they call them. You reach this number, you get this money. Okay. So that's it's making sure
they, you know, there is that push to try to get students to grow, try to get those numbers,
because then you get more federal money. We really don't have, we tried with common core,
but we don't have a set like national standards. States still kind of set their standards, but it's

(29:21):
viewed through that. But I think what I heard you just say in my mind, it's like the opposite,
right? It sounded like you said, well, we kind of set these achievement numbers and if you hit those,
right, it unlocks certain funding. But to me, in my experience, the opposite's been true.
When you're not doing well, right, you don't get the funding. No, you do. Oh, they had the race to

(29:44):
the top. Yeah. That's what they're trying to pull. That's what I mean. Now you're on this level.
And then you go from, go from that level to this level, which means more funding. I have seen
schools do well and work themselves out of these kinds of supports and fundings and then not do
well. I mean, it's a very interesting model, man, that we've at times funded failure. And that was

(30:05):
kind of part two. You can have this, hey, if you hit this tier, you can get this or we'll support
you with this. If you're not hitting this, here's this money to try. Like you get this money, like,
you know, title, you know, title one money. It's basically, hey, you have low income students. We're
going to give you this fund. You need more. You'd write more resource. And that's what it does.
Without that, it would be the states. That's the whole premise here is, you know, it's not like

(30:29):
there wouldn't be any educational thing. The whole idea that President-elect Trump wants to do is
send it back to the states. Now, the interesting thing there is that if you looked at a electoral
map from this year, you would know right now there's a lot more red states. So is that a way
to kind of make sure a cert like an, you know, an agenda way of thinking? And you can even see this

(30:51):
from our great state here of Tennessee. One of our senators, Senator Marsha Blackburn, wrote on a
post on X Linda McMahon is a win for parents. Yeah, a lot more red, right? Linda McMahon is a win for
parents and will root out radical ideology and get DEI out of America's educational system. So,

(31:15):
you know, those ideas. My question is, what's radical ideology? Who's setting that term?
Yeah, you know, and to me, man, that's that's rhetoric. I mean, that goes back to what's
going to be radical one place, you know, is going to be warmly welcomed somewhere else.
Yeah, that's probably going to be again, man. Full disclosure. It's also tough for me to take

(31:36):
certain people serious. Oh, I get it. And she's one. But to me, you know, to that point, I still
am curious about that train of questioning those ideas. Like, again, this is what we talked about
in episode one. Remember, we talked about grooming, how like they think that we have time in our
classrooms to groom kids. That's to me what's that's fear based politics. Right. And we know

(31:58):
that is that is emotionally driven. So we know that's what moves the needle. At times we know
that's what gets people, you know, excited, stirred up, fired up. I still go back to that efficiency
piece, though, man. I just can't get away from that. You know, you've referenced corporations.
We've talked about business models. We talked about Elon Musk, you know, this new idea to just

(32:20):
streamline efficiency in terms of bureaucracy, regulations, all of that. And now, you know,
we're going to tackle one of the biggest institutions in the United States, the Department
of Education. And we are bringing a heavy hitter from the business community out to lead this.

(32:42):
Your concern is, is some of this intentionally done to undermine the entire Department of
Education so that it fractures, crumbles, is ultimately dismantled? My concern, my question,
dude, in that timeline, how do we how does the show not stop while we then retool it? Right.

(33:06):
Right. Because you can't really file bankruptcy like some of these folks are familiar with doing
with public education and just like what do you do in the interim? Yes. And I think that's I think
step one to me. And then there's all speculations, ideas, if they were to dismantle it, step one,
send it back to the states. OK, so now Tennessee is over the money that's going out to its schools.

(33:28):
OK, it's setting certain curricular things. So then if it doesn't fail, and like let's say they do
that, they say, hey, here's what we're doing. Then step two is, oh, well, the state has to take over
the school. It didn't work. We're going to put these teachers putting this curriculum. Listen,
man, and we've been there. History guy. You're a history guy. So let's do it. Let's unpack it.

(33:52):
At the start of the episode, you know, we talked about, of course, our friends in California,
the wildfires that are impacting especially Los Angeles. We also talked about the passing of
President Carter. So let's stand on that for a second. You know, we've got a sponsor pop quiz.
I'm going to do the unofficial pop quiz on you. Pop quiz. Let's get it right. Who started the

(34:15):
Department of Education? It was a it was officially started in gosh, I know this. It was officially
started as an official secretary who's in the cabinet. Come on. In the late was it late 80s,
mid 80s, late 70s. Right. I want to say it was under Carter's administration. I think he's kind

(34:37):
of given that legacy. Right. Look, we've got it pulled up here. You know, Carter, is it, you know,
verify that for us regarding Department of Education. There it is. His administration
established the US Departments of Energy and Education. Now, here's where I'm going with that.
So Carter does and Carter's birthed out of what Georgia, right? This whole thing is the peanut

(34:58):
farmer, right? Humble beginnings. He's a Georgia guy. OK. And you had said something earlier. So
we take it from the government, the Fed level, we push it down to the states. Right. Now I'm
thinking of a state like his, like Georgia. Here's a peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter. He grew up in
Georgia. You know, what is the catalyst for him to, I mean, in his regime to create this

(35:21):
Department of Education? And what you said regarding states, they control the curriculum
is exactly what you said. It made me think of the daughters of the Confederacy. Are you familiar?
Yes. OK. So where for a very long time you had states controlling their curriculum, right?
Their messaging, how the story was told. OK. And if I'm Carter, again, I'm kind of projecting

(35:49):
myself here into that. Right. And I grew up under that or through that lens. But I have enough sense
to say, but that's not what really happened. Right. Yeah. Do I then say, man, there is a need
for a standard bear so that we don't live in these vacuums and that's the fear of it going

(36:10):
back? I mean, you think history guy, right? Scopes Monkey Trial in 1924. Oh, come on. It was illegal
to teach the idea of evolution in schools and a substitute teacher. You could teach creationism,
but you couldn't teach evolution. And it was illegal in Tennessee. Substitute teacher did it
kind of a setup to bring this to ACLU was like, hey, we need you to do this so we can get this

(36:33):
out there. And this was a trial. Everybody knew this was a sham trial. They knew the they knew
the defendant was going to lose because of the law and everything, because he did break the law.
But it was to get it out there that, hey, this is kind of accepted fact. You know, right now we were
like here at least to talk about it. Like this is at least, you know, whatever your faith is,
the extent of evolution. But things change over time, like animals and everything. Right.

(36:57):
So this is accepted fact. And they're not it's illegal to do it here where New York it wasn't.
And that's, I think, the fear of like Carter is, do we want to create, like you said, these
vacuums, these bubbles of, well, up here in the Pacific Northwest, we believe this in the deep
south, we believe this. And then how do you get a well-functioning country if you're believing
different things? I think that was part of education's old job is to kind of keep everything

(37:20):
under an umbrella. And states still had, you know, we have federalism. So states still had their
individual rights to a certain point. You know, they could stretch it, but they still had to
follow these specific guidelines of things to teach, you know, because you don't want so, you
know, you don't want some state being like, ah, we don't need biology. We'll just stop teaching
biology because what you know, it's not important. And you know, that's and that's the whole point.

(37:43):
You even see this, you know, I've read a couple quotes from different Republicans, you know,
even Tommy Tuberville, the senator, Republican senator from Alabama. He said, I like McMahon,
we speak the same language, and I've seen the downgrade of our curriculum of the discipline,
you know, between the students and the parents and the teachers. We need to be more of a family

(38:05):
when it comes to education instead of an individual agency, we need to make it more personal. And I
think that she'll have a great opportunity to do that. She knows a lot about it to me. And again,
like you said, that's rhetoric, right? There's some fear based politics, but words matter.
But to make it more personal could be each state. Yes. What does Alabama

(38:28):
realize that the personalization for each state, but it goes back to my wonder though,
in the whole Elon Musk thinking and bringing that streamlined, you know, efficiency, right? How do
you become more efficient within it's just turned over to each state? But I'm going back to your
point about, well, we measure these things based on achievement. So now you've got 50 different

(38:51):
achievements, achievement models, right? That aren't really comparable because it's not based
on a standard that's nationwide. So, you know, all of that, man, I think just has to be unpacked.
Those questions have to be answered. But if you're bringing that down to what's affecting people at
the school level right now, I think it is that uncertainty you talked about what's going to happen

(39:16):
next. And I mean, man, educators have just been put through so much, dude, I cannot imagine
just having to live in that constant state of fight or flight, not knowing, you know, the
the political direction at these whims of politicians. Teachers have gone through as many
persona flops as Hulk Hogan did in the late nineties. He was, he was the Hulkster and everybody

(39:41):
loved him. And then he hit the guy that hit macho man, the chair and ripped off his yellow shirt
and had the NWO shirt and he was bad and he was evil. And like, I grew up like how is Hulk Hogan
bad? You know, like I didn't even wrap my brain around because I was young when it happened. I had
the plush Hulk Hogan buddy, you know, like then this yellow outfit. Now he has an NWO one and then
he eventually joins the Wolfpack and becomes good again. And as he's back and forth as teachers,

(40:05):
during COVID, we were heroes. People were thanking us on television commercials right after COVID,
we're groomers, we're grooming kids. Now we don't know what we're doing, apparently, and the states
have to watch us. And that's the whole fear, you know, is that you see these things more individual,
you've seen the downgrade of our curriculum, of the discipline. That's the, is that what we're
measuring on? Like discipline, because that was my fear when I said, if it's a business model,

(40:29):
you're going to base it off merit, you're going to base it off achievement, but not so much even
state achievement. Individual teachers, what we worry about. And this is the argument of every
teacher. All your teachers out there know this, but if anyone's not a teacher, here's the argument.
We're based on test scores, but we're testing teenagers. We're not testing people who, you know,
you test me, like when I, if they were like, Hey, Dr. Lauer, you have to come take an educator test

(40:52):
to make sure you're still up on all your stuff. I'm going to try my butt off because I want to
keep my job. I'm coming in and you know, a teenager, 8 a.m. Here's your two hour math test. That morning,
you got to text your girlfriend broke up with you. Maybe your mom or dad yelled at you. Maybe you
just don't care. You're dealing with the frontal lobe that's not fully developed. There's no buy-in.
And it's hit or miss. So you could base my job off a moody teenager, like off how they do that day.

(41:16):
And that's, that's scary for us because we're currently, that's kind of protected. We have
those, but it's, you know, there's nothing with my pay that's based on them. But what if it did?
What if the money our school got was based on it? You're going to take this already super stressful
job. First three episodes we did was about exhaustion. There's already exhausting, rewarding,
but just it can be hard job and now put pressure of a paycheck, pressure of a job. Like already

(41:42):
that's there, but like because of these kids. So now, you know, will you get this? Will you get the
stress here? I feel like we've, we've spent a lot of time on that side, the anxiousness of it.
Is there a flip side of this coin? Well, I mean, right flip side. So those are Republicans, right?
The bright side, right. And Democrats are, you might say like the way we've talked about thus far.
So, oh, Democrats must be like tearing into this. They're actually taking a wait and see approach

(42:06):
because we don't know, you know, this is a huge job. It's not like day one. She's going to step
up to the mic and be like, the Department of Education is gone and yeah, goodbye teachers.
We're take a little break. You know, she's not going to do that. She's going to come in. There's
going to be slow changes. So they're kind of taking a wait and see. They're not trying to
burn any bridges because they do want to be able to negotiate. Representative Bobby Scott, a Democrat

(42:29):
from Virginia, who's a ranking member of the House Committee of Education Workforce says,
Ms. McMahon does not have a long history of work in education. So I will wait to pass judgment on
her nomination until she has been fully vetted by the Senate. And that's a big part here. She
still does have to be vetted. This is seen as one that should go through. But here's my take too.

(42:50):
Is there a wait and see approach because so many of his other appointments have been so
controversial? You know, you have the Secretary of Defense, you have already we had to have Matt
Gates, like he just dropped out because of the scandal with him. So is this like, OK, this is a
weird one, but it's the most sane or or will it even materialize? Like, will it ever even actually

(43:12):
happen? So before we jump on the sensationalism bandwagon, let me just kind of wait and see,
you know. And I think from that standpoint, certainly from my lens as a parent, I'm going
I'm going to enter this conversation now as a parent who has a 10 year old public school kid.
Right. Right. And I'll be even more explicit. A 10 year old public school kid who has an IEP.

(43:35):
That's an individualized education plan. That's a special education services,
which qualifies under federal funding. Right. So they take these things very serious federal
guidelines. There's incredible accountability measures, federal guidelines. We do not play
because it's very litigious. Yes. Right. In regards to special education services. Now

(44:01):
I'm sitting here as a parent of a child who has dyslexia. I mean, tried and true bonafide
disability disorder struggles reading, getting better, but struggles. And the pieces we've put
in place at his public school have been game changers, dude. Game changers for this young man.

(44:24):
So I'm going to have to speak from this point of view. I love the accountability measures.
Absolutely. I love the teeth that are in place on these things to ensure that my pride and joy
gets those services that he needs, dude. And if that is being threatened in any way, shape or form
as a parent, man, I'm concerned. Absolutely. I'm worried about where's your kid go. You're

(44:52):
going to have to homeschool your child with a special education. Will there still be money
for it? All of that. And I think it's important before we even go deeper in that let's look into
kind of her background. Okay. Let's, you know, for those who don't know there's here, they may
have heard Linda McMahon, they don't know much about her. I just said that the Democrats said
she doesn't have much, uh, very, uh, very much experience. So let's look into it. So she was,
uh, she was the member of the Connecticut state board of education from 08 to 09. That's her only

(45:16):
prior educational experience. She stepped down during the first of her two failed Senate campaign.
So she has run for Senate from Connecticut. So she was trying to be involved in our government.
So there is a want to be in there. She's not just being pulled from WWE without knowing,
right? Uh, during Trump's first campaign, she donated more than 7 million to two separate
political action committees supporting Trump after his victory in 16. She was named as the head of

(45:38):
the U S small business association, the SBA. Okay. In 2019, she stepped down to run the Trump
super line pack America first action and stayed in close orbit with him. And what America first
actions, I think tank basically staffed by veterans of Trump's first white house team, uh,
which has served, it's, it's kind of an administration waiting. They're getting
everything ready. Uh, she's also his co-chair for his transition team. So right now being in there,

(46:01):
so she's there right now being in there, getting everything there. So she's very close. Uh, it's a
it's a theme for him of choosing people who are loyal and who have been in his orbit, uh, over
probably potentially highly qualified. And, you know, as teachers, no thing or two about being
highly qualified, right? Like it is something they ask of us. So that's where a lot of this anger
comes from is that you're looking at this and it's not, uh, you know, uh, for example, uh,

(46:24):
president Biden's last pick was a public school teacher for 40 years. Yeah. Administrator that's
somebody, if I see them like, okay, they know what's going on. Does she know what's going on
from her singular year in the Connecticut state board of education, which is a highly affluent
area, right? Does she know what's going on every day in schools? Does she get this or is it just
going to be looking at spreadsheets, looking at achievement scores and standardized test? But oh,

(46:47):
not good enough in making decisions off that without having that connection. Um, so that's it.
So, you know, if we look at this, right, let's say, answer this question we've been talking about a
little bit, but is she going to be the heel or she will be the hero? Okay. So what are her potential
policy priorities? You know, some of the things we're talking about here, charter schools. Yeah.
That's how it would be that privatization, privatization and work forced education. Uh,

(47:10):
and then basically we were looking at that. So let's look first into the, you know,
little finisher move here, the private school power bomb, because that's what we talked about
earlier. Right. Uh, so bringing states, bringing education back to the States in an interview on
X president elect Trump told Elon Musk that if elected, I want to close up the department

(47:31):
education, move education back to the States. We talked about that, uh, in a statement announcing
her nomination, Trump wrote Linda Linda has been a fierce advocate for parents' rights, working hard
at both AFPI and America first works the pack to achieve universal school choice in 12 States,
giving children the opportunity to receive an excellent education, regardless of zip code or

(47:51):
income. But didn't that Tennessee data just come out charter schools aren't really cutting the
mustard. Exactly. The achievement data. That was actual Tennessee data. We also know, man, there's
a lots of lots of different reasons people pull their students from public schools that has
absolutely nothing to do with student achievement. Yeah. But those numbers did just come out. I know
that charter schools were, if not under public schools, they were comparable enough to say,

(48:16):
well, what's the difference? Right. You know, really let's stop bashing public schools in terms
of student achievement, right? But charter is the big privatization monetization model. We've got
the voucher bill, you know, that is being strongly pushed and encouraged here. A lot of people don't
want it. They even added, you know, most Tennessee teachers know if people outside Tennessee don't

(48:37):
know, they try to throw in a rider where teachers would get a one time $2,000 bonus if this passed,
which is again for teachers were like, thanks, but you're kind of taking students and funding,
you know, and that's a big argument. Send that funding to us. Like right now that funding is
going to be cut aside. And the whole point of the charter schools is you basically get our vouchers.

(48:57):
You get this idea to go to public school on this and you can have it. But we found out through all
the data, the states who've done this, Arizona, Florida, that money's usually going to, it basically
becomes a discount for people already in private schools. Yeah. And private schools can say no,
right? Like they can say, nope, you're not coming here. And that's, and that gets us into the wheeze
of that whole model. Right. Well, we'll probably have a whole episode of private school. So the

(49:18):
one politicians, you know, claiming disciplines out of control. Fine. So we put them all in
charters where you don't have to worry about discipline. Well, not every kid's going to fit
in that charter model and charters can exclude. So where do those kids go? Right. I mean, you still
have a lot. It just unravels pretty quickly. Right. And a big part of this in project 2025,
which is, has been a much debated thing about what's it, but in there we'll see, I mean,

(49:43):
she even said, you know, will she do any of this? That's question. She even said
that she would, if I am secretary of education, I will certainly fall in line with what the
president's policy is. So right there, she's saying she'll do it. So is she going to,
the whole thing is a whole point of project 20, 20, 25 is giving parent choice back. And that's
what he even said where it's erasing those zip code things. How do you organize it other than

(50:06):
that? You know, I mean, are we just going to have Willy nilly, like one school is going to have 3000
kids and one school that's supposed to have 1500 is going to have 200 kids because they want to be
there. That's where you get into these weird things. And that's why earlier I mentioned trying to
make money off it. How do you fix that? Oh, in an area where some parents may want, not want their
kid to go school, but there's not really another option, put up charter schools. And now you're

(50:32):
making money. You know that, that money, oh, here's a charter school is right here. You don't have to
go to that school. And in theory, man, it's, it works, but we have seen this play out here on the
hyper local level, man, I mean, emotions, tempers flare up. It's very polarizing. You know, it
becomes very divisive all the way down to the votes. You know, when it's school boards, county

(50:57):
commissions, et cetera. Uh, I don't know, man, it still just seems, I go back to that timeline piece
of like, you know, how are you going to dismantle one of the pillar institutions in this country
that keeps the work force at work? Yep, absolutely. And that, and that's the thing too is their

(51:18):
argument, the Republicans argument is like you mentioned, this wasn't here before Carter. We can
do that again. Right. But I guess I'm feeling like it is, it does feel a bit too big to fail, man.
And maybe that's why I don't even get worried. Concerned. I mean, you're always concerned, man.
You want to pay attention. You want to know what's going on, but worry, you're going to worry about
dismantling this thing now that as proven to me, you know, when through COVID that it's designed

(51:45):
to keep kids at school so their parents can go to work. Yeah. So industrial model can't stop that
industrial train. You've referenced corporations, big business, efficiency, the economy, right, man.
It's underpinned by this system, right. Which is public education. It is right. So, and that's why
I think the way this could go is you keep public schools obviously open because you can't take off

(52:09):
your voters and they can't, you know, so you keep them open. Like I said, you start popping up charter
schools in areas. Okay, that's happening. And then they, all of a sudden kids filter there. That takes
funding from that already struggling school. Now that school shudders. Okay. All right. Oh, we have
to close it, but there's these charter schools here you can go to, or we'll take you to this high
school. So, you know, right over time then small and perceptible changes over time. These kids are

(52:34):
getting leaked to these other schools that are opening up until projecting forward. You know,
it's this sad archaic, remember that school that's got 18 kids in it now that are like, remember,
we take buses to school because we all went to the same one wherever. Now we're talking like,
like future forward change. Yeah. It's basically death by oxygen, oxygen deprivation slowly.

(52:58):
You know, you're just slowly, oh, you're weaker, weaker, weaker, weaker up. Can't do it. But these
are here and they were, you know, we fund them. So it's fine. It's just, it's a new thing. And
again, the problem with that is where are they teaching? You know, those there again, private
schools can do. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, this, this kind of brings you into my, my present
world where I work to connect industry to education. So I do a lot of work with CEOs, with business

(53:23):
owners that need employees and they just need people. So I've wondered, you know, why has it
been so difficult to build this bridge between industry and education? I'm kind of going to your,
your point here. Right. And when you think about institutions like the department of education,
when you think about programs like no child left behind, right. And essentially the dismantling of

(53:50):
vocational tech, all that kind of stuff, skilled trades. I mean, isn't it kind of the department
of ed that's got us into this position where business owners are just saying, man, look,
not only is it hard to hire people, it's hard to hire anybody that's been trained to do anything
with their hands or any kind of experiential mechanical thinking. Like, can we get those

(54:12):
things put back into school? So I'm wondering when the business community, the corporations
do step up and say in this new era, as we're stepping through this threshold, and I've told
you before about my thoughts on like NIL, name, image, likeness, and how that could be kind of
mirrored now for education, where companies are going to say, hey, man, we just want to speak to

(54:35):
the kid directly. And we want to go to the source and look at your pool of talent, you know, as
early as eighth grade and start really working with kids. I mean, I think that's the new model.
As we're talking about things that are no longer off the table, right? You know, I think that this
privatization, more corporations involved, we struggle to get a workforce, we're going to have

(54:56):
to do things drastically different. This is the mindset. Yeah. And I mean, from I think this is
also a way which could possibly not be a bad thing. But I think it's a way of us copying like
Denmark and a lot of Europe that do have those high scores without saying we're copying them
because we're America. So we don't ever want to say we copy anything like, oh, we innovated this,

(55:17):
but it's really so this would be a way of exactly what you're saying. You know, in those countries,
one of the reasons their scores are so high is because they take a test in eighth grade of if
you're going to go the academic route or if you go aptitude. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't do that.
We Germany was always right for that. We put every kid all the way through. But you have and why
don't we have high achievement because we have a kid sitting in English three as a junior who only

(55:39):
wants to cut down trees like his great granddad started a tree cutting business. His dad runs it.
That's what he's going to do. And he's reading Shakespeare. He's not invested in that. And that's
kind of one of the flaws of the American models. We kind of force them because we want everybody
super educated. That's kind of our thing. We're innovators and we have that knowledge. And now
we're kind of seeing that, you know, that if we're going to put up achievement scores, that kind of

(56:00):
hurts those because those jobs still exist and they're needed. Like vocational jobs are very needed.
So is this a way to possibly copy that model without saying we're copying it? All of a sudden,
you kind of, oh, here's this vocational charter school and you don't have to go up to the high
school if you test into it and then you can go straight to work. And now that's not saying, you
know, it's changing it. So this could be a way to force that. That could be a good change, you know,

(56:25):
because then classrooms, I mean, you're teaching English three and it's only people who want to go
to college. Your classroom is going to be. Yeah. If we're talking about from the student, well,
from both the student and the industry perspective, if we're talking about bringing relevancy back
to what we're learning, what we're being taught through a practical, pragmatic lens, then yes,

(56:48):
this very well could have a bright side to it. Yeah. You know, it could be the kind of change
that's just imperative right now, man. Again, I know you hear me reference this all the time.
Baby boomers retiring at 10,000 people a day. We're just hemorrhaging people in the workforce.
How do we get Gen Z soon, Gen Alpha, you know, into this industry mindset and train when they're so

(57:13):
gig economy kind of focused, they'll quit on you in a heartbeat, man, maybe it's going to be
changing the model from the ground up. And in order to do that, man, you know, you've either
got to dismantle it, burn it down, right? Or like you said, this death by a thousand cuts kind of
thing where, yeah, eventually we're going to get here. It's just going to be a long painful slog

(57:37):
through the process. And it could be, and it could come out the other side. I don't want to be all
doom and gloom, but as a teacher, it is worrisome because what does it mean for me? You know,
another part of this, we're talking a lot about just schools in general and things with other
things the Department of Education does. They enforce Title IX. There's a Title IX cage match
going on right now. The Biden-Harris administration expanded production or protections against sex
discrimination in schools, highly touted, like trans, you know, LGBTQ, all those, they expanded

(58:04):
it, but they didn't change the federal law. They just changed guidelines, which means
the current director could just simply stop doing them. And that's an interesting thing because,
you know, Trump has rallied against these Biden-Harris moves because again, they weren't
an official change. So they could stop, they could simply stop enforcing Title IX, which has been in

(58:25):
existence for 52 years since 1972. That's sex discrimination. Yeah. You can slide into gender
equity there. I mean, especially, you know, listen, I live with a highly intelligent PhD,
you know, 19 year educator wife, independent thinkers, strong will, you know what I'm saying?
I mean, immigrant from Malawi Africa, hard luck story. I mean, just all of that, man. And I'm just

(58:50):
trying to think, you know, of her as a kid and just not getting the kind of equity that she deserved
and helped her get to where she is. And it's still tough, man, being a person of color and a female
in this climate, in this system without that Title IX piece, man. I mean, again, I can get probably
just as spicy on that as I can with my son's IEP and the special ed accountability protections that

(59:16):
we have. So there are some serious pieces here, man, that are at risk. Yeah, absolutely. Hurting
lots of people. And you know, just you don't know where that could be. And you don't want to you
obviously hope that human beings, like even if things like that aren't, we just won't start going
the exact opposite if it's repealed. But it could be there. And that's why these, you know, that's
why speed limits exist. I'm not going to go 110 on the highway just because I really don't want to

(59:40):
die on my way to work. But I definitely don't go that if there's a posted speed limit, I know there
could be a consequence if I'm caught doing that. And that's kind of what these Title IX do is like,
we hope people aren't just going to sexually discriminate people. But if they do, or if there's
an action that could be seen as that now there's due process, like let's look into it. Let's make
sure it was or wasn't without that. It's just like tough luck. Like that sucks. You know, maybe you'll

(01:00:04):
have some individual I'm sure individual institutions will do certain things. But then now you're going
of this place first, this place. And that's what gets scared when you lose that umbrella. What
happens also another thing they do, you know, the payment pile driver, right? Student loan debt,
you know, the finisher, the payment pile driver, the plans Biden student loan, his plan B of

(01:00:24):
reduction is on hold because being litigated in court, it could simply stopped being defended by
department. So to jump on that right there, is it helped me with my understanding and I'm man again,
full transparency, I am someone who painstakingly paid off his student loans. I understand that
pain point. I genuinely do. Right. In terms of Biden's student loan forgiveness, right? Is it my

(01:00:49):
understanding, some people received it like they got their loans forgiven, right up to 20,000,
depending. So okay, it wasn't like but there are some people have who have not received anything.
Yeah, there are some people who now some people it's like it basically was when he first pushed
it out, it went to these people. And then it was kind of it was kind of almost like winning the
lottery, you could literally check your your thing and your fast. I remember that balance zero. I know

(01:01:14):
I was checking every day. I didn't win the lottery. Wow. Yeah, it was really hard. So,
you know, there's that, that it went off. And now it's being litigated because certain people said
it's you know, is it illegal? Is it shifting things around there? You could discuss the money forever.
Man, you know, but where's that money coming from? Because technically, if you got a loan,
the institutions are to be paid. So really what you're paying, especially as a federal loan,

(01:01:36):
which that's all he was forgiving, you're just basically paying like the government's just kind
of being like, you're gonna owe me. And the whole idea is to help stimulate the economy. Like,
we talked about this Gen Z, they're living with their parents, because why they're on their
parents insurance till 26. And they have student loans, they don't want to buy a house, right,
which shrinks the economy, because you want your 26 year old buying a house. So stop paying us.

(01:01:58):
Yeah, right. You like stimulate put that into the economy. It's basically just like stimulus
packets during COVID. Or during the recession, you know, like remember movie theaters? Yeah,
remember movie theaters were like Tuesday, it's only $3 because they wanted people in their movie
theater during the recession. Yeah, and oh, no, no, nine because they were going to go under. So
they're like, hey, just I don't think show up on prices ever went down. No, it's still paid for

(01:02:19):
once you're in the gotcha hooked. Unless you just have your pockets full of candy. You know,
so those things, that's that's the thing that we stopped completely. So now we're back to you have
some people who are like really hoping on that because some students loans are hard. It's a car
payment a month on top of your car payments and your mortgage. No, it is. It's no question. It's
no joke. And I think again, in terms of a crisis, I mean, student loans are one of them. What got us

(01:02:43):
into that situation, this blanket belief that if you did not go to a four year university, you were
less than it sort of culminated in what could what could seem like a major cash grab. Yeah,
I mean, and that's the other day is that has that has hindered a generation of people. Yeah,
you had to have a bachelor's. But now a bachelor's isn't even like now, you know,

(01:03:06):
masters at least for most places. And that's that thing is the education you're getting. And I
totally see needing to like cut that back like curtail that. Yeah. But also as a history teacher,
I always have these little red flags and like alarms in the back of my head when I see things
that like I've said before, I was telling my students history doesn't repeat itself at rhymes.
When I see things that rhyme with other things that happen where educational institutions are

(01:03:30):
attacked, ideas of diversity are attacked. Yeah, right. You know, certain ideas like when that
started and then this push of like, oh, college, you don't really need that. The dumbing down.
Yeah, because like having like if you have industrial jobs are super important. Those
people work super hard. But if you start to make your society an industrial society, they're much
easier to control. Yeah, like you don't have people being educated. But if you Yeah, I mean,

(01:03:54):
I just think that's a slippery slope, man. And it's scary. And that's like, that's why I say it's
way in the background. When you look under the hood of education really quickly, it's like, well,
if you were talking about an optimized education system, then yes, you may because you're really
like leaning towards liberal arts and the humanities, making sure that we have this holistic
education, man, that you can be a well rounded person, humanist, shout out to Petrarch, man,

(01:04:19):
you know, you're just a thinker, a problem solver, but you have the capacity to think critically.
My concern is almost like this double edged sword. You just don't have the capacity to like create
anything else other than social media content, which is fine. I'm not discrediting any creators.

(01:04:39):
I mean, I love that kind of mindset, but you're still controlled by an algorithm that's still
ultimately feeding a corporation. So is there any, yeah, if you're educated, are you truly
doing something with it? Getting outside of that box anyway, man, just because you're a little more
rudite. We don't have any philosophy books really coming out that anybody's reading. And we've

(01:05:01):
laughed about that for a long time too. I'm an English major, right? Or I got it in. Yeah,
I'm a philosophy major. Man, look, man, we don't fund social sciences, bro. So, you know, it's
either a hard science or tech. And that's what I'm saying. And that's like, like I said,
alarms go off. I always worry about that. But, you know, and a big part of this is the cost of it.

(01:05:24):
Okay. So we have, you know, a president who's a billionaire. We have a secretary of education
nominee who's a billionaire, Elon Musk, billionaire. And they look at education,
it kind of siphons money. But the point is some things in government are not supposed to make
money. Like some things are just services. And that's what this is. Some things are in a cost.
And I always like, you know, the idea, bullets or books, okay. Is it the cost is worth people not

(01:05:50):
engaging with our economy, not buying houses with that. People are saying, hey, we don't want to pay
for these student loan things. We want to pay for this. The government, you know, governments never
save money. We've been in like, we've literally had one time we didn't have a deficit during Bill
Clinton's thing, right? Like that was it. Like, that's it. You know, they spend money. It's just
what they do. It's a problem. If you ever, there's a great book called Anti-Fragile. Okay. And,

(01:06:12):
the same time. Yeah. And he literally says in it that there are certain things that do better with
certain amounts of harms. Yeah. And you just like right now humans don't deal well. We deal better
with scarcity than we do excess. Right? Any rich person, like how many rich people do you know,
don't have massive amounts of debt? Like they're, you know what I mean? Because once you have that,
you keep buying, we're actually able to like hoard better. It's kind of in our brain. So when

(01:06:35):
you think of this, they're like, oh, it's, it's costing money. But think of it this way. Our
current defense budget for the United States of America is 820 billion. That is 40% of the world's
total military spending. Wow. And compared to only 296 billion spent on defense by China.
So we haven't been at other than 9-11. I was, you know, 2001, I was 14. Like it changed my entire

(01:07:02):
adulthood, changed my life. So we were attacked then, but by an actual like army by another
country. But you're making the point here. Yeah. We haven't been attacked since 1812. We're totally
fine spending that. And it's going up every year. And we don't know really where it's going. It's
research, it's development. It's keeping bases a lot. I mean, keeping bases and our soldiers safe,
obviously. But you know, that number of 820, when China, the world's biggest army spending 296

(01:07:24):
billion, could we shift some of that? Yeah. But that's not because there's certain keywords. Like
when you say defense or military, people don't touch it. You know, when you say education,
most people say, what do they, what do they say? Oh, I didn't even learn. I didn't, everything I
learned is after I was an adult. Back to that point, man, I've got to give a shout out to my buddy,
Joe Moore. You know, he's a, he's a Gen Xer man through and through, but you know, he always makes

(01:07:47):
the point to me that, you know, we, we fund hard science and tech. So big pharma and tech, we're
not funding the social sciences, man. We're not funding the soft stuff. We're just not that
interested in it. Typically because the profits just not there. Scale it. What's the profit? How

(01:08:12):
do we maximize these things? If that's not there, we're moving on, you know, pretty, pretty quickly.
Right. Yeah. We want to produce, we want to innovate. We are, and that's, you know, we are
the world's superpower now. Yeah, it's capitalism. Yeah. We're the world's superpower. And if you're
not producing something or falling behind, so ideas really don't produce something unless they're
directed in an innovative way through a company. Oh, you can't just sit there and be like,

(01:08:34):
I think therefore I am. That doesn't make any money. So at some point, and maybe I'm even just
asking us this man, but certainly, you know, all the viewers, you know, we are a capitalist society.
You can deny it. We argue with it, but we are, man, we're founded on that. So if we are that,
there's like this cognitive dissonance here for us as a country, we are that, then shouldn't we be

(01:08:59):
asking, I mean, can our school systems be profitable? And if that's not in terms of dollars and cents,
it is what are the outcomes that we expect? I mean, we're a capitalist society, man, and we have to
ask ourselves these kind of hard questions. So if we ask that question and we kind of back up a

(01:09:20):
little bit, is it okay then that you put a successful business operator in charge of it?
Yeah. And that's what that could be what she's doing. It's like the question that's being begged
to ask. Are you going to blow it up or are you going to mold it like clay into something under
a vision of profitability and learning? Like making this, we don't know. Like, you know,

(01:09:44):
I don't want to sound super negative over this. It's just a shocking nomination. That's it. This
is a reaction, right? We're reacting. It could be four years from now we do a podcast, but Linda
McMahon is awesome. Are we doing one of those reaction videos? Yes. Like we're just watching
it. We're young people. Yeah, we are. We are. We are hip. That's right, man. Awesome on YouTube.
Smash that like button. We're reaction content creators. Yes, we are. Edutainment, baby. That's

(01:10:05):
right. That's one thing. That's what it could be. And I talked to and I asked some teachers,
right? I was like, Hey, I want somebody's opinion of their mind. So I went and just kind of asked
some people around. Yeah, basically what they think about this and how they feel. One said,
stop messing with education without putting everything you have into it. There's no idea of
like fund it. Then if it doesn't work, you know, then you can do something. Okay. Somebody else

(01:10:28):
said to attempt to privatize it without investing as much as you can in students and teachers is
like declaring your car totaled before taking it to the shop to see what's wrong. I love that one.
Like, oh, yeah, my car is totaled. Like, you don't even know it's like a dent right there.
And that's kind of what a lot of people feel like they're doing is like, well, you're attacking us
and we're just like, you know, let us get here. You know, and then they also say, another person

(01:10:50):
said, this is just a move to help make money out of the one massive area billionaires previously
couldn't get their hands into. Yeah, this is low hanging fruit. Right. And it's like, hey, it's
here. That's like, now that we have it's low hanging fruit. It has such a low public approval
rate. I mean, let's just call it what it is, man. I mean, I hate it. I hate even saying that,

(01:11:11):
you know, as someone who works in its orbit, my wife, who's directly in it, you know, it's just
an industry I'm passionate about educating young people. But man, it has just a generally low
public approval rate. That's why it feels like that low hanging fruit. Let's come in here and
attack this thing. It's emotionally charged because our children are involved in it. So we know that

(01:11:34):
emotion drives votes, certainly, right. People vote with their feet. And it just I don't know,
man, it feels like you want to protect it. You want to put on the gloves, man, and fight for it. But
it's also a system that makes it very hard for you to do that. Yeah. You know, and that's it does.
I think it's kind of where we are, where we are, which is why it feels like a lot of us. I'm gonna

(01:11:58):
put myself in there as well. Man, we're on this wait and see. We are. Yeah, we're just gonna be,
like you said, man, we're doing a reaction video to Trump's appointment of Linda McMahon,
new Secretary of Education, if she actually sits in the seat. We've discussed that as well.
She has to get nominated. But we're taking this wait and see approach. Is it going to be, you know,

(01:12:18):
this DDT style game changer? Scorpion death drop. Right. Or is it, you know, this fall from the
rafters untethered catastrophe, you know, that ends up just being a black stain kind of on the
history of public education? RIP Owen Hart. Yeah, RIP man on that one. Owen Hart for sure.
We don't know. And one thing I do love, and this is a positive one the teacher said,

(01:12:39):
it's kind of funny. She helped to make soap operas for men and teens a worldwide success.
So maybe she could take education to that level. I mean, like, it's where you're selling. Nobody
thinks, you know, wrestling is, everybody knows they're not really like punching each other.
Right. They know it's scripted. Right. It's just basically soap operas for guys. And you know,
look, about me, my undergrad was in business administration with an emphasis in marketing,

(01:13:00):
you know, and, and I think sometimes I feel like I have my head around that. And I've always loved
the statement, you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. Right. So in terms of that, man, have
they picked the best person. Oh yeah. So in terms of storytelling, the ability to craft a narrative
that's going to engross people and move you to action. Whoa. Right. Now, if we're putting it

(01:13:25):
through the lens of like the golden era of edge of WWE though, right. Where they were working those
guys 365 days a year. I mean, it was just heavy substance abuse because of how hard it was is
like, Oh, are we going to put all our people through whatever it takes to get to that kind
of success and will that sustain man, that wait and see approach, bro, it's going to be a fascinating

(01:13:49):
journey though, for sure. Now, will I be mad if it's legal for me to have a cage match versus
the teacher I disagree with in the middle of the gym? No, because I will rock some super sweet
finishing. Right. Yeah. Like I'm in, I'm ready for it. I got my walkout music all queued up. I'm ready,
but we don't know. And they talked about the union earlier. So it's like the head of the NEA

(01:14:10):
shared some thoughts that other teachers had too, other than the ones I shared with you, those are
just my, the people I'm close to rather than working to strengthen public education, expand
learning opportunities for students and support educators. McMahon's only mission is to eliminate
the department of education, take away taxpayer dollars from public schools. And this is from
Becky Pringle, the head of the NEA. So, and then we'll, we'll Dell Pilar, senior vice president of

(01:14:36):
the advocacy group, the education trust labeled to McMahon's pick as a slap in the face, particularly
to conservative educators who are more deserving of the job. So she said it's an affront to the
U S education Pilar said you're appointing someone or potentially appointing someone whose greatest
experience was helping to co-found the WWE. Right. And again, that goes with all we said,

(01:14:56):
it could be a change, could it be a more business looking model? We don't know. And teachers are
just worried. Yeah. You know, teachers are worried that it could really affect them. You know,
I'm thinking teachers are worried, man. Principals are worried. You know, what's the, the quote you
gave from that, that politician earlier where he's like, we've, we've seen the, you know,
the degradation of the curriculum of discipline. I mean, the hypocrisy there, dude, and if you've

(01:15:18):
ever served in a tough school that has a lot of violence, I have me to man, it is not a cool place
to be. It's, it's beyond challenging. It can be at times very scary. So I'm not making light of that
at all. I've been there. Me too. When we put someone in charge now whose body of work hinges upon

(01:15:44):
a fake violence, right? That's still though at times promoted as you call it fake, man, explain
this. I mean, it's, it's hard work that can hurt people. We'll just call it like that. But you know,
when that's your, your, your hinge point and now that person is running the education system and

(01:16:04):
it's, it's just not hard to see why people could be like, so are we just going to have kids,
you know, body slamming each other. And yet that's kind of the order of the day from the new
secretary. I know that's silly, man. I know that's not the thing. We're not going to become wrestlers,
but you can't help, but at least find yourself in that ring. Right. Having that conversation like

(01:16:27):
no guys, you can't, you know, body slam each other now just because the new secretary of education
ran the WWE. Right. Yeah. And like the, yeah, the persona of that, what's going to take over. I mean,
and she's, she's a business woman. You know, she stayed out of controversy than Trump's first time.
She wasn't out there touting or saying stuff. She is a business. So she may just very well run this

(01:16:48):
from behind the scenes, but there is still that parallel. What's going to happen. You know, we
have some rivalries and stuff, but before we get to like, you know, we kind of look at this in some
storylines, but we did want to take time because we're talking about this. Let's go ahead and do
our pop catalog pop quiz. Nice. All right. We talked about pop catalog earlier. Great place.
Go to pop catalog.com. So our pop catalog pop quiz question of the day is this, if confirmed,

(01:17:11):
Linda McMahon will be the 13th secretary of education since the position became an official
cabinet position in 1980. Okay. How many of the secretaries of education have never attended a
public school or had their children attend a public school? That's a fascinating question, man. But
back me up one step, you know, I can struggle with multi-step problems, man. Back me up one step.

(01:17:33):
So how many have there been so far? There've been 13. There's been 13 of them. The question is of
these 13, how many never attended a public school themselves or had their children in or had their
children educated in a public school setting of these 13. Yep. So the options are, I'm going to

(01:17:57):
hope. I'm going to give you some multiple choice options to help you get your way. So we got,
we got A and just teacher mode here. A there's four. All right. B 10, C one D zero. So you're
going to, yeah, give me numbers and okay, which is going to go to where I was going to answer first
is surely. And again, RIP president Carter, you know, his legacy just passed. I'm going to think

(01:18:20):
if he instills it, surely the first one that he, you know, out of the gate was going to be somebody
that he respected or knew or had this. So I'm at least saying there's gotta be one, but that might
have been it. Cause he was only in there for one term. I'm going to stick with one, bro. I'm going
to say one. You are correct. I'm right. Yes. Was it his? No. Oh, it was who Trump's last pick.

(01:18:47):
Wow. She never went. Her kids went to private. What was her role in that? She was, she was his
first time. I know she was, but yeah, but did she go to public schools? What? No, she never did. Nor
her kids never went. So she was secretary of education and never once, even with her children
had anybody in public school. So you're saying, hold on of the 13, she's the only one, 12 of them

(01:19:09):
had, they went to public school, were teachers, something. She was never even in that area. She
was, I got it wrong, man, but I got it wrong for completely the wrong reason. I was flipping that.
Yeah. I was saying there was at least one you're saying all of them, all of them because of this
idea of this public trust. Like it'd be like, you know, we've seen this before and it's happened. I

(01:19:29):
wrote my dissertation on superintendents. So now do you know, do you know her background? I mean,
was she educated in public school? She, uh, Linda McMahon did go to a public high school,
but it was a upper, it was in upper Connecticut. It was a pretty fancy, but for everything I've
seen, she went to public high school and I think she went to a public college. You know, sometimes
colleges are weird. Like, I don't know, it's hard to look up as public astray. Yeah. Um, her children,

(01:19:53):
obviously they had the money by then they went to private school. Right. Of course. Um, so she,
I mean, she was there in the 60s, seventies in high school. So I think probably at that time,
it wasn't many people going to private schools unless you were like ultra wealthy. And I think
she came from modest, I mean, her parents are business people, but I think they were still
kind of mid tier. Yeah. So, well, Hey, thinking about 60 seventies, let's talk eighties, nineties

(01:20:15):
for a second. We're still talking about pop catalogs, big shout out pop catalog.com. You know,
for our viewers that are a little younger, these are VHS tapes. Those are cool. Man, my son, the
other day he sees these sit in me. These are from pop catalog.com. So this is Coliseum home video.
This one here is grudges, gripes, and grunts. It's got Shawn Michaels on the front, Papa Shango,

(01:20:39):
Mr. Perfect. But my son picks this up and he's like, he's like, what is this do? I mean, he's
fascinated by it. For any younger viewers, that's like a blue ray disc or streaming. I had to
explain to him that there's a machine that you put it in, right? It's called a VCR. He's like,
do we have one of those? I'm like, we don't, but I used to. Here's another one bashed in the USA.

(01:21:03):
And then if you're a big Jake the snake Roberts fan, this I was told was the most exclusive one.
This is battle of the superstars. Again, Coliseum home video. That's got your boy ultimate warrior
on the back million dollar man, but big shout out to pop catalog.com. These are VHS tapes,
Coliseum home video, actually from their inventory. Yeah, for real. These aren't from our shelves

(01:21:26):
in this from him. So that's the type of thing you can get. If you want those types of things
to collect, right? If you're looking for war games bash 87, right? 1987 speaking of 1987,
the year predator came out. Oh God, I love that movie. Greatest movie. I love that's my favorite
Valentine's day movie. I don't know why I don't, there's no reason I watch it's just the thing.
My one Valentine's day you're going to watch the movie Predator. Yeah, I think it you know,

(01:21:50):
it's just that's the thing we do because it's not sad. It's a date movie. I think Arnold doesn't
wear a shirt. Most of it. That's her reason. Right. So set up my reasons. So like for the
next couple of days, I can go kill me. I'm here. Like I can yell that around the house. Yeah. Or
if like she won't do something, I go do it now. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that. I was one when that

(01:22:12):
came out. So that but I watched you know, those VHS is I used to go get them. So pop catalog has
those and that's the wrestling stuff we're talking about. These are the, there's the background that
they built up and these are the, you know, it's a long standing now they're on Netflix, like we
talked about. So this model does work. Professional wrestling is a long standing institution of its
own in this country, right? You're going to be hard pressed man, not to find someone who has either

(01:22:39):
seen heard about been involved in, I mean, because you know, wrestling goes from pro all the way down
to the, Oh man, hyper granular, like, you know, you're in a VFW hall. Yeah. You're in a pole barn.
Yes. You know, so lots of people, man, have access points to professional wrestling. So this idea
isn't going to be lost on anybody. What we've been talking about today is newly elected president,

(01:23:04):
Donald Trump's new appointment as secretary of education, Linda McMahon. We're taking this
wait and see approach, you know, on how that's going to turn out. But man, we've discussed
heroes and heels, man. We've discussed power bombs, like the monetization, you know, of education
and charter schools and things. Pile driver title nine cage match. Oh, I loved that one, man. That

(01:23:28):
was a good one. That was a good one. And a great sticking point, man. Title nine and those, and
that's something people don't think about. I mean, special education services, man, the student loans,
like, where does that go through? Does it now become private, which federal loans, the reason
you get them low interest rates. Yeah. Do you now go all private if they're not doing it anymore?
Does the state do it and then the individual states? And you know, and that's what we're
talking about. This could usher in a lot of change, not only for teachers, principals, students,

(01:23:52):
but also any, you know, we still attend colleges. They could affect that, like how it goes. And
that's why we want to talk about it. Cause this is a controversial thing. This is not your boring,
oh, this guy's been this and this and this, which, and sometimes I get why president Trump does it
because of that. It's not business as usual. Yeah. And, but sometimes government, you know,
they talk about getting rid of the bureaucracy. Our founders put that in for a reason. It's supposed

(01:24:14):
to be slow. Consistency. Yeah. Like, because if you, that's why the house is it have reelected every
two years because that's the people's house, right? They react to things are happening now.
That's why the Senate is six years. They have a longterm view. They can't be threatened by the
president. Cause if I'm a Senator, I'm like, bro, like, for example, president Trump, he's, he's,
he cannot be president anymore because now he's done two terms. So if he's trying to pressure me,

(01:24:35):
I'm like, dude, I'll have this job two years after you're gone, you know, and that's what they're
supposed to do. They're supposed to out, out, outlast a president or outlast an issue. Cause
take a bigger view. And this is what, that's what he does. He shakes things up and is this a good
shakeup or a bad shakeup? And I just kind of want to talk real quick, you know, as we wrap this up,
like what, you know, teachers can do. It's like kind of bring it home to the classroom. Like,

(01:24:58):
what do you think about an action item? Yeah. I mean, I think one thing, you know, um, be, you
know, pay attention if you're in a union, you know, pay attention to what they're doing and,
and let them know what rights you want and what rights you want preserved. Like that's what a
union does. They're your voice. So don't be a passive member. And this is one of the reasons
why education always gets attacked. And I'm not attacking teachers here, but this is a fundamental

(01:25:20):
thing. Teachers are nice. I've said this before on our mailbag episodes are thinking teaching is a
profession of the soul. Like you care deeply. Okay. We're not just in here just like, yeah,
you're very compassionate people. So we also don't like that. That's what we want to do. We want to
go where I just want to be in my classroom with my kids. And that's kind of why it's easy to prey on
because we don't stand up and go, Hey, no, like put a hand stop. Right. We need to start doing that.

(01:25:45):
Like this is our, this is your career and this is your profession. You have worked hard for it and
you're doing a great job. Fight for it. You know, I'm not saying like go out in the street and
do anything illegal fight through the channels right now. That's unions, right? Now that's your
stand up, be active. If anything you don't like at a base level, pay attention. Yes. You know, but
what you can control act upon that. So if it's going to a town hall and it's letting your voice

(01:26:11):
be heard, but I do like your point for the most part, man, teachers just want to show up and do
their job. Yeah. We love our kids. They love their students for the most part, they love the
profession and what they get to do. They just want to show up and do a good job. And that too
is going to be one of my action items for teachers. Don't let the anxiousness of this, the sensationalism,

(01:26:31):
the hype, the algorithm fed chaos of this derail you from your daily mission, which is to get up,
show up, help kids. I mean, that's ultimately what it is. And how do we help them in through effective
teaching and learning? And how do you do that? By being inspired about what you do. So you can

(01:26:53):
control that. You still walk into your class and give your best effort. And at the end of the day,
go home and love the people that you live with. It's a simple message. Don't believe the hype.
Do what you do in the classroom, right? Good teachers get results. Results are something that
can't be effective. Math, hard numbers. Do what you do. And don't put that extra pressure. You're
doing a good job. That's one thing teachers always were like, oh, we're doing it. It's the same reason

(01:27:16):
all the teachers right now are probably going to laugh. At home, raise your hand. If you have gotten
that email that's very vague, it's like, hey, make sure we're not doing this. And all of us think it
must be us. Like, oh gosh, when did I do that? When it's really one person but an admin doesn't
want to signal that. You're doing a good job just because there's stories of some not. You are,

(01:27:36):
because you're there. So keep doing that. Your relationship with kids and parents,
the things that you achieve in the classroom cannot be refuted. That's hard data. Make those
strong. And then you are strong. That's an easy way of doing what you're doing. A lot of times,
people are like, oh, I don't want to change my whole life up. You don't. You're doing what you're
supposed to do. So keep doing that. Yeah, behavioral change is hard. The idea here is continue to put

(01:27:59):
one foot in front of the other. Impact what you can control in your classroom with those people
that are in your orbit around you. That's your faculty, your staff, your union groups, those
kinds of stakeholders. But at the end of the day, man, live your life, do a good job, and kind of
maybe lean into the uncertainty a little bit. Just lean into a little bit. Hey, I love this profession.

(01:28:24):
I'm excited about the future because it is a bit uncertain, but I know one thing. I'm a part of it.
And what I do matters. And the actions that I take do impact. No matter what you think, the actions you
take daily in a class, in a school, in a boardroom, they do impact. So keep putting those good

(01:28:46):
foot forward. You're changing lives. And that the way you change life, the way you affect those kids
that go, that's a law. Any of this that happens, that is at some point is temporary. You're changing
a life, and then you're changing possibly a generation, and they're changing multiple
generations. That's what teachers do is we affect multi-years. Yeah. All the veteran teachers.

(01:29:07):
Yeah, I'm getting to the point where I'm watching some of my first students get married,
and have kids. They're having kids. I could be teaching those kids one day. They'll say,
oh, like Dr. Lauer taught me. And if I end up teaching that kid, cool. So I can teach
multiple generations. Just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a great job.
So I think wrapping that up, it's a time of uncertainty. It could be a lot of change, but

(01:29:29):
we're here. We're keep talking about the issues. This is not a one-off. If something comes up,
we'll talk about it. If there's a crazy change, we'll talk about it. We're here to attack these
issues that could be attacking us or could affect us. That's what educational warfare does. So Ryan,
Tommy, Matt, this has been awesome. A lot of fun. It could be a bit stressful, you know, discussing
possible changes in education that could start this administration, but I really appreciate you

(01:29:51):
all being here with me. Hey, it's been a great dialogue today. We powerbombed this episode.
Big shout out again to all educators, nascent wide, but really thinking about, you know, our
friends, our family, our colleagues that are in California right now, struggling with these
wildfires. Our hearts grow out to you. Really thinking about my friends in Los Angeles who

(01:30:12):
are going through it right now. Also, man, great episode, dude. Thanks. Loved it. Great conversation.
Look forward to the next one. It's really great. And so for Dr. Ryan Jackson, I'm Dr. Jordan Lauer
saying thank you. Don't forget to email if you have an idea about this, educationalwarfare.pod
at gmail.com. Let's hear your thoughts, ideas. What do you think? Shoot us any cool wrestling names

(01:30:34):
that you may have to go with this, like the Voucher Vortex, anything you think of.
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for being a part
of the fight.

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