Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you here. We're that weird season of changing of climates,
not climates, the weather going to happen. They're gonna start
getting cooler next couple of weeks, next couple of months. Listen,
if you went, if you closed up that furnace last
let's say February March, thinking we're gonna have to give
this thing look at, Start keeping in mind, start making
this appointments. Start thinking about one hour heating and air conditioning.
(00:22):
If you know your furnace had a tough time last year,
and at least start in the next week or so.
I called Corey Clinton the crew. Have them come out
and do what I call the maintenance check. They can
look at the furnace. They can let you know if
it's going to make it, if they can tune it
up a little bit, if not. They talk to them
about a replacement of your HVAC system. Corey Clinton the
team have been serving Color Moddo for thirty five plus years.
I've been a customer theirs they've done. They've replaced the
(00:44):
entire HVAC systems at the House of Laking. I've had
them do repair and I have them do maintenance check
twice a year. These are my guys, Corey Clinton, the
team at one hour Heating and air Conditioning. I call
them eight five to five one hour, eight five five,
one hour, eight five five one hour, one hour heating
and air conditioning. And again fall's going to sneak right
up on you. So if you know that your furnace
was not working that great and last winter, it's time
(01:06):
to start thinking about what you're going to do about
it and have one hour heating and air conditioning. Give
you some options from repair to replace one hour heat
and air dot com slash Jimmy Lanky eight five to five,
one hour, eight five to five, one hour and again
mentioned my name. All right, let me bring into the
conversation Bob Schaeffer. When it comes to State of Colorado
education conversations, I'd like to have him on the program.
(01:28):
He has served on the state Board of Education, He's
been a member of Congress, one of the founders of
the Liberty Commons Schools, also the headmaster there. Bob Schaefer,
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Sir, Good morning, Well, good morning, Jay.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Let's dive into this thing. Sense to the story yesterday
and said, could you please comment headline Colorado math scores
on the standardized testing have gone down so much that
it looks like they're going to have to lower the
graduation standards so that they have enough kids to graduate
this coming spring because math scores in the state are
gone down, gonna dumb down the final expectations of kids
(02:03):
just so they can graduate.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And give me your thoughts, Yeah, it's an unfortunate commentary
on public schools in Colorado, not just the people who
run them, but the people who send their kids to them,
because these are the schools that parents expect and in
fact vote for and want. And school board members who
get elected to manage the schools in this sort of
(02:24):
way are those who are popular with voters and with parents.
So it's it's a it is a disappointing commentary. I guess,
you know, when I stand back and look at who
is in charge, you know, we like to say, well,
it's a superintendent or school board members or bad teachers
and so on. It might be a combination of those things,
but ultimately it's the owners of these school districts who
(02:47):
just keep voting these same people back into office. And
and and there's a perverse social reality that that there
are families community the community pushes schools to engineer schools,
to engineer their their classrooms in this sort of direction,
(03:08):
to make schools easier, to have less school to focus
on non academic curriculum and non academic objectives. And so
it's it's not a mystery that when it comes to
the math portion, what the state is realized is that
in terms of college readiness, on the math portion of
(03:30):
the SAT, all juniors in Colorado SAT that's by state law.
There's a growing number of students throughout the state. We're
not going to pass or meet to meet the cut
levels for the math portion, and so the state is
considering just lowering the bar from five hundred to four
hundred and eighty the score out of I think six hundred.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
This has been a trend for a long time, and
we saw test score start to crash around COVID. They
were going down before. It's just fascinating that this is
not sneaking up on us. These have been problems that
have been really decade or so in the working and
nobody seems to want to fix it. Now you have
fixed it in the charter school system, you're still part
of the public school systems. You have a charter school.
(04:16):
What is it that charter schools like yourself do to
fix this? Why are your math scores? You're not lowering
the bar and if anything, you're probably raising the bar
and raising the standards of expectation for your students. What
is your school, which is a public school as well?
What are you doing different? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, firstonally, let me also just broken a number of
other chructure schools in northern Colorado too. When's your classical school?
Ridge view of classical schools all are in the top
categories of math performance and SAT performance overall. So what
do we do differently? And the answer is nothing remarkable
(04:54):
and nothing. It's nothing innovative. The activity of generations educating
their younger generations is over as a proposition that goes
back over three thousand years, and so we can we
can study great schools all the way back to ancient
Greece and ancient Rome, great teachers and great lessons. We
(05:16):
should be in the business of bringing those best lessons
forward into the classroom today. But there's a lot of
experimentation that takes place in regular public schools, and almost
it's hard to believe that it's almost kind of an
academic free, an academic less set of curricular proposals that
(05:38):
has invaded public schools, not just recently, but going back
maybe twenty five thirty years, and school boards and teachers
they buy this stuff hook line and sinker, and it's
all experimentation and it doesn't work. And then these poor
kids can't get those years back. And so I when,
in my estimation, what great with the top or form?
(06:00):
I mean, public schools in Colorado do toping on the
sat is. They adhere to traditional methods of education. Homework,
classroom lecture, memorization, phonics, hard work. When it comes to math,
memorizing math facts, early understanding the you know, the principles
(06:22):
of the algebra that leads them in the calculus, it's hard.
And schools that back away from acknowledging the difficulty and
creating a culture of schools can be fun, but it
entails work. Schools that back away and reject those ideas
are schools that are seeing their students unprepared for college.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Bob Schaeffer, he's the headmaster of Liberty Common Schools for
so many great charter schools, as he just mentioned, we
want to give credit to all of them, because this
story that Colorado as a whole is going to have
to lower the standards for graduating high school and your
maths because kids' performance has gone down. That is not
the case that a lot of these charter schools, including
Liberty Common A Bob. Another thing. I think it's fair
(07:07):
that you point out that it was you and Steve
Laffey that pointed this out. I began to ask at
my school and tell my friends to ask whether your
kids in middle school or elementary school, or really high
school as well, if they're learning algebra, is the teacher
trained to be an algebra teacher? And you find many
times of these teachers in public schools or now I
(07:27):
took several math classes, but I'm a literature teacher, but
they didn't have a literature position. Open ask if I
could teach college algebra. You don't approach teaching that way.
You don't just kind of fill in the spots. You
find experts in that field and let the experts teach.
The teach the mathematics or the science or the history,
et cetera. That's a different approach than the traditional public
schools can do.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's right. Let me attract teachers who have gone to
teacher college. A vast majority of our teachers have not,
and so a great many of them have not. So
charter schools are The definition of a charter school is
a school that is a public school, but because of
its oversight and its accountability, are waived from some of
(08:11):
the bureaucratic rules and regulations that can strain regular public schools.
And hiring is one of those areas. At my school,
we did not have to hire a teacher who has
been trained to a teacher college or even has a
teacher license. So when it comes to mathematics, we can
hire mathematicians. When it comes to science, we can hire
experienced scientists computer science. Our computer science department is staffed
(08:36):
up with people who have come from industry and have
real world experience before they come in and teach. Now,
I have to make sure that they can teach. Just
because you know a lot doesn't mean interact with students
really well, and so it's an important balance that we
look for and spent a lot of time on. By
the way, this is not easy to do, but there
(08:57):
are lots of people who are really skilled at what
they do, and they of an ronencore career of becoming
a teacher and at a charter school, that it's not automatic,
that it is possible.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Bob Shaefer, I we're going to run short on time.
I know. Liberty comments just also said a new high
on your SAT scores. Congratulations to you. What was the
SAT composite score? The highest twelve seventy eight. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's correct? Highest in the state of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Congratulations, Bob. I appreciate your expertise on it, and I
think you bring up a great point. It's easy to
get mad at the school board, to get mad at
the superintendent, but if you don't like the standards by
which your school district is operating, you might want to
look in the mirror and say, what did I do
to get the right people elected? You own that school district,
you know you do right. I'll be back. Laky six
(09:42):
hundred and K col
Speaker 2 (10:00):
M
Have you here. We're that weird season of changing of climates,
not climates, the weather going to happen. They're gonna start
getting cooler next couple of weeks, next couple of months. Listen,
if you went, if you closed up that furnace last
let's say February March, thinking we're gonna have to give
this thing look at, Start keeping in mind, start making
this appointments. Start thinking about one hour heating and air conditioning.
(00:22):
If you know your furnace had a tough time last year,
and at least start in the next week or so.
I called Corey Clinton the crew. Have them come out
and do what I call the maintenance check. They can
look at the furnace. They can let you know if
it's going to make it, if they can tune it
up a little bit, if not. They talk to them
about a replacement of your HVAC system. Corey Clinton the
team have been serving Color Moddo for thirty five plus years.
I've been a customer theirs they've done. They've replaced the
(00:44):
entire HVAC systems at the House of Laking. I've had
them do repair and I have them do maintenance check
twice a year. These are my guys, Corey Clinton, the
team at one hour Heating and air Conditioning. I call
them eight five to five one hour, eight five five,
one hour, eight five five one hour, one hour heating
and air conditioning. And again fall's going to sneak right
up on you. So if you know that your furnace
was not working that great and last winter, it's time
(01:06):
to start thinking about what you're going to do about
it and have one hour heating and air conditioning. Give
you some options from repair to replace one hour heat
and air dot com slash Jimmy Lanky eight five to five,
one hour, eight five to five, one hour and again
mentioned my name. All right, let me bring into the
conversation Bob Schaeffer. When it comes to State of Colorado
education conversations, I'd like to have him on the program.
(01:28):
He has served on the state Board of Education, He's
been a member of Congress, one of the founders of
the Liberty Commons Schools, also the headmaster there. Bob Schaefer,
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Sir, Good morning, Well, good morning, Jay.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Let's dive into this thing. Sense to the story yesterday
and said, could you please comment headline Colorado math scores
on the standardized testing have gone down so much that
it looks like they're going to have to lower the
graduation standards so that they have enough kids to graduate
this coming spring because math scores in the state are
gone down, gonna dumb down the final expectations of kids
(02:03):
just so they can graduate.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
And give me your thoughts, Yeah, it's an unfortunate commentary
on public schools in Colorado, not just the people who
run them, but the people who send their kids to them,
because these are the schools that parents expect and in
fact vote for and want. And school board members who
get elected to manage the schools in this sort of
(02:24):
way are those who are popular with voters and with parents.
So it's it's a it is a disappointing commentary. I guess,
you know, when I stand back and look at who
is in charge, you know, we like to say, well,
it's a superintendent or school board members or bad teachers
and so on. It might be a combination of those things,
but ultimately it's the owners of these school districts who
(02:47):
just keep voting these same people back into office. And
and and there's a perverse social reality that that there
are families community the community pushes schools to engineer schools,
to engineer their their classrooms in this sort of direction,
(03:08):
to make schools easier, to have less school to focus
on non academic curriculum and non academic objectives. And so
it's it's not a mystery that when it comes to
the math portion, what the state is realized is that
in terms of college readiness, on the math portion of
(03:30):
the SAT, all juniors in Colorado SAT that's by state law.
There's a growing number of students throughout the state. We're
not going to pass or meet to meet the cut
levels for the math portion, and so the state is
considering just lowering the bar from five hundred to four
hundred and eighty the score out of I think six hundred.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
This has been a trend for a long time, and
we saw test score start to crash around COVID. They
were going down before. It's just fascinating that this is
not sneaking up on us. These have been problems that
have been really decade or so in the working and
nobody seems to want to fix it. Now you have
fixed it in the charter school system, you're still part
of the public school systems. You have a charter school.
(04:16):
What is it that charter schools like yourself do to
fix this? Why are your math scores? You're not lowering
the bar and if anything, you're probably raising the bar
and raising the standards of expectation for your students. What
is your school, which is a public school as well?
What are you doing different? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, firstonally, let me also just broken a number of
other chructure schools in northern Colorado too. When's your classical school?
Ridge view of classical schools all are in the top
categories of math performance and SAT performance overall. So what
do we do differently? And the answer is nothing remarkable
(04:54):
and nothing. It's nothing innovative. The activity of generations educating
their younger generations is over as a proposition that goes
back over three thousand years, and so we can we
can study great schools all the way back to ancient
Greece and ancient Rome, great teachers and great lessons. We
(05:16):
should be in the business of bringing those best lessons
forward into the classroom today. But there's a lot of
experimentation that takes place in regular public schools, and almost
it's hard to believe that it's almost kind of an
academic free, an academic less set of curricular proposals that
(05:38):
has invaded public schools, not just recently, but going back
maybe twenty five thirty years, and school boards and teachers
they buy this stuff hook line and sinker, and it's
all experimentation and it doesn't work. And then these poor
kids can't get those years back. And so I when,
in my estimation, what great with the top or form?
(06:00):
I mean, public schools in Colorado do toping on the
sat is. They adhere to traditional methods of education. Homework,
classroom lecture, memorization, phonics, hard work. When it comes to math,
memorizing math facts, early understanding the you know, the principles
(06:22):
of the algebra that leads them in the calculus, it's hard.
And schools that back away from acknowledging the difficulty and
creating a culture of schools can be fun, but it
entails work. Schools that back away and reject those ideas
are schools that are seeing their students unprepared for college.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Bob Schaeffer, he's the headmaster of Liberty Common Schools for
so many great charter schools, as he just mentioned, we
want to give credit to all of them, because this
story that Colorado as a whole is going to have
to lower the standards for graduating high school and your
maths because kids' performance has gone down. That is not
the case that a lot of these charter schools, including
Liberty Common A Bob. Another thing. I think it's fair
(07:07):
that you point out that it was you and Steve
Laffey that pointed this out. I began to ask at
my school and tell my friends to ask whether your
kids in middle school or elementary school, or really high
school as well, if they're learning algebra, is the teacher
trained to be an algebra teacher? And you find many
times of these teachers in public schools or now I
(07:27):
took several math classes, but I'm a literature teacher, but
they didn't have a literature position. Open ask if I
could teach college algebra. You don't approach teaching that way.
You don't just kind of fill in the spots. You
find experts in that field and let the experts teach.
The teach the mathematics or the science or the history,
et cetera. That's a different approach than the traditional public
schools can do.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's right. Let me attract teachers who have gone to
teacher college. A vast majority of our teachers have not,
and so a great many of them have not. So
charter schools are The definition of a charter school is
a school that is a public school, but because of
its oversight and its accountability, are waived from some of
(08:11):
the bureaucratic rules and regulations that can strain regular public schools.
And hiring is one of those areas. At my school,
we did not have to hire a teacher who has
been trained to a teacher college or even has a
teacher license. So when it comes to mathematics, we can
hire mathematicians. When it comes to science, we can hire
experienced scientists computer science. Our computer science department is staffed
(08:36):
up with people who have come from industry and have
real world experience before they come in and teach. Now,
I have to make sure that they can teach. Just
because you know a lot doesn't mean interact with students
really well, and so it's an important balance that we
look for and spent a lot of time on. By
the way, this is not easy to do, but there
(08:57):
are lots of people who are really skilled at what
they do, and they of an ronencore career of becoming
a teacher and at a charter school, that it's not automatic,
that it is possible.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Bob Shaefer, I we're going to run short on time.
I know. Liberty comments just also said a new high
on your SAT scores. Congratulations to you. What was the
SAT composite score? The highest twelve seventy eight. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's correct? Highest in the state of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Congratulations, Bob. I appreciate your expertise on it, and I
think you bring up a great point. It's easy to
get mad at the school board, to get mad at
the superintendent, but if you don't like the standards by
which your school district is operating, you might want to
look in the mirror and say, what did I do
to get the right people elected? You own that school district,
you know you do right. I'll be back. Laky six
(09:42):
hundred and K col
Speaker 2 (10:00):
M
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