Jonathan Butcher - The Heritage Foundation Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So if you've got a three day weekend in addition
to summers off, that seems like a pretty nice perk
if you're a teacher, right, Is that enough to attract
new talent and keep the old talent from quitting? Jonathan
Butcher joins us he's with the Heritage Foundation.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
What do you think, Jonathan, So, a recent study of
teachers in Missouri asking them what they think about a
four day work week, finds that it is not successful
at retaining teachers or recruiting new talent. And this is
what educators around the country who are moving to these
four day work weeks, I mean, this is what they
say that they're trying to do by changing the schedule.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Okay, so maybe that's not the real reason.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, I mean, I think the disappointing thing is it's
not accomplishing even what they say it is. But the
bigger issue here is our school's a job program for
adults or are we trying to create quality options for kids? Well,
and that has not come up enough in the discussions yet.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, and this is coming at a time, by the way,
when we have about three hundred and fifty schools here
in Texas. They're in danger of being taken over by
the state because of their poor performance.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
And I mean, look, the math and reading scores nationwide
are nothing to get excited about. And I mean, we're
just now finding, finally, finally, states that are recouping where
they were before the pandemic. And that wasn't even a
great place to be because math and reading scores were
already on the decline before the pandemic started. So, you know,

(01:27):
I think unless there's some sort of magic happening with
a four day work week and longer school days or
you know, a more rigorous curriculum, I don't see how
this is helping young people.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, I do neither. And at the end of the day,
I mean, those that have made the switch to a
four day week, there's been so few of them so far.
We don't really have any data to track Dewey as
far as being able to tell whether or not they're
you know, they're able to get the instructional time in
how those students' performances are, we don't really know yet.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well we don't know. And if you know, they're waiting
say three, four or five years to figure out what
the data tells them. I mean, by that time a
kids graduated from high school right or they've moved out
of elementary school in middle school, I mean, you're you're
halfway a quarter of a way through a child's educational career,
so we don't have time to wait here. I mean,
what we should be doing is reinforcing the teaching of phonics,

(02:18):
especially in first, second, and third grade before kid gets
to fourth grade, and they need to be moving to
a rigorous math curriculum that starts algebraic ideas even coming
out of middle school. They need to be setting kids
up so they can take pretty calculus and even calculus
if they choose in high school. Otherwise you're not preparing
kids either for the workforce or if they choose to

(02:39):
go off to college. I mean, these are the things
that schools need to be working on well.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And if you are trying to improve teacher morale, you
don't necessarily do it by having them work one last
day a week. How about you give them support in
the classroom. How about you back them up when they're
having an issue with a child and a parent. I
think for the most part, these teachers are because they
don't feel like they're getting support from the administration.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, You're exactly right. The evidence these days on student
misbehavior in classrooms is it's very frightening. I mean again,
coming out of the pandemic, students are going back to
school and the issues of student misbehavior are up. So
too are issues of chronic aps and teaism, right, which
means students missing ten or more days a year. To

(03:26):
have both of these things on the increase should be,
you know, it should be very worrisome to principles and
school boards. And the issue is not to make less school.
I think the issue is to get back to some
of the foundational ideas that you know, help students succeed
in prior generations that we've gone away from.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
And as we've talked about in this show many times,
Mississippis found a way to get that done. I don't
know why others aren't taking their lead. Jonathan, Thank you
appreciate it. Jonathan Butcher at the Heritage Foundation at seven
twenty six