Mandy Drogin - Campaign Director, TPPF Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, you know, there are slow learners as students, and
there are slow learners as schools. And the slow learners
as schools are the ones that are still getting ds
and f's even after they've already had those kind of
report cards, and you know, on the verge in some
cases being taken over by the state. HISD, I think
is a prime example of somebody who ended up getting

(00:20):
taken over by the state because they just couldn't turn
the battleship around or weren't that interested in turning the
battleship around. Now the grades are out, lawsuits are settled,
we'll find out this week what school systems around the
state got. Mandy Drogan joins us. She's at the Texas
Public Policy Foundation. She follows all things educational, big home
schooling proponent, a big school choice proponent, and when it

(00:44):
comes to school choice, it helps to know how your
school's performing, Mandy, before you decide where you want them
to go to school.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Right, Absolutely, parents have a right to know can a
school educate my child or not? And if not, they
must have the right and the opportunity to go somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is this information too a little too late at this
point for many families.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
It is unfortunately. I've seen all over social media the
smiling pictures of children going back to school. And the
really unfortunate part is that over twenty two percent of
the public schools in Texas are D or F rated schools.
We did see a massive drop in schools all across

(01:24):
Texas going down. This tells parents they're not educating their children,
they're not focused on the basics reading, math, social studies.
To be clear, forty percent of kids in Texas are
proficient in math, fifty percent of kids are proficient in reading,
and just thirty percent of kids are proficient in social

(01:46):
studies in history, those numbers are devastating. And yes, parents
were not told and they didn't have the option this
year to select a different school based on these ratings.
And it really is sad for a lot of parents
whose kids are back in school and they're being back
in the schools and the twenty two percent of schools.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
That are de and F rating well, and those those
schools involved in lawsuits to prevent the information from coming
out because they didn't want parents to know. They're trying
to sweep it under the rug.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Always it's a game of hide the banana. And this
is what this system, you know, we have. I've been
talking about this for years. We have a broken system.
We have to acknowledge where schools are failing and making mistakes.
And I heard you talk about Houston i SD. Look
when the state came over, came in and took over
that system. The new board, the Board of Managers, implemented

(02:41):
sweeping reforms. They basically said, we're not listening to the unions,
we have no tie to them. We're going to put
in merit based pay, We're going to put in a
discipline structure, We're going to put in all these different metrics,
and they now have no affraded schools. It was ugly,
we watched protests, but it worked. They got back to
the basics. And that's what we need to see the

(03:02):
entire public system get back to. Stop listening to radicals
that want to indoctrinate kids, start listening to experts that
want to get back to the science of reading, phonics,
teach teaching, high quality civics, social studies, mathematics. That is
what Texas schools must focus on.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
And it seems very simple, but the fact of the
matter is, I take a state like Mississippi traditionally dead
last or very close to dead last when it comes
to public school education. They've completely turned that around in
Mississippi by doing exactly what you said, going back to
the basics. We've don't have time for all this other stuff.
We're here to teach math and reading and writing and history,

(03:40):
and if anything else gets done, great, but we're going
to take care of these core things first.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
That's exactly right. In fact, it's being hailed in education
circles as the Mississippi miracle, and it refers to that
dramatic change you're talking about. In their cake th re
Tol system. They got back to the basics. They said,
every teacher is going to know how to teach. You
are going to read phonics. They also said, if a
child cannot read on grade level at the completion of

(04:06):
third grade, we are going to hold them back and
we will not force them on through their education system
without being able to read. That's something that they focused on.
That's something they changed, and it has completely changed the
trajectory of their kids' lives there in Mississippi, and conversely,
here in Texas, we removed our retention policy. The same

(04:28):
entities I'm talking have the Texas Freedom Network. These entities
that thought to remove Texas's retention policy in two thousand
and eight, they're the same entities that have supported hiding
the a thropt system, supported the lawsuits to stop parents
from knowing how their kids are doing. It's nefarious. It
has to stop. We got to focus on our kids,

(04:50):
and we will not only have the Texas business miracle
that we see here throughout where we're thriving economically, but
we can also have the Texas education miracle.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
All right, Bendy, thanks as always good to talk. You
appreciate it. That is Mandy Dragon with the Texas Public
Policy Foundation. It's five point fifty seven