November 24, 2025 • 17 mins
Buck and Inez Feltscher Stepman break down New York’s new mayor, what his public-safety agenda could mean for NYPD, and why Trump’s headline-grabbing “quiet piggy” moment is setting the internet on fire. They also dig into Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education, collapsing test scores, and how progressive policies are reshaping schools and cities.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome into the Buck Brief. Everybody. My friend in is
Felcher Stepman joins.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
She is a legal and policy analyst at the Independent
Women's Forum and a New Yorker, which is going to
come in very handy because one, I feel like I
encouraged her, not that it was my idea, but I
encourage her to move to New York. I was living
in New York at the time. I said, you and
your husband are going to love it, and I think
they do. But now you have a mayor who Trump
(00:45):
is meeting with. Maybe that'll help. Maybe a mayor who
is a Kami by the name of Mom Donnie. What
do you think about what he's going to do? How
are you feeling about this because you're in the blast
radius we are.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I think the scariest thing, honestly about his agenda is
a lot of the public safety things that he's promised,
or I should say anti public safety moves that he's promised.
We've just heard that he's keeping on like a tish
as commissioner. She's been very good. I do not envy
her in this position, right because clearly she's going to
be having a lot of disagreements with the mayor over policy.
(01:21):
But the sort of policies that he's proposed, I mean,
beyond just the defunding the police. I mean the DSA
that wrote a lot, part of large part of his
platform believes in basically the opposite of broken windows policing,
making all misdemeanors and not crimes anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Maybe their version of broken windows is just break all
the windows.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, exactly, if all the windows are broken, then everyone
is equal.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
No, So, I mean that's really quality of life, and
that's something that the mayor has a lot of control over.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Some of his other schemes.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
He has less control over changing, you know, soaking the
rich to the degree that he wants. He can certainly
make things harder for high owners in the city, but
you know, he does need buy in from Albany. He needs,
you know, he needs to some extent to work with
the federal government, even for some of the housing plans
that he has, because the Fed's actually pay New York
for lot of that. So there's a lot of levers
(02:12):
and kind of cabinating him in his position, but not
really over public safety. The mayor really is able to
do a lot in terms of pulling the cops out
of the subways. You know, I'm worried about NYPD resignations.
I wouldn't stay. Who wants to be the first cop
to have to shoot a black purp who's trying to
kill you under the Mondamnee administration and become the new
(02:33):
poster child for racism in America.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So yeah, I could see that that's the part of it.
The economic stuff, I think will be far less, at
least in terms of the policies that he wants to implement,
because one it's out of his power or something. You
see him talking about the bus situation. He's like, he's like,
we're going to have free buses, and and Hopel is like, well, no,
like we're not going to back that in all been
(02:57):
at the state level and you need us too or
else you can't do it. And then he's just like, well,
the important part is that we want to do it. No,
I don't think that's actually how it works. They get
to figure out how.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I mean, fortunately, some of this stuff is not going
to happen, And like you, I'm less worried about the
economic pieces, although I think it just depends how long
he's mare right. I think he could do a lot
of damage over time. I just think it's going to
take him more time. There's going to be a lot
of setbacks, and where he wants to go, there's going
to be a lot of levers pushing against it. I
(03:31):
am less worried about that. I'll say it's not that
I you know, obviously, I think what he's saying is
insane economically, but I am less worried about that than
I am about public safety about I'm worried he's going
to take his like the NYPD foot off of the protests.
One of the reasons that we don't have riots with
these Palacindian protests as opposed to in twenty twenty is
that the NYPD is you know, is there on the scene.
(03:54):
They do a really good job of crowd control. That's
actually something specifically that Linda Sarsoor has demanded and the
people who helped Electwandami have demanded that they disband this
particular part of the NYPD that it does crowd ConTroll
and makes it so that it's not summer of twenty
twenty every time there's a protest in New York City.
(04:15):
So those are things he can do right away, and
those are the things I'm worried about.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, we'll have to see. Why do you think Trump
has this meeting with him? What's the Do you think
he just wants to size him up? Or is it
he just recognizes that the optics of this of Trump
versus the COMI looks good. Like, what's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean, I don't think it needs an explanation. He
met with Kim Jong un, right, Trump.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Is willing to meet with anybody, hen Tommy.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
He's a confident negotiator.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Maybe he thinks he can get a deal man, and
who would counted out with his track record.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So no, I don't think Trump.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
I think Trump is just as part of his personality
and the way he looks at the world, he's always
willing to talk with anyone, but doesn't mean he's going
to give them anything they want.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Were you a little you a little surprised? I mean,
I think Trump is hilarious. But this thing where some
reporter was interrupted with it, he goes quiet, piggy Trump Trump.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
That was naughty. I was like, that's naughty Trump right there.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Apparently that the woman's name is Peggy, so.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Really yeah, so I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
He actually said it piggy, although I almost wanted to
be that way.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I thought I.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Saw I saw a photo and she's not heavy, so
it's not a fat joke evidence.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And her name is Peggy, so she's neither heavy nor
is and her name is closed to piggy. And I
feel like this is actually one of those things that
didn't actually happen.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
But oh man, because he just looks at her, it's
just like quiet piggy.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
He's the president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Wait, I still remember when Joe Biden told that guy.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Was a dog face pony soldier. Dog dog face pony soldier.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Wasn't that what it was? Or yeah that was.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Why gott Yeah you sat pull somebody court.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Question, Matt. Yeah, that all true, All true.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
We're going to talk about how the education departments being
dismantled here in a second, so we'll get to that.
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this Department of Education, they're dissembling it, disassembling it, but
(07:23):
it has to explain what's going on here to the
best of your knowledge. And Linda McMahon's like, this didn't
even exist. It's like, you run the department. I love this.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Yeah, I mean this has been a Conservative goal for
literally since the department was created in nineteen seventy nine.
Reagan wanted to dismantle it and didn't manage it right.
So this is not one of those things that is
any different from what conservatives has have been saying.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
For thirty or forty years.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
But of course when Trump does it, everybody freaks out
because you actually.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Follow it through on it. No.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
So there are a bunch of programs that are line
item appropriated by Congress within and they're administered by the
Department of Education, and the Trump administration is saying, well,
we're keeping everything that Congress has forced us to keep.
Now we're going to go to Congress and ask them
to scal back some of that stuff. But that's not
within our power to change. What we can do is
dismantable the actual departments as an administrative body and put
(08:17):
some of these programs where they might belong more appropriately. So,
for example, I think ultimately they haven't done it yet,
but ultimately I think student loans might go to Treasury.
For example, there's pieces of this that went to the
Department of Labor went to The programs having to do
with health in schools are going under HIHS, so they're
spinning out the programs that are actually.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Appropriated by Congress.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
But Congress like there's no reason why the Department itself
has to exist. All of those bureaucrats have to exist.
The Department of Education is essentially a pass through entity.
It takes a bunch of money and parcels it out
to the states on a variety of program basis. Some
of those things, as I said, are required by Congress,
some of them are vague, and Department of Education bureaucrats
(09:02):
have been distributing dollars to all kinds of awful things
for a long time. There's also a large piece of
the department. I'm especially curious to see what they do
with that. I soon it'll go back to DJ But
the Civil Rights Division ocr within the Department of Ed
now that's been a crucial part of the Trump administration.
They have done a fantastic job enforcing the Civil Rights
(09:22):
Act against universities. I would not like to see that dismantled,
And currently I don't think DOOJ really has the staff
I mean they're over They're overrun with things to do
as it is, so I'll be watching for where that
ends up going. But overall, this is a promise that
he's following through on in something that Linda McMahon promised
as well publicly. So they're the only difference between what
(09:46):
conservatives have been yelling about for fifty years and what's
happening now is that, as always, it took Trump to
actually execute it.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So there's also this this whole bunch of reporting that
I've seen in is about the test scores for let's
California schools.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I'll focus on that one first.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
California schools have seen enormous drop offs in the test
scores of incoming students, and even at the college level.
I was reading that they have kids coming in now
who can't do fractions who are in college, like that's
where their math level is, which I mean people do
fractions in like sixth seventh grade, I think, I mean something.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Like that or fifth grade. Maybe what is.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Going on with the move away from test scores. It
feels like the data is so clear and shouting so
loudly that everyone's going to have to go back to
really using test scores pretty consistently.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, I mean, there's just so many layers of bad
progressive policy that have led us to this point. Let's
start with the university is and work our way backwards
into K twelve. Obviously, in recent years, a lot of
universities have dropped the requirement to submit the ACT or
the SAT scores, and they've done it purely on essay
and then GPA. I'll point out that, and these are
(11:08):
really basic questions that you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
This actually my alma mater at UCSD.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
We're talking about basic multiplication of fractions, really basic algebra
one and two questions, you know, multiplying polynomials, that sort
of thing maybe people remember from their own high school era.
These are really basic math concepts. And out of the
kids in those remedial math classes, like some huge percentage,
(11:33):
I think twenty percent of them had a four point
zero in math, and the average GPA within math was
three point seven for those kids who could not do fractions.
So we'll get to the K twelve system in a minute.
But first of all, they're admitting people who are unqualified,
especially since they dropped the only objective piece of the
application process and I've been a long time critic of
(11:54):
the College Board and SAT, but this is the most
objective piece of the application process. They've dropped that in
recent years, and that's really spiraled downwards, a trend that
has gone on for longer. And then, of course they're
admitting people on the basis of race. They especially want
to bolster as many their missions package with as many
Blacks and Hispanics as possible, and the problem is there
(12:16):
aren't enough black and Hispanic applicants with actually the kind
of especially test scores, but even GPA to match the
overall academic rigor of the university. So that's the university
piece of this.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Question. Why all these kids had four point zeros and
they can't do fractions in math?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Well, that's what I was gonna How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yeah, and that's obviously a longer conversation, but we have
One of the things that the education establishment has been
bragging about for for the last decade is how graduation
rates and attainment rates have gone up. Well, it turns
out that we haven't actually done any better job of
teaching kids anything reading math. In fact, we've done a
worse job. If NAPE scores from the last round are
(13:00):
to be believed. But we're just passing them through the
grade levels. We're giving them good grades even though that
we're giving them good grades for showing up right, maybe
for me an effort, but we're not actually evaluating whether
or not these kids are gathering the skills that they
need to pass on to the next grade.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And that's why you have people.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Getting into the University of California with a four point
zero in math who cannot multiply fractions. Those those are
also all progressive ideas within education, and it's because they
haven't had any competition. Every time anyone criticizes the very
poor job that they've been doing for decades and educating
American children, the answer is always, well, we need more money. Well,
(13:42):
per capita per student spending has gone through the roof,
It's nearly tripled in recent decades, and we're one of
the highest per spenders per student in the entire world,
and yet those results are going nowhere. But that's always
the answer, right, we need more money, even though they
have not done a good job with the money that
they're getting, which is, by the way, eight hundred billion
dollars annually in k twelve.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
If I could make you the head of the New
York State public school system, is there? I don't even
know that it's such a job. But is this fixable?
Putting it at the state level? Right? Like, I know,
we're getting rid of the Department of Education, So it's
not like there's some educations are who can make everything better?
But are there ways do you think to reform the
system that are meaningful?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I don't think there's any shortcut to utopia, but I
do think there are a number of things that could
be done to make things better. One is very obviously,
to give parents more control over the dollars that are
spent mentioning New York. I mean New York spends upwards
of thirty thousand dollars per child per year. That is
more than the tuition of most private schools, and they
(14:46):
have abysmal results. So that would be the first thing
on my list. School choice. I know everybody likes school
choice and it seems like a very patent trite answer,
but I truly do believe, you know, I believe in
the Freedman maxim right that people will choose a better
education for their child. They will care about whether or
not their child reads more than some faceless bureaucrat in
the district office, especially when they can just slap a
(15:08):
four point zero on that kid and getting a get
them into you know, the state school.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
So I do think that school choice not only provides
the competition, it also provides the leverage over curriculum, over
you know, decisions about whether or not to laying children
in particular ways. I just I think that parents are better, frankly,
at making these decisions than bureaucrats who have never met
a child, the child in question. The second thing is
I would restore a kind of classical curriculum that is
(15:36):
both interesting and rigorous. I mean, we talk all the
time about how boys are more disengaged from K twelve
education than girls are, but have you looked at the
reading lists for the average eighth grader? Now, Ivan Hoe
is not on there. It's all about women sitting in
a corner chatting with each other. It's House on Mango
straight into the Joy Luck Club. But there's nothing for
(15:58):
boys to be interested to read. And frankly, I think
most of the selections, the DEI type selections where you
care what percentage of your author's list is you know
LGBT is not good.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
For girls either.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
It's not challenging material, and ultimately, it doesn't raise kids
up into a universal world where they then have the
references going through life to understand real literature to understand
I don't know a speech by Abraham Lincoln. So there
is a huge classical education movement that is burgeoning. It
(16:31):
gives me a lot of hope. I think a lot
of parents are. I know for my own child, that's
we're probably looking at homeschooling for some period of time
and then trying to find a classical school because it's
not just that the standards have fallen through the floor
and that we're not even doing the basics of phonics.
It's that there's nothing inspiring or elevating about the sort
(16:53):
of things that they're teaching. It's not just pushing the
woke out. It's putting good things in the curriculum. And
I think that a lot of people in America are
hungry for that kind of education for their children.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Na's felt your stepman. Always good to see you and
congrats again on baby June. Super exciting as a fellow
parent of a little one. It's the best, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
So fun cute.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
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Speaker 3 (17:55):
Thanks so much, Bet,
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome into the Buck Brief. Everybody. My friend in is
Felcher Stepman joins.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
She is a legal and policy analyst at the Independent
Women's Forum and a New Yorker, which is going to
come in very handy because one, I feel like I
encouraged her, not that it was my idea, but I
encourage her to move to New York. I was living
in New York at the time. I said, you and
your husband are going to love it, and I think
they do. But now you have a mayor who Trump
(00:45):
is meeting with. Maybe that'll help. Maybe a mayor who
is a Kami by the name of Mom Donnie. What
do you think about what he's going to do? How
are you feeling about this because you're in the blast
radius we are.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I think the scariest thing, honestly about his agenda is
a lot of the public safety things that he's promised,
or I should say anti public safety moves that he's promised.
We've just heard that he's keeping on like a tish
as commissioner. She's been very good. I do not envy
her in this position, right because clearly she's going to
be having a lot of disagreements with the mayor over policy.
(01:21):
But the sort of policies that he's proposed, I mean,
beyond just the defunding the police. I mean the DSA
that wrote a lot, part of large part of his
platform believes in basically the opposite of broken windows policing,
making all misdemeanors and not crimes anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Maybe their version of broken windows is just break all
the windows.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, exactly, if all the windows are broken, then everyone
is equal.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
No, So, I mean that's really quality of life, and
that's something that the mayor has a lot of control over.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Some of his other schemes.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
He has less control over changing, you know, soaking the
rich to the degree that he wants. He can certainly
make things harder for high owners in the city, but
you know, he does need buy in from Albany. He needs,
you know, he needs to some extent to work with
the federal government, even for some of the housing plans
that he has, because the Fed's actually pay New York
for lot of that. So there's a lot of levers
(02:12):
and kind of cabinating him in his position, but not
really over public safety. The mayor really is able to
do a lot in terms of pulling the cops out
of the subways. You know, I'm worried about NYPD resignations.
I wouldn't stay. Who wants to be the first cop
to have to shoot a black purp who's trying to
kill you under the Mondamnee administration and become the new
(02:33):
poster child for racism in America.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So yeah, I could see that that's the part of it.
The economic stuff, I think will be far less, at
least in terms of the policies that he wants to implement,
because one it's out of his power or something. You
see him talking about the bus situation. He's like, he's like,
we're going to have free buses, and and Hopel is like, well, no,
like we're not going to back that in all been
(02:57):
at the state level and you need us too or
else you can't do it. And then he's just like, well,
the important part is that we want to do it. No,
I don't think that's actually how it works. They get
to figure out how.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I mean, fortunately, some of this stuff is not going
to happen, And like you, I'm less worried about the
economic pieces, although I think it just depends how long
he's mare right. I think he could do a lot
of damage over time. I just think it's going to
take him more time. There's going to be a lot
of setbacks, and where he wants to go, there's going
to be a lot of levers pushing against it. I
(03:31):
am less worried about that. I'll say it's not that
I you know, obviously, I think what he's saying is
insane economically, but I am less worried about that than
I am about public safety about I'm worried he's going
to take his like the NYPD foot off of the protests.
One of the reasons that we don't have riots with
these Palacindian protests as opposed to in twenty twenty is
that the NYPD is you know, is there on the scene.
(03:54):
They do a really good job of crowd control. That's
actually something specifically that Linda Sarsoor has demanded and the
people who helped Electwandami have demanded that they disband this
particular part of the NYPD that it does crowd ConTroll
and makes it so that it's not summer of twenty
twenty every time there's a protest in New York City.
(04:15):
So those are things he can do right away, and
those are the things I'm worried about.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, we'll have to see. Why do you think Trump
has this meeting with him? What's the Do you think
he just wants to size him up? Or is it
he just recognizes that the optics of this of Trump
versus the COMI looks good. Like, what's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean, I don't think it needs an explanation. He
met with Kim Jong un, right, Trump.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Is willing to meet with anybody, hen Tommy.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
He's a confident negotiator.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Maybe he thinks he can get a deal man, and
who would counted out with his track record.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So no, I don't think Trump.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
I think Trump is just as part of his personality
and the way he looks at the world, he's always
willing to talk with anyone, but doesn't mean he's going
to give them anything they want.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Were you a little you a little surprised? I mean,
I think Trump is hilarious. But this thing where some
reporter was interrupted with it, he goes quiet, piggy Trump Trump.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
That was naughty. I was like, that's naughty Trump right there.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Apparently that the woman's name is Peggy, so.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Really yeah, so I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
He actually said it piggy, although I almost wanted to
be that way.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I thought I.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Saw I saw a photo and she's not heavy, so
it's not a fat joke evidence.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And her name is Peggy, so she's neither heavy nor
is and her name is closed to piggy. And I
feel like this is actually one of those things that
didn't actually happen.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
But oh man, because he just looks at her, it's
just like quiet piggy.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
He's the president of the United States.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Wait, I still remember when Joe Biden told that guy.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Was a dog face pony soldier. Dog dog face pony soldier.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Wasn't that what it was? Or yeah that was.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Why gott Yeah you sat pull somebody court.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Question, Matt. Yeah, that all true, All true.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
We're going to talk about how the education departments being
dismantled here in a second, so we'll get to that.
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this Department of Education, they're dissembling it, disassembling it, but
(07:23):
it has to explain what's going on here to the
best of your knowledge. And Linda McMahon's like, this didn't
even exist. It's like, you run the department. I love this.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Yeah, I mean this has been a Conservative goal for
literally since the department was created in nineteen seventy nine.
Reagan wanted to dismantle it and didn't manage it right.
So this is not one of those things that is
any different from what conservatives has have been saying.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
For thirty or forty years.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
But of course when Trump does it, everybody freaks out
because you actually.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Follow it through on it. No.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
So there are a bunch of programs that are line
item appropriated by Congress within and they're administered by the
Department of Education, and the Trump administration is saying, well,
we're keeping everything that Congress has forced us to keep.
Now we're going to go to Congress and ask them
to scal back some of that stuff. But that's not
within our power to change. What we can do is
dismantable the actual departments as an administrative body and put
(08:17):
some of these programs where they might belong more appropriately. So,
for example, I think ultimately they haven't done it yet,
but ultimately I think student loans might go to Treasury.
For example, there's pieces of this that went to the
Department of Labor went to The programs having to do
with health in schools are going under HIHS, so they're
spinning out the programs that are actually.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Appropriated by Congress.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
But Congress like there's no reason why the Department itself
has to exist. All of those bureaucrats have to exist.
The Department of Education is essentially a pass through entity.
It takes a bunch of money and parcels it out
to the states on a variety of program basis. Some
of those things, as I said, are required by Congress,
some of them are vague, and Department of Education bureaucrats
(09:02):
have been distributing dollars to all kinds of awful things
for a long time. There's also a large piece of
the department. I'm especially curious to see what they do
with that. I soon it'll go back to DJ But
the Civil Rights Division ocr within the Department of Ed
now that's been a crucial part of the Trump administration.
They have done a fantastic job enforcing the Civil Rights
(09:22):
Act against universities. I would not like to see that dismantled,
And currently I don't think DOOJ really has the staff
I mean they're over They're overrun with things to do
as it is, so I'll be watching for where that
ends up going. But overall, this is a promise that
he's following through on in something that Linda McMahon promised
as well publicly. So they're the only difference between what
(09:46):
conservatives have been yelling about for fifty years and what's
happening now is that, as always, it took Trump to
actually execute it.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So there's also this this whole bunch of reporting that
I've seen in is about the test scores for let's
California schools.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I'll focus on that one first.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
California schools have seen enormous drop offs in the test
scores of incoming students, and even at the college level.
I was reading that they have kids coming in now
who can't do fractions who are in college, like that's
where their math level is, which I mean people do
fractions in like sixth seventh grade, I think, I mean something.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Like that or fifth grade. Maybe what is.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Going on with the move away from test scores. It
feels like the data is so clear and shouting so
loudly that everyone's going to have to go back to
really using test scores pretty consistently.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, I mean, there's just so many layers of bad
progressive policy that have led us to this point. Let's
start with the university is and work our way backwards
into K twelve. Obviously, in recent years, a lot of
universities have dropped the requirement to submit the ACT or
the SAT scores, and they've done it purely on essay
and then GPA. I'll point out that, and these are
(11:08):
really basic questions that you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
This actually my alma mater at UCSD.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
We're talking about basic multiplication of fractions, really basic algebra
one and two questions, you know, multiplying polynomials, that sort
of thing maybe people remember from their own high school era.
These are really basic math concepts. And out of the
kids in those remedial math classes, like some huge percentage,
(11:33):
I think twenty percent of them had a four point
zero in math, and the average GPA within math was
three point seven for those kids who could not do fractions.
So we'll get to the K twelve system in a minute.
But first of all, they're admitting people who are unqualified,
especially since they dropped the only objective piece of the
application process and I've been a long time critic of
(11:54):
the College Board and SAT, but this is the most
objective piece of the application process. They've dropped that in
recent years, and that's really spiraled downwards, a trend that
has gone on for longer. And then, of course they're
admitting people on the basis of race. They especially want
to bolster as many their missions package with as many
Blacks and Hispanics as possible, and the problem is there
(12:16):
aren't enough black and Hispanic applicants with actually the kind
of especially test scores, but even GPA to match the
overall academic rigor of the university. So that's the university
piece of this.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Question. Why all these kids had four point zeros and
they can't do fractions in math?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Well, that's what I was gonna How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yeah, and that's obviously a longer conversation, but we have
One of the things that the education establishment has been
bragging about for for the last decade is how graduation
rates and attainment rates have gone up. Well, it turns
out that we haven't actually done any better job of
teaching kids anything reading math. In fact, we've done a
worse job. If NAPE scores from the last round are
(13:00):
to be believed. But we're just passing them through the
grade levels. We're giving them good grades even though that
we're giving them good grades for showing up right, maybe
for me an effort, but we're not actually evaluating whether
or not these kids are gathering the skills that they
need to pass on to the next grade.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And that's why you have people.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Getting into the University of California with a four point
zero in math who cannot multiply fractions. Those those are
also all progressive ideas within education, and it's because they
haven't had any competition. Every time anyone criticizes the very
poor job that they've been doing for decades and educating
American children, the answer is always, well, we need more money. Well,
(13:42):
per capita per student spending has gone through the roof,
It's nearly tripled in recent decades, and we're one of
the highest per spenders per student in the entire world,
and yet those results are going nowhere. But that's always
the answer, right, we need more money, even though they
have not done a good job with the money that
they're getting, which is, by the way, eight hundred billion
dollars annually in k twelve.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
If I could make you the head of the New
York State public school system, is there? I don't even
know that it's such a job. But is this fixable?
Putting it at the state level? Right? Like, I know,
we're getting rid of the Department of Education, So it's
not like there's some educations are who can make everything better?
But are there ways do you think to reform the
system that are meaningful?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I don't think there's any shortcut to utopia, but I
do think there are a number of things that could
be done to make things better. One is very obviously,
to give parents more control over the dollars that are
spent mentioning New York. I mean New York spends upwards
of thirty thousand dollars per child per year. That is
more than the tuition of most private schools, and they
(14:46):
have abysmal results. So that would be the first thing
on my list. School choice. I know everybody likes school
choice and it seems like a very patent trite answer,
but I truly do believe, you know, I believe in
the Freedman maxim right that people will choose a better
education for their child. They will care about whether or
not their child reads more than some faceless bureaucrat in
the district office, especially when they can just slap a
(15:08):
four point zero on that kid and getting a get
them into you know, the state school.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
So I do think that school choice not only provides
the competition, it also provides the leverage over curriculum, over
you know, decisions about whether or not to laying children
in particular ways. I just I think that parents are better, frankly,
at making these decisions than bureaucrats who have never met
a child, the child in question. The second thing is
I would restore a kind of classical curriculum that is
(15:36):
both interesting and rigorous. I mean, we talk all the
time about how boys are more disengaged from K twelve
education than girls are, but have you looked at the
reading lists for the average eighth grader? Now, Ivan Hoe
is not on there. It's all about women sitting in
a corner chatting with each other. It's House on Mango
straight into the Joy Luck Club. But there's nothing for
(15:58):
boys to be interested to read. And frankly, I think
most of the selections, the DEI type selections where you
care what percentage of your author's list is you know
LGBT is not good.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
For girls either.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
It's not challenging material, and ultimately, it doesn't raise kids
up into a universal world where they then have the
references going through life to understand real literature to understand
I don't know a speech by Abraham Lincoln. So there
is a huge classical education movement that is burgeoning. It
(16:31):
gives me a lot of hope. I think a lot
of parents are. I know for my own child, that's
we're probably looking at homeschooling for some period of time
and then trying to find a classical school because it's
not just that the standards have fallen through the floor
and that we're not even doing the basics of phonics.
It's that there's nothing inspiring or elevating about the sort
(16:53):
of things that they're teaching. It's not just pushing the
woke out. It's putting good things in the curriculum. And
I think that a lot of people in America are
hungry for that kind of education for their children.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Na's felt your stepman. Always good to see you and
congrats again on baby June. Super exciting as a fellow
parent of a little one. It's the best, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
So fun cute.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I'm just gonna it's real quick here. Our sponsor is Preborn. Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
We love babies and we want people to have them,
and Preborn is out there for the pro life community.
Got to tell you, Preborn is saving babies day in
and day out by just being loving and supportive to
these moms who are in a crisis pregnancy and they
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(17:42):
Pick up your phone now dial pound two five zero,
say the word baby. That's pound two five zero, say baby.
Or you can donate at preborn dot com slash buck
sponsored by preborn Ines. Thanks again, see you soon.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Thanks so much, Bet,
Host
Buck Sexton
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