March 12, 2024 • 38 mins
How are schools rethinking grade levels for students and the amount of time they spend in class? Justin and Lance discuss how education should shift towards application-level understanding and how unvaccinated college students are costing schools millions of dollars.
tags: justin weller, lance jackson, education, school, learning, teaching, teacher, vaccine, money, loans, taxes, technology
tags: justin weller, lance jackson, education, school, learning, teaching, teacher, vaccine, money, loans, taxes, technology
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Today on the State of US.How schools are rewriting the rules on class
time for students and even ditching gradelevels. How are unvaccinated students costing colleges.
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I'm Justin Weller, the host ofthe State of US, and today
I'm joined by our friendly redneck liberalLance Jackson, and we're talking about I
think what might be one of yourfavorite topics, Lance, right, something
as you've professed you've been studying formany years, and that's the idea of
competency based education. It's one ofmy favorite things. It stands the system
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on its head and works with studentsto get the most out of them.
Wow. Kind of what I thinkeducation is all about the day, having
our own little bit piece of educationhere today. Competence com pe t E
n C E three syllables. Ilove the definition sufficient means for a modest
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livelihood, and that what we're supposedto supposed to do train you for real
world so that you can earn aliving and make it on your own.
So why not get rid of theCarnegie unit and have competency based testing.
We're gonna make you competent instead ofgiving you a grade card that says you
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got all a's, or you gotb's or you got c's, And what
does that mean. Well, wedon't know because it doesn't tell us.
It doesn't tell us the skills youhave. It doesn't tell us what you
know how to do and what youdon't know how to do. It just
says that when we made an arbitrarylength of time and collected work, this
is the arbitrary grade we're going togive you. So, yeah, that
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tells us a whole lot about youas a student. You have straight a's
and you don't know how to read. You have straight and you don't know
your maths facts. Okay, awesome, that grade really meant something, didn't
it. Sorry, Or you can'tread and somehow you're in junior high right
now you're going to college. Ohyeah. One of the biggest, one
of the largest growing population in collegesare students who are taking remedial classes.
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They have a high school diploma andthey're taking remedial classes because they're not prepared
for college. That's one of thefastest growing segments of the college world,
has been for the last fifteen years. And what are we doing about it
in an education Nothing. We're nottrying anything new, We're going to do
more of the same. Competency basededucation. What a wonderful idea that's been
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around for about fifty sixty years,but now some people are trying it again
because of COVID. Awesome. Ifthat's what it takes to make education better,
I'm all for it. Whatever it's. Competency based education is a form
of personalized learning that emphasizes the masteryof skills over time spent in class.
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So at one of the school districtsthat is trying this, what that means
is that grade point averages no longerexist, and in two years neither will
grade levels. Instead, you havek through twelve students who get rated on
a four point scale for each skill, receiving about two new ratings per week.
In seventh grade English, that maymean the ability to hold collaborative conversation.
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Those who are prepared with questions andopen to other viewpoints might receive a
three. Leading the conversation and keepingit from stalling out would garner a four.
And according to the superintendent quote,we kept coming back to the idea
that you couldn't get world class becausethe system itself wasn't designed for that.
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The system itself was designed to sortkids to rank kids. Yeah, and
all goes back to if you reallywant to go old school, think of
the one room schoolhouse that's competency basededucation, that you the teacher may have
ten, twelve, fifteen students inthe room, ranging from the ages of
six to eighteen, and you wouldjust have class for those people who could
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do the skill at a certain level, and everybody would be working on their
own thing, at their own pace, at their own time, and then
they couldn't move on until they hadproven that they had accomplished that skill or
task that was before them. That'svery simply what it is. And then
we get into the factory model schoolthat we started in the twentieth century in
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the United States, that is,well, we need to make students for
the business world. So we're goingto put them into sit at a desk
for a certain amount of time andmake them change, just like they will
at work. That they will standat the machine and they will work for
a certain amount of time and thebuzzer will go off, and then they'll
move to this and they'll do this, and we're going to train them to
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be good workers. Okay, Imean I'm not saying I it did wonders
for the United States, Right,we began to produce all kinds of goods
and become a world power and everythingelse. But again, that's our that's
not our world anymore. That's that'snot our goal is to produce people who
will work in the factories. That'snot what we do anymore. So why
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are we still using a system thatwas developed by education and really by major
players in the work industry, bybusiness owners. They pushed schools to create
this business factory model because they neededworkers. Well, now the workers that
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businesses need are a different type ofworker, So why not make education fit
kind of workers that are necessary fortoday? The workplace has changed? Right?
In other words, the place forAmerica leading the world is not in
the side of manufacturing anymore. Itwas, right, I mean, that's
that's how we got to where wewere, was baseasically leading this great boom
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into the assembly line and the abilityto mass produce goods and distribute them to
the world and really bringing that tosuccessful fruition is part of what got us
to where we are today, ahuge part. But what's going to keep
us at the top of our gameis not that, and that's becoming increasingly
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clear as less than a majority ofAmericans work in a job like that,
and with more and more people whoare working in information services other things that
require right on the job problem solvingand creative thinking and the ability to meet
different challenges and do different things weekin and week out. As that develops,
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you have to have people that aredynamic, that understand how to meet
a set of challenges, that understandhow to adapt, and forcing everybody into
the exact same model and teaching regimenteddiscipline is not necessarily the thing that's going
to encourage that to take place.Now, we still have to make sure
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that people get a set of skillsright, But the question is what set
of skills are we trying to communicate? And I think, as I was
listening to you talk, what makesmy mind think, Lance is it's not
that we were so focused on gettingpeople to really learn math, or really
learn English, or really learn whatever. Right. The focus was on getting
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you to learn the system exactly andthe way the system works and how you
work the system. That's what thefocus was on. Now, did it
produce, you know, good gradesand good problem solving? And maybe not
good problem solving, But did itproduce good grades? Well, part of
the way we got to where wewere as a nation is it did for
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some time. But also, andthis is where the mismatch comes in that
I think we're forgetting today the worldwas very different then. Well, it
produced good workers in the factory system. That's why public school was created and
pushed and mandated, was that weneeded workers to fulfill these factory jobs so
that we could grow the economy.And it worked for what it was designed
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to do. Unfortunately, as youpointed out, that's not what we need
now. So why are we stillusing that system? And when you think
about it, I mean basically,in a traditional classroom, right, students
are all being taught the same materialat the same speed, and even though
there're students and being tested at thesame time, right, So so your
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grade reflects how well you knew itafter you got it for the same amount
of time as everybody else. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't allow you
if you learn faster or if youlearn a little bit slower. Based on
that topic, because I've had studentswho were doing one unit and the students
who learned quickly learn you know,the next time when we do the very
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next unit. They're the students wholearn a little bit slower. So based
on the information where the skill thatyou're teaching that will flow, you know
who the better the quicker learners areversus And when I say slower learner,
it means we all process information differently. Right. Yet, what we do
in a factory model is, well, this is when it has to be
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produced, so everybody has to doit on this time, So we reward
those people who learn it faster.That doesn't mean they learn it better.
It doesn't mean they know how toimplement it better. It means they learned
it faster than somebody else. Andthat's what we've rewarded. A key,
as you were speaking, I think, is distinguishing between learning something and knowing
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something right, because those are notnecessarily the same thing. Part of our
system today is largely focused around well, you've learned it and your capacity to
regurgitate it exists. Do you knowit? Do you understand it? That's
a different question. Right. Ican tell you what it is, but
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I can't tell you why it's thatway, or what made it that way,
or how to use it? Right, I can just tell you that
two plus two equals four. DoI know what to do with that in
the real world? No? Youknow. Do I know how I could
use that to solve other problems?Not really, but I do know that
two plus two is four, youknow. Well. But the other part
of with grades. Let's say thatyou're in an English class and you have
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vocabulary tests. Well, I novocabulary. I know how to spell,
and I can I like to learndefinition. So I get an A on
my vocabulary test. When it comesto writing my essay, I don't write
very well, and I get aD on my essay. And when you
combine those two grades, I geta C plus. It just tells you
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the average of your cumulative knowledge,which really is not all I mean in
the grand scheme of everyday life.Who really cares what the average of your
total knowledge is? Because that's likeif you test Lance and I on nuclear
physics, right, I mean,we're going to test awful, I mean,
just absolutely a business. We're gonnaprobably totally fail that class. Right,
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But then if you test us,you know, I don't know,
in history or in modern politics andcurrent events, we're probably going to score
an A. So our cumulative averageknowledge is a c Well, does that
mean that we're not valuable members ofsociety or that we're average members of society
or as an employers nothing? Youknow, It's like, well, we
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tested you on something that you're notusing in your everyday life, and then
we and then we've coupled this withthe thing that you are going to use
that you're really good at, andwe've called you average now even though really
you're not because this thing over herethat you did bad on, you know
one, may not be that relevantto what you're actually going to be doing
anyway or right, we've coupled itwith something that you're really good at.
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But from a practical standpoint, likein your vocabulary standpoint, if if you
know the vocab words but you don'tknow how to use use the vocabulary words,
that's not great either, because nowwe've alluded you to thinking that your
average in English when really you're belowaverage, because we got to it's great
that you know the words, butif you don't know how to use the
words, what good is knowing them? Right? And so it also can
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create that illusion of well, Idid really well here, but me doing
well here doesn't do any good ifI'm not doing well in this area,
right, So I think that that'sreally important to get too. Is it's
also the implementation of Okay, youraveraging this, or you have an A
in this, but to your point, what skills made up that? Because
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you can compensate then by doing reallywell someplace and continuing to suck in some
other place. And I think that'spart of what this system is talking about.
Is, No, you can't moveon from grammar until you know grammar.
You know, well, I'm ina class, right and I've got
grammar, stuck in with vocabulary,stuck in with writing, stuck in with
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reading. And I'm really good atreading and writing, but I'm not really
good at the grammar component or thevocabulary component. So now I can skid
by and never be very good atthose. And then as I go that
gap is growing, right, becauseI never got to where I needed to
be. But I'm pushed along becausemy average was good enough that I can
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move forward, or my age isthe right age, so I just go
along, even though I didn't evenlearn it or show that I knew anything.
Under the current grading system, Iwas just moved along because I was
staying with the right age, andthey do mention the competency based model that
the thinking here, right is you'renot going to ultimately have you know,
an eighteen year old with like afive or six year old. That's not
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generally what's going to happen. Butthey are going to say, like one
through third graders, right first throughthird graders, they might be grouped together,
so several years of ages rather thanjust you know, well, you're
six right now, so we're goingto keep you with only six year olds,
right, And so I think thatthat's important to think about too,
is since people do progress at differentspeeds, what do you do about that?
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Well, but I've got something tosay about that, but I think
it's you know, need to goto break. But I will address that
because I have some really strong thoughtsabout that age brackets. What do you
do about those in this model andeliminating the traditional idea of grades and what
has COVID told us about the possibilityof a competency based model. There's lots
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more coming. Keep it here onthe State of US and we'll be right
back. Competency based education. Ithink Lance is still in the lead here
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with our word of the day whichis I guess competent. Well maybe in
either episode in the lead then,but competency a form of competent. Lance's
got the lead, I believe withfour to three right now, So keep
an eye on that. But whatdo you think so far about this notion
of competency based education as presented?Because you know you you do have to
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take a few minutes, I thinkLance to think about it, because I'll
be honest when I first read thisand you hear, okay, well there's
a four point scale, and it'slike, well, how is this really
any different than grades? And thenas you start to understand, well,
the points are awarded based on skillsets that you understand, rather than grades
based on cumulative results from different tests. So in order to become in order
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to move on, you have tobecome proficient in a skill to move on,
rather than receive a cumulative average.And that I think is so important
when we were ending the last conversationwith that. But what happens when you
have people who are learning at differentpaces in this model, and you have
somebody who's in first grade who excelsreally fast, and I've got somebody in
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third grade who's not excelling really fast. How do we mix the A we
have to understand and I think mostof us agree that schools are a social
place. So learning social skills isimportant and it's best to do that with
people around your own age. Youcan develop that because you have sometimes people
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start school when they're five, andsome people start school when they're six and
a half. So you get intothird or fourth grade and you have nine
year olds sitting in class with elevenyear olds just based on when their birth
date falls and when they started school, when their parents chose to start them
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in the school process, and sothat already occurs, and so what you
have then is you can group themtogether. And what we find out is
that typically you don't have twenty kidsin there who are all working at twenty
different paces. They tend to startto group themselves within that environment, and
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then it's okay. If you havesomeone who typically would be a second grader
who has the math capabilities of workingwith a fourth grader, it's not that
big a deal. And then theyget to science and the second graders working
at grade level, and that's okay, you know, and it's just you
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work through the skill and then whatyou have. Here's the neat thing with
a teacher. It doesn't matter whatthe age of the kids is at the
time. They all have the sameor very close level of understanding of the
information. So now when I'm standingin front of the classroom, we're actually
in this competency based system. Yougo around the room and you talk to
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the students as they're working in theirindividually or in their little groups. I'm
talking to a group of students whoall have the same level of understanding,
so my example or examples make senseto them because I know where they are
in the process. When I'm standingin front of a room of twenty five
or thirty students, I say onegeneric idea and a third of the kids
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are like, yeah, I alreadygot this. I'm making spit wads and
getting ready to cause trouble in classbecause I'm bored to death because I've already
got this. You've got the middlegroup that get the information that I'm trying
to teach, because they're like,oh, yeah, I'm right there with
you, teach, because that's whereI am in my understanding. And then
you have the group that's so farbehind and they're sleeping in the back of
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the room because they're like, yeah, I don't understand from last week,
so now you're building on that,and I'm clueless. So now I'm just
gonna zone out and not even bea part of the social atmosphere or the
academic atmosphere. So the neat thingabout competency based education is that you get
the students groups so that when youteach, when you're talking to them and
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you're teaching them, you're dealing witha group of students who are at the
same level, so they pick upon it and you know very quickly when
you're talking to them, oh theyneed more help, or oh they're way
ahead, and so you move on. It's just fantastic and it just fits.
It so fits into education and wherewe could actually be successful with every
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level of student on where they arewith that piece of information or with that
skill that we have decided is importantfor them to know. The biggest obstacle
on the money front is the timethat's required to convert the competency based credits
to traditional seat time requirements. Soit's not a teacher and student issue,
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it's a because of the way thesystem is built. In so many places,
the district has to spend a lotof time figuring out what's our conversion
going to be because the way thesystem's designed is that we don't recognize this
option as a legitimate option. AndI think it speaks to this other notion
that we've talked about in the workplace, right, which is the your butt
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in the seat at the office ismattering less for industries where we're focused on
what are you producing? Right?What are you getting done for us?
You know, because there's a lotof businesses that have decided, well,
that's really what we care about,right, What we really care about is
the job getting done, you know, not necessarily did I show up for
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eight hours? Because part of itis what we've found out. And I've
thought this is really interesting having acouple of new employees myself and just observing
as there's been some more flexibility inhow we're getting stuff done. People.
There's not a lot of people thatlike to do the same thing for the
whole day, right. That's verydifficult. And what we've done in the
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traditional model, the office model,which was built around the factory model of
you're gonna show up and you're gonnabe here from this time to this time
and we're gonna get a ton ofwork done and then you're gonna go home
and be fine. Right. Well, what I've observed is and I haven't
found anybody yet that this isn't truefor, but I'm sure if you're out
there, let us know. Peopleare at their desk right there, and
they're doing their computer work, andthey can do that for maybe an hour
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or two, right, and thenthey start to get antsy and distracted and
bored, right, and they wantto do something else. They want to
get up and do something right,And so if they're given that flexibility of
well, I'm I'm gonna really getsome stuff done, okay, but now
I need I'm going to go dosomething that's relevant to my work. But
it's different, it's away from whatI was just doing, and it's structurally
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different. They get more done inthe day because they were afforded that flexibility
than saying, oh no, yougot to sit right here and do this
thing this way the whole day,right, you know, And we do
it in schools. It's called recess. But you know, you get fifteen
minutes of activity that you get toget up and you move around. We've
even seen it in business models wherethey tell the bosses, this is what
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you need to do. Let yourpeople stand up, let them walk around,
let them mill around, let themdo something else, and then come
back to it and production goes up. And so many owners are like,
well, yeah, but they're notworking and I'm paying them for not working,
and that's I'm losing money there.No, you're not, because if
you let them get up and theydo fifteen minutes of yoga, or they
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do jumping jacks, or they walkto the break room and they get a
cup of coffee and they chat witha couple of workmates and they grab a
cookie, or they grab a healthyyou know, half a banana or whatever,
and then they go back. Likeyou said, they're going to get
that report done in half the time, which means now they're going to work
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on another report and get started,Whereas if you had forced them to stay
in their seat, they would stillbe working on that said report in the
middle of the afternoon instead of workingon their second or third report. We
know that because we give kids recess. We know that if we make them
sit in class for four straight hours, they zone out and they don't learn
as well. But Hey, waita minute, we also let them get
up and move between classes, youknow, as we get into higher education,
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when we take away recess. Whybecause that's social interaction and the movement,
the kinetic movement of the body causesthe synapsis in the brain to function
in fire better and therefore retain informationbetter, and not just retain but process
information. Right again, we thinkbetter we use those interchangeably. But processing
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and retention are not necessarily the samething. Right, You can retain it,
i e. You can remember it, but the processing of it and
figuring out how it fits into yourlife, I think one could argue is
even more important, because again it'sthe same thing we talked about at the
beginning of the show. If allyou've done is remember the word, but
you don't know how to use theword, who cares that you were able
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to remember it? Right? Imean again, what good has that done
for you? And I think thepoint in bringing up this whole workplace environment
is if if part of education's jobis to prepare you to be a productive
member of society, why are westill preparing the majority of our students for
jobs that don't operate the way thesystem is educating them, well don't don't
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Most employers want people who problem solveAnd so what good does it do if
you know the information but you can'tapply it to the situation that you have
to solve the problem? Well,even in the factory model, I mean,
you know, we've talked enough tolocal employers, Lance, I think
to know that even the ones thatare still working in that type of job
setting, which is not the majorityof people, but even for the ones
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that are, they're asking workers tobe more involved because og they figured out
the workers are the people doing itevery day, and if we can make
adjustments to how it's done that improvesthe worker's ability to do the job.
Well, that's what everybody wants,right, because the workers happier because they're
doing it the way, they're notfrustrated at being forced to do it in
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a way that isn't conducive to themgetting it done, And the company is
getting more done because the workers areworking more efficiently. And the bottom line
is that is competency education. Competencybased education. Perfect? Probably not,
but I think just from looking atit, you know holistically, here Lance
and I've been saying for years,we got to do we gotta do something
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right. Things are getting worse onthe whole, not better. Standardized testing
is not panning out the way thateverybody was saying it would be, and
lots of the changes to standardized educationare not panting out the way that lots
of people thought they would. Wegot to do something and the districts that
are trying this are seeing results right, And this isn't throwing more money at
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the situation exactly, And that's it'snot just spend spends sight And that's a
huge piece here, you know.And you mentioned COVID, and just very
quickly, COVID showed us that kidsassimilate information at different rates. So it's
just more proof that competency based educationmight be an improvement. Like you said,
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there is no panacea, there isno perfect way, but we all
agree that we can improve it.This seems to be an obvious, no
more expensive way to go about itthan what we're doing currently. So why
not Remedial classes increase the cost ofa higher education. The more of them
(26:21):
that you have to offer, themore expensive it is, and the more
time you're spending on stuff you're alreadysupposed to know, the more money is
going out of your pocket. Right, Well, it's not the only thing
that's costing colleges. Unvaccinated students evidentlyare costing college as well, according to
a recent article from The Wall StreetJournal, What do we mean, how
are they costing colleges? To findout? Keep it here on the state
(26:41):
of US and we'll be right back. Students are suing, professors are quit
and a few colleges are passing onextra costs of testing to those who aren't
(27:04):
vaccinated against COVID nineteen. So collegesare grappling lance right with the cost of
COVID nineteen tests and unvaccinated students.And there's a number of there's a number
of universities out there that are requiringstudents to be vaccinated against COVID. I
guess we should say too, right, because I guess it's a little misnomer.
(27:26):
Is it's not all unvaccinated students.It's most students are vaccinated because they
have to be against all these allthese things before they ever show up to
college. It's being unvaccinated against COVIDnineteen if they're not arguing against the other
vaccines that they have to take beforethey can go to college. Which has
been which have been there for decades. They're only arguing against this one.
(27:47):
So putting it in just dollar values, right, dollars and cents, forget
about where you stand on anything otherthan the cold hard reality of cash,
and that is At the University ofTexas Austin, the difference between a student
vaccination rate of sixty percent and eightypercent would cost the school about four million
(28:07):
dollars to prevent the spread of COVIDnineteen and treat additional students who are projected
to get infected. According to theschool's head of COVID nineteen modeling, if
fewer students return to campus vaccinated,the school will spend more on test contact
tracing, quarantine, housing, andonline classes, but state law prevents them
(28:29):
from being mandated. That kind ofspeaks to this whole notion right that we've
talked about with the vaccine mandate previouslyand the reality that about seven hundred schools
are now mandating vaccines for students,according to a tally by the Chronicle of
Higher Education, Indiana University was amongthe first to require students to be vaccinated
unless they're exempt for religious or medicalreasons. Last week, the US Supreme
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Court rejected a request by a groupof Indiana students who were seeking to block
the school from enforcing the vaccine requirement, basically saying that no, in fact,
vaccine requirements are constitutional. The samenotion that right, you don't have
to go to school here. Andalso what we've talked about before, which
is you have rights, but whenyou enter the public domain, your rights
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only extend so far as you notnegatively taking away somebody else's right. Same
thing we do with smoking, right, I mean, and now what happened.
You can smoke? Can you smokein a restaurant where there's a bunch
of other people who aren't smoking andgive them cancer? No, or in
an airplane or whatever. You can'tdo that, right, I mean,
that's not allowed. And we've decidedas a society that we don't allow that
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to happen, right, except inthis case so far? Yeah. Well,
and you know in some cases,because there are lots of places that
that's not how it's worked. Butyou talk about money, you know,
And at Birmingham Southern College, theschool president said that last year we received
one and a half million dollars infederal money to cover the cost of testing
and other expenses created by the PANDEMBut he said that money's not available this
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year. And when, you know, it's interesting when we see all the
things in the news this week aboutyou know, the budget and raising the
debt ceiling and all that stuff.I don't know about you, but it's
great that these colleges got the moneylast year. But do you want to
keep funding those colleges. I mean, when they say that they got one
point five million dollars from the governmentlast year, that's our tax dollars.
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So do we want to keep doingthat? When oh, wait a minute,
he said, we don't have todo this if our students would get
vaccinated. Hmm, well, noneed for testing in contact. Everybody's vaccinated.
And he said, you know,with the money not available this year,
he said, about seventy percent ofour students are going to return to
(30:45):
campus already vaccinated. And he said, I don't want to force them to
help pay for the cost of testingtheir unvaccinated costmates. To your point,
if I'm doing this then and I'mfollowing the rules and doing what I'm supposed
to do, I'm saving money.So why should the colleges then spread the
(31:07):
cost of the testing across people whodon't need it. I mean, to
me, that's logical. I don'tknow it makes sense. I'm not trying
to politicize it at all. I'mjust the logic here is like, huh,
I did what I'm supposed to,so therefore I should not be charged
the cost of taking care of thesepeople that didn't do things the right way.
(31:33):
There's an interesting idea. What if, you know, the next round
of stimulus or whatever for code relief, the the people responsible for paying that
are just the people that haven't beenvaccinated. I know people out there are
gonna well, now they're saying we'repoliticizing it. But again, but why
we've talked about this. Right ifI have a heart attack right now and
(31:56):
I try to go to the hospital, do they have a place for me
an emergency care because of all theCOVID patients. So because people didn't get
vaccinated, they're taking up emergency roomspace, they're taking up critical care units.
And now I have a critical careneed and I can't get it.
(32:17):
And I'm not saying don't take careof people. And I'm not saying that
people who get vaccinated, and yourstruly is going to get their booster later
today that those people we shouldn't helpthem. No, we should help them,
but don't gun it. Step upand do your part, right,
I mean, that's all we're saying. And if you're not, then that
(32:39):
raises the question of well, whatresponsibility do the rest of us have?
I hopefully you agree that people whoget COVID are stressing the medical health care
system and costing us dollars. Okay, Now, not just the medical system,
right, I mean colleges, education, and now it's education, and
well it permeate's businesses, right everybody. They can't open up the restaurant,
(33:04):
or they can't hire workers, orthey're not not as many people are dining
in and so they're losing their business. It's affecting the economy. I mean,
okay, so you have the rightto do what you want to do.
We're not getting into that, butcan we all agree that COVID is
affecting the economy and there's maybe away to affect the economy in a positive
(33:24):
manner. I don't know. DoI think that you have the right to
not be vaccinated? Absolutely? DoI think that that comes at a cost?
Yes, you know, in otherwords, you don't want to be
vaccinated, that's fine. But Idon't have to employ you. I don't
have to be around you. Youknow, you can be at your house,
(33:47):
be on your property, be unvaccinated. I got no problem with that,
because I think you have that right, right. I don't think I
do not think the United States governmentshould come to your house, hold you
down and stick you with any Okay, not for that, Not okay with
that? Now do I think thata employer has the right to say that
in order to work here, yougot to wear jeans, and you're gonna
(34:09):
put on this shirt that has ourname on it, and you're gonna wear
a mask, you know, ifyou're preparing food, or you got to
put on gloves, if you're goingto work and you have to show up
on time, stay until your shiftis over. Yep. And here's this,
here's this policy handbook that you haveto do all this stuff in order
to keep your job. Yeah.I think they have the right to do
(34:30):
that, you know, just likeyou have the right to say now,
I don't want to do that policy. You're right, But then you don't
have the right to force your employerto let you work there, right,
right? I mean, we justtalked about this with the whole union thing
on private business property, and it'slike, yeah, you got the right
to have a union, right,you have the right not to be vaccinated.
You have those rights, but there'sa limit to how far they extend.
(34:53):
You can't bust down somebody else's doorand say, you know, well
you have to you know, no, no, you know, it's my
building, my business, my rules. You don't like those rules, you
don't have to work here. Andit's the same thing at the universities.
Right, it's my school. It'smy school, my teachers, my employees,
(35:13):
my policy. You don't like it, you don't have to go to
school here. This is the optionyou have here, and if you want
to follow our rules, you're morethan welcome to be here. And it's
a don't want to follow our rules, go find someplace else because there are
other opportunities. It's a whole otherconversation. But especially you know, you
talk about K through twelve, Okay, public school, different conversation. You
know, I suppose even though vaccineshave a long history of you know,
(35:37):
being required in order to be safe, but to be in a public school
at the higher education level, youdon't have a right. Now. We
can discuss if you should, butright now, you do not have the
right to higher education, right,you don't have that right, So don't
get all I just I'm tired ofpeople getting bent out of shape about this.
It's like, get over yourself,you know. I hate to break
(35:58):
it to you, but life's madeup of all kinds of stuff you got
to do you don't want to do, you know, and if you don't
like it, you don't have todo those things, right, you really
don't. There are jobs you cango have where you don't have to be
vaccinated. So if you don't likethat your employers requiring it, shut up
and go get a different job,you know, go to school someplace else,
or we don't go to school,you know. I mean, just
(36:21):
ah, I'm tired of it,the whining, the moaning, and the
complaining. Everything has to fit theway I want it. Yeah, that's
not what makes America great. Nope, that's not a little bit of sacrifice
for literally protecting the public good likethe health of the nation and thereby the
economy. You're tired of the debt, right You're out here whining about the
(36:43):
debt ceiling increase and how much we'respending, Well, we're spending a lot
of that money because of COVID,right, and we could be done with
that. We could be spending ahell of a lot less money if people
would go do their part. It'dbe a lot cheaper if people would just
do their part. So why arewe doing this, folks? Well cause
here at true chat we have amission, and our mission is to educate
people by providing honest, open andrespectful conversations. And we'd love to hear
(37:07):
from you. And if you're aroundthe water fountain getting your ten minute break
so that you can stimulate your synapsissso that you can go back and get
that report done. Then share thiswith other folks and they say, well,
where can I find it? Tellthem Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher,
Apple podcast and everywhere. Podcasts areI think today the word of the day
end up pretty close. I actuallydon't have the definitive figure. I got
(37:29):
caught up in the conversation. Sowe're going to rely on you at home.
Send us an email podcast at thestate offus dot organ While you're telling
us who won, you might alsotell us what do you think about?
What do you think about all thisso oky to disagree, right, you
do have, and I will saythat you absolutely have the right to disagree.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not,
because that's what it's all about here. New episodes are available Tuesdays and Thursdays
(37:52):
early in the morning, so youcan get it right when you get up.
As a podcast, A State ofUS is also available and select talk
radio markets around the nation, socheck your local AM and FM station for
the State of Us On True Chatin Urbana, Ohio, I'm justin t
Wallas. I'm WI It's Jackson Special. Thanks to our producer Bradley Butch,
and thank you all our audience fortuning in. We'll see you next time.
(38:13):
Be the change. Be sure tocheck out our website, the State
Offus dot org for books, articles, and all the ways to tune in
the State of Us dot org.
Today on the State of US.How schools are rewriting the rules on class
time for students and even ditching gradelevels. How are unvaccinated students costing colleges.
(00:27):
I'm Justin Weller, the host ofthe State of US, and today
I'm joined by our friendly redneck liberalLance Jackson, and we're talking about I
think what might be one of yourfavorite topics, Lance, right, something
as you've professed you've been studying formany years, and that's the idea of
competency based education. It's one ofmy favorite things. It stands the system
(00:51):
on its head and works with studentsto get the most out of them.
Wow. Kind of what I thinkeducation is all about the day, having
our own little bit piece of educationhere today. Competence com pe t E
n C E three syllables. Ilove the definition sufficient means for a modest
(01:11):
livelihood, and that what we're supposedto supposed to do train you for real
world so that you can earn aliving and make it on your own.
So why not get rid of theCarnegie unit and have competency based testing.
We're gonna make you competent instead ofgiving you a grade card that says you
(01:33):
got all a's, or you gotb's or you got c's, And what
does that mean. Well, wedon't know because it doesn't tell us.
It doesn't tell us the skills youhave. It doesn't tell us what you
know how to do and what youdon't know how to do. It just
says that when we made an arbitrarylength of time and collected work, this
is the arbitrary grade we're going togive you. So, yeah, that
(01:55):
tells us a whole lot about youas a student. You have straight a's
and you don't know how to read. You have straight and you don't know
your maths facts. Okay, awesome, that grade really meant something, didn't
it. Sorry, Or you can'tread and somehow you're in junior high right
now you're going to college. Ohyeah. One of the biggest, one
of the largest growing population in collegesare students who are taking remedial classes.
(02:19):
They have a high school diploma andthey're taking remedial classes because they're not prepared
for college. That's one of thefastest growing segments of the college world,
has been for the last fifteen years. And what are we doing about it
in an education Nothing. We're nottrying anything new, We're going to do
more of the same. Competency basededucation. What a wonderful idea that's been
(02:42):
around for about fifty sixty years,but now some people are trying it again
because of COVID. Awesome. Ifthat's what it takes to make education better,
I'm all for it. Whatever it's. Competency based education is a form
of personalized learning that emphasizes the masteryof skills over time spent in class.
(03:05):
So at one of the school districtsthat is trying this, what that means
is that grade point averages no longerexist, and in two years neither will
grade levels. Instead, you havek through twelve students who get rated on
a four point scale for each skill, receiving about two new ratings per week.
In seventh grade English, that maymean the ability to hold collaborative conversation.
(03:30):
Those who are prepared with questions andopen to other viewpoints might receive a
three. Leading the conversation and keepingit from stalling out would garner a four.
And according to the superintendent quote,we kept coming back to the idea
that you couldn't get world class becausethe system itself wasn't designed for that.
(03:53):
The system itself was designed to sortkids to rank kids. Yeah, and
all goes back to if you reallywant to go old school, think of
the one room schoolhouse that's competency basededucation, that you the teacher may have
ten, twelve, fifteen students inthe room, ranging from the ages of
six to eighteen, and you wouldjust have class for those people who could
(04:16):
do the skill at a certain level, and everybody would be working on their
own thing, at their own pace, at their own time, and then
they couldn't move on until they hadproven that they had accomplished that skill or
task that was before them. That'svery simply what it is. And then
we get into the factory model schoolthat we started in the twentieth century in
(04:36):
the United States, that is,well, we need to make students for
the business world. So we're goingto put them into sit at a desk
for a certain amount of time andmake them change, just like they will
at work. That they will standat the machine and they will work for
a certain amount of time and thebuzzer will go off, and then they'll
move to this and they'll do this, and we're going to train them to
(04:56):
be good workers. Okay, Imean I'm not saying I it did wonders
for the United States, Right,we began to produce all kinds of goods
and become a world power and everythingelse. But again, that's our that's
not our world anymore. That's that'snot our goal is to produce people who
will work in the factories. That'snot what we do anymore. So why
(05:17):
are we still using a system thatwas developed by education and really by major
players in the work industry, bybusiness owners. They pushed schools to create
this business factory model because they neededworkers. Well, now the workers that
(05:38):
businesses need are a different type ofworker, So why not make education fit
kind of workers that are necessary fortoday? The workplace has changed? Right?
In other words, the place forAmerica leading the world is not in
the side of manufacturing anymore. Itwas, right, I mean, that's
that's how we got to where wewere, was baseasically leading this great boom
(06:01):
into the assembly line and the abilityto mass produce goods and distribute them to
the world and really bringing that tosuccessful fruition is part of what got us
to where we are today, ahuge part. But what's going to keep
us at the top of our gameis not that, and that's becoming increasingly
(06:23):
clear as less than a majority ofAmericans work in a job like that,
and with more and more people whoare working in information services other things that
require right on the job problem solvingand creative thinking and the ability to meet
different challenges and do different things weekin and week out. As that develops,
(06:46):
you have to have people that aredynamic, that understand how to meet
a set of challenges, that understandhow to adapt, and forcing everybody into
the exact same model and teaching regimenteddiscipline is not necessarily the thing that's going
to encourage that to take place.Now, we still have to make sure
(07:08):
that people get a set of skillsright, But the question is what set
of skills are we trying to communicate? And I think, as I was
listening to you talk, what makesmy mind think, Lance is it's not
that we were so focused on gettingpeople to really learn math, or really
learn English, or really learn whatever. Right. The focus was on getting
(07:28):
you to learn the system exactly andthe way the system works and how you
work the system. That's what thefocus was on. Now, did it
produce, you know, good gradesand good problem solving? And maybe not
good problem solving, But did itproduce good grades? Well, part of
the way we got to where wewere as a nation is it did for
(07:49):
some time. But also, andthis is where the mismatch comes in that
I think we're forgetting today the worldwas very different then. Well, it
produced good workers in the factory system. That's why public school was created and
pushed and mandated, was that weneeded workers to fulfill these factory jobs so
that we could grow the economy.And it worked for what it was designed
(08:13):
to do. Unfortunately, as youpointed out, that's not what we need
now. So why are we stillusing that system? And when you think
about it, I mean basically,in a traditional classroom, right, students
are all being taught the same materialat the same speed, and even though
there're students and being tested at thesame time, right, So so your
(08:33):
grade reflects how well you knew itafter you got it for the same amount
of time as everybody else. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't allow you
if you learn faster or if youlearn a little bit slower. Based on
that topic, because I've had studentswho were doing one unit and the students
who learned quickly learn you know,the next time when we do the very
(08:56):
next unit. They're the students wholearn a little bit slower. So based
on the information where the skill thatyou're teaching that will flow, you know
who the better the quicker learners areversus And when I say slower learner,
it means we all process information differently. Right. Yet, what we do
in a factory model is, well, this is when it has to be
(09:18):
produced, so everybody has to doit on this time, So we reward
those people who learn it faster.That doesn't mean they learn it better.
It doesn't mean they know how toimplement it better. It means they learned
it faster than somebody else. Andthat's what we've rewarded. A key,
as you were speaking, I think, is distinguishing between learning something and knowing
(09:39):
something right, because those are notnecessarily the same thing. Part of our
system today is largely focused around well, you've learned it and your capacity to
regurgitate it exists. Do you knowit? Do you understand it? That's
a different question. Right. Ican tell you what it is, but
(10:03):
I can't tell you why it's thatway, or what made it that way,
or how to use it? Right, I can just tell you that
two plus two equals four. DoI know what to do with that in
the real world? No? Youknow. Do I know how I could
use that to solve other problems?Not really, but I do know that
two plus two is four, youknow. Well. But the other part
of with grades. Let's say thatyou're in an English class and you have
(10:28):
vocabulary tests. Well, I novocabulary. I know how to spell,
and I can I like to learndefinition. So I get an A on
my vocabulary test. When it comesto writing my essay, I don't write
very well, and I get aD on my essay. And when you
combine those two grades, I geta C plus. It just tells you
(10:48):
the average of your cumulative knowledge,which really is not all I mean in
the grand scheme of everyday life.Who really cares what the average of your
total knowledge is? Because that's likeif you test Lance and I on nuclear
physics, right, I mean,we're going to test awful, I mean,
just absolutely a business. We're gonnaprobably totally fail that class. Right,
(11:09):
But then if you test us,you know, I don't know,
in history or in modern politics andcurrent events, we're probably going to score
an A. So our cumulative averageknowledge is a c Well, does that
mean that we're not valuable members ofsociety or that we're average members of society
or as an employers nothing? Youknow, It's like, well, we
(11:30):
tested you on something that you're notusing in your everyday life, and then
we and then we've coupled this withthe thing that you are going to use
that you're really good at, andwe've called you average now even though really
you're not because this thing over herethat you did bad on, you know
one, may not be that relevantto what you're actually going to be doing
anyway or right, we've coupled itwith something that you're really good at.
(11:52):
But from a practical standpoint, likein your vocabulary standpoint, if if you
know the vocab words but you don'tknow how to use use the vocabulary words,
that's not great either, because nowwe've alluded you to thinking that your
average in English when really you're belowaverage, because we got to it's great
that you know the words, butif you don't know how to use the
words, what good is knowing them? Right? And so it also can
(12:15):
create that illusion of well, Idid really well here, but me doing
well here doesn't do any good ifI'm not doing well in this area,
right, So I think that that'sreally important to get too. Is it's
also the implementation of Okay, youraveraging this, or you have an A
in this, but to your point, what skills made up that? Because
(12:37):
you can compensate then by doing reallywell someplace and continuing to suck in some
other place. And I think that'spart of what this system is talking about.
Is, No, you can't moveon from grammar until you know grammar.
You know, well, I'm ina class, right and I've got
grammar, stuck in with vocabulary,stuck in with writing, stuck in with
(12:58):
reading. And I'm really good atreading and writing, but I'm not really
good at the grammar component or thevocabulary component. So now I can skid
by and never be very good atthose. And then as I go that
gap is growing, right, becauseI never got to where I needed to
be. But I'm pushed along becausemy average was good enough that I can
(13:20):
move forward, or my age isthe right age, so I just go
along, even though I didn't evenlearn it or show that I knew anything.
Under the current grading system, Iwas just moved along because I was
staying with the right age, andthey do mention the competency based model that
the thinking here, right is you'renot going to ultimately have you know,
an eighteen year old with like afive or six year old. That's not
(13:43):
generally what's going to happen. Butthey are going to say, like one
through third graders, right first throughthird graders, they might be grouped together,
so several years of ages rather thanjust you know, well, you're
six right now, so we're goingto keep you with only six year olds,
right, And so I think thatthat's important to think about too,
is since people do progress at differentspeeds, what do you do about that?
(14:05):
Well, but I've got something tosay about that, but I think
it's you know, need to goto break. But I will address that
because I have some really strong thoughtsabout that age brackets. What do you
do about those in this model andeliminating the traditional idea of grades and what
has COVID told us about the possibilityof a competency based model. There's lots
(14:26):
more coming. Keep it here onthe State of US and we'll be right
back. Competency based education. Ithink Lance is still in the lead here
(14:48):
with our word of the day whichis I guess competent. Well maybe in
either episode in the lead then,but competency a form of competent. Lance's
got the lead, I believe withfour to three right now, So keep
an eye on that. But whatdo you think so far about this notion
of competency based education as presented?Because you know you you do have to
(15:09):
take a few minutes, I thinkLance to think about it, because I'll
be honest when I first read thisand you hear, okay, well there's
a four point scale, and it'slike, well, how is this really
any different than grades? And thenas you start to understand, well,
the points are awarded based on skillsets that you understand, rather than grades
based on cumulative results from different tests. So in order to become in order
(15:33):
to move on, you have tobecome proficient in a skill to move on,
rather than receive a cumulative average.And that I think is so important
when we were ending the last conversationwith that. But what happens when you
have people who are learning at differentpaces in this model, and you have
somebody who's in first grade who excelsreally fast, and I've got somebody in
(15:54):
third grade who's not excelling really fast. How do we mix the A we
have to understand and I think mostof us agree that schools are a social
place. So learning social skills isimportant and it's best to do that with
people around your own age. Youcan develop that because you have sometimes people
(16:15):
start school when they're five, andsome people start school when they're six and
a half. So you get intothird or fourth grade and you have nine
year olds sitting in class with elevenyear olds just based on when their birth
date falls and when they started school, when their parents chose to start them
(16:36):
in the school process, and sothat already occurs, and so what you
have then is you can group themtogether. And what we find out is
that typically you don't have twenty kidsin there who are all working at twenty
different paces. They tend to startto group themselves within that environment, and
(16:57):
then it's okay. If you havesomeone who typically would be a second grader
who has the math capabilities of workingwith a fourth grader, it's not that
big a deal. And then theyget to science and the second graders working
at grade level, and that's okay, you know, and it's just you
(17:21):
work through the skill and then whatyou have. Here's the neat thing with
a teacher. It doesn't matter whatthe age of the kids is at the
time. They all have the sameor very close level of understanding of the
information. So now when I'm standingin front of the classroom, we're actually
in this competency based system. Yougo around the room and you talk to
(17:45):
the students as they're working in theirindividually or in their little groups. I'm
talking to a group of students whoall have the same level of understanding,
so my example or examples make senseto them because I know where they are
in the process. When I'm standingin front of a room of twenty five
or thirty students, I say onegeneric idea and a third of the kids
(18:10):
are like, yeah, I alreadygot this. I'm making spit wads and
getting ready to cause trouble in classbecause I'm bored to death because I've already
got this. You've got the middlegroup that get the information that I'm trying
to teach, because they're like,oh, yeah, I'm right there with
you, teach, because that's whereI am in my understanding. And then
you have the group that's so farbehind and they're sleeping in the back of
(18:32):
the room because they're like, yeah, I don't understand from last week,
so now you're building on that,and I'm clueless. So now I'm just
gonna zone out and not even bea part of the social atmosphere or the
academic atmosphere. So the neat thingabout competency based education is that you get
the students groups so that when youteach, when you're talking to them and
(18:53):
you're teaching them, you're dealing witha group of students who are at the
same level, so they pick upon it and you know very quickly when
you're talking to them, oh theyneed more help, or oh they're way
ahead, and so you move on. It's just fantastic and it just fits.
It so fits into education and wherewe could actually be successful with every
(19:14):
level of student on where they arewith that piece of information or with that
skill that we have decided is importantfor them to know. The biggest obstacle
on the money front is the timethat's required to convert the competency based credits
to traditional seat time requirements. Soit's not a teacher and student issue,
(19:37):
it's a because of the way thesystem is built. In so many places,
the district has to spend a lotof time figuring out what's our conversion
going to be because the way thesystem's designed is that we don't recognize this
option as a legitimate option. AndI think it speaks to this other notion
that we've talked about in the workplace, right, which is the your butt
(20:02):
in the seat at the office ismattering less for industries where we're focused on
what are you producing? Right?What are you getting done for us?
You know, because there's a lotof businesses that have decided, well,
that's really what we care about,right, What we really care about is
the job getting done, you know, not necessarily did I show up for
(20:23):
eight hours? Because part of itis what we've found out. And I've
thought this is really interesting having acouple of new employees myself and just observing
as there's been some more flexibility inhow we're getting stuff done. People.
There's not a lot of people thatlike to do the same thing for the
whole day, right. That's verydifficult. And what we've done in the
(20:48):
traditional model, the office model,which was built around the factory model of
you're gonna show up and you're gonnabe here from this time to this time
and we're gonna get a ton ofwork done and then you're gonna go home
and be fine. Right. Well, what I've observed is and I haven't
found anybody yet that this isn't truefor, but I'm sure if you're out
there, let us know. Peopleare at their desk right there, and
they're doing their computer work, andthey can do that for maybe an hour
(21:10):
or two, right, and thenthey start to get antsy and distracted and
bored, right, and they wantto do something else. They want to
get up and do something right,And so if they're given that flexibility of
well, I'm I'm gonna really getsome stuff done, okay, but now
I need I'm going to go dosomething that's relevant to my work. But
it's different, it's away from whatI was just doing, and it's structurally
(21:34):
different. They get more done inthe day because they were afforded that flexibility
than saying, oh no, yougot to sit right here and do this
thing this way the whole day,right, you know, And we do
it in schools. It's called recess. But you know, you get fifteen
minutes of activity that you get toget up and you move around. We've
even seen it in business models wherethey tell the bosses, this is what
(22:00):
you need to do. Let yourpeople stand up, let them walk around,
let them mill around, let themdo something else, and then come
back to it and production goes up. And so many owners are like,
well, yeah, but they're notworking and I'm paying them for not working,
and that's I'm losing money there.No, you're not, because if
you let them get up and theydo fifteen minutes of yoga, or they
(22:23):
do jumping jacks, or they walkto the break room and they get a
cup of coffee and they chat witha couple of workmates and they grab a
cookie, or they grab a healthyyou know, half a banana or whatever,
and then they go back. Likeyou said, they're going to get
that report done in half the time, which means now they're going to work
(22:45):
on another report and get started,Whereas if you had forced them to stay
in their seat, they would stillbe working on that said report in the
middle of the afternoon instead of workingon their second or third report. We
know that because we give kids recess. We know that if we make them
sit in class for four straight hours, they zone out and they don't learn
as well. But Hey, waita minute, we also let them get
up and move between classes, youknow, as we get into higher education,
(23:07):
when we take away recess. Whybecause that's social interaction and the movement,
the kinetic movement of the body causesthe synapsis in the brain to function
in fire better and therefore retain informationbetter, and not just retain but process
information. Right again, we thinkbetter we use those interchangeably. But processing
(23:29):
and retention are not necessarily the samething. Right, You can retain it,
i e. You can remember it, but the processing of it and
figuring out how it fits into yourlife, I think one could argue is
even more important, because again it'sthe same thing we talked about at the
beginning of the show. If allyou've done is remember the word, but
you don't know how to use theword, who cares that you were able
(23:51):
to remember it? Right? Imean again, what good has that done
for you? And I think thepoint in bringing up this whole workplace environment
is if if part of education's jobis to prepare you to be a productive
member of society, why are westill preparing the majority of our students for
jobs that don't operate the way thesystem is educating them, well don't don't
(24:12):
Most employers want people who problem solveAnd so what good does it do if
you know the information but you can'tapply it to the situation that you have
to solve the problem? Well,even in the factory model, I mean,
you know, we've talked enough tolocal employers, Lance, I think
to know that even the ones thatare still working in that type of job
setting, which is not the majorityof people, but even for the ones
(24:33):
that are, they're asking workers tobe more involved because og they figured out
the workers are the people doing itevery day, and if we can make
adjustments to how it's done that improvesthe worker's ability to do the job.
Well, that's what everybody wants,right, because the workers happier because they're
doing it the way, they're notfrustrated at being forced to do it in
(24:55):
a way that isn't conducive to themgetting it done, And the company is
getting more done because the workers areworking more efficiently. And the bottom line
is that is competency education. Competencybased education. Perfect? Probably not,
but I think just from looking atit, you know holistically, here Lance
and I've been saying for years,we got to do we gotta do something
(25:18):
right. Things are getting worse onthe whole, not better. Standardized testing
is not panning out the way thateverybody was saying it would be, and
lots of the changes to standardized educationare not panting out the way that lots
of people thought they would. Wegot to do something and the districts that
are trying this are seeing results right, And this isn't throwing more money at
(25:38):
the situation exactly, And that's it'snot just spend spends sight And that's a
huge piece here, you know.And you mentioned COVID, and just very
quickly, COVID showed us that kidsassimilate information at different rates. So it's
just more proof that competency based educationmight be an improvement. Like you said,
(26:00):
there is no panacea, there isno perfect way, but we all
agree that we can improve it.This seems to be an obvious, no
more expensive way to go about itthan what we're doing currently. So why
not Remedial classes increase the cost ofa higher education. The more of them
(26:21):
that you have to offer, themore expensive it is, and the more
time you're spending on stuff you're alreadysupposed to know, the more money is
going out of your pocket. Right, Well, it's not the only thing
that's costing colleges. Unvaccinated students evidentlyare costing college as well, according to
a recent article from The Wall StreetJournal, What do we mean, how
are they costing colleges? To findout? Keep it here on the state
(26:41):
of US and we'll be right back. Students are suing, professors are quit
and a few colleges are passing onextra costs of testing to those who aren't
(27:04):
vaccinated against COVID nineteen. So collegesare grappling lance right with the cost of
COVID nineteen tests and unvaccinated students.And there's a number of there's a number
of universities out there that are requiringstudents to be vaccinated against COVID. I
guess we should say too, right, because I guess it's a little misnomer.
(27:26):
Is it's not all unvaccinated students.It's most students are vaccinated because they
have to be against all these allthese things before they ever show up to
college. It's being unvaccinated against COVIDnineteen if they're not arguing against the other
vaccines that they have to take beforethey can go to college. Which has
been which have been there for decades. They're only arguing against this one.
(27:47):
So putting it in just dollar values, right, dollars and cents, forget
about where you stand on anything otherthan the cold hard reality of cash,
and that is At the University ofTexas Austin, the difference between a student
vaccination rate of sixty percent and eightypercent would cost the school about four million
(28:07):
dollars to prevent the spread of COVIDnineteen and treat additional students who are projected
to get infected. According to theschool's head of COVID nineteen modeling, if
fewer students return to campus vaccinated,the school will spend more on test contact
tracing, quarantine, housing, andonline classes, but state law prevents them
(28:29):
from being mandated. That kind ofspeaks to this whole notion right that we've
talked about with the vaccine mandate previouslyand the reality that about seven hundred schools
are now mandating vaccines for students,according to a tally by the Chronicle of
Higher Education, Indiana University was amongthe first to require students to be vaccinated
unless they're exempt for religious or medicalreasons. Last week, the US Supreme
(28:52):
Court rejected a request by a groupof Indiana students who were seeking to block
the school from enforcing the vaccine requirement, basically saying that no, in fact,
vaccine requirements are constitutional. The samenotion that right, you don't have
to go to school here. Andalso what we've talked about before, which
is you have rights, but whenyou enter the public domain, your rights
(29:15):
only extend so far as you notnegatively taking away somebody else's right. Same
thing we do with smoking, right, I mean, and now what happened.
You can smoke? Can you smokein a restaurant where there's a bunch
of other people who aren't smoking andgive them cancer? No, or in
an airplane or whatever. You can'tdo that, right, I mean,
that's not allowed. And we've decidedas a society that we don't allow that
(29:37):
to happen, right, except inthis case so far? Yeah. Well,
and you know in some cases,because there are lots of places that
that's not how it's worked. Butyou talk about money, you know,
And at Birmingham Southern College, theschool president said that last year we received
one and a half million dollars infederal money to cover the cost of testing
and other expenses created by the PANDEMBut he said that money's not available this
(30:02):
year. And when, you know, it's interesting when we see all the
things in the news this week aboutyou know, the budget and raising the
debt ceiling and all that stuff.I don't know about you, but it's
great that these colleges got the moneylast year. But do you want to
keep funding those colleges. I mean, when they say that they got one
point five million dollars from the governmentlast year, that's our tax dollars.
(30:23):
So do we want to keep doingthat? When oh, wait a minute,
he said, we don't have todo this if our students would get
vaccinated. Hmm, well, noneed for testing in contact. Everybody's vaccinated.
And he said, you know,with the money not available this year,
he said, about seventy percent ofour students are going to return to
(30:45):
campus already vaccinated. And he said, I don't want to force them to
help pay for the cost of testingtheir unvaccinated costmates. To your point,
if I'm doing this then and I'mfollowing the rules and doing what I'm supposed
to do, I'm saving money.So why should the colleges then spread the
(31:07):
cost of the testing across people whodon't need it. I mean, to
me, that's logical. I don'tknow it makes sense. I'm not trying
to politicize it at all. I'mjust the logic here is like, huh,
I did what I'm supposed to,so therefore I should not be charged
the cost of taking care of thesepeople that didn't do things the right way.
(31:33):
There's an interesting idea. What if, you know, the next round
of stimulus or whatever for code relief, the the people responsible for paying that
are just the people that haven't beenvaccinated. I know people out there are
gonna well, now they're saying we'repoliticizing it. But again, but why
we've talked about this. Right ifI have a heart attack right now and
(31:56):
I try to go to the hospital, do they have a place for me
an emergency care because of all theCOVID patients. So because people didn't get
vaccinated, they're taking up emergency roomspace, they're taking up critical care units.
And now I have a critical careneed and I can't get it.
(32:17):
And I'm not saying don't take careof people. And I'm not saying that
people who get vaccinated, and yourstruly is going to get their booster later
today that those people we shouldn't helpthem. No, we should help them,
but don't gun it. Step upand do your part, right,
I mean, that's all we're saying. And if you're not, then that
(32:39):
raises the question of well, whatresponsibility do the rest of us have?
I hopefully you agree that people whoget COVID are stressing the medical health care
system and costing us dollars. Okay, Now, not just the medical system,
right, I mean colleges, education, and now it's education, and
well it permeate's businesses, right everybody. They can't open up the restaurant,
(33:04):
or they can't hire workers, orthey're not not as many people are dining
in and so they're losing their business. It's affecting the economy. I mean,
okay, so you have the rightto do what you want to do.
We're not getting into that, butcan we all agree that COVID is
affecting the economy and there's maybe away to affect the economy in a positive
(33:24):
manner. I don't know. DoI think that you have the right to
not be vaccinated? Absolutely? DoI think that that comes at a cost?
Yes, you know, in otherwords, you don't want to be
vaccinated, that's fine. But Idon't have to employ you. I don't
have to be around you. Youknow, you can be at your house,
(33:47):
be on your property, be unvaccinated. I got no problem with that,
because I think you have that right, right. I don't think I
do not think the United States governmentshould come to your house, hold you
down and stick you with any Okay, not for that, Not okay with
that? Now do I think thata employer has the right to say that
in order to work here, yougot to wear jeans, and you're gonna
(34:09):
put on this shirt that has ourname on it, and you're gonna wear
a mask, you know, ifyou're preparing food, or you got to
put on gloves, if you're goingto work and you have to show up
on time, stay until your shiftis over. Yep. And here's this,
here's this policy handbook that you haveto do all this stuff in order
to keep your job. Yeah.I think they have the right to do
(34:30):
that, you know, just likeyou have the right to say now,
I don't want to do that policy. You're right, But then you don't
have the right to force your employerto let you work there, right,
right? I mean, we justtalked about this with the whole union thing
on private business property, and it'slike, yeah, you got the right
to have a union, right,you have the right not to be vaccinated.
You have those rights, but there'sa limit to how far they extend.
(34:53):
You can't bust down somebody else's doorand say, you know, well
you have to you know, no, no, you know, it's my
building, my business, my rules. You don't like those rules, you
don't have to work here. Andit's the same thing at the universities.
Right, it's my school. It'smy school, my teachers, my employees,
(35:13):
my policy. You don't like it, you don't have to go to
school here. This is the optionyou have here, and if you want
to follow our rules, you're morethan welcome to be here. And it's
a don't want to follow our rules, go find someplace else because there are
other opportunities. It's a whole otherconversation. But especially you know, you
talk about K through twelve, Okay, public school, different conversation. You
know, I suppose even though vaccineshave a long history of you know,
(35:37):
being required in order to be safe, but to be in a public school
at the higher education level, youdon't have a right. Now. We
can discuss if you should, butright now, you do not have the
right to higher education, right,you don't have that right, So don't
get all I just I'm tired ofpeople getting bent out of shape about this.
It's like, get over yourself,you know. I hate to break
(35:58):
it to you, but life's madeup of all kinds of stuff you got
to do you don't want to do, you know, and if you don't
like it, you don't have todo those things, right, you really
don't. There are jobs you cango have where you don't have to be
vaccinated. So if you don't likethat your employers requiring it, shut up
and go get a different job,you know, go to school someplace else,
or we don't go to school,you know. I mean, just
(36:21):
ah, I'm tired of it,the whining, the moaning, and the
complaining. Everything has to fit theway I want it. Yeah, that's
not what makes America great. Nope, that's not a little bit of sacrifice
for literally protecting the public good likethe health of the nation and thereby the
economy. You're tired of the debt, right You're out here whining about the
(36:43):
debt ceiling increase and how much we'respending, Well, we're spending a lot
of that money because of COVID,right, and we could be done with
that. We could be spending ahell of a lot less money if people
would go do their part. It'dbe a lot cheaper if people would just
do their part. So why arewe doing this, folks? Well cause
here at true chat we have amission, and our mission is to educate
people by providing honest, open andrespectful conversations. And we'd love to hear
(37:07):
from you. And if you're aroundthe water fountain getting your ten minute break
so that you can stimulate your synapsissso that you can go back and get
that report done. Then share thiswith other folks and they say, well,
where can I find it? Tellthem Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher,
Apple podcast and everywhere. Podcasts areI think today the word of the day
end up pretty close. I actuallydon't have the definitive figure. I got
(37:29):
caught up in the conversation. Sowe're going to rely on you at home.
Send us an email podcast at thestate offus dot organ While you're telling
us who won, you might alsotell us what do you think about?
What do you think about all thisso oky to disagree, right, you
do have, and I will saythat you absolutely have the right to disagree.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not,
because that's what it's all about here. New episodes are available Tuesdays and Thursdays
(37:52):
early in the morning, so youcan get it right when you get up.
As a podcast, A State ofUS is also available and select talk
radio markets around the nation, socheck your local AM and FM station for
the State of Us On True Chatin Urbana, Ohio, I'm justin t
Wallas. I'm WI It's Jackson Special. Thanks to our producer Bradley Butch,
and thank you all our audience fortuning in. We'll see you next time.
(38:13):
Be the change. Be sure tocheck out our website, the State
Offus dot org for books, articles, and all the ways to tune in
the State of Us dot org.
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