This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Welcome Friday night, Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk,
educated educators talking education.
Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, he is, well he's a
hockey coach and his hockey team made it into the playoffs tonight.
So we're going to give Dr. Johnny Lupinacci the night off.
Not a problem though, I got producer Nate, you know,
getting him ready, gonna throw some questions at him.
And then at the bottom of the half-hour though, you know,
special guest Jimmy Kay coming in,
gonna be talking a little bit about referendums.
So it is Friday, it is the TGIF version as they say,
thank goodness, or we should say thank goodness,
it's Busted Pencils. Nate, how are you doing, man?
I'm doing all right, it's Friday.
I'm here with Busted Pencils.
I'm happy to be here.
Well, that's good.
You know, and, hey, fact, let's put it out there.
If you want to be here with us, 844-967-2789,
844-967-2789, jump in, free for all, as they say Friday.
You know, give us a call, anything you want.
A lot of interesting, first full week, Nate, Busted Pencils.
Every day this week, we were on, did a show on Monday,
the network for public education.
Carol Burris came in talking about vouchers and charter schools.
On Tuesday, UW faculty, Kimber Wilkerson,
teacher, shortage, specifically special education.
Wednesday, our special educators amplified.
Teacher Joanna, teacher, Halle, bring in hope
and telling stories about what it really is like to be a teacher.
And then last night, you know, we had our great guest.
She was a caller on the show for the last four years,
caller Joanne, now Dr. Joanne, well, she's always been doctor.
Dr. Joanne Orbeck, social media, gambling,
cell phone usage, all of that stuff.
Nate, lots of stuff to go on there.
However, Nate, let's go right though to the news here.
I'm going to ask you a question, Nate.
Artificial intelligence.
Should we be teaching it to kids in schools?
Should we be teaching it to kids in schools?
Mm-hmm.
Well, that one, I'm a little bit conflicted about.
Okay.
You know, you have to worry a little bit about plagiarism
and kids writing their own papers and things.
That being said, I do see uses for AI in just our everyday life.
For instance, I've worked as a journalist for a few years now
and I've come across complicated court documents.
That's 250 pages long and I have to get a paper out
by six o'clock that day or a story out by six o'clock that day.
I'll go over to AI chatbot.
I'll say, here's this court case.
Break it down.
Break it down for me.
What's the big things?
What are the big themes?
And then I can use that instead of having to read through a 250 page
dense court document sort of breakdown in easy words.
What it means, what it's all about.
So I don't know.
Good use.
Good use there and the nice things you're putting out there.
You know, plagiarism.
But hey, coming out of the publication k12dive.com.
The future is artificial intelligence are students ready.
And so Nate, this is the question.
And so to Richard Calcutta, students need to learn
about artificial intelligence and its inner workings now.
But even more critical says the CEO of the international society
for technology in education is that educators teach pupils
not just about the technology, but how to partner with AI
in their own work whole lot there.
Because I think when people start to hear art of teaching
artificial intelligence, so are you saying we need to teach kids
how to build artificial intelligence, how to computer program.
Now, this isn't about computer programming here.
This isn't about building machine learning, going for deep,
you know, deep learning and all this is about saying it's out there.
It's a technology.
Nate, you gave a great example of saying it's like, look,
I can use it to go through lots and lots of pages to give me
a nice summary so that I, you know, don't have to spend all
that time reading 250 pages.
It's a good thing, you know, how to do that.
Should we be intentionally teaching students that there's
this technology out there called artificial intelligence.
And should we be showing them ways that they can use it and
the other thing, ways that we don't want them to use it?
I like the word partner that was used there partner with AI
not relying entirely on it, but use it in tandem with what
we already know and what kids are already learning in the
classroom to achieve a goal, achieve whatever it is you're
looking to do.
Right, you know, there it is.
You put it out there so it's a tool because I hear this
more often though, everybody's worried you brought it up.
Nate, I don't want my kid, my fifth graders, my eighth graders,
I don't want them using it to write their papers for them
because they still have to learn how to write.
And that's plagiarism.
We did a, you know, did quite, we've done quite a few shows
on AI and plagiarism.
This isn't what we're talking about when you say, yeah,
I like the word to partner partnering with with AI because
right now kids are using their, you know, they've got laptops.
They've got their cell phones and all of these things are
loaded with artificial intelligence, whether we want to
admit it or not.
And so the reality is saying, how do we partner cooperate and
recognize potentially how artificial intelligence can
maybe even enhance some of the things that we maybe couldn't
do in the past, you know, that's where and I'm going to go
out on a limb, see what you do with with this Nate.
I think there's a, there's a professor at Penn,
Wharton Business School, Penn, Ethan Mollock.
He has put out there and says, why not use it because
it can help you be smarter.
Okay.
Okay.
Now I'll give you the example of it.
So I know a lot of stuff about teaching and learning history.
Okay.
Sure.
Got a, got a whole, got a whole PhD in teaching and learning
history, a whole PhD in teaching and learning history to
elementary school kids.
Okay.
So just in case anyone wants to know what expertise to
selector have, there it is.
Can I then use AI to help me know more or be more
productive as somebody who has a PhD in teaching and learning
history with little kids?
And so can I use this tool and Nate, you gave a good example.
One of the things I do when I'm doing my, I got to do a lot
of research, got to do a lot of reading and sometimes I'll
read through 20 articles and go, that was a waste of my
time, didn't find anything.
What you just put out there, the idea that I could have a
pre-read of articles before I dig into them to say, you
know, what are the key findings of in this article?
What are some key highlights?
And I could look at it and go, okay, this is one I want to
get into, right?
So now it's identifying and helping me find the best
materials so that I can spend the most time developing and
digging deep into the things that I want to know.
It's therefore making me smarter.
That's it.
That's the point.
What do you do by it, Nate?
I buy it.
I buy it totally.
You know that, that example that I'll keep going back to
of sort of pre-reading something and then you can, that
sort of gives you a jumping off point of, well, I want to
go down this route and then you can sort of dig into, into
that a little bit more, maybe in a specific, as you said,
article or court document or research study or think
something like that, using it to sort of, using it to art
vantage and I got to go back to that word partner, working
with the AI to, to really help yourself get a good handle
on when you have a lot of information, maybe where to go,
maybe a jumping off point or something like that.
Well, it's, it's a tool, right?
If you look at it that way and say it's a tool, then we
should learn how to use those tools because, hey, when you
don't know how to use tools, they'll sit there unused.
But hey, given to a master craftsman, a tool doesn't take
away the master craftsman, the tool enhances the ability
for a master craftsman to get more done, to be more artistic,
to be more productive.
So as students are going to, you know, can we use this?
And I say there are lots of uses too.
We have the conversation about the special education
teacher shortage, but the ability to adapt and enhance
learning for students to come in, you know, whether it's voice
activated, the ability for somebody who may not have the
ability to speak for people who who have physical
disability, the tool of AI can really enhance the learning
situation, can enhance communication tools, all of that.
So this is what I want people to be thinking about with AI
is we're not asking the question, should students be allowed
to use it to write their papers?
Okay, that's a crappy, that's a crappy question.
Okay, we're done.
No, and we shouldn't let them use Google.
And before that, we shouldn't let them use encyclopedias.
We shouldn't let them copy and not do their own work.
That's just what we should never do, but we've got a real tool
here.
And where it's going, I think that's the other thing is when
you listen to people that are concerned about is going, well,
I've heard this quote, it ain't going to unadvent itself,
Nate.
Okay.
Yeah.
And knowing that means, okay, and here's the other thing,
it just gets smarter every day, every day.
And so where are we heading with this?
The ability of, as you say, teams, I don't just read a
little bit more here, and you know, as we're coming up at
towards the end, but I'm great.
I've got to figure out where, and here's the quote from
again, from Richard Colada.
Every kid that graduates today is going to work on a team
where not every member of their team is human.
How do you work on a team where not all members are human?
How do you know what tasks to hand off to non human
counterparts?
That may freak people out to go wait, like, wait, what do you
mean?
Like, I'm going to be sitting there with the terminator?
No, no, no, no, no, come on, chill out.
But the fact is, is that teams, and you start to say, is
this work that we should invest human time on, or is this
work we can have AI do more efficiently so that the three
of us humans can spend more time being deep and embedded
into the work we do?
Numbers 844-967-2789.
It's Friday.
It's busted pencils.
Doing a little look at AI when we get back, though, hold on
because let me do a little bit of looking at what the show
talked about this week.
If you want to jump in, though, 844-967-2789, if you want
artificial intelligence to be your team member, then busted
pencils, that's what we're here for.
Back after the break.
We grow all over you.
We so cease to see ourselves through our days are precious
and so few.
We know we probably are with you.
Until this sky, no longer blue.
We bring up to a low level until we grow.
We grow, we grow, we grow.
We're all over you.
This is Matt Damon on Busted Pencils Radio.
Please stop bothering me and just ask my mom already.
Matt Damon's mom?
What?
Yeah, we're going to have Matt Damon's mom on Busted Pencils.
Busted Pencils fully-led at Education Talk,
Educated Educators Talking Education.
The number 844-967-2789.
Yes, that's right.
That was Matt Damon.
And yes, ask his mom.
Don't bother him.
He's busy.
He's got some things.
What would Matt Damon's mom say?
Sigmund and Busted Pencils coming up in the future.
Right now, though, we were asking AI questions working on a
team.
Got a caller, Joe Ann, from Madison.
I got a feeling this is Dr. Joe Ann Oravek.
Joe Ann, how are you?
Really great.
The discussion was absolutely addictive.
So I had to come in and just make a very small comment.
So can you imagine being a kid?
Just imagine being a kid and being faced with this AI that is so intelligent.
I mean, I would be intimidated.
I would feel like an imposter.
I would feel that I was being out class.
And I think that teachers are going to have to be really skilled in dealing with those issues.
Those kids are going to be faced with this amazing entity.
And they might feel that their own skills, their own tentative attempts to be productive,
would be laughable in that regard.
And I think that teachers can do it.
They'll find ways to do it, but it'll be a tough effort to solve that issue.
Joe Ann, are teachers ready?
Maybe let me add to teach this.
I mean, I'm thinking of fifth grade teachers out there right now that I work with.
Are they ready to teach AI?
And what should a fifth grade teacher be teaching fifth graders about AI?
Do we even know that?
I think we need to do a lot of, yeah.
I would just put you on the spot, Joe Ann.
Oh, no problem.
All right.
I think we need to do a lot of talking with students about what they feel about the process of working with AI to understand that.
We understand now, after all these years, what students feel like working with.
Maybe a very elegant machine or some type of calculator or whatever.
But the idea of working with something that is that intelligent and productive and all of that and feeling perhaps inadequate.
Why should I do this?
You know, the computer can do it.
We've got to give them the reasons to want to do things themselves.
And I think we can't.
I mean, it's almost the opposite.
I tell my students I teach them the opposite of plagiarism.
I teach them to want to get their own ideas out so badly that they hate their editors.
They hate me for making them change those words.
I'll give them a reason, of course.
But they have ownership of their words.
I really love what they're saying or their words ideas, productions, whatever designs.
They need to express themselves.
And so again, it's going to take a while, but we need to do a lot of listening.
Yeah.
We need a lot of listening.
Joanne, thank you for calling.
I appreciate it.
And again, appreciate you, Boston pencils last night, particularly.
Nate, you got something to add there.
I do.
I think it's important to remember when thinking about something like AI or any new technology that comes through.
The kids in high school, especially and younger than that, even.
They're going to be on sort of the forefront of all of that.
They're going to be ready to jump in right away.
So, and I think Joanne does bring up a good point.
And I think it is important for teachers to learn and figure out how exactly can the teachers get in front of this so that they can teach responsible use of AI,
responsible and smart use of AI that will help them instead of, you know, whatever it is.
Well, Nate, I think when you know, bring up the, you know, I had a conversation, you know, with a colleague.
And a colleague who is on the side of going, it's the worst thing that has ever happened to teaching and learning.
And we must do everything we possibly can to stop its use because it is destroying the ability of kids to do independent work.
And I was like, okay, I think you may have some points in there, but the idea of stopping it.
It's never going to happen.
Yeah, I don't care what, you know, like anything, but this one, it's already beyond stopping.
And here's the thing, if you think you are actually creating policies in a classroom that forbids students from using it,
they're going to figure out a way how to use it anyway.
And guarantee you this, most kids, as you point this out, Nate, particularly high school, but I guarantee you middle school, fifth grade.
I mean, really, we're actually very surprised.
Kids are always miles ahead.
It's using stuff.
Sometimes though, and this is the real learning opportunity.
And I think this might be where Joanne is talking or a little bit of the side to the point that they need instruction.
They need somebody to step in and say, okay, you've been messing with this.
You've been playing with this.
You went here.
You went there.
It told you this.
It told you that.
Did it, you know, and even Joanne, did it make you feel sad?
You know, because you can kind of get this thing.
It's like, oh my gosh, this thing knows everything.
Potentially, you can either take that back and go there for a arm on break.
I don't need to know anything anymore.
Cool teacher.
Just give me my AI and I will give you.
Or you might sit there and start the question.
I think this, what Joanne was saying, your own essentialism, you know, what good am I then?
If this can do that, that's kind of weird.
And I got to tell you, I'm one of those weird kids who had those kind of weird creepy thoughts.
Like, I would go there, Nate.
And so, you know, you're laughing.
Come on, man.
And, you know, you knew I was weird.
I was the opposite.
I was, I was just go, go about my way as a kid.
But I know exactly what you're talking about, that, that.
And I think, I think some kids probably like me who are going to need a little bit more of that push towards it.
But I think that's, I think, Joanne, yeah, brought up a great point.
And yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine, eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine.
Producer Nate and Tim, just, you know, chatting a little bit about AI.
Again, a little bit, you know, great week, great, well, true first week of busted pencils Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Charter schools, voucher schools, teacher shortages and special education, bringing hope from the classroom, teacher Joanne.
Oh, she's, I mean, Dr. Joanne Orbeck, given us a lot yesterday, particularly on social media, sports betting and kids.
And then even calling it tonight on artificial intelligence.
I tell you what, though, here's the big question.
What is a referendum?
We hear this a lot.
Well, what would it mean to a referendum?
What does a referendum mean to kids?
What does it mean to the teachers?
What does a referendum have to do with your pocket book?
We kind of an expert on referendums coming up.
Jimmy Kay.
You probably heard him here on Civic Media in lots of various ways, particularly if you've been listening to any sports.
Jimmy Kay bringing the sports, but bringing some referendums, school referendums, expertise.
When we get back, busted pencils back after the break.
Hey, this is Tim from Rise Against here on Busted Pencils Radio.
Now, we don't ever want you to forget.
It's Busted Pencils fully-ledged education talk, educated educators talking education.
Yes, that is truly Tim from Rise Against.
He listens to Busted Pencils.
You know, listen to that music.
It's Busted Pencils.
It's the theme approach.
We're back, though.
Number 844-967-2789.
I put out the question.
I know this is a big deal, particularly.
Well, actually anywhere right now, but it was constant, but a lot of people referendums.
We got a special expert.
Jimmy Kay.
Jimmy's coming on the show.
Jimmy, you got to help us, though, because I'm thinking my neighbor.
My neighbor, all he knows is that somebody tells him to vote yes for the referendum.
And somebody tells him to vote no for the referendum.
And both of those people are absolutely adamantly sure that they're right.
What the heck is the referendum, Jimmy?
Before I say anything about the referendum, I just want to say it is way cool that you have Rise Against.
When we see a lighter for your show, that is amazing.
My mind was blown.
I'm sitting here like, wait a minute.
He's actually voicing a lighter for the show.
That's right, man.
Oh, my goodness.
I'm sorry.
As someone who goes to a lot of concerts like that, just that was not expecting that from an education show.
So I was really exciting.
All right, all right.
That's what we do here every night, Jimmy.
We mix punk rock and education.
They go together.
I love it.
That is amazing.
All right, all right.
So what is a referendum?
Well, the way in Wisconsin a referendum works for schools is since the since it was implemented back in the early 90s, it allows a school district members of a district to to vote to exceed the property tax levies, which were put in place.
There's a limit to exceed this limit.
The limit limit was put in place because of rising property taxes back in the 90s.
They had gone up so much in a short amount of time.
They said, we got to cap this.
We can't have the spiraling out of control.
People are getting mags or taxes are going up.
So they put in this cap on how much a district and levy in property taxes in a given year.
And at that point, they had tied it to measures like inflation.
So as inflation grew, so did the amount that the levy could collect.
But that that pairing sort of decoupled in the late 2000s.
And what it meant was that as inflation kept going, the amount that could be collected didn't go with it.
And that's created this big gap that's happened 15 years since then.
And that's why you're seeing so many of these referendum.
So what it is is you're asking your your tax base.
Are we allowed to collect more beyond this cap to help fund things like operations, pay teacher salaries or in those were the operational ones or if they want to build new facilities.
And they need to go above and beyond what they have, you know, in the banker in their in their funds to do capital projects, which is pretty common because a lot of facility projects are, you know, have eight or nine figure price digs.
And that's a different type of referendum.
They go to the taxpayers and they say, do we have your authority to to to borrow this money or to raise the levy for operational to pay for these things.
So that's what a referendum is asking.
They're asking taxpayers to allow them to exceed a limit so they can collect more money.
Or they're allowing they're asking taxpayers to say, would you like to pay more taxes up and above and beyond the taxes that you're already paying.
Jimmy, we've got to make it simple for my neighbor.
My neighbor wants to know, you know, he's like, look, are my taxes going up or not.
If I vote yes on this referendum, because if they are, I'm already paying way too much taxes.
And now we're getting into it.
Hey, you know what?
That's a common response.
And I'm sorry to interrupt him.
No, no, go.
It's a common response to it.
But there's other variables in play.
It's not just simply, we're just going to straight up raise your taxes.
It's not raising.
It doesn't necessarily raise your taxes because of other variables and other other things that get collected, whatever your mill rate is, etc.
There's other variables here.
So your taxes don't necessarily go up.
It's just the amount that the school collects as part of that is the part that does go up.
And we want to talk.
Yeah, we and we do want to talk about the why would schools need that because that to me is also the the the real kind of part of the story of guy.
Like, why aren't they just getting enough anyway to begin with?
However, LA Tom is on the line.
You know, I'm pretty sure LA Tom wants wants to jump here, jump in on the referendums.
LA Tom, how are you my friend?
I'm doing great guys.
First off, we the people ultimately are the government and not the corporations are not the government.
And what I want to say is, is there a difference between the referendum versus propositions because all here in California, we have propositions.
And what they've done is they've muddied the water so bad.
And the way that they write these propositions is just absolutely.
I mean, you need a law degree or more in order to even understand the proposition.
So the one thing I would say is if you guys are doing a referendum and it's the same as a proposition is to be able to make it very, very clearly.
You're you're going to pay this much more in tax, but this is what you're going to give back from your money.
So whether it is this is going to pay for shoulder pads and things like this for school for football.
Then that's what that needs to be written out exclusively and not this not this no means yes and yes means no.
And all of these different ways that they do it now to screw everybody up.
You know, in terms of how they write out these either referendums or propositions.
Well, Tom, let's say so Jimmy K. What do you think propositions referendums? They sound similar.
Do you have any expertise in telling the two apart?
Sure. So propositions of a ballot initiative, which is done by voters, but at Wisconsin.
They have to come either through the legislature or through a local governing body.
So there are a lot there are more restrictions in Wisconsin.
So we aren't allowed to do that here.
But but the referendum. So Tom, the referendum in Wisconsin, particularly though, is a revenue issue.
And so Jimmy, here's the question. The two is going, but why?
Why do we need a referendum? I mean, I'd you say well, we want to build an even Tom said this.
Maybe we want new shoulder pads. Maybe we want a new ice skating rink.
All the, I think those capital things. But I mean, you even said the raises for teachers, potentially even operating costs.
Why don't the schools budget enough money? Why do they have to go back to the taxpayers for the money anyway?
The short answer is that schools don't have another way to raise revenue.
The school schools are primarily funded through the state or through property tax revenues, you know, from the levy.
They get a little bit in federally. They get a little bit, you know, very like a sliver in like donations and things like that.
But the bulk of the income for schools is either in state aid or in or in local property tax levies.
So that's that's the vast majority of how schools are funded.
Schools can't just say, well, we're raising the cost of our services because it's public education.
They don't have that ability unilaterally to do that. So they have to ask the taxpayers.
Are we allowed to collect more money from you so that we can pay for things in an operational referendum for things like maintenance and salaries?
Or in a facilities referendum, a debt issue referendum to pay for building a new building or repairing an existing one.
But isn't I mean, isn't there? You said, okay, so school financing 101, which really isn't a school financing 101.
It's a complex calculus really when you think about it, but you pointed out the public schools largely funded off local property taxes.
However, state contributions and some small sliver of federal contributions.
Could the state, if they wanted to provide more funding to public schools, though, Jimmy?
Yeah, they could. I mean, that's really been the fight since, you know, really the last 10 or 15 years is that there's been this gap between, you know, how inflation and how schools would have been funded previously.
And there's this kind of this dovetail of what is actually the schools are actually receiving when they're they're building these things in tied to inflation.
So now there's this gap that's widening over time. And that's why you're seeing so many schools have to go to referendum.
They're trying to make up parts of that gap because as it is, you know, they can't continue the operations as they are in a lot of cases.
For example, the spring and your February and your April ballots this spring, there are 101 referendum questions around the state for over 90 districts and two thirds of them are for operational expenses.
Operational expenses again are paying for the service education teachers or for maintaining buildings.
And this gap is it's become much more pronounced this year because it is the end of the federal asset dollars, the COVID funds and recovery funds.
Those have expired and so many districts this year use the rest of what they had left because they have to spend them by September to backfill their budget this year, including the district I'm in.
Well, that goes away next year and all of a sudden the $1.3 million you backfill with federal COVID relief dollars, how are you going to make that up in the next budget year?
Well, the answer is for a lot of districts and operational referendum.
But it's okay. And so that may be a good reason and we think about that, but I want to get into this.
So because I'm going to take, you know, whether or not this is truly my position, I will never let you know or I might come back.
But my neighbor, I'm talking to my neighbor and he's like, Tim, look, the reality is is I can't pay anymore.
And if we're going to do something for our neighborhood schools, our public schools, instead of voting yes for us to spend more of our money, why don't we organize some kind of a protest and some kind of a movement and some kind of an action to hold our legislators accountable for actually making up the difference and putting in the money that needs to be there.
And in fact, why don't we insist on making legislators do their job, which is funding the public schools, because you know what, that's one of the major things the state legislature has to do is take care of the communities they are representing.
And so therefore putting forth the money that is needed to educate our children, your children, their children, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, you don't have to just keep asking the taxpayers all the time, you can actually ask the legislators to do their darn job.
I'm going to give you two parts in this response, right?
The first part of this is the legislators, largely in Wisconsin, don't really have to be accountable to it because they're in very safe districts, right? The way the maps are now, before, you know, I'm obviously this changing this year, but the way the maps have been for the last 12 years, there hasn't really been that accountability because there's not really a ability to vote people out a lot of the elections in the assembly.
Several of them go and contested or weekly contested, they aren't funded well, whatever, so we have a overwhelmingly one sided legislature, so there's not really that incentive to do something like this to follow that.
And the other part of this, and this is the complicating factor in all this discussion, is that there is a massively declining enrollment in public schools, and it's tied to declining population, right?
So there are fewer kids being born, fewer people, you know, although public education is the number one way kids by far get educated in Wisconsin, well north of 80%.
There's fewer people in public schools, 70% of school districts in the state have declining enrollment, a lot of them are rural schools, and rural schools make up over half of all the districts, 420 on of them in the state.
So when you combine declining enrollment, which is what gets you the state aid, it's tied to a formula, number of people you have in the seats, as that goes down your state contributions come down.
Your local tax levies come down, well, the problem is is when your enrollment is dropping and you're losing these funds, the cost of keeping the lights on and keeping teachers doesn't tend to go down with it.
It actually it runs up because of inflation for costs for employees and obviously for building and materials and things like that.
So it's a complicating factor, and when I asked this point blank to Howard Markline, who is the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee and the legislature, that's what he pointed to.
He said the declining enrollment is while you're not being funded, and you know, and that's that's that's point blank, but what that was told at a listening session that was here last month in town in the city, I live in, so that's that's where it's at.
We have this complicating factor declining enrollment, which is tied to how schools are funded, and there's not a whole lot of incentive for the legislature to act on specifically funding public education, because again, as I said, you know, it's not like they're going to get voted out under the current maps.
Okay, so although that's changing, obviously, with the, you know, they're going to have some mapscrown, there's a lot of litigation that goes through, but as it is, there's, you know, it's almost a super majority, and what are you going to do with that, right?
So it's just not that simple. However, though, I mean, come on, I got a point, though, don't I? I mean, the reality is, is that it sounds to me what you're saying, though, too, from that kind of common is, is that too bad.
Your, your populations declining, you don't need any more money anyway, we're not going to put it forward.
Boy, that just sounds to me like that's somebody who doesn't really care about local public schools, and I'm going to go back, Jimmy and say, I'm sorry, but as a state legislator, your job is not to figure out how to harm your community.
Your job is to figure out how to make your community thriving.
Man, that's what we're doing here, rise against Tim, busted pencils, fully led at education talk. If you want to get in 844-967-2789, Jimmy K, school board, when we get back, what does it mean?
Back after the break.
I don't have to know.
We are worth in pencil.
You can't feel the heat until you hold your head.
But you're with busted pencils. There's lots of heat here all the time.
844-967-2789.
Thank you students. You are busting pencils. That's what we do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and actually starting next week, 6 o'clock, moving to 6 o'clock.
So, you know, if you're out there getting a pizza, taking a drive home, give us a call next week, 844-967-2789.
Referendums 101. We had a little bit of a schooling advice. Actually, we learned a little bit there.
Our guest, Jimmy K, civic media, civic media's own, Jimmy K.
All right, Jimmy, you said one little thing, though, before we talk about your adventures in school boarding, there was a little bit of complicating or a little bit more about something about vouchers and how vouchers affect the funding.
Throw in that, throw in that little tad, little tidbit of detail for the listener.
Sure. I think it only gets a secret, but the last budget that was signed, the biennial budget signed by Governor Evers, did provide some increases to private and voucher schools.
You know, some increases for what parents can apply to go to those schools.
It also showed kind of the disparity between how special education is reimbursed.
If you're a private or voucher school, you can get a 90% reimbursement rate. And for public schools, that's at 33%.
And in a rural district like the one I live in, when 21% of your students are special needs, that's a huge cost.
And schools have to take on this cost. They can't turn people away. So they have to take on this cost, right?
And that dips into general fund, which is the whole school budget, right?
So there's not enough funding for special education. And the way I look at this, it creates a very clear equity issue, because you have to have everybody, you know, public education in our Constitution, it is a state constitutional right.
And we can't leave kids behind. But in that same same aspect, we don't have that funding, you know, built into the formula, the way that it is now for for private and voucher schools.
So that's one of the biggest calling, when you read anything that Dr. Jill underly puts out, when you read the things that either puts out what they're calling for, it's usually one of the first two or three things that they mentioned is a higher special education reimbursement rate.
Well, it just seems like it's what you should do. And thank you Jimmy for pointing out that little civics lesson for everybody on civic media.
Your state Constitution absolutely requires the taking care of the public education needs of every child, every citizen in the state.
That's what you have in your state constitution. Okay, Jimmy. So the reason you know all this is you're a school board member.
I have a school board member.
Oh, look at that. Anybody watching on the live video feed he showed his credentials.
So you, so I'm going to tell you when I give you a little quick story about my adventure running for school board in a very small town and I was a college professor at the time.
And I found out that I wasn't going to get voted in because the only reason I was running was to enforce my liberal beliefs and to come in and get rid of the Christmas play.
And so yeah, that was my adventure and running for school board, not that I had been a teacher for 20 some years and then I had kids in the school and then I had all these concerns about education.
It was that well, you are a professor. So you're a liberal and you must be coming to cancel the Christmas party.
My experience much different. I went to early vote because I wasn't going to be in town on Tuesday, the Tuesday, went in the Friday before I said, well, who do I vote for for school board? There's nobody on the ballot.
Well, are there any writings? Nope. There's no writings. There's nobody on the ballot. All right. I went over to the school field of the paperwork and 13 write in votes later. I'm on a school board. So Mike's a little different than you.
Bigger. Well, you got a lot more votes than I did. That's for sure. You know, 13.
Okay, I mean, so what does a school board member do? Okay, you've been voted in, but I mean, like most of the times you guys are just sitting there taking lots of abuse from angry parents, right? I mean, that's the job requirement.
I don't have to worry about that so much. Our district, it's a little, a little more hands up, but you do get to see it in my case with two kids that are very young in the district. I get to kind of see the day to day, see some of the concerns that are brought up.
I get to learn a lot about the schools that my kids are in, right? And this is a new experience for me. I've only been on the board for clothing up on two years. So, you know, two thirds of the way through this term.
And what it's taught me is that there's a lot more involved in schools than you would just look at a building and think like you would assume that there's some complicating things, but once you actually get into it as a board member, you're like, wow, there's a lot of moving parts.
I would say for my part, if you're not in like referendum mode, it's actually kind of chill. You work on things as they come up. You know, you deal with the hiring, the coming's the goings, the usual stuff that you would do in any kind of organizational setting.
And when you're going through a referendum, there's more processes because you're actually designing and meeting and doing all those things. But yeah, a lot of meetings, a lot of emails, a lot of communication. And that's one area that I felt like I brought an asset to our school board is that as someone who's been in media for 22 years, I could bring communication to the table and help short things like our social media communication or outreach with the public things like that. So everybody brings a little bit something different to a school board. And that's what I brought to ours.
Let's do that everybody part because I think that it really is key is to recognize, okay, why a school board. And this is the public school. And again, democracy 101 for people.
You have to be elected into the school board because it is of the people by the people we the people, all the people types of thing. They are run by a locally elected group of citizens of that school district to serve on that board because you're supposed to represent the best interest of the community.
The whole idea that this is some kind of like liberal attack all that it's like, no, this is voting. Sorry. And if you want to run for school board and fact, boy, we've seen some of the kind of scary stuff with some of the other people who are running.
But you know what, Johnny and I always say this, as long as democracy is working, then we're happy. If we don't like who was voted in, then we vote them out. We keep going with with that.
But I mean, this is the part, you know, and I actually remember writing a thing. Now, now here's my kind of take on.
However, right, going back to when I wanted to be on school board, I thought I brought qualifications. What are the qualifications to be on school board, Jimmy?
Qualifications are to get onto the ballot and get voted in. There's no, nothing more to it than that. We have a very wide range. We have a deputy. We have an emergency room director.
We have somebody who runs a holistic medicine practice. We have a contractor and we have a state patrol inspector. And then of course, myself, a guy who talks for a living. So that's, that's what we have on our school board, right?
Every school board is a little different, but the qualifications are engage in your community. Get on the ballot and certain and do what's right for the kids.
Have you had, tell me about your most kind of tense moment as a school board member.
Most tense moment as a school board member was probably the first meeting I went to because I had no idea what I was walking into.
No, no angry parents yelling at you, just, just simply.
Get in a little bit. The referendum was a little controversial, but I mean, that's anything, right? You just got to talk to people and they get it.
Jimmy Kay, producer Nate busted pencils. Check you out next week.
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