This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Welcome, Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk,
educated educators talking education Tuesday night.
Yeah, Tuesday.
Everybody's like, yeah, Tuesday, you guys are always on Tuesday.
We're on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday now.
And yes, if you're hanging out on Tuesday,
you're one of the original Tuesday people.
Welcome back.
We appreciate you.
If you're new to the show,
hey, check it out, man.
We love it.
It's, you know, one of the best things.
Yes, we do.
We have a special episode.
Well, it's not a, I mean, it's a special night.
Educator's Amplified.
We know teacher Joanna, teacher Halle, every Wednesday night.
We have Educator's Amplified in the house.
This week, special edition teacher Joanna,
educators amplified on a Tuesday night because Wednesday,
that's tomorrow, the Educator's Amplified,
ladies, teacher Joanna, teacher Halle,
have something else to do.
So we said, you know what, what, I know, can you believe,
hey, just make a Tuesday or Wednesday.
That's just a little swap, you know, we can do that.
We can do, we got teacher Joanna here
and teacher Halle, I don't know.
Maybe, you know, we'll see her next week too,
but teacher Joanna, how are you?
I am doing well.
Okay, I said that where I'm like, well,
but I am, I am, I'm actually on my spring break right now.
And so, yeah, I mean, what I'm really seeing is,
you know, so obviously I'm at home.
I'm not off in Florida or anything.
Just been taking the time to handle business
that you can't handle when you're at school all day.
Like, I was on the phone for 35 minutes trying to schedule
my colonoscopy stuff like that.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, you, you went there.
I was, I was just going to say, you know,
like going to the bathroom.
But I mean, if you're scheduling the colonoscopy,
yeah, you know, people forget, it's like,
what do teachers do?
How do teachers, I remember a little kids going,
you know, it was, I was Mr. Slecker,
then Mr. Slecker, when do you pee?
Yeah, I mean, that's real.
I mean, that's 100% real.
Yeah, ask a teacher what they did on the time off.
And most likely, we all know,
we scheduled our doctor's appointments.
We went to doctor's appointments.
We got a teeth cleaned.
We finally got a haircut in.
I mean, back then, I had hair.
So I mean, the all the things that you forget,
I went to the bank during the day.
Yeah, you know, do I ever, yeah.
You know, the excitement of,
yeah.
So yeah, I mean, really, that's what I'm doing.
I'm taking care of business.
And because, because I'm at a new job this year too,
I don't have time saved up.
So I really had to use my break to just kind of, like,
handle life.
And I'm feeling all right.
Well, you know, scheduling that,
the most pleasant experience of, you know,
when you get into those five O's that,
yeah, you're supposed to do that, you know,
eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.
If you want to call in and schedule,
you're calling anoscopy with busted pencils.
Oh, my God.
Well, no, we can't actually do that.
Dr. Tim and Dr. Johnny do not have the ability
to do colonoscopies.
We, no, we just, we just have them done.
I mean, we don't get the opt out of that.
Well, and my point was that literally just to make the appointment,
I was on the phone for 35 minutes,
like, just make the appointment.
So I forget about, well, I remember,
but I forget those kinds of things, like, just, you know,
making those kind of phone calls is not quick.
It's not, it's not.
But, you know what, let's teach your Joanna.
I'm one of, you know, we've been talking a lot
with educators amplified, you know, about regulation,
social emotional, different positions.
You know, there's the absolutely status quo,
bidding to want to take over schools.
There's the far right craziness that wants to take over schools.
And we're like, what about the middle ground?
However, we had a really exciting episode.
Maybe three or four weeks ago,
when we were just talking about the number of referendums
that are going to be happening in the state of Wisconsin.
And very particularly, one, two, though,
that very much deals directly with where you are a teacher,
Milwaukee Public Schools,
MPS, say yes, vote yes, vote yes for the referendum on MPS.
And they're in the journal Sentinel.
Milwaukee School Funding is a better lifeline.
Students deserve better than mere, than more cuts.
This is written by your senator, Chris Larson.
I just want to read a little bit from this
because Senator Larson does an incredibly great job here.
But, quote, with the massive amounts of money
being spent by wealthy interests to influence our politics,
it can be hard to determine what's true and what's not.
Often the best way to get to the bedrock truth isn't by fact checking.
The various claims these special interests make.
It's by considering the motivations of the people making them.
The current school referendum debate is a perfect example.
Just about every public school district in Wisconsin
is experiencing a shortfall due to the state purposely underfunding them.
Recently, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce
launched the committee to oppose the desperately needed referendum
for Milwaukee Public Schools.
But none of the others seeking taxpayer approval.
This group spent about a half a million dollars
exposing the MPS referendum through March 18th.
We still won't know the full amount until July.
Joanna, there's a whole bunch more than I would encourage everybody.
Go to the Milwaukee Journal and they'll take this down.
We'll put a link here in the chat so that people can see this.
If you're on the YouTube or the Twitter or the Facebook watching us.
And we'll also put a link to it when we put up the podcast tomorrow.
But Joanna, say yes to MPS.
I want to talk, we're going to talk a lot about all of the
referendums in Wisconsin.
Senator Larson makes a good point here about all of them.
But the reality of active campaigning money, half a million.
There's going to be probably either, as they said, by July.
We'll know the amount of money being spent to oppose Milwaukee Public Schools,
not getting the money.
And again, we've said this before, not the money they want,
the money they need to keep the essentials going,
not just new gym floors, new coaches whistles.
No, no, no, no, we're talking about basic needs.
But the whole idea of, I guess it's not dark money if you know where it's coming from.
But big money, flooding, flooding, you know, all kinds of money to oppose
paying taxes is what it sounds like to me.
That there's an organization of people in Milwaukee,
the Commerce Group, that are saying, we don't want to pay any more taxes.
And I think the answer is, well, you wouldn't have to if the
Republican legislature did what they're supposed to.
However, they haven't done that.
And so here we are today.
Joanna, help fill in the gaps.
What am I doing? What am I missing?
Well, no, it's, I mean, it's a great explanation.
What I think is, you know, we have the opportunity here on the Boston
pencil show is to engage with our listeners about what that really means.
And, you know, how long this has been going on.
So myself being a 28 year educator, you know, and a resident of the city of Milwaukee,
the target on Milwaukee public schools has been there for a long time.
And I feel unwarranted, of course, you know, as someone who's
children attends this, have attended the schools and I'm active within my community.
We do great things in Milwaukee public schools.
And so that, that, you know, that the attention we get is not coming from a good place.
And what we really work hard to do is to, you know, tell our truth, speak our truth, right?
That we have a lot of marginalized folks in our cities and our schools are underfunded.
And we're doing the best we can.
I mean, I can't believe how things have changed over the years.
In terms of, you know, right?
When we talk about when, when you and I first met around the act 10 stuff,
Tim, you know, it was like, we took the money right from the public employees, right?
And, you know, and so, you know, there's a funding source that goes unrecognized.
And then, you know, all of our, you know, all of our things kind of went down.
And so, I mean, in a way, I congratulate us for hanging on this long.
But what I like to share with listeners is like, it's no longer like I said kind of like
this choice. Like, should we, shouldn't we?
It's like, do we believe in public education?
And do we want it to survive?
I think that's the question, Johnny Lupinacci.
Well, we're going to test this internet speed here because I've been having a little trouble all
day. So if I break up, just know I'm lost and I'll come back on, but we'll give it a run.
So, you know, this is like, like teacher Joanne was saying, referendums are because
legislation has defunded schools. And they're putting that that shortfall, like things have
gotten more expensive. There's inflation. It's just like it costs money to have quality education.
Right? We talked about it on here. There's no free lunch. And that's not a joke. I mean, it costs
money to have quality schools. But the legislation has, has defunded it and then put the only way
you can make up budget shortfalls, right, is to put referendums on the ballot and have people
vote to make up that shortfall through property taxes. So there's a 252 million proposal out there,
which sounds like a lot, right? I mean, it sounds like a lot, but I think some, some folks have
broken down well. Just put the instrumental argument because I'm with you both, teacher Joana
and Tim. Like, we're on the same page. This is really about, do you support public education? Great.
Then you know what? Everything's got more, more expensive. Do you like eggs? They got more expensive.
You got to eat, you got to eat things and cost of, cost of food went up. Well, guess what?
Cost education has gone up too. And, and I'm going to put the instrumental argument out there.
And maybe we have an expert who can call in or we have folks in real estate who know about this.
But everyone knows that the quality of your school is directly connected with the property value of
your home and your neighborhood. So if you have a quality, high quality school, you have
insurance policy on the rate, the worth of your home, your land, all of these things.
But there's in, in, in a country like ours, there's taxes, regardless whether you're pro,
pro increasing taxes or not, there's taxes. This increase, I believe, I think the numbers they're
saying on like a $100,000 home is $200, around $200. Think 216 on a $200,000 home, $400. I mean,
it's $200, $216 a year more. I mean, it's kind of, it's, it's kind of something. It's not something
just, just blink at and say, well, it's just no brainer. Let's just click it. You know, it's,
it's causing, but it's a, it's a high return on investment. And I think that's the thing we
are going to talk about. Like this, like the turnaround of a quality funded school is quadruple.
And that's what I say, maybe a real estate person can call in and you can firm this to talk about
property values. You know, this is a small increase for a high return on value and a no brainer
for educators. We just know it's important. We'll probably get more into it when we get back.
But hey, my internet held up. And there it is. But to, to my favorite people. So let's go.
And you do such a great job of explaining that. I love it. Thank you.
Thanks. I'm not a right. Well, you know what? I've been saying, say yes to MPS.
Hey, and you know what? Say yes to Busted Fensils. Call us, 855 752 4842 back in a minute.
Oh, that's what we do every week, every night now. We give it all. We give it our all.
It's Busted Fensils fully-led education talk, educated educators talking, education in the numbers,
855 752 4842 say yes to MPS. Special educators amplified night to night teacher Joe Anna is with us
in the house. And we were just, you know, kind of talking about the, the, the ins and outs of the
referendum. Well, first of all, referendum is occurring all over Wisconsin. But more specifically
tonight, really talking about what's happening in Milwaukee with the referendum there. And just
to quote from Chris Larson's article from the Milwaukee Journal, quote, Milwaukee's public
schools serve a tremendously diverse population with some of the highest rates of poverty,
percentage of students with special needs and numbers of English language learners of any
district in the state. For all these reasons, educating these students with the services they
deserve costs more money than your average suburban district, some of which have higher per people
revenue limits than Milwaukee public schools. And yet despite the inherent advantages that districts
and affluent suburban communities have, many of them are also facing their own funding shortfalls
and are also considering referendums to keep the lights on. All right, there it is. So very
important. Johnny hit on something though teacher Joe Anna where he was saying about, you know,
one of the things I used to have this argument with my grandfather though the time because he used
to say, you know, my, your mother's out of school, I don't need to pay taxes anymore for the school
district. And then he's like, I, you know, what the heck happened to my neighborhood? And I was
like, well, granddad, you know, when you decided that you were not going to pay taxes anymore,
your school district went downhill. And then your property values tanked. And so the idea that
you had already paid yours, you don't want to pay it anymore. Well, guess what? When your school
system fails, your property values. And a lot of this pushes from, from commerce and business,
in fact, one northwestern mutual is out there really putting in a lot of the money to say, hey,
we got to stop this MPS say yes to MPS. Well, you read closely and you look, it's like, well,
okay, how, what does a referendum mean? It does mean property taxes are going to increase. Yes,
there are all kinds of issues with that. And we probably will get into it. But, um, geez,
hey, northwest mutual has properties totaling $420 million in assessed value. And wait,
they're putting money out to stop the referendum. That to me sounds like northwest mutual sounds
just like granddad yates my old grant, my grandfather who used to say, I don't want to pay taxes
anymore. And it's like, yo, northwest mutual really? So you want the school system around your
area to collapse? I don't know, those were my thoughts as we're coming in this teacher, Joanna.
Well, I, you know, I'm just, I'm back and what Johnny was talking about before, just that everything's
more expensive. And so yes, um, and yes, it appears that they're against property taxes, you know,
sales taxes were just passed here in the city of Milwaukee without a referendum. Like that just
right happens through other democratic channels. But the, these issue of referendum is that it has
to go forward, um, in, you know, through referendum and get approved in order to happen. So I don't,
you know, you know, me, I'm like, I don't get too much into the technical. I'm on the collective
here of like, yeah, this is a collective thing for the children of our city. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I, I, I'm with you too, Joanna. I, I mean, that's where I have always found myself
as come on. This is a no brainer. Yeah, it's a little bit of money, but it's a no brainer. But
if we are to break it down, some of the myths are that like there's mishandling of funds or that
there is a shortfall because it's a, you know, misappropriation of spending or overspending.
That's absolutely not true. Look into it. There's transparency, right? This is due to cost increases.
And there's a full breakdown. If you want to know like, hey, what, what do they mean by cost
increases? Well, it costs more to replenish Chromebooks or to technology or textbooks that
cost something less years ago, now cost more. So not only do we need to replace and update these
things, but their replacement isn't the same cost as it was before. Right. And even just the utilities.
Yeah, the utilities. That's a big one. So you can look and you can look this stuff up. We can put
some links into ours, but I'm sure folks listening locally, you have access to, you know, your
newspapers and, you know, the source directly, the Milwaukee public schools, you can look at utility
increased. Just the increase alone is two million. So it's two million more dollars. Not because
they're using more electricity, right? Or, you know, there's more to utilities than just electricity.
But not because they're, they're using more because it's the increase. The cost increase has gone
up so significantly that there is a shortfall and to make up that shortfall, you know,
legislation hasn't said, hey, we're going to fund you more. They're saying, hey, you can tax
local folks, but you got to put it to vote. Right. The other big thing is we can, we can get into
the weeds. We talk about teacher wellness. I mean, we kind of joked a little bit around about how
on break every teacher's schedule and doctor's appointments. But if we, a big cost in our districts
is health costs. Yeah. How about a national health care? We solve that problem right away. I mean,
so there's a lot of things that cost money, right? And it's not salary increases, you know,
it's not, I mean, those are on here, but they're not the significant ones. They're not the ones that
are making up the, you know, the reason the rationale why if you have a $200,000 home in this area,
it might cost you $400 more a year, right? So that's not, I don't even think it's more. I think
that's the amount like $400 per year. Sorry, I misquoted that because that could be a lot of
you're already paying, right? But that's about the estimated amount. So that's kind of important
to think about when you're, when, you know, to, to be a property owner, right, means that you're
paying into the worth of the community. And you get back what you put in. So put in a little and
you get back a lot on investing in public schools. It's no, Johnny, there it is, you know,
Democrat core democratic values, the common good. You're talking about that. Why do we do this?
The common good public schools. Sorry, teacher, Joanna, go ahead. No, I'm just, again, there's point
by point. It's, it's important to understand the details. And yet the overall messages, we have
been disinvesting in our children and their education for a long time, for a long time.
Yeah. Well, it's one of those two. You sit there and go, how did we get here? And so maybe
that's one of the ways we want to go. It's like, okay, we need the referendum. You're out there
listening. Say yes to MPS. Make sure you're up to MPS. Talk to your neighbor. We're always talking
to our neighbors. The neighbors understand why they're saying yes to do this. The number
though, too, if you want to call in and jump on 8557524842, I would love somebody from the,
um, the commerce group to call in and kind of, you know, chat with us a little bit to say,
to see if we can maybe help them understand that, you know, being part of the, the common good is
kind of what a democratic citizens supposed to do. But how did we get here? Well, that is a real
issue, Joanna. You say this, whether you want to go back to act 10 back in those times,
but it has been a targeted intentional defunding of schools that has brought to the point where,
oh, the only way we can get the essential money we have now is by, well, the law says we have to
go back to the taxpayers to ask for the money. And boy, we've been hearing though that really,
what are we doing at this point? Well, because you guys Wisconsin, uh, when I say you guys,
you guys, girls, women, people, those of you in the legislature who have so much access to
billions, that's B is in billions of extra funding. The fact that you're not letting go of any of
that putting it out there. Man, we're going to come back though. It's busted pencils. It's
fully-letted education doc 855 752 484242. You're awesome.
Ah, yeah, dreams and eyes, mothers and fathers, busted pencils,
oh, wow, education talk 855 752 484242 is the number. It is a special Tuesday night.
Educators amplified night. Teacher Jill Anna is in the house. Say yes to MPS. We've been
quoting from an article by Senator Chris Larson in the Milwaukee Journal kind of laying out the
realities we're here. What do we stand to lose? There's a lot. We're going to stand to lose. However,
before we get into that, we've got Jack from Air Mac on the line. Jack, what's happening,
our friend? Well, the question that I have is how did we get here? And the answer that I have
is we got here by having an established education budget and then giving virtually unlimited
amounts of welfare to private school. As far as I know, there's no limitation on the number of
students that can be taking gifts from the taxpayer to go to private schools and not only that,
roughly from the last thing I read about this, roughly two thirds of the people that are getting
these vouchers or whatever you want to call them are getting them. They would have been
sending their kids to private schools anyway, so they don't need money. The other half of that,
of course, there is a, and I'm sorry, it's politically oriented. There is a Republican group
that is committed to destroying the public schools and trying to make everybody go to private schools
and pay individually for those, and they have underfunded our public schools all
the way from preschool, which they haven't supported and which we really need child care and
preschool care to university level education and not knowing the primary and secondaries, of course,
as well. And there is several billion dollars available. And for some strange reason,
our legislature has decided, no, they're not going to spend it for things that everybody in this
state can use. Jack, for some strange reason, I have a feeling you're being a little sarcastic when
you say, for some strange reason, Jack, we always love when you give us a call, Jack,
teachers, Joanna, you're like, Jack knows what's up. I see that in the chat. Well, that was just
again, another great breakdown. So people in our state know what's happening. And those are the
decisions we're going to have to make. And that's why I love Senator Larson's article that is like
don't be swindled. Think of what is the motivation behind someone who is telling you to say no to
public education? What is their motivation? Man, just think about that. The the the gumption,
I was going to say the, you know, the, well, I won't say it, but the idea to say no, say no to public
education. I mean, that's when we're saying you're out there literally actively campaigning on
say no to the common good, say no to a core democratic value, the common good public education,
say no. And Joanna, you talked about this. So it's a last referendum. Lots of gains. Right. And so
our our last referendum finally kind kind of even the playing field between Milwaukee Public
School Children and kids throughout the state, where we were able to add in the arts to every
school. And we're talking about, you know, fine arts, music, all of that. And that's what we've
been gaining. I mean, and I think we've got the evidence out there. It went to like it was like
19% of schools had these things to like now 92%. And that is what we stand to lose. And that is
what people, I guess, are campaigning to say no to. I just think about those gains. And I'm like
if we can keep going and gaining what that means for our students. You say that to losing art,
losing music, losing those things, right. Johnny, go ahead. I'm sorry there, buddy.
Well, I mean, you're right. Because it's it's on it's right aligned to this. It seems like a
no brainer, except, you know, Jack from Merrimack brings in his man, the people he brings in that
that voice of reason and he broke it down really well. It's not a strange reason. Even though we're
we're like bottled. How could you not support public education with a special interest in the
politics behind voting no or getting people to vote no on a referendum like this is really about
you know, trying to not only defund public schools, but force them to struggle like it's really
it's really about that. It's also voting against your interest. We've made the point against
interest of increased property tax. So there is and Jack brought something really important up and
we're we're going to have a guest from the examiner on at some point. We're trying to nail it down
but we have a education reporter Ruth, our friend Ruth at the examiner who did a really close
look at this. We can you can get into the into the public record and and she has in the articles
right, but you can get in there and you can really see clearly how much money direct money from
taxpayers goes to vouchers, which means in addition to tuition that's paid at private schools,
it's funding to help those schools move even ahead. So being being pro public schools doesn't
mean you're anti private schools. It just means you're you're trying to say a funding that's
that's that's supposed to go to public schools needs to go to public schools, right? It's not
it's not an argument. You might be out there and say, well, I got to choose either private
school or public school, which one do I support? You can support both by supporting public schools.
What's happening now is an an une, like an unfair amount of money that that should be going
tax dollars that should be going locally to public schools are being routed to private schools
through the voucher program, right? And so we can see exactly how much per county in the state of
Washington goes there and and you need. Oh yeah, yeah, sorry. It's constant. I get in my places. I'll
mix. So if you know what happens on Tuesdays, time I've been teaching all day, I come in and my
brain's a little fried, but you know what what I want to break down is that we can take listeners
through it and we will and I know that education reporter Ruth will will break this down because
it's so wonderful and our articles on this, but can show there are counties that have zero dollars
going to the voucher. So how is this happening? And we got to understand that a little bit better
because that's a site of resistance. And that's also not an argument against the existence of
private schools, like they've been around, they can continue to be around. But public schools is
an important function of government. It's an important it's important insurance and
big piece of the pie we often talk about as democracy and and to not fund it or to under fund it
is intentional to make it suffer, right? And and what we're saying here is these aren't
asks for like more money for exuberant things. This is basically looking at
uh you know things that are absolutely essential to making sure that the public schools run well.
The last thing I'll say is also you know we get back to why so someone might say like my neighbor might
say you know well why is this on me? And it's partly a little simplified. We've been kind of hood
winked in terms of if we voted in favor of lowering taxes. So if you may be supported like
Republican legislation and Wisconsin, you're like yeah they're going to lower the taxes. They're
going to keep my taxes low. No, they're just going to put you in a position to have to spend more
locally, right? So they didn't lower the taxes. They just cut the funds and know the schools are
going to have to ask you directly for it instead of it being the state responsibility to figure out.
They sure they shirked their responsibility to support schools and then put it on individuals
and the reason we know that is they're hoping through campaign and through political message
that they can get us to not vote yes on these things against our own interests against the
strength of our own local economies because it's it's positioned as it's more expensive for us.
You know it would have been more economical for them to fund it at the state level and take
it directly out of state taxes. But this is this is a whole maneuver to individualize it, put it
on the local and really sort of and I actually have a bad metaphor because I don't want to use it
because we have people starving right now, but it's starving out public schools literally and
figuratively and that's not to make a joke because there are starving people unfortunately in this
developed country and around the world, but especially here we shouldn't be intentionally starving
out our public schools and that's what we do when we vote no on referendums and Milwaukee's a
canary in the coal mine. We're not just like pushing this because we're pro Milwaukee actually
love Milwaukee schools, but but so I am, but it's also canary in the coal mine. This is happening
all over the country, yes, and all across the state of Wisconsin. Hey, but you know, I've talked
I've taken up a lot of space here. We got a color and a guess. So let's get the collar on.
LA Tom, LA Tom, what's happening our friend?
Hey guys, first off, we the people ultimately are the government and we must never forget that
government means we the people. That's right. And what I would say is that we have got to
somewhere along the line teach people the difference between private and public. When it's private,
it means it's a profitable motive is involved. It's called profitize, not privatize,
profitize. And when you're talking about public, it means we the people. It means the commons.
You know, we don't talk about the commons anymore. You know, where we have our roads and bridges
and schools and all these different things that are basically natural monopolies is what they are
and they should not be privatized, privatized to be maybe shoes, computers, all that type of
stuff. But when you're talking about things that we all share in common that there is only one way
to get that power source into your home. That should be we the people on it, not some corporation.
LA Tom, man, always love it when you are calling. Teacher Joanna, man, you've been sitting there.
You got a lot going on. I can see it. Well, I'm just thinking about first, I love Tom's term
profitize instead of privatize. There's a good one. I love that. Or it's really important.
Yeah, I just think about like our schools are really just access. You know, it's an access.
It's access to a place for children to be well. And right, ultimately, that's our purpose.
You know, where we want children to be well and to grow and develop in healthy ways. That's
again, when we're talking about our comments, right, and what our comments and what our public
supports. And it's just not, it's not over dramatizing when I'm saying, for how long we've been
bare bones, for how long we've actually been kind of giving kids less. And therefore, impacting
I feel their ability to be well. When we think about all these things or people are worried about
our youth or there's, you know, documented increases in stress, anxiety, and depression
among young children, you know, let's not act like school and schooling is not part of that.
And so is that the time where we keep, is that what we want to say less and less? Like you're on
well, okay, great. We'll invest less in that. Or is it, you know, do we want to fulfill this
purpose of this place of wellness and learning for the future of our country?
Well, you say it that way too. And then it comes down to this kind of, you know, and when you don't
to think about this, the negative impacts of students not having what they need, need what they,
it, guess what, their wellness, as you point out, Joanna is going to be affected. And for those
of you that care about these things, their academic achievement will suffer. And of course, once
their academic achievement suffers, then here we come back in with the whole argument, failing
Milwaukee public schools. Let's privatize them or let's profitize them as LA Tom says. And so you
can see here how all of this is game to continue to put public schools. And in this case, Milwaukee
public schools as right now during the referendum, they just want more money. After that, then it's
the failing school and they get too much money. And we need to give money to allow kids to get out
of failing public schools. No, it's just, it's a constant battering of our public schools. And people
recognizing, I think we're at this moment, though, too. I'm going to use Kevin Kumashero. He likes
to talk about a moment. This is a moment right now to realize the commons as we were just talking
about that, the public, the reality of how we are absolutely with core democratic values in this,
guess what? You got this, your public schools, they are absolutely the places where citizenship,
where we learn to be better people. And as we've been saying, this isn't also the idea that says
they're great. They're 100% awesome. They're did it. No, no, in fact, if anybody has listened to
busted pencils, especially educators amplified with us, we are always telling you how schools can
be even way, way, way better than just the status quo. The reality is here, though, this is a lifeline,
this is absolutely a necessity. This is not something that we're trying to just throw a little
extra money so that the teachers can have something extra. No, this is to make sure the essentials
say they're say yes to
going wild going. Yeah, there it is. Rocking it out, man. You see that air guitar. I'm
we rock it out. Yeah, it is fully-led education talk, educated educators, talking education,
the number 8557524842, special Tuesday night edition of educators amplified teacher Joe Anna
is in the house, yes to MPS, Jack from Merrimack calling LA Tom calling, really putting out there,
to this idea of the comments and during the break there, Johnny, you were kind of trying to help us,
well, be behind the scenes. Behind the scenes, I guess we're going to talk about our commercial
break that you all heard, but if you're live on YouTube, you hear us. We're kind of talking about,
you know, caller Tom called in and he brought up a really important couple of important points,
but one that I want to come back around to is this notion of comments. I mean, it's so important
because we keep saying really like it's common sense argument or it's maybe it's as Tom might
know just it's commons sense, but this notion for our listeners, we tease economists a lot and
we're like, come on economists to talk about education, give us a break, but then here I'll be an
educator to talk about economics, because the two are intertwined, especially when we're talking
like politics and economics, and this notion of the commons that Tom brought up is really important,
because we can point back to specifically and there's a lot of different ways to define the
commons, but one of the specific ones that I think we're referencing here is Garrett Hardin's
tragedy of the commons. And it kind of tells I'll paraphrase it and economists make cringe and call
in and be like, no, you got it wrong, but I think I got it close enough. But basically, you know,
he wrote about that there was this sort of, you know, transition in feudal England and all this sort
of rise of, you know, early capitalism and beginning free markets that Adam Smith and people
were actually writing about that, we're writing about the, you know, the gods we follow right now
of capitalism, but, you know, breaking that down, there was this idea of like, hey, who owns the land?
And what happens to this idea of common land? Because what's to stop Tim from putting more sheep
on the common land? Because forever, we kind of had some like the commons, like the king ruled it,
or there was this idea of the commons where like, we just didn't, you knew like if Tim put two on
and Johnny put one on and Joanna put one on, it was good. But what's the stop can't Tim from putting
20 on? And in the past, you know, for generations before people had said like, well, the commons,
the common good, I sense the commons like, you just kind of figure out locally, or like the
king might tell you, not saying that the kings and queens is the way to go. But this notion of
the commons, nobody owned the land, so nobody got to say the rules of the land. It was just sort of
the commons, common law, common rule. So the tragedy of the commons being once we started to believe
that in order for the land to be well, or for our community to thrive, someone had to own that land
and be the ruler of it. So now, let's like Tim owns the land. He gets to decide how many sheep he
puts on, how many sheep Joanna puts on, how many sheep Johnny put on, and he gets to make up the
rules about it. So it becomes privatized, right? It's private ownership to Tim. So for what,
what LA Tom kind of brought, and we're doing a little lesson on like economics and civics
together, what, what Tom called in and brought attention to was this notion of the commons,
that education should be part of the commons, that it can't be owned by an interest group or a
political party, right? It can't be owned by private corporations. In fact, it has to belong to
all of us we the people is part of the commons. And I like to bring that like Tom, you remind us
about commons sense. The argument that teacher Joanna and Tim and I are making often is, come on,
this is commons sense. Public education is an investment in a democracy. It doesn't belong
to profiteers. It doesn't belong to, we ought not to be privatizing it so that companies can
make money, right? We ought not to be up for political debate. But this is the tragedy of the
commons, right? This is the idea, our water systems are faced with this are, you know, our
air quality, our health, everything commodified and privatized. And this is a huge problem that's
interconnected and education is part of it. So I love that because then in the chat, you know,
teacher Joanna talked about class size. This is huge. We had, you know, Dr. Julian Vasquez
highly on and he said, Hey, we know if you lower class size, you increase learning and students
do better and school districts do better. And in fact, teachers feel better and all the way around,
this is the excuse my language on this is the best bang for the buck, right? And so we know this,
it has a huge high, it's a high yield on return. But yet we don't do it instead, we increase the
class sizes against all the information. So teacher Joanna put that in there and it sparked this
thing because the energy from LA Tom and teacher Joanna connected and I'm like, this is a great
example of the tragedy, the commons, because it's not how many sheep we get to put on the land,
it's how many kids we put in our classroom. If the classroom is the commons, right? If the
classrooms are the commons, we're not using commons since, right? We are doing exactly the opposite.
So I mean, I didn't need all that hot air to explain that teacher Joanna laid it out in a short
text. And of course, I took it and turned it into a bunch of, a bunch of educator talking economics.
But teacher Joanna, what do you have to say about that? I mean, you gave us that example.
Well, that's why you're on the radio, first of all. So don't apologize, like break it down,
it's good. But right, when we think about class size, even right now, when I say like we've been
in this, you know, like we have class sizes of kindergarteners that are like 28, 29, 30,
like that's really insane. You know, ideal is like 12. So that's what I'm talking about.
Like we've been so far away from ideal and to think that that we would keep moving in that direction
as schools get less and less funding, it really is. It's, it's tragic. Again, it being the
professional and knowing what it takes to do this job and do this job well and what kids really deserve.
And again, what they're needing. So when your friend Julian was on the show, right? And he's saying,
like there's, you know, it's not like a mystery. We know when kids more attention,
they're going to do better. Their needs are going to be met. And they're going to be really well known.
And so, you know, they're going to improve and they're going to grow. And yeah. And so we stand to,
you know, keep moving further away. And that's just what I hope our listeners really understand
that we are far away from probably what the average listener of this show understood education
to be for themselves. We are wearing our away from that. We are, we are very far away from that
in terms of the structure and how much less there is and how much more is packed into that less.
Well, you think about that too. It's like you said, all of that. I just want to make a quick
example there. Joanna, you said, you know, smaller class sizes better for the kids better learning
better better for the teachers to then who can spend more quality time teaching those students.
Because as we said, teachers have been having more and more and more added to everything they do.
You know what? Reducing class sizes might actually go a long way and actually stopping the
teacher exodus that we're facing up here too.
Sure. Well, man, educators amplified teacher Joanna in the house. It's busted pencils. Yeah, man.
Check it out. Make sure. Make sure you vote. Yes. Come on. Yes, the MPS baby. Come on. You've got one
job out there. Voters. Let's do it. Right. And we're early voting now. That's right. It's open.