This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Welcome back, Monday!
Busted pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated educators talking
education eight five five seven five two four eight four two is the
number.
Give us a call, jump in, you know, break it down with me and Johnny,
Johnny Lupinacci, man, thank you for holding together everything on
Friday night.
I know I had took the night off and it was good.
I mean, we had a blast.
Aaron and I got acquainted and I mean, he ran the boards.
He did an excellent job.
We had great callers.
L.A. Tom came in for a nice almost a whole segment.
My man and I were chopping it up.
So I always worry, I'm like, okay, if Johnny Lupinacci and L.A. Tom ever were
just the two of you, you probably guys would just continue talking.
Yeah, we did great.
Yeah, I mean, I brought in some Baldwin.
I brought in some recap from teacher Joanna had sent me some great
resources from Jeffrey Duncan Andrade.
And that was really fun to kind of talk about just how poor we landed on all
the week's great themes.
And we're going to carry it into this week.
But how relational this work all is.
I mean, how on the ground it is and how good teaching and like great public
education all hinges on the fabric of strong relationships and strong democracy.
I was going to say and strong democracy.
And boy, Monday night right into the democracy.
Instead we're playing in this show.
We have democracy in action.
The busted pencils hero award.
We're announcing it tonight.
The first night.
We're putting it out there.
That doesn't mean that all of you we've, you know, we've thought about you coming
up to this.
People who have done democracy, but doing democracy democracy in action.
The hero award.
Man, check this out.
So, John, we were talking about this last week when, you know, the idea of charter
schools.
We talk about charter schools.
And it's like, okay, is our charter schools public?
Are they private?
You know, it gets murky.
It gets kind of we're not exactly sure we talked to Mike the gear from Colorado.
And they were talking about, you know, the fact that in front of their legislature,
they had a bill to bring accountability to the charter schools in Colorado that were not
overseen by elected school boards.
Sounds great.
Great idea.
Yeah.
Well, check it out.
You know, we end up right here.
The State Board of Education in Michigan last week.
Hey, they approved a resolution during its meeting calling for legislation to open charter
schools to be treated more like public schools.
That's in the state of mission.
And guess where this came from?
It came from our friend.
Well, he's the associate professor of music education at Michigan State.
University.
He's held previous collegiate appointments at the University of Connecticut.
And Eastman School of Music Dr.
Well, he's also served whoops, almost introduced him before it was time editor of the Music Educators
Journal and on the editorial board boards of several research and professional journals.
And check this out.
He was elected to the State Board of Education in Michigan in November of 2022.
Welcome back.
Our democracy and action busted pencils hero.
My brother from another mother, Mitchell Robinson.
How are you, Mitchell?
Great.
Good to be with you both.
How do you like that for a lead in, man?
Um, I'm taking you guys on the road with me.
That's great.
All right.
We know how to bring up anytime, anytime, anytime.
So much here, Mitchell, we said we talked last week about Colorado and their desire to bring
up accountability in one sense to the charter schools.
Explain to us now a resolution from the State Board of Education in mission in Colorado.
It was a bill in front of this is a little bit different.
So help us.
Bring this apart, you know, little civics 101 teaching for everybody.
What's a resolution from the State Board of Education as opposed to legislation from the legislature?
Well, the State Board of Education in Michigan does not have authority to pass legislation.
Obviously, we're not legislators.
We are for the most part educators and public education advocates, most of us, I would say.
But what we can do is offer advice and guidance to the legislation.
Also important to note here, the State Board of Ed in Michigan has passed resolutions on charter school,
accountability and transparency in the past, our former president, Dr. Cassandra Albridge,
was instrumental in getting one of those proposals passed a few years ago.
But the legislature was not amenable, shall we say.
So we've gone through 40, 40 years, 40 years of Republican control in Michigan,
which our friends in Ohio are familiar with and friends in many states are familiar with.
I've tried personally to get several things before the legislature and nothing was ever given a hearing.
So we feel like we've been kind of wandering in the desert for 40 years.
And then a couple of years ago, we had a blue trifecta in our state.
And the Democrats right now hold the governor's mansion and they hold the Senate and the House.
Now, they don't hold the House right now, but tomorrow.
There's, we have held the House, but we had two Democratic members that ran for other offices and left us tied, right?
We're exactly tied.
So nothing really has happened with the tied legislature, but tomorrow are two special elections.
And we have two Democratic candidates running in those elections.
They are both favored to win.
So sometime soon, we're going to be back, and able to start putting legislation forward.
So I think the difference between the last resolution and this one is now we have a much more favorable political climate in the state.
We have good friends in the legislature.
We have a record number of former teachers in the legislature, including people cheering the House and Senate education committees.
So I'm hopeful that we'll get something moved.
So here we are.
So this is the charter and it's a resolution.
Now you being a member of the state board of education elected again, democracy in action, Johnny Lupinacci, right there.
An educated educator who's actually doing democracy by getting elected to the state board.
Mitchell, you authored this resolution.
My understanding.
Or how it how it works.
And so you put this.
How it worked was that it less November is I put together a resolution.
And you know, when you're doing something like this, there's no sense in trying to come up with, you know, boilerplate things when lots of smart people have put together similar resolutions.
There have been national resolutions, county resolutions.
So I did what most of us in academia did if you steal from one source of plagiarism.
If you steal from multiple sources, it's research.
So I looked at a lot of different resolutions, found a lot of very good ideas, made them specific to Michigan.
And then from November until April.
We workshopped it.
We have a legislative committee for the state board of ed.
We have a really strong Michigan department of ed with great staff members.
The state superintendent of instruction is very strong as well.
And all those people provided guidance and input.
And we came up with what I thought was a very strong much stronger resolution than I had originally written.
And we presented that to the board of last Tuesday and it passed six to one.
So it's a charter school.
Every time we get into this, we run into having to give a little bit of an education because charter school is a public is a private.
And I understand why we're against vouchers without any type of transparency.
But charter schools, I heard they were, and I'm just kind of mentioning what my neighbor would say to me.
My neighbor would say, but Tim charter schools are public.
I don't understand all of the kind of why you're so upset and why you're worried about charter schools.
They're public schools.
And Mitchell, kind of, but not really necessarily, right?
Well, I would say charter schools are technically public schools.
I would say the only thing public about charter schools is their funding.
So and interestingly, the head of the state's charter school kind of lobby also doesn't seem to understand that charter schools are public schools.
Because what he said to me and a couple of other conservative outlets is that I wanted to get rid of charter schools because I've written previously that I don't think that public money should go towards private schools.
And so I gently pointed out to them that charter schools are technically public schools.
So when I say public dollars shouldn't go towards private schools, I'm not really talking about charter schools.
Right.
Except they think that charter schools are private schools.
So I think we have some educating to do for the people that are advocating and lobbying for charter schools as well.
Because Johnny and I have talked about this a two because there are called public charter schools.
And I think, you know, in Wisconsin, particularly, there is, you know, a very much a district level charter school within school districts.
So in one of the school districts that I'm familiar with in Wisconsin, a Verona area school district, there are charter schools then created by that district that are directly accountable to the board in that Verona area school district.
They don't live outside of the bounds of the elected school board.
And so in that sense, that's truly a charter school public schools.
And it has, and it has the accountability and transparency.
There are though there's a loophole in a lot of charters where they're still funded by public monies.
But then they exist outside of the bounds of locally elected school boards.
That's what we're talking about, right?
Yeah, well, we have to talk about two things.
One, we have to talk about who authorizes charter schools.
And in essence, provides the charter and whatever oversight there is.
And then we also have to talk about governance.
And so charter schools in Michigan can be authorized by universities, by ISD's intermediate school districts, by local school districts.
They can be authorized by any of those educational agencies, as we call them.
In practice, about 90% of the charters in our state are authorized by one or two charters.
A couple of universities. One is a two year community college that doesn't offer any education degrees.
So I have some questions about what kind of oversight is happening in those from those authorizers.
But then we have to talk about how those schools are being governed.
And the chartering arrangements with what are called charter management organizations often call for the charter management organization and or the educational authorizer to retain authority to appoint and remove charter school PSA board members.
Those board members are never elected by citizens of the communities in which those schools reside.
So we open the show tonight talking about governance.
And now we're talking about democracy.
And to me, the big problem with charter schools is they're not democratic institutions.
And they're also a terrible idea financially in our state.
I don't know how it is where everyone else is, but in our state, we struggle to fund one public school system trying to fund two parallel public school systems is financially irresponsible.
But that together is is for people to understand the name, you know, our neighbors, particularly who try to think it's like public private.
I know in it and then it get it all together. And it's like, Oh, okay.
So wait a minute. I think that's what we're really talking about the two.
And you say the governance of these charter schools is is there outside of the bounds of democracy.
The governance of these of these charter schools. And that's what you were trying to put in this resolution.
The way I understand is to go, whoa, wait a minute.
There's got to be if with public money's democracy has to be the governing body when it comes to public monies.
And boy, some people think this sounds crazy that when public money that democracy should have a say, but that's what we do.
Busted pencils fully led an education talk.
Our guest is my brother from another mother, Mitchell Robinson.
He is our democracy and action hero.
We do. We love talking about it.
It's Busted pencils fully led education talk, educated educators talking education 8557524842 is the number.
If you want to call, give us a call.
If you're still confused about charter schools, what are they?
Why is there opposition to charter schools? I thought they were public and I thought Tim and Johnny are like pro public education.
How is it that they have guests now second time in a row?
They've got people that sound like they've got a problem with charter schools.
Well, Johnny, you help help them on. I've been talking too much, dude.
I love it and I love the work, Mitch, just bringing you know to the community in Michigan and his team is working on this.
And I think it echoes this idea like we have this mass in the landscape of what school choice means for parents and members of our community.
And this whole idea is where often marketed like hey, you should have options.
But in the in between the lines that's meant you know opening up to the free market or education system and far too often for profit charter.
So we've said there's like different types of charters.
There's nonprofit charters. There's no community charters.
There are four profit charters. There are large like kind of equivalent of like cookie cutter big box fast food industry versions of this.
And so one of the things that like we're really making clear is you know here we are.
We have this situation where we really deregulated public education and education to the point where kind of anybody can open a school.
I know that's a little oversimplifying it, but you get put together a plan and you can have sort of a poor profit or a political agenda.
I know Mitch is shaking stuff because I said I'm oversimplifying it. He's like actually you're not man.
You could technically we got to have the Tim and Johnny charter school.
And what and what's happening here in Michigan is really great.
And it's also what you know bill and Shirley last week we're talking about or Jane Shirley they were saying hey let's have some legislation.
That puts some accountability back in what constitutes a school.
Because in the end families in community and children have suffered at the hands of these large for profit charters they they in some promise the world.
So parents you know think like okay this is a great option maybe maybe this is a better fit for my child to go there and it doesn't deliver.
But what what it was is that all was just a marketing scheme to make money off of families and kids.
And one of the things this kind of legislation does is puts accountability and says okay you want an option in your district or you want some different schools.
Well they have to kind of play ball by the rules of education.
And there are some important factors one of them being as I can't refuse students if they have space right then students are allowed in.
They can't sort of you know run this we're going to do things at lower cost and pay teachers less and make more there's this profit margin that has to be transparent right there their intentions and their politics need to be transparent.
Because there has to be some kind of regulation right so it's it's kind of a middle ground it sounds like to me it's a middle ground between.
Free market laws a fair anything goes and hold on a second because this is really important.
We still advocate for public schools but maybe within the public school system there are there are possibilities for options that don't harm our public school infrastructure it kind of fit with.
Yeah well so many so many great points are I think we have to back up also and remember that charter schools were originally an idea of teachers unions.
Yeah they came out of teachers wanting to be innovative in pedagogical in many different ways and I've studied charter schools for a couple of decades now I have never seen innovation in the charter school sector unless you're talking about real estate scams and other kind of problems.
The other thing is in Michigan we are completely agmastic about what kind of schools parents want to send their kids to we have school choice in Michigan parents can send their kids to any school they choose to choice is not the same as vouchers.
But these these issues get concluded all the time and what we have in Michigan is schools of choice legislation thanks to Betsy divorce and we need to name that elephant in the room.
Exactly and now that Betsy divorce doesn't have a platform and doesn't have power in the state what we're seeing is a swing back to understanding that if you want public funds that you have to play on a level playing field.
I also often hear from my friends on the right that education is a business I'm a teacher education is not a business businesses have different rules the only way that education can be a business is if you're trying to make a profit in schools are not profit centers.
So for a school to make more money about 90% of our budget in schools is people is personnel it's not we're not for you know we're not the auto industry.
So when you want to make more money in a school you have to do a couple of things you have to pay teachers less Charters do you have to pay administrators more Charters do and you have to make sure that the kids that you're letting in the school are cheaper to teach.
So that means getting rid of kids with special education issues with IEPs it means getting rid of kids with behavioral problems and you were talking about the large box kind of schools
National Heritage Academies is one of the biggest change in the country I think the second largest it's located in Michigan and that's exactly what National Heritage Academy Charter Schools have done.
They've been sued by teachers in their schools for not offering required special ed services and instead of offering those services they have settled out of court they fired the teacher several out of court.
So if you want to play hockey you play by hockey rules if you want to play basketball you can't play on skates and what we've been doing in Michigan is allowing Charter Schools to play by hockey rules while the rest of us are playing by basketball rules and it's been an uneven playing field the only people that should be worried about accountability for Charter Schools are people that are trying to get profitable off Charter Schools and off of families and we're not going to let that happen.
Busted pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talking education our guest Mitch Robinson he is state board of education in Michigan put forward a resolution last week for counters for Charter School accountability you know hey playing by the same rules are you saying it's a basketball game we want basketball rules enforced all the way across.
And particularly though again locating this within the democracy of which public schools are they're getting public monies money from the taxpayers and therefore then the tax those who pay the taxpayers and citizens democracy is what is the governing board there which is typically some form of a school board.
And Mitch when you're talking about the two is saying so I get a charter authorized it sounds like what that authorizes me to do is collect public monies it doesn't authorize me to play by any of the rules because if I want to play by my own rules I get the public charter I get the ability to take money and then I appoint.
My governing board of people who I like therefore making sure that the way I do business is kind of again people like wait they're governed by a board no not the same thing as an elected school board of the okay Mitch right.
Well there's another layer in between so let's say I'm a university with the charter school office and I want to authorize a charter school I can do that and then I can turn over the management of that charter school.
To a private for profit charter management organization and that happens in Michigan especially in Detroit we lead the nation 90% of our charter schools in Detroit are of the for profit variety more than any other state in the country.
One of my colleagues on the board referred to our charter school landscape as the Wild West of charter schools virtually no regulation.
But it sounds like what's happening then no two is that it's a for profit management system and you say this is where it gets cloudy it's busted pencils it's fully let it education talk the numbers eight five five seven five two four eight four two Mitch Robinson our guest talking about public accountability for charter schools it's about time and when we get back we're going to bring it more busted pencil.
Yeah we can we can save you busted pencils fully let it education.
Educated educators talking education eight five five seven five two four eight four two people on the live stream are like man they just keep right talking right through the commercials that's right jump onto the Facebook on the Twitter on the YouTube stream or I guess it's not Twitter anymore we have to say that thing to that other place X or something they call it you can be checking it out yeah be you know when the commercials are on we keep talking because guess what you've got educated educators in the room and we like to talk education our guest tonight.
Mitch Robinson he is on he's an elected member of the state board of education in Michigan we were saying Mitch I think the last time we had you on the show you were a candidate in you know there it is the congratulations and you're now two years in doing the work let's do a quick little deviation because we said we're giving you the busted pencils democracy in action hero ward.
What's it like though now doing democracy and being that member of an elected school board because I mean you were a vocal advocate of public schools and then you said you know what i'm going to put my money where my mouth is and grand for office and you got it how's it going inspiring would should more people do it should more educators who want to get involved would you recommend this for them.
Well let me say two things number one it's it's been great when we're getting stuff done and since I've been on the board and I'm not saying the board did all this but the legislature has been fantastic in getting things done after like I said before a long time of getting nothing done because of.
The Republican control state but since I've been on the board the legislature has repealed an a through F accountability system has repealed the retention portion of the read by grade three laws has greatly changed educator evaluation laws are much better than they were.
His raised teacher pay three consecutive years we pay student teachers ninety eight hundred dollars a semester when they teach we have better reciprocity with other states for teachers.
We have common sense gun laws that the governor got passed that makes schools safer and we have free school breakfast and lunch for every child in a public school in Michigan which is a game changer so when we're getting stuff like that done it's fantastic when we're when we're not it's really frustrating.
Yeah so I but what's what's been good about it is that we have a lot more educators former educators that now serve in the House and the Senate in Michigan and they completely get it so we have the chair of the House and Senate education committees other members of those committees are former teachers of the year in the state former teachers all across the state so talking to them we have a short hand right they're not civilians right.
They understand the issues that we're talking about and on the on the back that coming up we're looking at pre K and community college for all we're expanding pre K down to great to age four better dyslexia screening and my next resolution that I'm putting in front of the board probably next month is going to be on reducing or eliminating standardized testing.
We're trying to hit the big issues while we have while the while the the iron is hot right this is the time.
Well so there is inspiration there because you think think about that you know for any listener out there is like should I get involved the answer is yes because what Mitch what you're describing though is is that you know you've got educators that are fully involved that are on the legislature that are in the state in the state board of education like you so bringing all of those people together educators stepping up.
In doing democracy the work then of advocating for public schools which you know we say is the foundation not say we know is the foundation of democracy well then having people like you in these positions of democracy state board state legislator school board member getting involved in being there because
Mitch the way you said it because your knowledge of what goes on there means that the ability to do things that make sense where people go where would this have come from you must not have been a teacher they weren't they weren't that's not to dismiss really good smart people but it's to realize that there is something that an educator brings to these discussions particularly
when it comes to advocating for what's needed in public schools for needed we always have this conversation with people it's like you guys sound like you're just asking for the world and we're like we're talking about needs we're not talking about once you want to do a show on once we can do those we're talking about needs it sounds like what's happening in Michigan or the needs are finally being met that's what I'm hearing right there.
You know anyone who studied democracy or this country knows that this country was founded on the idea of a citizen legislature and that's what we are getting closer to in Michigan out the democratic House and Senate looks like Michigan there's much more diversity there are more women in charge that it looks like Michigan and when you have a citizen legislature you're going to get the things that the people need when you've only got old pale still males.
In in the House and the Senate then you know nothing happens and that's what they want you know the status quo favors the people that have the advantages so you know what what we're trying to do I mean I'm a 65 year old white married professor at a big 10 institution with tenure I have some I have I check every one of the boxes on the privilege checklist if I'm not going to use that privilege and power to help people that don't.
Have it then what the hell am I doing with it? Oh my god look at on you to pale scale male she loved that quote from you from stale stale stale even better pale stale male as well that you know what and anybody watching the live feed right now it's like well you guys are the epitome of that description Johnny Lupinachi but I tell you what though I think Johnny and I have better hair than you Mitch absolute I just flyer to that landscape here there.
Lupinachi you got something man I'm just happy to hear this I mean it's exciting one you know you know Michigan is my home state even though I've been now in Washington for 10 years you know it's it's a it's an honor to be here as a teacher educator but it's through the trials and tribulations of being a Michigan teacher you know being a teacher and Detroit and Southeast Michigan and working with so many great teacher preparation programs that constitute those leaders that Mitch is saying now I'm
taking up their civic duty and are applying their knowledge as representatives of citizen of citizens of Michigan to make good decisions across the aisle you know like this isn't we talk about it all time this isn't something that in particular Republicans ought to have one stance on and Democrats have the other and then we just fight it's really about OK let's have a basis for the strength of our state of our democracy you know education is a state right and so this does differ from state to state but it's great to hear the good things happen
in Michigan in the break we were talking about joking a little bit about it you know I can I when I was learning to be a teacher it was a no brainer in terms of everyone new Michigan was a great state to be a teacher and that was true for the first few years of my classroom teaching and very quickly that started to come on done similar to Wisconsin's at 10 I started really attacking unions started really into like enter charters and then call
soldiers of public schools left and right especially in Detroit and the champion of hey look what's happening in New Orleans after Katrina and it was like wait they had a natural disaster that devastated communities and and they're utilizing that disaster to decimate public education we haven't even had that
semester we had some big economic fallout in Michigan but but yet we are a chance that model is being championed to tear apart our schools and really make it almost impossible to stay a teacher so we didn't need yeah we didn't need Katrina we had let's see we didn't need a natural disaster we had a man made disaster yeah and I can't tell you how gratifying it is to have her kind of out of the conversation her following his diminished
now not to say that she's not working like a demon behind the scenes she's trying to get things back and so we never take anything for granted right in our state the blueness of our state we are enjoying right now but it's a purple state we don't take any election for granted I've been going out and talking to county organizations about the importance of local school board elections
yes one of my colleagues is doing some screenings for school board elections that's I mean that's the other side of the aisle stated policy is their Trojan horse is getting moms for liberty candidates and other people onto local school boards and so I think I think we have to stay vigilant but the good news is good that teachers understand this if we listen to teachers and my suspicion is we don't because a lot of them are women and we have not listened to women if we would just listen to teachers
and pay attention I think any public school teacher in my state could be doing what I'm doing on the state board event any one of them and frankly I'm a little disappointed that there aren't more people like Tim and Johnny across the country as college teacher educators that aren't willing to stand up and speak out for public education so thank you both for doing what you're doing
well man you know it's Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday now the now time to take the pencils every day of the week we're out there doing it is busted pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talking education our guest Mitch Robinson he is on the Michigan he's elected boy he's elected member of the Michigan's the state of education blah blah blah blah blah the state board of education in Michigan
and talking about the resolution that was authored by Mitch the cup passed to say charter schools we need some accountability and now we're looking to hopefully the legislature will take this up then in the state of Michigan.
We were talking about last week in Colorado that actually the legislature had already passed it but they were hoping to see whether or not they were going to get the votes needed to put it in forward because there was a ton and this will come back to Betsy divorce.
A billionaire money being funneled to knock out the resolution for charter school accountability in Colorado and Mitch you say Betsy divorce right now you know it's kind of nice but the reality is she's still a billionaire and she still thinks she matters and in fact I would say she probably still really does because she still has billions of dollars that she seems to be willing to spend to take out public school accountability.
Charter school accountability I mean let's be honest right that's where she's coming from.
The other good news though here in Michigan is that our state's Republican party is just an absolute disaster.
So we have two dueling factions of each think that they are the Michigan Republican party they've been locked out of their computers have been locked out of their office buildings so what we're trying to do is
frankly take advantage of the chaos on the other side and I will say that the Michigan State Board of Ed and the House and the Senate and the governor's office and everything right now on the blue side of the ledger we're organized we're motivated and we are getting in each other's way we're speaking with one voice.
So people like Julian over a western Michigan are hugely important my colleague Josh Cohen in the college of Ed at Michigan State coming out with a new book on vouchers
uh in June I think we have lots of really good smart people and some of the best teachers in the country and again if we just listen to them we'll do the right things man we've talked about the teacher shortage I can't I mean right now people listening to to the show or sitting there going like let me relocate to Michigan become a teacher in the state of Michigan because it's feeling like they're at least taking us seriously for the first time.
Mitch though too I mean I want to definitely have you back though to talk about the resolution you're putting forward to end standardized testing because
you know this man I'm an original opt-out guy I mean I pulled my son and daughter out of no child left behind testing you know and became the scourge of central Pennsylvania for how dare I do that and try to hurt my kids' schools by taking them out and we kept trying to say look man opt out it's the standardized test
they were designed with one thing in mind to kill the public school system and Mitch put a resolution some people were I've even heard the same well isn't that testing craze over no it's not it's not just because we don't have no child left behind and raised to the top
guess what though as we were talking to our favorite our favorite teachers our educator exemplified partners in Milwaukee last week um it's testing season and they know it and everybody knows it so our guests tonight
Mitch Robinson he is from Michigan State University but he is the elected board state board of education put forth the resolution for charter school accountability good luck on that
Mitch man and here's the reality you are our democracy and action hero thanks for busting pencils Mitch Mitch
I'm looking forward to receiving the check thank you all right it is on its way well well you know during the commercial I'll write out that check
busted pencils Johnny Tim break it down when we get back
school schools in it's busted pencils
yeah education talk educated educators talking education eight five five seven five two four eight four two
great guest for the first half part of the show Mitch Robinson Michigan state music education
faculty state board of education member the last now of two years puts forth a resolution to have charter schools um guess what to be accountable like all
public schools in the state of Michigan that's all just public schools and public schools playing by the same rules that's all they're
asking for me Mitch broke it down for us Timmy's like you know you got to play by the rules and and you know it gave us that great I love a sports
analogy yeah yeah like it wasn't up till after a few years of teaching when students finally said did you got to stop only doing sports
analogies in class I was like I know I know I know and I diversified my interests but you know I learned through sports
metaphor so Mitch breaking that down saying you know you know we are all like if public schools are playing by the rules
of basketball and charter schools get to play hockey rules you know and it's just it just doesn't work and
that's a great way to put it you know in this bill being a great step towards where are we at and how do
we go forward well one step forward in in support of democracy you know is that our public schools all play
schools all play by the same rules and that included in that and this is a core democratic value Tim
thank you we build trust through transparency and so that whole thing that our guests last week you know
that came on talked about dark money and like that just puts a spotlight on that you know you don't
get to move the money around and create these four profit charters that ultimately you know you know
do do damage to schools and really and really harm at the expense of children getting a good education
and it still allows for that innovative sort of origin of the idea that right I was talking about
there's still a lot of creative and innovative ways that teachers and school districts and
partnerships with you know universities or you know in districts can explore alternatives
but they have to be transparent and they have to play by the rules and so this is a fantastic step
forward and Michigan you know an archetype for the nation right now kind of what Colorado is battling
at the moment and so well you think about it it's reminding me too a lot of Wisconsin and the
possibilities in a Wisconsin to bring forth this same type of reality you know I mean right now you've
got a jerrymandered legislature that's really tough in Wisconsin to take out but they've got a
democratic governor and it is a state that is committed to public education and democracy man you
know a few more democracy and action heroes you know from busted pencils listeners out there
stepping up to get on school boards to run for legislature to do that work because here's
the other thing when an educator steps up and makes the conversation about look I'm doing this
because it's what's best for our community what's best for our kids what's best for our schools
man I'll tell you what sometimes even in a jerrymandered district the ability to talk about
taking care of your neighbors cuts across that jerrymandering where people go you know what I like
my kids I like my neighborhood schools I actually like the prom I like Friday and a football
wait a minute I'm thinking I might see the possibility of voting for an educator then to be part of
the legislature because as Mitch just said citizen democracy right that's who it's supposed to be
it's supposed to be representative of the who so people who are in legislature are supposed to
look like the communities and way too often in lots of places now legislatures really tend to
reflect the the money that they take and find where they get the money from and you're going to
find typically how you can predict how they're going to vote for anything and which typically is
then not representative of the citizens and it's therefore not very democratic Johnny Lupinachi
thinking about democracy though right and Wisconsin I mean yeah you imagine like the potential
of a busted pencils on location type of I mean possibility maybe I'm going to talk
about the local listeners out there you know if you're local to Madison mark your calendar for
April 30th on there's still a lot of teased across and eyes to dot but we're going to tease you
here for listeners tonight mark your calendar April 30th this time live show from a local
place near you so Madison folks be thinking about it join Tim and I we'll have more details to come
as the week unfolds the eyes dot and the teased cross but you know listen to civic media listen to
your shows you'll hear promos as it comes together because Tim and Johnny are exploring
the possibility and it doesn't have to just be I probably don't just have to be Madison hey if you
want to come from walk a shot get down here if you want to come from lacrosse get down here if you
want to come from Hayward get down here Chicago Chicago teachers union we know you're listening get
there get a bus together and drive up to Madison for the night you know more details to come we're
teasing it though we're just teasing it but if you want to pull out your calendar pull out your
pencil your busted pencil mark down that that date April 30th it looks like something might be
happening I'm excited a lot of fun yeah a lot of exciting stuff truly bringing them yeah democracy
in action you know busted pencils that's what we like to do we want to be an example for everybody
out there who is saying you know public schools democracy you guys are always talking about those
two being linked up yeah we do we talk about them all the time being linked up because you know
again your public school system and this goes back to what Mitchell was talking about with the
accountability playing by the same rules because in democracy that's the reality is is that democracy
has to have a clear rulebook that everybody knows how those rules are enforced and therefore the
ability then to know when things are going awry or when things are not and so democracy requires
a shared rulebook yep trust and transparency and that's what we do busting pencils every Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday for you guys you know and sometimes I'm glad that we're back
together on the I was gonna share on you I'm glad to have you back you know producing everything
it's you know things go great all the time but they go extraordinary when we've got our when
we've got our full lineup so I appreciate you both yeah thank you for listening busted pencils
it's fully-led at education talk tomorrow looks like we're gonna do some trending news education
news there's a lot going on we've we've been having lots and lots and lots of guests we've got to
bring you back to date with the news busted yeah you know all the time we want to make sure and
the other part though too is bring the phones open up the phones come on in tomorrow night lots
of opportunity to tell us what you all have been thinking because yeah you say like man you guys
have had lots of guests on lately we have because we've got lots of people who want to talk and we
want to bring them and we say and I'll please put it out there if you're saying could I be a guest
on your show yes you could give us a call send us an email tag us follow us on Facebook follow us
on Twitter follow us on YouTube make us know man we would love to hear from you because this is
the blue collar scholar show we want you on the school on talking about schools busted pencils
fully-led at education talk trending news tomorrow night have a good night