Education Talk, here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker, and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated
educators talking education.
Yes, it is, Tim and Johnny busted pencils fully, let it education talk, educated educators
talking education Thursday night, Johnny Lupinacci, how are you my friend?
I'm good, Tim, it's Thursday, it's almost the end of May, we're going into a long weekend
for a lot of schools out there and a lot of workers, so hopefully get a little break in
this weekend, folks, enjoy your community, get outside, and maybe if you're in the Madison
area, we're going to talk today a little bit more broadly, but if you're in the Madison
area, we're going to introduce our guests, he's got some roots and ties to the Madison
community too.
Tim, you're in Madison this weekend, or really anytime.
You might head on the Monaco Brewing Company, why Tim?
Because busted pencils is sponsored by the Monaco Brewing Company, who sued the state
of Wisconsin to end its parasitic voucher system that hurts public schools, Monaco Brewing
Company is making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time, check out Monaco Brewing
Company dot com to see where you can buy their progressive beer.
Yeah, coming up on the holiday weekend too, you might want to hang out there, but yeah,
we have, okay, great guests, we say, what's happening in Wisconsin?
We always say is is is is an image of what could be happening anywhere and we have got
a guest through a connection through the Wisconsin Public Education Network, Heather's
like Tim, you have got to meet and talk to Rod.
Rod, he's the president and CEO of Idaho Business for Education.
He has dedicated his career to improving education with 38 years in the media as a reporter,
newspaper editor and television executive.
He is also an accomplished author with three books to his name and numerous articles in
opinion pieces as a passionate advocate for public education.
He serves a multiple advisory boards and commissions continuously working, working, working
to strengthen education in Idaho.
Welcome to busted pencils, Rod Gramer.
How are you, Rod?
Good, Tim and Johnny, thank you for having me.
It's exciting to talk to you especially since you're in Madison, Wisconsin, one of my favorite
places.
Yeah, you have a real connection there when we met, Rod, you know, we're going to talk
about the big fight, you know, we'll get into what's happening in Idaho and in fact the
successes of pushing back on vouchers in Idaho, but maybe just a quick, you know, the connection
to Madison, Wisconsin Public Education Network, how does somebody in Idaho find themselves
connected with the Wisconsin Public Education Network?
That's a, that's a good story and it's a good question.
I, several years ago, when I first started researching the voucher issue, I'm going to
use vouchers as kind of a general term.
I know there are different kinds, but I like to use the word voucher because the pro voucher
side always squirms when I use vouchers and because it's easier to say then education
savings accounts.
Yeah.
Well, several years ago, when I started researching vouchers, I ran across an article in the Wisconsin
Examiner of which I've become a huge fan.
It was an interview with the guy that ran the rural school's association in Wisconsin.
And he was talking about how bad or how damaging vouchers have been to Wisconsin, which of course
we all know is the first day in the country to pass them in 1990.
And so I started researching what was going on in Wisconsin and it sort of became the cautionary
tale for me here in Idaho, although my research has gone even deeper than Wisconsin.
But it all started, my research started by looking at Wisconsin because I really believe
that, you know, as we were fighting vouchers here in Idaho, I had to better understand
what has this done to other states in the country.
And so my starting point was Wisconsin.
And so I've had other ties to Wisconsin, as you know, Tim, and I fell in love with the
state.
And through my work on a piece about Wisconsin, I met a good friend, Chris Thiel over
in Milwaukee and then he introduced me eventually to Heather.
Wow.
All of that.
And so connection to Heather, but yeah, you know, we say Wisconsin, you want to know about
the vouchers you started in Wisconsin, as you point out, right?
I mean, that, you know, the, you know, the heart center, Milwaukee, in the 90s, first
voucher schools.
And again, the rhetoric at the time, you know, there are some tough schools in Milwaukee.
Kids aren't being served well by the public schools in Milwaukee.
Let's create a voucher so that they can take and go to a private school of their choice
so they could escape the failing disastrous public schools in Milwaukee.
38, what, 40 years later now, almost, though, and what we're seeing in Wisconsin, we'll
talk about Rod, though, is just to move totally away from failing public schools and getting
kids to an escape hatch to just saying educational freedom and families should have the choice.
And nobody should be making any decisions about going to what school or where, and here
we are, a whole lots of vouchers everywhere.
Busted pencils, fully-led education talk, 8557524842 is the number.
You want to call us our guest, Rod Gramer.
He is the president and CEO of Idaho Business for education.
So, Rod, I love the whole idea, though, too, of Idaho Business for education.
How does that organization get started?
Because typically, I think a lot of people would go, isn't business really hostile towards
public education?
And what would business have to want to do with vouchers?
And what's this Rod Gramer doing hanging out with those people?
Well, you know, I don't think business, I know from my research that a lot of business
organizations in the country have fallen for the false promise of vouchers.
And that's unfortunate because I think they've left their critical thinking in the closet,
frankly.
I don't know why business leaders would let ideology interfere with their better judgment,
but many have across the state, including in Wisconsin.
But I believe that business leaders have a lot of stake here for various reasons.
But we're a group of more than 250 business leaders across the state of Idaho.
And our whole mission is to create the workforce that our employers need.
But I always like to say also set our kids up, help set up our kids for success in schoolwork
and life.
And I truly believe that if we do that latter part, the workforce will take care of itself.
And so, you know, I tackled this issue like a good journalist would.
I looked at the facts, I looked at the history, I looked at everything going on, and I basically
went to my executive committee and my board and I said, you know, here's what I think
about this.
And for the last six years, they have consistently voted unanimously to support our position
against vouchers here in the state.
And I'm told we're a little bit of an outlier, maybe, you know, so anyway, you know, but
we're really strongly against this issue for lots of reasons.
And you know, I'm glad I'm glad that the business community in Idaho stepped up and posed
this.
Busted pencils, our guest broad grammar, fully let it education talk 8557524842, yeah,
in Idaho, pushing back on vouchers, the success, the inspiration coming from Wisconsin connection
to Wisconsin public education network, all of those come together, you know, what I think
about this to us doing a lot of work today and just putting together a large email of people
who have worked with over the years in the past and the connections that people that we
make fighting for public schools.
So the Jew and Heather, you know, we have Dr. Nancy Carlson page on the show, Matt Damon's
mom, Diane Ravitz, Carol Burst, the network.
I mean, the connections that we make, how do we, and this is a question not on the questions
that I have for you, I just made thinking about this, how do we build this movement?
Because the success that you have in Idaho, I mean, and I'm getting too quick ahead there
because you guys fought back vouchers so far, I'm just wondering though, all of your work
as a journalist, all those, you know, you're an organ for Portland organ for years, you're
doing all this, how do we continue to build this movement or movement reignited?
I mean, it seems now more than ever, it's needed.
Yeah, you know, Tim, that's a great question.
When I started working on this, I kind of, I was kind of on an island, really, I mean,
I was thinking, you know, I've got to go look at what's going on in other states and
I think one of the really important, ha ha moments for me was when I started working
on Wisconsin and thanks to Chris and others, I met Heather and then Heather introduced
me to the public school defenders and then I met Beth Lewis down in Arizona and others.
And I think, you know, one of the advantages the other side has is that we're all, we
have our heads down, we're all working in our states, right?
Even though this is a national movement to defund, even destroy our public schools,
we're all in our states kind of to fight in the good fight and we don't know what's going
on in the bigger, bigger world, right, unless like I had an opportunity to do, started looking
around.
Right.
And one of the great things experiences is meeting Heather and Beth and other people in
this movement.
I think we've got to start what I call a public school movement in the country.
Like back in the 1800s, they started the common school movement.
We need a public school movement and we've got to be united because we got, we're fighting
a big what I call the school privatization industrial complex, right, I call it that.
And we're up against a lot of people with a lot of money and a lot of front organizations.
So we have to, we have to be equally as organized and mobilized and, and financed as they
are.
Or it's going to be very hard for us to, to, to feed this movement that we're up against.
Yeah, lots of good points.
Johnny Lupinati, what do you got?
Oh, man, I love learning from our friend Rod, you know, and hearing about, you know, things
in my neighbor's state, you know, I'm over in Washington, although we're blue collar
scholars from the Midwest, we get kind of displaced out, you know, and get to work with educators
everywhere.
And I've been in some great schools in Idaho and I've worked with some amazing public school
teachers.
But I'm curious too from Rod as we, you know, go into break and then come back from break.
Rod, you got to explain for us a little bit and help our listener understand that, you
know, how is this happening in Idaho?
It's complicated because it's also known for spending the least amount on public education.
So here we are talking on a lot of shows about how we need to advocate for more than crumbs
on how we really need to provide all students with a real high quality education.
And that's not inexpensive, right?
And so this is a complicated storm here in Idaho where I think it's really another
version of a canary in the coal mine.
We often talk about Wisconsin being on the forefront of the, you know, of fighting vouchers
or seeing how defunding public schools has decimated the public education system, yet
it's still strong.
And I'm a firm believer that you can't, we're seeing an effort to, but you can't get
rid of public education.
And here we are with strong public educators saying something different.
And Rod, I think you're more than a canary in the coal mine.
You're kind of behind, maybe even enemy lines, understanding some of these important alliances
that we need to have in order to strengthen our public schools.
So I know I took this right up to break, but when we come back, more with Rod.
And there it is, dancing music, busted pencils, fully-ledged education talk, educated educators,
talking education, Idaho, man, potatoes, and fighting vouchers.
They can do two things at once, our guests are known for more than two things, Tim.
I know, I know, but you know, I just wanted to, yeah, this stereotype, Idaho, it's for potatoes,
you know, but actually though for fighters for public education, I actually like that distinction.
Rod grammar, he's our guest, he's the CEO of Idaho Business for Education, long, passionate
fight against vouchers in Idaho.
And Rod, you know, Johnny kind of set this up in saying like, first of all, Idaho, you
know, one of the least funded public schools in the public school systems in the country.
And so you're trying to hold on to just that.
But then the opposition to create this vouchers, I mean, who are they, where's the money
come from?
And how do you push on them?
Well, you know, let me kind of react to Johnny's kind of set up this question before, you
know, we are last in the country when it comes to per people funding.
And when I became CEO of IBE 11 years ago, we were working with the governors and we
have worked with two Republican governors.
We were making huge progress in education, we were raising teacher salaries.
We were increasing literacy funding.
We were college and career advising and we were just, we were not going to out the park,
you know, for Idaho standards, you know, still have a long way to go, by the way.
But when the voucher battle started around 2018, it is really, it's not that we haven't
made progress in other areas because last session, we passed a very historic bill allowing
money for kids to go on to post-secondary.
But it has sucked a lot of the time and the energy out of the room for us.
And my mindset has been we need to fight for progress, right, like, you know, we are
last in the country.
But we've got to, when this fight, because it's an existential threat to education, and
we've got to, in my view, save education, public education, and then we can start rebuilding
it again, right?
And we got to kind of do both, you know, part of the, one of the setbacks, frankly, to
our work is that we've had, we have to fight this battle when we should be actually focused
on things that actually move our stay forward and move our education forward and help our
students succeed.
And so, you know, it's really frustrating that we have to fight this battle just to save
our schools when we should be focused on really advancing student achievement and helping
students succeed.
So you touched on the dark money, and, you know, I'm not going to any listener who knows
what's going on in Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, you know, every state in the country,
it seems like every red state at least, basically, there's this industrial complex, I talked
about, right?
And it's very, very intentional to defeat public education, to deplete it, and maybe even
destroy it in our country.
And so in all of our states, we're fighting these out of state billionaires who are coming
into our state, and sometimes they're in state billionaires too, but whether it's Texas,
Idaho, Arizona, Wisconsin, we're fighting these billionaires who have created these front,
what I call front organizations, that make them look like their grassroots organizations,
running them with dark money, coming into the state, and changing our politics.
You know, Betsy DeVos is sunk tons of money in Wisconsin, the Bradley Foundation has.
American Federation for Children just sunk a bunch of money into Texas, defeating all
these anti-voucher legislators.
And here in Idaho, we've been fighting these, it's interesting, in 2018, when the first
bill was introduced.
These guys were not on the radar, right?
It almost seemed like a mom, a few legislators wanting to do this.
But they've come in with their big guns here, two, three years, and four years.
And you know, they're the biggest spenders in our lobbyists, in our legislature, far
more than homegrown interest groups.
And in this most recent primary, we had just Tuesday, American Federation of Children dumped
400,000 in, citizens of Lions, 400,000 in, make Liberty, win 650,000, and the final reports
haven't even been filed for the election.
So on that too, let's break that down, because what you're explaining here is the success
in Idaho has been because of Republicans, rural Republicans, who have said no, just
like in Tennessee, just like in Texas.
And what you're explaining, though, Rod, is this money is coming in.
Let's get rid of these Republicans, and invest this money into getting voucher-friendly
Republicans in their place.
This happened in Texas in early March, right?
I mean, Abbott, the governor of Texas and the privatization industrial complex, was,
they were so frustrated, because in Texas, Ruby Red Texas, they couldn't get it done.
And their biggest impediment, besides the Democrats, were the rural Republicans, right?
And the same as true in Idaho, our Republican, we have these rural Republicans that are just
courageous.
And they've been standing up to these out-of-state billionaires for the last few years.
But now they just poured all this money in to defeat them.
We lost 16 incumbent legislators on Tuesday night, and most of them were anti-valtured legislators.
And the same thing happened in Texas.
So we're up against, all of us are up against these huge, limitless, funded front groups
from the dark money billionaires that really come in, they lie, they never attack legislators
on vouchers, because they know that's unpopular with the public.
They always accuse them of other things, and I can get into that a little bit when we
have time.
But they always accuse them of other things, and then they gloat after the election, saying,
see, this is a mandate for school privatization.
Well, it's not.
And I'd love to talk more about that.
Yeah, that, in fact, too, the way you're describing this now come back, because, you know,
right, you can write to it the existential thread to public education.
And what we're talking about here is, is that really now, too, is why the dark money here, too,
is to understand, these are people that are spending millions of dollars from an ideological
standpoint that has absolutely nothing to do with making schools better.
We said, you know, they got rid of that whole idea that this is about the failing schools.
This is just about education freedom.
And you sit there and you say, well, there are Republicans, world Republicans, particularly
all over the country, who are saying, wait, you know, our community loves our public schools.
I point this out.
They love Friday night football.
They love the senior prom.
They love the track meets.
They love their, their schools and Republicans have stood up for that time and time again.
And then you start to see what you're saying here, this money that comes in, and you're
saying, like, what are they investing so much money for?
It's not about making schools better.
It's not, well, it's because what we're saying, right?
The money they're investing is because they are attacking the whole concept, the whole foundation
of democracy in this country, public schools.
They want public schools eliminated.
Man, the fight is going on in Idaho, number 857524842, when we get back, a couple more
questions with our guest, Rod Gramer, Busted Pencils, back in a minute.
Yeah, there it is, Busted Pencils fully let it, education talk, educated educators talking
education, the numbers 857524842, our guest, Rod Gramer, president and CEO of Idaho Business
for Education, giving us everything that's happening in Idaho, rod the success of pushing
back on vouchers, was really centered in Idaho the way it's been in all of these other
states in Texas, in Tennessee, rural Republicans who have held the line on their public schools.
You know, they like Friday night football, they like the prom, and they know their constituents
are, are love their public schools.
But knowing that, though, to you before the, before the break, you talked about saying
in fact, there's a diversion or a distortion because when they primary these people,
they don't come after them as anti, as, as saying, you know, that we're going after you for
being anti voucher, they create a whole other story or something is what you were talking about.
Well, vouchers are not popular, so they never attack these people on vouchers.
I'll, to use two examples in Texas, there are many here in Idaho that just happen,
but I used in Texas, there's a ranch or seventh generation rancher in Texas, Glenn Rogers,
he was in the house. He was attacked, believe it or not, they said that he was supportive of Joe Biden's
border policy, and they put this picture up with him, Nancy Pelosi and, and Joe Biden, and they
attacked him on that. There was another legislator that they attacked that said he was soft
on gun control. Well, this is a guy that actually in 2021 had sponsored the bill in Texas that said
you could get a concealed weapon without any kind of license or anything. You just could get a,
and so he was far from soft on gun control, but it worked. These guys got defeated, right?
And so they attack him on these other fringe issues, or these other issues that they've created,
a critical race theory, librarians, grooming kids, that what they do, they they have these
issues like critical race theory and librarians grooming kids that are intended to drive down the
the credibility of public education, attack these legislators who think these are like cookie ideas,
but even in Texas, they, you know, Glenn Rogers actually voted for a ban in critical race theory,
and he still got defeated. What I say is, you know, they're all saying all roads lead through Rome,
I say all roads lead through the privatization. So whether you're talking about critical race theory
or librarians or, you know, transgender, it is all intended to privatize our schools,
and that's what this is all about. And these other things are side shows that are designed to
drive down public support for public education, and then they come in with quote the solution,
which is, you know, parental choice. And so, you know, we just have to educate the voters and
the taxpayers that these programs are really expensive. And I think that's something that I never
thought much about when I started this work, but I love to talk about that.
Well, I'm going to, yeah, in fact, in Johnny, I'm sorry, man, I'm hogging it up tonight,
but I'm just, you know, that's, you talk about that too. In fact, you say that this actually,
evidence that it can increase property taxes for, for people to fund, talk about that.
Well, I interviewed the woman she's since retired for one of my pieces. She's had a governmental
fares for the, or she was, she just retired for the Indiana Farm Bureau. Now, Farm Bureau and
Idaho and other states is one of the most conservative lobbies in the Indian East state.
Well, they have taken a position against vouchers in Indiana, and why have they done that? Well,
first of all, it hurts the rural schools in Indiana, Idaho, Texas, Wisconsin, every place else.
As you said, these are the, these, these schools are the fabric that are the heart and soul of our
rural community. So in Indiana, for example, when the, when, because they're way, way down the
privatization road. So what happened in Indiana is that farmers in Indiana to keep their local
schools vital have to raise their own property taxes. So this is what I mean from the business point
of view. This is craziness. No sane business leader would ever support this because basically,
what we're doing is we're, we're, we're taking tax money and we're funding three new school
systems, private, religious, at home school, and no business person when you have a limited
budget, whatever, even dream of doing that, but they let ideology drive them rather than common
sense. And that's why I say these business leaders that support privatization schools,
they have checked their critical thinking in the closet, right? So in Indiana and other states,
Wisconsin's another good example, local people have to raise their property taxes to keep their
schools vital. And, and so that is, you know, one of my ha ha moments around this issue as I've
researched it, it's an education issue certainly, but it's also a tax and fiscal responsibility issue.
And, and there was a legislator in Wisconsin, he was chair of the, the,
the assembly, I believe it was the assembly education committee for years. And when they were
talking about taking the Wisconsin program statewide, he said, how can we do this? This is the numbers
just don't make sense. How are we going to support whole new school systems? Of course, he lost,
but he didn't lose his seat, he retired, but his common sense approach was what most business
leaders should be, they should put their critical thinking caps on and, and set aside ideology,
you know, Milton Friedman, ideology, and say, is this good for business? And it's not for many
reasons. That's right, Rod. I appreciate how you broke that down for our listeners and for us.
And, you know, I love that all roads go through privatization. It sort of all culminates around
this particular agenda. Just a couple of comments from our listeners, Don Hall, sitting in a comment
here, prisons were privatized, so corporate interests could profit from them. Now they are
trying to do the same with schools. I mean, yeah, it's great. Like this is, this is speaking to
that all roads go through privatization, right? We got to ask ourselves if we value democracy.
What are the things about our strong communities that we value? And are we willing to privatize
those? Because privatization really means turning over all of our control to private interests.
And I don't, I think the three of us here and probably a lot of our listeners agree,
that's not a great, that's not a great move. Also, we got a great text from Jim from Appleton
that before we, we part ways with you, Rod, and we hear a little bit more about your organization
where a listener can learn more about the work you're doing. A Jim from Appleton texted,
I have tried in the past and will offer workable solution once more. Make the rules apply
evenly for vouchers in public schools. No more private schools get to choose their students.
No more private schools get to accept a student, get the money, and expel them. When a student
goes, so does the cash. Private schools must meet the same testing requirements as public schools.
There's more, but this should be enough to think about for a while. What do you think about Jim's
texts, Rod? Well, I think in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, maybe even Arizona that are
pretty far down this road. Florida, of course. I think that because they're so far down the road,
the next battle, I think, in your states, should be making private and religious schools
have the same standards as public schools. States like ours where we're still fighting the
fight and who knows next session we may lose, we're still fighting the fight. There are other
states where that haven't started down this road or are barely in the road like Nebraska and
stuff where we still need to fight. States like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, you're so far down the
road. You've got to start appealing to the Republicans' fiscal responsibility. They claim to be
fiscally responsible party and they're spending money like drunken sailors, frankly. And I think
there's going to be pushback. I think there's going to be a rebellion, a tax rebellion on this
thing eventually because you're subsidizing all these people and never been in public schools.
And so I think eventually the worm will turn and states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana,
they need to start saying same standards. In this study that this woman Nicole Garnett did for
Notre Dame and the Manhattan Institute, which is, you know, is a big voucher supporter. She admits
in there that schools, private, religious schools, they don't want accountability. They want
standards. So that is the way that in states like Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, you've got to fight back
because the first step to to turning this whole thing around is to put those standards in,
appeal to Republican legislators, fiscal, if they've got any integrity left when it comes to
fiscal responsibility. But I also understand New Jersey Democrats are leading this fight and
that calls me. I can't even understand that. And in Pennsylvania, Colorado, yep.
That's craziness. These Democrats, they don't quite understand what the hell's going on.
Frank, all leads all roads lead to privatization, Rod. You said it, you know, like it's it's
infecting the Democrat part, Democratic party as well. Rod, before we lose you all tonight and
they're not losing you, we just kind of break with you and Tim and I'll break it down for the rest
for the rest of the hour with our listeners. But really, where can we listen out there,
learn more about the work you're doing and all this good fight in Idaho and really nationwide.
Give us some leads. Well, people go to IdahoBE.org. That's our website. Go to resources and I've written
numerous. I've sent these to Tim numerous essay. I call them essays because they're too long to
be guessing. And I've written numerous things on this, which has helped inform our debate. And I
wrote those, yes, for the public, but I wrote them mainly for legislators and the governor and
others because I sent them to every legislator. I sent it to the governor because, you know,
and even the media, we don't understand this issue, right? I was a journalist for 38 years and
I didn't understand it till I started researching it. So we have a big education thing to do. And so
these essays really hit this issue from various angles. And I use examples from Wisconsin,
Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Florida. I mean, not just Idaho, I look at this from every angle. And I think
I think people can find a lot of information there. You know, they are long, but they're packed with
information. Busted pencils fully let it education talk. Yeah, and we got the website there too,
right? And it will appear in the podcast tomorrow when that gets released so people can go to that.
You know, so Idaho, Wisconsin, Ohio, Arizona, Indiana. I just,
boy, you think about this and go, how do I ask this question already? And I'm kind of coming back
to it because I'm feeling, I don't know, this is like, is it insurmountable when we're fighting
billionaires? And I was talking to Diane Ravage, she said, no, they have the money, but we have the
numbers. We have, okay, yeah. And so inspiring the numbers then is what we got to do.
So I was at the conference in Milwaukee in August. Heather was good enough to invite me to be on
a panel. And I've said this in Wisconsin, but I've always said it elsewhere. The biggest, the best
weapon we have are the public school parents. And for example, in Idaho, we're a small state,
but we have 330,000 students. Lions share students. In most states, 85%, 90% of the students are
public school. What we haven't done is mobilize the parents. We've tried in some places, but that's
power. That is power. We need parents to understand the threat to their kids' education.
And make it, that's the message. This is a threat to your kids' education because it's likely
your kids are going to stay in these public, underfunded public schools while rich people
can send their kids to private religious schools. So if we can mobilize the people, Diane's right.
We've got, they've got the money. We've got the power. We just haven't, in my opinion, united,
haven't got the parents fired up about this. And we got to get them fired up.
Boy, it feels like another save our school's moment, you know, in 2011. And remember that
Matt Damon coming to speak in Washington, DC, that's where I met his mom Nancy Krossin
Paige, brought her on the show. There was just a movement down there. I was listening to that
and watching the power. And that was it was save our schools and it was parents who were just
had had it. I don't, you know, now we're coming out of the pandemic. We got to bring it back.
Rod, grammar, Idaho. Thank you so much for busting pencils.
Thanks guys. Have a good evening. Take care. Johnny Tim when we get back.
There it is. Busted pencils fully-led education talk. Love that. He has, he's like, what is that? That's
seven dust doing a rendition of version of schools out for summer. That is almost out for summer
for sure. Johnny Lupin-Natchy, man. Rod, grammar, though, from, you know, I Idaho business for education.
You know, you say it's great to have people like Rod come on like this. We're able to make those
connections. I think what we're saying tonight is that, you know what, there's, there's Rod in Idaho.
There, there are, I don't know how many more Rod Gramer's out there all across the country who
understand who get this, this, this passion for their local public schools. And maybe most importantly,
all of the parents of public school students right now to realize, and you know, we'll talk about that.
Those are your neighbors, my neighbor. Well, I was talking about my neighbor, but our neighbors,
and how do we get them excited about the fact that they've got the best public schools,
their local communities thrive when public schools are thriving too. And that the threat to them,
I think sometimes Johnny, the reality is is that my neighbor and your neighbors don't really get
the fact that the schools are actually under attack for total elimination. And I think it'll be
too late and then parents, then they're going to rally and it's going to be too late because we're
going to have this kind of new system of privatized public, public vouchers and stuff. And guess what,
it ain't going to be good. I know there was another comment, Don had a comment there too,
who specifically is profiting from the voucher system whenever our rights and freedoms are under
threat. Profits are behind it. Johnny Lupinati, what do you think about that?
Well, I mean, Don is right. There is there is an effort to privatize education so that corporations
that have a specific interest in a private sector, profiting off of what is learned in schools.
I mean, there's all kinds of materials, there's all kinds of curriculums and things associated with
you know, privatizing the schools and imposing then those systems in place and taking money,
right, from like they want the government money applied to them to spend less than the state
is giving. So there's a profit on teaching our children. And so Tim, I want to want to spin off that
and bring it back to where you said you don't think our neighbor gets it. I think our neighbor does
get it. But I think in general, we have to understand getting into the nuances and getting into the
nuts and bolts of the consequences of a free market economy mapped on to education. Yeah,
because I think there is a really good effort from a lot of these organizations and think tanks
and Don in the comment, you know, said, who's profiting? It's from that end of those profiting.
There's a really clear and good message that schools aren't working great. Here's your solution.
And so I think our neighbor does get it. That public schools matter. But what they're what they're
hearing is is a really succinct clear message that they're not doing well. And there is an alternative
and that alternative is free market capitalism in our education system. And so I think that's
that's the pieces like it's not going to be about educating them on our side. It's more about
saying, here are two possible roads we can go down. The road of privatization. This is where it takes
us. The road of strengthening public schools. This is where it takes us. Which one do we want to go
on together? So I love this conversation. I love the work that Rod's doing and that what he shared
because he isn't an interesting place. Yeah, depending on how I spin it from which side of those
roads, right? I could say Idaho is kind of in last place. Or if I'm for privatization, I'm saying
check out Idaho. They spend the least and get it done, right? And so really have to think about
that there are two sides to this coin. And one side, you know, destroys democracy on the other side
strengthens it. And so I like the kind of work. I like the kind of work Rod's doing to say,
how do we hold our legislators, both Republican and Democrat, you know, accountable for strong
public schools? We got another comment from Don, though, while we're chatting it up. Don,
thanks for listening. And thanks for shooting these comments off. Your neighbor is so busy trying
to make living. They can't fight corporate power. Yeah. Couldn't agree with that more. That's
one thing I'm thinking about our neighbor's team is, who does this hurt the most? The hard work
people. They're busy, which is the function of government. We should be able to trust our government.
We are a government for the people by the people, but the people are busy. Now, while we're busy,
we should have trust that you are strengthening in our local economy, strengthening our communities,
improving our daily life, not gutting it so that you can make some money, right? And so, you know,
that's some really good stuff from Don. Hey, we didn't forget about early in the show. We had a
comment text from Sherry. Sherry, thanks for the good evening. Good evening to you. And thanks
for being a listener. And we're coming up on the end of a week, man. It's been
end of the week. You know, when we're coming up on the end, it makes me think, man, where would
I like to go and relax when I'm thinking about relaxing? You know where that would be, Johnny,
the Monoclo Brewery Tap Room in Madison. Yeah, because Bust of Pencils is sponsored by Monoclo
Brewing Company who sued the state of Wisconsin to end its parasitic voucher system that hurts
public schools. Monoclo Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again. One beer at a time. Check
out MonocloBrewingCompany.com where you can buy their progressive beer. Man, doing that coming in,
as you say, yeah, you know, coming on to a big weekend, big holiday weekend. Johnny Lupinacci,
in fact, and maybe we can even hint at this, you're going to be solo tomorrow, you and Anya.
Listener out there. We're going to, we're going to break down the week just Anya and Johnny.
We're going to wrap up the week and tune in because we're going to, we're going to, we got a lot
to talk about from this week, from school funding to mindfulness in classrooms,
opposing the vouchers to chopping it up with good bumper music and punk rock and all the good
stuff. So it'll be a Friday. I'm looking forward to it. Tim won't miss you, but we'll have you
you know what, man, too. And I'm getting ready. So if you have them driving with my daughter from
Ohio to Wyoming, or, yeah, on you know, that's right. The two of us four days in a car heading
around. Last time I checked her car, though, I'm confused because I don't see any room for my
luggage to make it. So we're going to have to do a little bit of repacking. It's, man, what a great
week though. Busted pencils fully let it education talk. We are truly educated educators talking
education. And yeah, the comments, please keep them coming, you know, again, listener out there,
the callers, you know, just appreciate everybody and all the, all the, all the effort and appreciate
mostly too. All of my neighbors that are listening because that's the other thing though, too, Johnny.
Our neighbors are listening. They're busy. They're busy. They got a lot to do, but they're listening.
Busted pencils fully let it. Johnny Lupinacci solo tomorrow. Check you all out later.