This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
There it is, Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk,
educated educators talking education, 8557524842 is the number.
You can call us right now if you want to join us, man.
We don't care, you know, just jump in with whatever it is you want to ask us.
Yeah, great show Tuesday night, Johnny Lupinacci.
I just got a message that he is listening from where he is,
but unable to participate.
I think something with being 30,000 feet in the air
that makes it a little bit restrictive to doing a radio show tonight.
But yeah, it is Busted Pencils, great guests tonight.
And though talking about one of the best things, though, Busted Pencils,
we get to meet lots of great people.
We said last week we had their first remote from the Monaco Brewing Company.
And you know the best thing about Monaco Brewing Company is 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.com,
to see where you can buy a proof of beer.
And yeah, a man, great stuff out there.
Great guest.
We're gonna throw this name out there before I introduce Horus Mann.
What does everybody remember Horus Mann?
That's our topic tonight because our guest,
he began his career in 1970,
the University of Massachusetts in Salem.
He has over 50 years experience in education,
including roles as, oh, we just found out,
kindergarten teacher all the way through high school,
adjunct professor, super attendant.
He played a pivotal role in establishing the public charter schools
in New Hampshire.
He has studied Horus Mann's educational principles and privatization.
He's advanced degrees in organization management.
He's the author of several books,
including the book we're talking about tonight.
Horus's hope, Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of common schools
in a democratic republic.
Welcome to Busted Pencils, Curtis Cardin, Curtis Arya.
I'm great.
Thank you for that nice introduction.
You got a lot of lead in there to give you that introduction.
You have been busy in 50 years.
So, okay, yeah, all right.
Those in education and sidelines in business.
Well, you've got a heck of a resume, lots of things.
So we've got some great questions.
You have a brand new book just released in April, 2024,
would tell people, go out, check it out.
Horus's hope, Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of public common schools
in a democratic republic before we get into it though,
Curtis, Horus Mann, who, who the heck is Horus Mann?
And why do we care?
Well, Horus Mann was the founder of public education.
He and some, most of them were of the wig party at the time,
started public education in the northeast of our country.
And there were other leaders in New York
and in the south, some in the south, not many,
but they started public schools in the New England states
and Massachusetts in particular early on.
Public schools in the United States weren't mandatory
until 1919.
A lot of people don't know that.
They think, oh, they go way back.
And Horus Mann died in 1854,
but he had an illustrious career doing many things.
Prior to that, he was key in getting
mental patients, the proper treatment,
rather than being locked up in jails,
which was what they did with them in that time period.
He was for emancipation early on
and influenced education beyond belief.
Next name they hear about his town's dewey,
but Horus has always been a favorite.
I did all my undergraduate and graduate work in his schools
and he started.
So that my love of Horus Mann goes way back.
Yeah.
Well, you know, so Horus Mann, just to remind people,
that's why I say, let's start with who is it
and why do we care?
Well, as you say, it's like the public education system
that we have today.
Yeah, I think a lot of people go, well, you know,
America's always had a public education system,
but not the way that Horus Mann envisioned it.
In fact, he had six principles
around what public education was.
And I wonder before we even really get deep into the book,
Horus, you know, can you remind us of those six principles?
Well, I'll give you the short ones.
I'll probably elongate on them once we get into the public
message.
Number one was, citizens cannot maintain both ignorance
and freedom, okay?
And I use the word democratic republic for a reason.
Most of the people at the time,
not the only people who should be educated
were land-owning people with me.
And those are the people that went to private schools
at the time, et cetera.
And when we formed a democratic republic,
Horus Mann became key person and saying,
okay, what should public education look like in that republic?
This education should be paid for, controlled,
and maintained by the public, okay?
So that's a key issue.
This education should be provided in schools
that embrace children from varying backgrounds.
And by that, he made various races, various, everything.
But economic backgrounds also.
This education must be non-sectarium.
That's a key thing.
This education must be taught using the tenets
of a free society.
And he was very much for moral education.
Last but not least, it must be reburated
by well-trained professional teachers,
which is why he set up normal schools
between young ladies, first of all,
then gentlemen, to be teachers.
And one of those first places was Salem.
Salem, well, and so you talk about
that the state normal school,
I gotta imagine that a lot of the teachers
that are listening to the show tonight,
probably a good portion of them did their education
at an institution that probably served
as a normal school to begin with.
I know me, I went to a state institution in Pennsylvania,
but I know that it actually was founded
as what you just said, a state normal school.
And what you're saying, then,
is that Horace Mann was the influencer
of the normal school movement.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay, and so that's that.
Very much so.
That quality commitment to educating teachers,
then that foundation is the,
and that's where they come from.
So yeah, the spusted pencils
is fully letted education talk,
educated educators talking education,
our guest Curtis Cardine, the number 8557524842,
Horace Mann, we're talking about his new book,
Horace's Hope Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of common schools
in a democratic republic,
laying out the six principles of what it is the public.
Curtis, when you lay this,
and you put for the six principles,
one of the things that really reminds people is
the whole idea that this is a non-sectarian
that the curriculum in this idea of the commons
must be put forward, qualified teachers.
Nothing about today's privatization movement
sounds like would be
just on to the six tenants of what Horace Mann said
makes things public.
That's correct.
And when you think about when public schools came into being
nationally, 1919,
most of the states incorporated 10 parts
of Horace's principles in their state constitutions.
So the original things that it's not non-sectarian,
that's a direct pull from the principles.
And we've forgotten the principles
as we've moved to the folly of creating public,
we call them public schools,
but they're not the private,
even the charters are private.
And, well, I take that back.
The original idea for charters was
Ray Buddett, the University of St. Joseph's
of fun believer in Horace Mann.
And I had the privilege of sitting in on his discussions
in 1972, and he proposed and the unions accepted
his proposal for the art school,
he's actually the guy, the coin to term,
which would be run by the school districts,
but teachers would come forward with the idea
and create these, and they had some kind of independence
from the other place.
And that's the kind of...
Charter schools, we started in New Hampshire.
Yeah, which was, they really have their foundation
as a public.
Sherry and Horkon, thanks for saying hi.
How are you doing out there?
Gotta read that text, love that.
Hey, you also can participate in the chat
and or could this call 857524842?
What do you know about Horace Mann?
Well, we have an expert tonight on Horace Mann,
Curtis Cardine, and his new book, Horace's,
Horace's Hope, Friedman's Folly,
the Purpose and Promise of Public Common Schools
in the Democratic Republic.
It's there.
All right, let's think though,
you authored the book though, as kind of like,
so you've got Horace's Hope, Friedman's Folly.
We've introduced everybody to Horace Mann.
Who's this Friedman character you're talking about?
Well, he's very famous, very active politically in the 1950s.
He was the first one after Brown versus Board of Education
to say, hey, parents should have a choice of where they go
and go to school and propose that they be given vouchers
to attend this any school they wanted to attend.
He made the mistake of, one of the big mistakes
in our country is people thinking capitalism
is our form of government, which it isn't.
Our form of government is Democratic Republic.
And Dr. Friedman, I will get into more after the break,
I think we're gonna be taking it.
Yeah, yeah, we're getting ready to come up on a break.
We are having a discussion.
Horace Mann, yeah, Horace's Hope Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of public common schools
in a Democratic Republic.
Our guest is the author Curtis Cardin.
We are discussing this.
We just finally got into a little bit about Friedman.
That would be Milton Friedman.
When we get back, we're gonna pick up and start right there
to make sure we understand Friedman
because we want to get into the book.
Busted pencils fully let it back out to the break.
We so cease to see our truth, our days are precious
and so few we know, we probably have to know.
Under this sky, no longer blue.
We bring.
Yeah, you know that song one way or another, yes.
Well, how about this way?
Busted pencils fully let it education talk,
educated educators, talking education.
8557524842 is the number.
Our guest Curtis Cardin, his new book,
Horace's Hope Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of public common schools
in a Democratic Republic.
A little primer reminding us who Horace Mann was,
but you put Horace Mann and you put him next
to this person Friedman, Milton Friedman.
Curtis, we were just talking a little bit
before the break though, let's really go back in though
and say, okay, so who was Milton Friedman
and why, if you're a public education advocate,
do we need to know about him?
Well, you need to know what his philosophy was.
He was an economist as were a lot of the starters
of the charter school movement here.
And he first proposed vouchers in 1973,
1973, I believe it was, but anyway,
he wrote a called Freedom to Choose.
And you'll hear that word, freedom thrown out
a lot, moms for freedom.
And people act like they can have freedom prior to that.
And they certainly did.
I went to Catholic school when I was a kid
because my parents chose that,
but guess what, they paid for it.
Just like I went to private kindergarten when I was a kid.
And they paid for that.
So and my parents all, dad was a World War II vet
when the vets came back from World War II
and Friedman was a vet, by the way.
They really are the founders of the schools
as we know them nowadays.
Friedman, after Brown, I keep repeating that after Brown
proposed his model, which is an economic model,
non-educational model.
And if you read everything he wrote,
the ultimate goal is everybody pays
for their own education eventually.
So and he said, well, if we go through this phase
with vouchers, which he substituted
charter schools for when vouchers were not approved.
And every time vouchers have been put in front
of the general public, they go to the ballot.
Right.
So that's an interesting fact to know.
It's really the federal government's money has come in.
So when Fried famously referred to public schools
as government schools, and yeah, local government,
local government is for sure.
Right.
What he was proposing, and this is kind of,
yeah, keep going Curtis.
Go ahead.
No, it just when you, yeah, go ahead.
What they've created is a mentality
that public education is not a, I don't want to say a hand out
that it's a, oh, what's the word I'm thinking of
that you're entitled to the money.
And that's right.
The differences of what we probably couldn't explain.
Yeah.
And that's what when you see abuses of vouchers, et cetera,
it's that entitlement mentality that comes up.
Yeah.
Well, you know, even the treatments plan,
it was mostly to break just.
Yeah.
It was, and even that as you indicate, though, too,
is that his ultimate goal was, was no funding whatsoever
for schooling that schooling was, you know,
truly the responsibility of the parents,
and it should be paid for this whole idea of government vouchers.
This is not what Friedman would have wanted
as his ultimate end.
As you said, Curtis, this was a step in the direction
of getting away from publicly funded public schools
and giving that money back to the parents.
But at the ultimate end of Friedman's move
is that there is no public education.
There is no government subsidizing schools.
Schools is a private enterprise.
As you pointed out, it's a capitalistic component
of our society.
And parents, if you care about your kids,
you'll make enough money to send them to the right schools.
If you don't, well, too bad.
We've got a market that will, you know,
create another set standard of schools
for those of you who don't have that money.
And that, when we pivot that next to Horace Man
and Horace Man's vision of saying, no, no, no, no, no.
Public schools in the commitment to all children,
whether their parents are the ones who can provide extras
or the parents of kids who can't provide anything
that when you step into a public school,
that vision of public schools was
is that the equity, the equality,
the freedom to learn was not going to be hindered
by your economic situation as a child
and that that commitment of public schools was to say.
And that is that part where we talk
about the so often Curtis on the show
is that, you know, this isn't a battle necessarily for,
you know, public education.
This is a battle for the heart of democracy
and recognizing is you say that we have a commitment
when we are committed to the commons to all children,
to all families and we expressly say that,
that that is a radical commitment to a democracy.
And when people who wanna get behind vouchers and freedmen,
these are people that are fully involved in saying,
you know, and I try to point this out to people
and go, you're not for educational freedom,
you're for educational fascism.
You want a capitalistic view of education.
You don't want all students to get
what it is that they're required.
You only want the privilege to get what they're allowed to get
and you set this up so that most kids
would not get the best education.
They would get the education their parents could afford
and therefore we would have this multiple,
multiple tiered education system.
And think about this too, even in our public school system,
we already do have this tiered inequities
that we're trying to alleviate,
but it's only in a public system
where we can actually have these conversations
about how to get to equity.
Correct.
One of the original arguments was different.
Well, the equality of your education at the public schools
depending on where you live.
But, you know, in 1994 before Arizona started,
even charters, they opened up the public schools
to open enrollment and 93,000.
That's more than our taking vouchers
have selected other districts in this state.
That's probably up to 95,000.
But my latest statistics, I track that.
There's 93,000.
And there's no compensation to the home district
for taking those kids.
So it's an unfunded mandate.
Yeah, right.
Right, it is.
Normally, normally, right.
Well, and so we put that forward out there.
They have the unfunded mandate.
It's busted pencils fully-led education talk.
It's educated educators talking education.
Our guest is Curtis Cardine, his new book.
Horace's hope, Friedman's followed the purpose
and promise of public common schools
and a democratic republic.
We're digging into it talking about Horace Mann,
Friedman vouchers, public schools, common schools.
If you have a question,
make sure you give us a call.
Hey, if you remember Horace Mann,
or if you have something to tell us about Friedman,
give us, let us know, 855-7524-842,
more with Curtis Cardine when we get back.
I wanna know the, I'm gonna lose ya.
I wanna give you this lift.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Pusted pencils fully-led education talk,
educated educators talking education.
The numbers, 855-7524-842,
oh man, it is the show.
We have got a great guest, Curtis Cardine.
He just published a new book.
Horace's Hope Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of public common schools
in a Democratic Republic,
getting reacquainted with Horace Mann,
Milton Friedman in recognizing too
that Milton Friedman's vision of private schools
and vouchers, not the same thing
and what we see now, tons of vouchers out there
that particularly in some of these states,
no real indication that they're ever going to go away
because it's the new entitlement
that's been put out there.
Curtis, before we get back to you in some questions,
so we do have a caller on the line,
caller Joanne.
We love when Joanne's calling.
Yeah, let's take her call.
Joanne, what's happening, our friend?
What a great show.
I just have a couple of facts and a question about Horace Mann.
He was the youngest of 15 children.
That's what I remember for some education course
along kind of going.
And the other thing he did,
which relates to our conversation,
is that when he was the secretary
of the Massachusetts School Commission,
whatever that was labeled then,
he visited every single school,
which today you think, oh, yeah,
he got to do it and then drove.
No, he was all horseback-caraged and all that visited.
And there was an oversight.
And I think that something that's missed in those early days
that he developed was this idea of accountability
that Friedman didn't harbor.
He wasn't a big guy into.
Let's find out what these schools are doing.
Let's visit every single one of these charter schools.
And make sure every single one is serving people
in the best possible way.
Here Horace Mann had that.
And Friedman didn't.
So great book.
I'm going to buy it as soon as I get off the line
and get over to Amazon.
Thank you so much.
Or by your local book dealer, I should say.
Thank you so much.
Well, it's only on Amazon at this point.
We'll get it.
Joanne, thank you so much for the call.
Always appreciate Joanne.
Yeah, Curtis, Joanne calls in quite often.
So the fact that she's saying great show.
Curtis, you know, one of the things
so we talk about privatization.
You talk about this in your book.
And it's a fact on our sense of community.
Tell me a little bit more about how privatization erodes
community.
Well, number one, I'd like to point out
to people from Texas that they're
giving up Friday night lights when they
give up on their public schools.
Where did these people think all their pro players,
et cetera, come from?
Or their college players?
It's mostly the public schools.
Certainly not somebody going to M at May for their fizz
egg glass.
The other thing I'm getting data on is how many of them
volunteer for anything else when they graduate?
Like what's their rate of people going into the service?
Which is one other thing that Milton Friedman was famous
for back in the Vietnam era.
He fought to get the draft ended because it should only
be those who want to go or have to go to make money that
go in.
And I always was disappointed with that.
So it was general Westmoreland at the time.
But he was a real capitalist about everything.
And again, that's confusing capitalism, which
is our economic system, and works great with our former
government, which is a democratic republic.
I'd like to throw in another thing about Horus Mann.
Absolutely.
He succeeded in his later life.
He replaced John Quincy Adams in the Congress.
And he also defended the crew in the greatest escape
of slaves ever.
You don't hear about that too much.
It was called the Pearl Incident.
And he was the lawyer, because that was his first training.
As a lawyer, he defended the crew, lost.
And then the two presidents later, they were free.
But in that era, he was active in a lot of things.
He chose Salem for a normal school.
But Salem has always been integrated from day what?
Salem school districts.
So that was his model.
And I wouldn't know this.
But school districts, that was his model.
That's what he was after, a freed blacks, et cetera.
There's a famous poster from the Civil War.
And it's promising freed blacks or blacks who had escaped.
If they join the Union Army, what they'll get out of that
is freedom for the slaves in public schools.
That was a solemn promise on those things.
They didn't say, we'll send you to private school.
They didn't say, we'll give you money to go to school.
They said, public schools.
And you know that the Union troops, when
they captured North Carolina, South Carolina,
they were famously followed by teachers from Salem.
Oh, it's busted pencils.
It's fully educated education talk.
8557524842 is the number.
Our guest author, Curtis Cardin, his book, Horses Hope,
Friedman's Folly, the Purpose and Promise of Public Common
Schools in a Democratic Republic.
We're discussing it.
Curtis, we got another caller, though, on the line right there.
We've got Mark, our friend, calling in.
Mark, what's happening, our friend?
Yeah, thanks so much for this topic.
I mean, public schools are so important.
That's why I went to schools.
Small rural public school, far northern Wisconsin,
that first, the first grade was Oakland School.
And they closed that one down.
I went to a school called Parkland School,
far northern Wisconsin, just off the superior,
that I really appreciate education that I got there.
I mean, I still have a hunger for educating myself.
But it seems to me that, from reading I've done since then,
that anti-democratic forces oppose education.
Because let's face it, in the old salt, the anti-bilum salt,
it was illegal for people to teach their slaves to read.
I mean, they actually made past laws
to make it illegal to teach slaves how to read.
Yes.
And I think that says something about what that society is like.
And what the society we see today, I see echoes of that,
some of what I see today, in the whole privatization
of schools, that there's the kind of, we do not want people
all to try to taught equally, that, and, of course,
those schools aren't required to meet the same standards
as the public schools.
I mean, that they don't have to measure up the same standards.
They don't have to accept everybody.
They can pick and choose what they want to be.
And I just think it's another perhaps not strictly racial
segregation, but it's another segregation of our children,
where I think I benefited from a mixed group of kids
that I went to school with.
I mean, there was, I think there was just one or two
black kids in my neighborhood.
And I think they went to the Catholic school in town.
But I mean that just a geography where I live.
But I mean that I benefited from all sorts
of different other kinds of kids that I went to school with.
And I just don't think that this whole privatization effort
is just, it's just an attempt to destroy democracy.
Absolutely, Mark.
Thank you so much for always giving us a call from Prairie
to Sac.
I appreciate Mark calling in, Ben Curtis.
So Mark really pointed to this.
And it is one of the questions I had for you.
But you laid out, too, of saying that understand
that where the privatization and the voucher, quote,
voucher movement from Milton Friedman came from,
was a direct result of saying we don't want the effects
of Brown versus the Board of Education,
the we want to re-segregate.
And so this put forward.
Now here we are in 2024.
Do you think vouchers are creating a new segregation?
Yes, in a different type.
The Christian right, I hope we shot
by the next paper we put out on this issue.
But there's 28 different religions that are collecting money
on the voucher program.
And I'm not just talking Christian.
There's 26 of Christianity.
We all believe different things.
The Catholics, I'm Catholic, so I can say this.
They take the most.
But this is Islamic schools.
There's Jewish schools.
There's all these other types of schools.
And I think they're going to be shot when they find that out.
I certainly hope they are.
But we're dividing up by religion.
We're dividing up by socio-economic group.
Certainly if you give me $8,000 voucher,
I'm not going to be able to attend the $36,000
a year private school if I'm poor.
But you can offset what I have to pay
if I'm wealthy to begin with.
And that's a huge problem.
We're becoming, and it shows up in our politics.
We're becoming totally separated.
Yeah.
The other thing I'd like to go ahead.
Yeah, no, go ahead, Curtis Nat.
You got another point there.
Go ahead, Port.
Having public schools and the federal government
getting involved in education has to do with the fact
that in World War I, the majority of the soldiers,
this is pre-all private schools, we're illiterate.
OK?
World War II, the first generation to benefit from that,
they volunteered at a high rate because they had community
sense.
And then when they came back from World War II,
they made the public schools the best they could
and was served on school boards, et cetera.
It touches me whenever I watch a World War II documentary
to see what those people went on to do after they got back
from that.
And being on school boards and teaching were all evident.
And that's the other thing we don't talk about.
Most of the male teachers, and since they've
started having more females in the service,
most of the male teachers I served with were veterans.
I was a marine.
The guy who was my best man was a marine,
then he was a Navy captain.
Before he became a teacher, a lot of Vietnam vets in my era.
And when I see teachers nowadays getting beat up,
well, you're not teaching them good history about America.
I'm saying, you know what you're talking about?
Yeah.
There's a lot of Gulf War veterans teaching now.
There's so much involved here, too.
And again, our guest Curtis Cardin, his book right now,
you can only get it on Amazon.
But make sure you go there.
Horus' Hope Friedman's follow the purpose
and promise of public common schools
in a democratic republic.
Lot there to learn.
So just about at the end of our time here, Curtis,
but Joe Ann, I just bring in this part up, though.
Horus Man was one of the youngest of 15 kids, really?
That's correct.
And he was very religious, by the way, himself.
But his brother, one of his brothers,
drowned while swimming on Sunday.
And the next week, the pastor Edmunds, his name was.
And he sang religion as Betsy DeVos, by the way.
Did a fire and brimstone thing about how people who did things
like that would go to hell and be burning forever.
And Horus saw his mother blanch at that one.
And that's one of the reasons why he was against it.
Other interesting story.
You want to get the mindset of the founding fathers.
He was from Franklin, Massachusetts, named after Guess Who?
Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin.
Again, when the town fathers asked him to donate a bill
to the church in honor of him being the town being named after,
he refused.
And he said, no, I'll give you a library.
And that library still existed, Franklin.
That was a mindset of most of our founders.
Nice stuff.
Our guest, Curtis Cardin, Curtis, thank you so much
for busting pencils with us.
You're welcome.
All right.
And when we get back, Tim and Ony are going to break it down
and we got a phone call, TJ.
TJ, hold on there.
We're going to get you right when we get back.
Let's burn it somewhere with my head.
Let it run and then I'll hit you again.
It's mine, I'll play it to the beat.
I have no belief.
But I believe I'm a working contradiction.
And I ain't got no rights.
What's up?
Boston pencil is fully led education talk.
Educated educators talking education,
the numbers 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Just had a great discussion with author Curtis Cardin.
50 years experience in education, wrote the book,
Horace's Hope Friedman's Folly,
the purpose and promise of public common schools
in a democratic republic.
Great collars Joanne from Madison Mark,
from Prairie du Sack.
Thanks for calling.
And we right now, though, speaking of collars,
got another caller, TJ, TJ from Wales.
TJ, what's happening?
I got a question for you.
What do you think about?
We lost you there, TJ.
TJ, can you try going again for your friend?
Oh, are you there?
Yes, we are now.
Okay.
What do you think about public schools starting?
Hmm.
Not hold on.
TJ, we've got a bad connection.
Every when you're talking,
we lose you about halfway through your sentence.
TJ, maybe, yeah, hang up and maybe give us a call back
and see if we get a better line on that.
Really appreciate that.
Hey, and you know what, too,
if you want to, you can give us a call.
Numbers 8557524842.
Horace Mann, so Anya,
what do you think about the youngest of 15?
Okay, this brings up the question of going,
Mom, whoa.
Mom, mom and dad may be needed to just kind of find another hobby.
Yeah, I always feel as an only child.
I was raised an only child.
I have half siblings,
but I always feel for people who were raised with so many siblings,
because I don't know how they do it,
and to imagine someone who has over 10
to be the youngest of 1515,
that is, it helps me understand why this man was so passionate
about kids being in a building for eight hours a day
with someone in charge of them who wasn't,
you know, maybe, maybe your older sister
who was probably put in charge of some of the babysitting
when mom was maybe also busy with the younger ones.
Does that sound right to people with a lot of siblings?
That's often what I have observed
as a non-siblings person.
But 15, I know this is kind of off the topic,
but I mean, geez, yeah, as you're saying,
it's like, I mean, I had two,
and I'm glad we had two.
It was nice.
And, you know, I know some people with three,
but you start moving in anything after that.
Like, what in the world?
Hey, and then Tom from New Berlin Green Day,
love like the Boston pencils.
Tom from New Berlin,
thanks for sending in a text.
Really appreciate that.
And TJ, yeah, if you're still out there,
give us a call.
Yeah, I think we have TJ back on the line.
Let's give it a shot here.
TJ, can you hear us?
Yes, I can.
All right, let's try this.
What is your viewpoint on public schools
starting their own charter schools also?
It's kind of like a hybrid of you'll gifted
and talented program where they're starting them.
Yeah, okay, great, great question, TJ.
So when you're talking about the public schools,
and we've had this conversation around charters,
and what does it mean to be a charter?
And we've looked at this to say,
okay, if the district itself is the kind of authorizing this
and this ability,
so the local school district and some teachers get together
with some community members,
and some people may remember them as magnet schools
or this is the idea.
And it's the public schools,
but they're allowed to have maybe a mission around STEM.
They might have a mission around the arts,
but they're really putting that together.
But what keeps them public,
and this is why,
this is the one form of a charter school
that I feel very supportive of,
is that they are still under the district control
and thereby then accountable to the school board,
the school board of which was elected from the community.
And that is, to me,
that's that essentialness with the democratic society there.
And so in that form, you know,
that's a public charter school.
What's happening now with every charter school
trying to call themselves public
is that a lot of the charter schools fall outside
of those types of boundaries that I just laid out,
and you may have the authorizer of a charter school
being a private school management company that puts together
and the only public part about it
is that public money funds it,
but the ability for the public
to have the transparency to know what's happening
in those schools disappears.
And so TJ, I don't know,
does that help answer your question?
Oh, yes.
Okay, so that to me is the charter school
that that's a public charter school.
So we start to have some other kinds of ideas,
but yeah, you know, great, great call.
Really appreciate that.
Joanne, love you, love that you called Mark,
give us a call.
TJ, too.
TJ, I think you're a first time caller.
Really appreciate that.
And again, encourage more part,
first time callers to give us a call.
Great conversation tonight.
Tuesday night.
Busted pencils.
Yeah.
You know,
awesome stuff.
Johnny Lupinacci.
In the air, he said,
over Wisconsin right now,
as we're talking.
So Johnny Lupinacci,
man, stay up in the air
until that plane,
plane comes down.
And the next time, you know,
Johnny, when you actually you've gone through
past Wisconsin, you know,
if you stopped at the Menachua Brewing Company,
who sponsors busted pencils,
you would get to hang out with the people
who sued the state of Wisconsin
to end the voucher system
that hurts public schools.
Menachua Brewing Company
is making Wisconsin great again,
and then you can buy a new
school beer at a time.
Check out Menachua Brewing Company
dot com to see where you can buy their progressive beer.
Got a new text coming in on the linekh
John from Milwaukee.
My dad always said after the third kid,
it got easier.
The kids started to raise themselves
for the record.
I ended up with eight siblings,
just like my dad had.
And I'm not sure about his philosophy.
I don't know.
But you had a baseball team.
Did you?
And you can always rest on.
You could have gone semi professional.
But you could have been a team of eight.
You know, and that is the one thing.
You think, you know, eight,
15, 15, at one point,
you know what, hey, the brothers and sisters are raising the rest of those kids.
We're done.
Great show.
Curtis Cardin.
Really appreciate it.
Check out his book.
Horace's Hope.
Friedman's Folly.
The Purpose and Promise of Public Common Schools in a Democratic Republic.
Tomorrow night.
Educators amplified.
Yeah.
Teacher Halley.
Teacher Joanna in the house.
We're gonna be rocking it.
Busted pencils.
Have a good night.
See y'all tomorrow.
Bye.
Bye.