It's Friday already, Busted Pencils, full lead and let it education talk, educated educators
talking education. Dr. Johnny Lupinati, me, Dr. Tim Slecker, and oh, yes, it's Friday. And of
course, he's here, the chairman of the board, Jacob, and Jacob, man, this is your day. This is
where you get to kind of, you know, put me in Johnny on the ropes. I don't know if you're kind of
going, Johnny, I mean, what are you? It's now we've done this. I'm loving this segment, but I said
last week, I get a little nervous because I don't ever know where Jacob's going to hit us, you know,
is it going to be a left? Is it going to be a right? Is it going to be, you know, a little bit of
the shuffle? I don't know. That's what I'm, Johnny. Well, Tim, welcome to all of our worlds.
And a little game we like to call, when is Tim going to drop the Tim bombs?
So this is Jacob's less spontaneous Tim bomb. It's his Friday producer's choice time.
I look forward to it. I think it's fun to have us on the hot seat.
Jacob puts it, it's the best radio show guests on their own show. So I think we're pioneering this,
this format. It's going to be super popular. You're going to hear it on all your favorite podcasts
within a year. I guarantee it. But, you know, it's Jacob's choice without any further ado.
Let's hear that hot take, Jacob. Anything goes. It's going to be producer's choice.
You and I will have two choices. Chairman of the board, Jacob.
Oh, Jacob's chairman of the board. I've got the board. It's spelled B-O-R-E-D.
We choose to go to the moon. Life's a tough choice in him.
You chose...
one.
Tim, I'm going to take good care of you. What do you get worried about?
I would never ask you a question that I thought I could put you in a difficult position.
Well, you know, it's just that it's, I think it's that worrier.
I mean, Johnny, holy crap. You know that for sure, man.
Maybe that's it. It's just that proclivity to always, you know, if I don't know what's coming,
man, I create all kinds of scenarios of how bad it's going to be.
You're being a worry-worth. Exactly, exactly. Okay, I'm not going to worry. I'm going to be calm.
I'm going to be chilled. I'm going to listen to our friends, you know,
teachers, Joanna, teacher, Halley, and educators amplified. I'm going to regulate right now.
I'm going to regulate and I'm going to get ready because it's Jacob's choice.
Yeah, I would never ask you a bad question, Tim, because then you guys wouldn't come back on his
guess and that'd be a big problem for me because this show is actually your show. So that'd be a
huge problem. The current would fall over and I'd be out of a show. So two awesome guests today.
Love these guys. Good-looking, handsome, and smart. They make great decisions with programming,
I find. Guys, today, the question doesn't come from me. We've got a letter from one of our listeners.
I'm going to read it here and then we're going to go from there. Is that okay with you guys?
Love it. All right, dear busted pencils. Long time listener, first time caller.
I'm a big fan of the show, but especially of the producer's choice segment.
Tim and Johnny put their full knowledge on display best when stimulated by producer Jacob's
thought-provoking questions and top-notch humor. I agree with that so far.
But I digress. My question is this. On the show, you have talked about Linda McMahon's attempt
to suplex the Department of Education and you've told us how that is a bad thing.
But I'm not quite clear on what the Department of Education should be. What do you guys think
the department should look like and what should its role be in education in the United States?
PS, I love you, Jacobson. Serially your grandpa Jim. Johnny, I want you to lead us off here.
So tell us what should the Department of Education actually be doing because we've talked about
states versus federal. What is the right role?
Yeah, Jacob, this is a great question and it's, you know, if I go directly at it,
you know, I might have the shocking response because I am a huge fan of
state education being a state right. Right? And so then one might ask, well then why do we even need
the Department of Ed at the federal level? And I want to back out because in the moment wherein we've
created a scenario where it's necessary to have the Department of Ed, but it's, I'd be open to
a conversation where we explored what would there, what would it be like if we didn't need
to have, you know, a Department of the Federal Government overseeing public education?
And so I'll say, I think we'd land on that we need it, but what do we need it for?
Right? And so I'll get at that. I think it's been incredible to have state rights also have
some uniformity. And what I, what, what is a key component and responsibility of the Department
of Education that I would advocate for it to continue in its capacity and its need for is to
enforce civil rights laws. If we're a country that stands for human rights and states have some
jurisdiction over how they can do schools differently, we want to have a bottom line from state to
state. Right? And so I would think of that common good or that decency for all children in this
country would be, you know, regulated and enforced through the civil rights office in the Department
of Education. And that's certainly been kind of the idea that stood behind it. Again, just in a sense
of ensuring a bottom line across all states would be really important to me because, you know,
might move from state to state, or as we know, we might have, you know, operations of work that
go beyond state boundaries. We're not, we're unique as a country. We're not several countries within
a continent. We are one country with several states. And so something that brings together
all of that state legislative level decision making for education and says, hey, as long as you're all
following our minimum requirements, we're good with you. Now that at the federal level,
that would mean what are those minimum requirements look like? Right? And so I think that's the messy part.
And I've come to really appreciate, and I always advocate for more, but to appreciate that at
a federal level, civil rights, things for like students with disabilities or, you know, families who
might be part of a minority group are represented at the state level and the federal level in terms of
their children mattering in our country and in our community. So I've always kind of appreciated
that federal level of things. So I think the big conversation Jacob is a good one. I like what our
listener and amazing, we got to call, we got to get this call or in for, you know, more tire
pumping as we move forward. But I like that question because it's a good one. Education is a state
right. And as a champion of democracy, I really do like that decisions are made by those directly
impacted by the decision being made. So state to state, that's where the power from my perspective
should be in the locals. But then what unifies the locals, right? And someone has to take care of
it at the federal level. So that's in my thoughts and dreams and expectations of the Department of
Education at the federal level is that their primary responsibility is, you know, doing that unifying
work. Have they been now, you know, by and large, they've become like an agency for administering
federal aid, which I can get into in a separate, you know, show or prompt about kind of how we
went wrong with that in the early 80s and turn that into a little bit of a business that's now
blown up on us. But by and large, I like, I like them in existence and their primary responsibility
being unifying a commonality across states with lots of power to make decisions on how they do
education in their in their states, not as a daddy war box. And that's certainly what Tim and I
have seen in our lifetime is a Department of Education that said, Hey, we can't tell you what to do.
But we're only going to give you money if you do what we say, right? And we've all been in that
scenario and we say, if you're living under my roof, you know, and you're eating food in my house,
you follow my rules. But I'm 18, just still in my under my roof and you're still eating my food,
so if you want that housing and that food, well, then you're going to follow my rules. So I advocate
not in that daddy war bucks role, but more in a truly unifying way to say, Hey, we have a
responsibility to have some commonality states, you have the power, you make the decisions. But we
got to agree on a common good for education in this country, because hey, if we could say it more,
I can't say it more eloquently than this, our public education is the bedrock of our democracy.
So the federal level, there's got to be some people whose job it is to make sure states
aren't dropping the ball on that. Well, Johnny, what would you say to somebody who hears what you just
said? And they say, well, talking about the civil rights aspect, why don't we just have a department
of civil rights enforcement? Or why don't we just give this over to the Department of Justice?
Do we need a Department of Education to handle that? I mean, what would you say to somebody who said
yeah, I would say Jacob, that's not a bad way to explore it. Certainly, let's look at all options
as long as there are qualified responsible people in a primary position where they can put education
first. My gut reaction would be, I think, our justice system is a little bit probably preoccupied
with more institutions than just our schools. And I kind of like, and I'm going to romanticize
a bit here. I kind of like separating them because I'd like to think about education as an entity
separate from our criminal justice system, but connected. And what I mean by connected is that
there are laws that help ensure safety and help ensure well-being for all students, teachers,
and people in our community. But this office focuses on what's best for learning, what's best for
students, what's best for their growth, their achievement, their well-being, their health.
So I think by and large, those departments should speak to each other and certainly have
some crossover. But I would worry if we just fold it into the larger, like most things, it will fall
really fall down on the prior, far down on the priority list. And I'm not complaining about that
because I think there are lots of things that like say our criminal justice or our legal system has
to balance and focus on. This takes that off their plates and allows for there to be educational
specialists in those positions, both in the legal representation and also in the learning sciences.
That's a very interesting point of view, Johnny. Now I'm going to turn to an expert. Dr. Tim Slecker,
same question to you. What would you say to our questioner here who goes by Jacob's Grandpa
Jim, I love you too, Grandpa Jim. What do you think the Department of Education should ideally
look like? Well, I don't know if this is going to be different, but I've been thinking a lot about
this. And I might actually be in favor of Linda McMahon, fully executing a true suplex on the
Department of Education, as it has now come to be, if we really then move this into truly,
a as best as we could insulate it and kind of as we're looking at to again, more of our
international friends that tried their best to take that realm education and push it off
isolating it from the politics of the day and that they then become that organization, that
institution that really does then say what's best and can really drive education policy.
Now point this out to what are some of the reasons that we did have the federal oversight. Johnny
did a really great explanation of that. I just want to remind people, though, too, that one of
the problems of states rights and the state's authority is at a time, and in fact, we have even
now seen this lately, that when it comes to making curriculum decisions, the idea that says,
and Johnny and I have been on the show now for years advocating that the curricular decisions
should best be located closer and closer to the students and the teachers that are going to be
doing that type of work. But I also recognize that, too, that in a climate of where
we start to recognize and go, well, I don't want my kids to learn about slavery.
In fact, slavery makes my kids feel uncomfortable. We're going to turn this more into
a discussion of the economics and the good old days and things like that. You start to worry,
well, then politically, who's in power has the ability then to potentially implement
content and curriculum that actually becomes incredibly problematic from the standpoint of
advocating things that just aren't true. And in fact, mandating the inclusion of content
that is, you know, undemocratic. In fact, is very much in the direction of being, you know,
even all of this, we see this today, all of this anti-dei stuff in the name of
because DEI is racist. No, actually advocating what they're advocating for is the ability to
instill curriculum that I'm sorry, is racist when you say that, you know, certain things in the
past that happen make my kids uncomfortable. We're not going to talk about that. So all of that is to
come back and say, look, there are things. So when it comes to education, politics should not have
the ability to dictate curriculum in that sense. We're talking about science. One of our great
guests that we've had on the show many times, Dr. Ethan Siegel, astrophysicist talks about the
scientific consensus. We see this now too. We're not allowed to teach climate change and things like
that. Wait, wait, there's who said, because climate, the reality of what's happening there,
that's not a political decision as to whether or not you should learn about something that's
actually happening in true. So I kind of start to really think about more of, and I'm going to
say this word, and I know it might potentially, but more of a ministry of education that is a
separate group of people who are educators, who have understood who are scientists, who really
have that sense of saying, our job is to make education in this country the best. And let's take that
department of education and move it out of the hands of the political powers, because we know
what happens with political powers is they change, they move on, they get on to a fad. And the
reality is we're seeing that now too, is to say, and just because someone's in power now, they've
stacked the deck, created an education department that, you know, truly is its job is to get rid of
itself, and, but is also then all enforcing, taking that federal authority that it does have,
in mandating science, that isn't science, junk science, mandating curriculum, that isn't truthful,
mandating and instilling. And the other part is driving the profession of teachers
down to the point where they are leaving the profession, they don't want to be teachers.
None of this is good for an education system for a country that is meant to be thriving. So I go
back to Finland, talk about Australia, talk about, you know, particularly those Scandinavian
countries, not Australia, but the other Scandinavian countries, how do they have national policy
around education? And they have that much more in a sense of being isolated away from the politics
and keeping education as their focus. And people say, Tim, that's not reality. I know. And
sometimes I don't like to play in reality because, you know, sometimes your reality is painful,
and why not imagine another reality? And so I would like to say, okay, Linda McMahon,
suplex it, and then break it, and then give it back to the educators, the parents, the principals,
the people who create curriculum, the people, take it away. I would love for you to break it
all to pieces so that nobody currently, Democrat or Republican has their little bit of fingers in
there making a mess because as much as it's being made of a mess now and kind of breaking it apart
whatever the Trump administration and Linda McMahon is doing, understand, I was down at the Department
of Education in 2010, 11 and 12 protesting that Department of Education, which was a democratic
popular, our Department of Education, Barack Obama, Arnie Duncan, and what were we down there
again saying? You are taking advantage of being in power politically and doing things to kids,
schools, and community that doesn't have any justification in any type of research as it's going
to result in better schools, better living conditions, better learning conditions, the politics of
that day in those times was ruining a good quality education that a democracy depends on.
So I'm going to answer that question with going, you know what? Yeah, let's, I'll get rid of it.
If we get rid of the political part of it and take it out of the hands of the political class
and put it back in the hands of professionals, experts, researchers who are having the ability
to make decisions that are what's for the best, not what's best to be reelected. That's my answer.
I like that answer, Tim. My first question would be when you create your,
your new Politburo for the Department of Education, how do you get into your new Ministry of Education?
Who puts these people into the Ministry of Education to make the decisions? Who brings in the union
members? Who brings in the teachers? The theorists? How do you get it on to this board that makes these
decisions? That's simple. You put me in charge, and then I make all the decisions right there.
I mean, it's a great question. How do you get into those positions? And the reality here is
is that there's obviously some form of a political appointment. In fact, we should have that as
representative. You know, in fact, you know, not so long ago, a lot of state departments of
education and or regions and things like that had membership that was set by, okay, it was set
by the politicians, but was set by a representative government by the people. And membership was
designated as, you know, four, the governor gets four picks. You know, the people get three picks.
The teachers get to the idea was is that membership was a balanced group of people so that there was
this representation always there so that we're really staying true to democracy, but that it was
immune from who was in political power to tilt the balance of that organization, that institution.
So, you know, and I think that's a great thing. And we see that as being, you know, why would we
mandate how the membership is? Is because we realize that power is corrupting. And when somebody's
in power, they're going to take advantage of that. So you said early on, here are the ground rules.
Here's what membership looks like. And yes, the winner of the election, you have the ability to
appoint members, but you don't get the ability to appoint a majority of members and you surely
don't get the ability to decommission the process for how those people are chosen, which actually
we do see happening now at state level departments of education, where the ruling political class
is doing away with those what we'd say membership or how you're included lists that say so many
from here, so many from there, doing away with that type of insane. I'm now in charge. I have full
power. And so in the governor's office in the state of Ohio over the last 10 years, the ability to
be included in those types of institutions is now largely all in the governor's hands. And
that is not a good thing for education. It's a good thing for the government for those who are in
power because they get to put their people in charge. That doesn't result. So I mean, it doesn't
make it harder. Does it make it messier? Absolutely. Hey, but that's what democracy looks like.
I really like that idea there at the end of breaking up the monopoly on who puts people in charge
of education and dispersing the responsibility for bringing people into multiple stakeholders.
I think that's a really good way to kind of get away from some of the partisanship and some of
the hyper partisanship we've got going on, especially in something which I think a lot of people
would agree. There can be some more a little bit more technocratic side to education because it,
you know, there, it's a little bit more straightforward in some aspects that, you know, there's,
there's not so many opinions. Of course, we've all got opinions, but there are some things that we
can kind of work on like Johnny was saying to have that set of standards. Now, you know, the,
the locals can have their methods and have things going, but there should be a federal standard.
I like that. Tim, would you agree with Johnny when he said that in general,
he likes that it is a state right over education, barring those, those extra standards.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't disagree with Johnny. We can do the whole next show on you guys fighting
in my state's rights. No, I don't. I don't disagree. When I say this, it's, it's like, okay,
at least the states in charge when you have a bad federal political leadership that you can go,
you know, so the current state I'm in right now, you know, I think education is in better shape
because of who's politically in power. But that can change pretty quickly in the state. And so
the state I just left Ohio, which again, guess what? It is states rights and it is local. And
currently the power over the last 10 years in the state of Ohio hasn't been good for public education.
So that's my kind of caveat on that one, Johnny. I guess I'd do a quick clap back and then I'll
take up Jacob, Jacob suggestion that we do a special show like a larping a live action role play
of the federalist papers. And I'll take Jefferson, Tim, you take Monroe since just such a
central government guy. Again, I'm I'm pinning on Tim. But no, you know, I would say to me, I'm always
going to advocate for localizing the decision making and shifting the power from a central location
to a more decentralized locale, a Jeffersonian democracy if we can, you know, get to that kind of
essence of things. And Tim, my my answer to that is what happens is people move in these states,
they organize and change states. And so, you know, if it's not going well in a state, well, then
it's the responsibility of the citizens of that state to say, hey, this is not going well. And
then I'll come back around to and that's why I'm an advocate for a federal department of education.
Because I do think there is some national level of responsibility to say, hey, just because Ohio
was deciding and Ohioans, I'm not picking on you. Just an example, I've been there, Michigan's
been there, right? Washington's probably going to be there sometime in my lifetime. It happens.
Right? But the federal government then says, hey, come on, you're falling, you're falling below
what we would say is healthy for our nation. And so you can make changes, but there are some things
you can't change, and there are some things you can't go belong. So I'll always advocate on the
side of power, decentralize it, decision making, decentralize it. And to me, there's nothing more
decentralized than local than our public schools. I think overall, that's the great American
lesson is that it's good to have a balance between these things. You know, you should have strong
states and you should also have a strong federal government. They interact and somewhere in the
middle, we find ourselves with an acceptable policy. Tim, Johnny, I want to thank you again for
coming on this show. It's great to have you as always. I mean, two of the best guests that anybody's
ever had come on their own shows. Guys, now it's time. Let's go for the 60 second segment.
You thought I was going to say moment is in, didn't you? Now I haven't done it yet.
All right, we're going to start off with Dr. Tim Slecker. Tim, you're the new secretary of
education. Can you tell me day one? What's your first act as a secretary of education?
I first act is to do away with and dismantle all legislation and requirements mandating the
teaching of and only the, quote, science of reading, doing away with that and realizing if we're
going to talk about balance and going back to and realizing that a balanced literacy program
is absolutely the best for kids. And that isn't me advocating for a curriculum by a certain scholar.
I'm using the word balance to truly mean, which is some kids learn to read best with phonics.
Some kids learn to read best by actually having the ability to look at books.
And some kids learn to read by doing all of those things. And the reality is is that teachers
should be equipped and empowered to use the approaches to teach reading to kids that work.
That's what I would do. You've been impeached. Good news, Johnny. You're the new secretary of
education. Your predecessor Tim had some good ideas, but what can you do? What are you going to do
in your first day as secretary of education? Well, Jacob, the very first thing I'm going to do
is I'm going to reach out to AFT president Randy Winegarden. And I'm going to say let's sit down
and let's center health in our communities, teachers and the healthcare workers in our communities
and figure out how to strengthen this country through schools. And it starts with making sure
children have everything they need in our schools and classrooms. On that same day, I think we're
going to have a great, a great conversation about how we listen to educators, the seasoned veterans
who are going to say things like Tim said, hey, science reading isn't working for us.
Hey, too much emphasis on these test scores. We're going to listen. And I'm going to put a capital
L-I-S-T-E-N. We're going to listen to the educators about what's best for kids. The next thing we're
going to do in that same day, that same exact day is we're going to put an all call out to every
community college in this country and say we are no longer K-12. We are pre K through adult
and let's get together and figure out how to be the hub that strengthens this democracy
on the ground in our communities, state by state by state with teachers in the forefront of that.
That's my first day, Jacob. I think the first word that kids should learn to read is diarchy
because we need both of you in as our secretaries of education or our commissars in your new
ministry of education, but now for our moment of Zen.
They have the guns. We have the poets. Therefore, we will win.
We hope you had a great week. This is one of the best ways to close it off. So thanks for listening
to this episode of Busted Pencils. Jacob's producer's choice. Remember to grab great podcasts
packed full with more Busted Pencils content on Apple Podcasts. Spotify. And of course on the
civic media website or at BustedPensils.com where you can follow, like, review, do whatever it is
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across all the civic media network stations. For that's right one hour of your favorite,
a blue-collar scholars, Tim and Johnny, and keep Busted Pencils.