Our Elected Officials Choose Not To Fund Education (Hour 1)

Transcript

Our Elected Officials Choose Not To Fund Education (Hour 1)

John & Gordy · Fri Jan 16, 2026

Kathryn Lake

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anywhere.

That's what it

is.

It is.

It is time again.

Yeah.

And, um, well, it's always nice to have Friday roll around.

I know it.

Yeah.

I'm a big fan of Friday's.

Ready for the weekend?

Yeah, I'm ready.

Yeah, me too.

I've got it.

I've got it all together.

Hey, I got, I have the entire weekend to figure out my AI glasses

that

came in today.

You're kidding.

They're finally here.

I got them.

I got him.

Have you tried them on you?

They're gorgeous.

Yeah, they're gorgeous looking.

Did you bring them into the studio?

Uh, nope.

I'm still not convinced they're real.

Yeah.

Well, wait

a

minute.

It's pretty

cool and they are prescription.

Did you hook them up to your, I mean, are they blue?

Right

now they're charging.

Oh, they charge.

And, uh,

as a... Okay, that's

fair.

As I, as I plugged it in and charged it up, it was telling me I could hear it in the arms of the glasses, please download the app.

And I think, geez, maybe I should have done that first before I plugged them in.

You're always wondering, should I plug these things in first?

Oh, yeah.

Did you bother to read the instructions?

No.

But I will, I even may have.

the app.

I'm not really sure.

But anyway, yeah, I'm going to figure them out this weekend.

And I just can't wait to get my hands on.

Now,

you mentioned before it comes with a ring.

It does.

Yeah, you put it on your hand.

Yeah.

And did you try the ring on?

Does it fit?

It really doesn't fit.

Oh, no.

Well, what are you going to do?

Well, you know, we have a ring sizer and I checked the ring sizer out.

And I thought, oh, it's an eight millimeter.

It's not It's way too small.

Well, what are you gonna do?

Well, it just fits on the first part of my finger Which is good.

I mean

right here.

I

can do everything there.

I don't have to do it up here.

I

can

do it right there, see Between the first and

the second I hope

everybody's watching that on the radio

So so you have to wait till they charge how long do you think that takes

it takes about an hour?

Okay,

yeah, it doesn't take long, but

I just

I plugged them in anyway just to make sure yeah, and I'm ready to go I can't wait to see what happens I You know I wanted to be able to talk to me while I am doing things So if I ask for the information I can certainly read it on my lens of the glasses But I also wanted to explain it to me in the in the arms of the glasses right?

What

if you are trying to fix something on your car and both your hands are busy and you could ask your glasses and they can tell you, here's how you're supposed to do it, while both your hands are engaged.

You are amazing.

Thank

you, Aaron.

I might just do that.

But wait, are you saying while he's driving, do that?

No, I mean like if he was working on his car, although that's probably less common with the space car.

Yeah, there's hardly any moving parts of that, baby.

it's all magnets except the wheels it's all magnets

right so do your new ai glasses in theory did they connect with your samsung uh they watch your your smart watch i don't know you don't know okay

i have no idea i mean i could try to download an app on my watch to see if it'll fit

I have no idea.

But I know it does work with my phone.

Now there are glasses that are available out there that don't have the projection on your lenses.

Like the expensive Ray-Ban glasses or these glasses.

It does have AI and it does say things to you.

If you ask AI a certain question, it'll explain it to you in the arms of the glasses.

in the temples

yeah okay

right near it and it'll yeah it's a little speaker a little speaker

so who made

these

glasses what brand is this

this is Halliday Halliday I saw it at the consumer electronics show a couple of years ago okay in uh in Vegas so I

was

I was taken by him you know we we we do um have some interest in the AI assistant

Okay, what do you mean?

Well, we saw at the latest consumer electronics show there was an AI assistant and it is a tube with a three-dimensional

human being in it.

Like a hologram.

I remember we talked about that, we saw a little demonstration of

that.

A

lot of the

critics were saying it's kind of sick and it looks bizarre to have a person in a jar next to your...

I

wonder if you can make him dance.

Maybe.

I think

you can.

Let's ask AI.

There

are like two anime women that you could have as your AI assistant or you can have this big muscular guy like Jesse Ventura.

Well, I don't know.

I think you would.

Yeah,

you know the thing is if we could get that and I have no idea what the prices they're asking

$50 to put it down on this particular AI assistant.

$50.

But it's not telling you what that $50 goes to.

Is it

$1,000?

Is it

$25,000?

Is it $500?

When are

they going to release this thing?

That's a good question.

I'm looking into it.

I really haven't had a chance to because Mad King Don has kept me rather busy here.

I see.

But other than that, we'll see.

All right.

By the way,

going to try and call him Mad King Don from now on.

All right.

Well, that's fine.

I think we know who you're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hate giving that that God awful name,

which

is on the side of buildings, any more precedent needs.

But I'm

bad.

I'm bad at nicknames.

I'm bad at calling people names.

I can't do that for a living.

I can't.

clutter up my head with nicknames.

So I do use actual names.

And just like we use actual comments, we bring in comments all the time.

Now I could read those comments to you, but I want you to hear the actual person saying the comments so we can hear it in context, the way they mean it.

I

don't want to read anything into it.

I don't want people to get the wrong impression.

We have Matt on the line right here.

Matt, you got any suggestions for the very first question?

I'm going to ask my AI glasses.

Ask it how we get out of this nightmare.

Good question.

Well,

yeah.

For God's sake, John, don't do the Neuralink.

Don't let them put anything in your mind.

That's

not happening.

No, the Elon Neuralink is not happening.

Yeah,

keep it on your head, not in your head.

Exactly.

All

right.

The chip they put

in there.

Yeah, what's on your mind there, Matt?

Well, I just want to report on this wonderful Trump economy.

You know, I'm out in Middleton today and the dollar store and dollar tree have both shut their doors because of tariffs.

They are now out of business.

No,

really?

And that's

to go

along with maybe five or six other empty retail spaces I've seen over the last year pop up in Middleton.

Are you talking

about the

one on Ellen Boulevard?

Yep, that one's done.

They're closing their doors.

They're having it out and the one on the century ever or a century Avenue as well is closing down Oh

my god,

and it's all because of tariffs.

They can't afford they get all their stuff from other countries Yeah, but that's what maga voted for right break everything destroy the country own the lives And I hope it's worth it for all these maggots out there to you know owning the lives

So that you can be in poverty with the rest of us.

Well here here the thing is you know Dollar Tree and the dollar store both stores where low-income individuals could get some of the products that they need and some of the kitchenware that they need

and

I

bought some stuff there myself.

Oh,

yeah

It's really an

invaluable place to go and I didn't This is not making our lives any less expensive man, right?

Of course not.

It was never about that.

It was never about the eggs.

It was never about the economy.

It's about white grievance, white fear, and white insecurity.

And I'll just say, all my life, I thought America was getting better.

We elected a non-white president.

I was proud of my country at that time.

But within the year after that, we lost family members because the racism came out.

and they continued to support this this idiot

this

fascist this Nazi awful human being 34 times convicted felon Because and they would make excuses to us like my aunt and my dad lost a lot of friends over that they started using the n-word Monkey this monkey that

yeah

And this is just a reminder.

This whole MAGA movement is a reminder that white supremacy never went away.

And I obviously, I really, that's what you should ask your AI.

How do we get rid of white supremacy?

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

That's a

big question for this country going forward.

And I don't know how we get back together after this.

This might be the end of the union.

My AI might get

stuck not being able to answer one of the questions.

you know, not be able to move it forward

until

it answers the question.

So, all right, Matt, well, I've got, you know, the reason why I came up with Mad King Don, first of all, Cash Patel had some children's books.

You know, it's, it's so hard for, you know, I'm just, okay.

Am I hallucinating right now?

Because I just said Casper tell has children.

He really does.

I know, I know.

Oh, please help me.

I've never looked, I've never read him, but I've heard that.

Yes, that's the case.

But I can't imagine, but I suppose we should look into those and see what they have in them.

Might look into some of these THC products pretty soon.

I'm sure they don't rise to the high standards of John and Gordy.

Can we go back to cursive?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think

our book might have sold a few more than Catch Patel's book

for

children.

But his character in it was King Don, I think.

I

heard Malcolm Nance talking about this.

And he gave me this idea.

In fact, this is his idea.

But I am trying to call

That guy in the White House.

That

guy in the White House, the big blob.

That didn't work out as well as I wanted to.

Do we

have the do

we have do we have the jingles of the

blob?

Yeah

around any place the blob and then because every time we brought him up the music would go And and then

we thought

that would do

it

All right, so that didn't work out because no we always have to play that right so I'm looking at Mad King Don

at this

point.

Let's go with that Let's head up to Appleton.

We've got a call from Cindy.

Good afternoon Cindy.

Go ahead

Do not be stole him with the title of King.

That's exactly what he wants Just call him what I call him the orange man, baby.

Oh,

okay, you know, that's a good one too

All right.

But again, I can't remember these things.

OK, well, we'll add

that to the

list.

The man is orange and he's a man baby.

He is a man.

No, yeah,

yeah.

The man baby

thing

is easy to come up with.

That's good.

But the orange.

No, we like that.

Agent Orange, we could call him Agent Orange.

Agent.

It was a

very good thing to have it.

Way back in the 60s.

Cindy, thank you.

I appreciate that.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

See, Carolyn in

Heartland says, Mad King Don is perfect.

So I will go with that.

I will go back and forth on this things.

But anyway,

listen, maybe it's just best to not talk about them at all.

Let's have a Friday-free thing where we never mention his name.

How would that

be?

Are you hallucinating?

I am hallucinating.

But it's a good kind of hallucination.

It is.

It is.

It's a good trip.

19 past the hour, just getting started on a Friday afternoon.

It's John and Gordy.

Stay with us, please.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

We're getting there Wow They will be If we start wearing AI glasses

Okay, what is that?

Well, that's a positive uplifting

message.

It's a great message robots by flight of the Concords, okay?

My favorite comedy bands that is good.

What's the name of the band again?

Flight of the Concords.

Well, I do like that.

This is Johnny Gordy here in the sandbox where we build our sand castles and knock them down.

That's it.

The big bully knocks them down.

That's it.

Yeah.

Coming up in about less than 15 minutes.

Dr. Tim Slucker from Busted Pencils will join us talk about education.

Yeah.

Latest is there.

I want to bring everybody down right away here.

Oh, good.

Well, that's

so.

So prepare for that.

It's a 21 year old activist who was injured by ICE and he lost his left eye.

Oh man, yeah, I heard about this.

You

know, the video is starting to take off quite a bit now because they had an interview with him after this.

This horrific thing happened to him.

I watched the original video.

I was going to bring it up.

It's out of Santa Clara.

And I thought, well, was it a long time ago?

Maybe everybody's already talked about it.

It's been seen 100,000 times, something like that.

But no, this is a fairly current.

It took six hours of surgery pulling the glass, plastic and metal out of his eye.

after being shot by one of those balls.

And this was a just this was completely unnecessary.

It was a bunch of ice agents just standing on a sidewalk harassing some of the protesters who were harassing back, obviously.

But they grabbed one of the protesters, a woman.

I don't know why it was right out of the clear blue.

They just dragged her and they jumped on her.

And this this kid.

This 21-year-old came out with his bullhorn.

He had a bullhorn in his hand, and he was just shot immediately in the face.

And he was definitely injured badly.

He collapsed, and he was just sitting there collapsed on the sidewalk and bleeding badly.

An ice agent came over, the kid was wearing a hoodie.

Ice agent came over, grabbed the back of the hoodie and dragged him, and by the way, the hoodie wrapped around his neck and started dragging him, choking him.

He was holding his eye, he was bleeding badly.

The ice agent fell momentarily with him and then picked him up again and dragged him.

Not caring anything about the injury not caring about the guy just sitting there collapsed taking care of his eye just no help No concern for the injury whatsoever.

This is the kind of treatment ice agents I Don't even want to use the word treatment at this point.

I mean there there is a lack of empathy.

There is a lack of of just being a

a humane individual to

your

fellow man.

Anybody, anything, help this person instead drag them by the neck across the sidewalk into a building.

I mean, this was a long period of time.

He was choked.

That's horrendous.

I want to play the interview.

It's a short interview.

He was talking about his injuries.

Let's listen to this.

This is cut to 38.

Well, can you tell us about your injuries now and the prognosis?

Will you be blind in that eye for life?

From what I've heard the doctors say and everyone else, yes, I will be blind for life.

They said my globe was ruptured.

I had like my lower lid was like cut up and they had to take skin from my temple to fix it.

There's a lot to it.

I don't remember all the things that they said.

I have fractures in my skull that they can't fix and I can't sneeze or cough because it's dangerous too.

I remember also when I shot there was pepper in it and I had pepper down my throat.

I made it hard to breathe for a long time.

They pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye.

They said I had shards of metal, glass and plastic all throughout my eye and behind my eye and in my skull.

And they also said that I had a piece of structural metal about a few millimeters away from my corroded artery.

And they said it was a miracle I survived, because if it got any closer, if it hit that, I would have died that

night.

So are we

blind right now?

Yeah, nothing on this side.

Yeah, it's black.

Imagine

things could have gotten

worse just being dragged across

the

sidewalk.

And it was a long, long way being dragged.

I couldn't believe what I saw.

And it was.

Freaking me out.

I saw it last week and I was gonna bring it up here on the air, but I thought well

It was

pretty much

a downer, and I'm

bringing everybody down

here on this thing, but

this guy is permanently blinded.

You need to know what's going on up there.

You know, I mean, it can't...

This is what's happening,

and they don't

have to do this.

Right.

I mean, these

ice

agents could have called somebody's help.

They could have done something, anything to help this guy just collapsed on the sidewalk, not drag him across the sidewalk into a building by the neck.

It's just profoundly inhumane.

I don't know.

How old is he?

21.

Yeah, 21 years old.

Good looking kid.

It's tragic.

It really is.

Horrifying all at the same

time.

And these things shouldn't be happening, but they're happening everywhere.

And

they're turning

on Americans now.

They're not going after immigrants.

They don't care.

No, they're going door to door.

Anyone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Going door to door, and if you're, you know, if you're white, they want to find out, well, who are your people of color that live in your neighborhood?

That's right.

Isn't that a crazy thing to ask?

It is.

They're actually asking that.

Interrogating.

Yeah.

Everybody.

Maybe on Monday we can get an update from Steve.

Yeah.

Well, we might even be able to do

that later today.

I can reach out to him and see what the latest is, but yeah.

These are the...

Heroics that the mega contingent just love to talk about

yeah, and on it goes We'll check out the Midwest farm report next and then we're back with dr. Tim slecker Educated educators talking about education coming up next on John and Gordy.

It's John and Gordy in the sandbox in the afternoon

It's a Friday.

It is.

And the weekend is just about here.

If you'd like to jump in, phone lines are open, 855-752-4842.

Schools out.

We have busted pencils.

Dr. Tim Slecker on the line right now.

Let's talk about education from educators talking about education in an educated way.

That's not how it is.

There's something like that.

Come on, come on, Gordy.

You can do it.

Educated educators talking about education.

There we go.

All

right.

Nice.

You added an about.

We're talking education.

Oh, yes.

That's right.

Yeah.

I think that still counts though.

I'll get my

ding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you, Aaron.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Didn't he have

a better,

more complete sentence than you did?

Well, no.

Gordy, you now get a...

free weekend in Racine.

I can't wait.

By

the way, it's Prager you that we're trying to.

Right.

I

said Prager University.

We

were

discussing something during the break.

Yes.

And Cam was watching the breaks

and heard only part of the discussion.

And yeah, okay, never.

No, no, I mean, education.

Well, speaking of Racine, though, I mean, we we had, you know, Racine, the

Wisconsin State Representative Angelina Cruz.

Yes.

On the show where, you know, it's been great having representative Cruz on the show.

And there's like, well, you know, who is who is representative Cruz?

I mean, this is the best thing is she was a teacher, a union.

Oh,

I don't know.

And we allowed to say Union activist.

I think we still can,

but

let's use

it while we can.

And she did one of these things where nobody in the legislature really seems to understand the reality of what goes on in the classrooms of Wisconsin.

So you know what?

I'm going to step up and run for office and darn it, she won.

And, and there she is.

And so, you know, we're trying to have her on, you know, regularly to talk about, you know, the things that are going on in the legislation that she's been trying to work and putting forward in her big, you know, push.

And this is, is that this is always one of those baffling things.

But to try to get, you know,

up to maybe a little bit above 40% of the reimbursement that school districts have to pay out to educate special needs children because of the law that requires Wisconsin schools to educate special needs students.

But for some reason, we need a

another law That actually tells The legal people who make laws that now they have to fund the law That is now in place.

Yes, they have a problem Putting the money on it.

You know, yeah, they have a problem funding anything that they pass

Well, and you know and think about this too like we were talking about in the show it's it's it's almost

Why are we negotiating a downward price?

Shouldn't it be a 100% for every special needs child in Wisconsin?

The required costs to educate that child should be 100% covered.

I mean, that's the ADA.

I It always this issue comes up.

It's like, you know Well, we're just fighting to get 20% of the required Yeah, and but I mean this is where we're at and so, you know Representative Cruz, you know put legislation forward to say okay Put some

money

Um, yeah,

well, you know,

here's the thing, uh, they're not going to put that damn money out there, uh, and they're going to make, uh, referendums, uh, pop up all over the

state in order to pay for this

stuff.

Right.

And that's what, you know, and that's what's happening, of course, is, is that because of the legislators not following the law, which I know nowadays, following the law, if you have some.

legislative connection, executive connection is not necessarily required as we can see.

Yes,

we're

seeing

that now.

We have to follow the law.

We now understand that the law for legislators, political people, is when they feel like it, I guess.

Yeah, I already, you want to jump

in?

Well, Tim, I know a little bit about this because as I mentioned before on the show, you know, I have two grandkids that are both special needs and I've been involved, you know, from the beginning of their education.

They're now one of them is eight years old.

The other one is 14.

And I can tell you it's a continuing battle every single year in the special education classroom.

Now they're in a they're not in Madison.

They're

you know, about 60 miles north of here.

But so a smaller school district.

But the school district is always looking for more special ed teachers, especially for particular types of special ed.

My grandson is deaf.

And he's been deaf since he was two and a half.

And they cannot find deaf, you know, they cannot find teachers to teach ASL, American Sign Language, or to help out with specifically deaf

because he's the only one, I think, in the entire district

that is

deaf.

So they always come back with, well, we're looking for a special ed teacher, or we might be able to find an assistant, but we can't find them.

We're looking, but we can't find it.

We're not getting the applicants for it.

It's not money.

They lean on, they don't say, well, we don't have the money to hire.

We have the money to hire somebody, but we can't find them.

And that's been the... You know what, even that... I mean, it's a big excuse, though.

Yeah, and you know what, having the money, but if there's a need, the last time I checked, we are in a capitalistic market economy.

Right.

When you need something, you try to figure out why you're not getting them.

And in this, we'd say, well, then sounds to me like we have a starting wage salary problem.

And the law requires that your grandson get a comprehensive, fully funded education.

well if the district and and this isn't taking away the difficulty the district is probably having quote finding this person or these people but i'm gonna bet more people would become available if

there was money

they were compensated in a way that actually says how important that skill set right of educating

deaf students in American Sign Language, you know, that's a specialized professional skill set that actually should be able to command the amount of money that would allow your son to absolutely, you know, have applicants pouring in.

But, you know, this is, this is, again, this is what we, you know, we, we do.

And this goes back to the common, you know, why do we have a teacher shortage?

Well,

there's a couple other things with this.

You know, a couple of things that I learned over the years is that, well, for one thing, there is a Wisconsin School for the Deaf in Delibon.

which is over near Lake Geneva.

And that's where they have kids coming from all over Wisconsin to stay there.

They actually have dormitories there.

So they can bus them in from any part of the state if they are dormitory friendly kids, if they can handle being in a dorm.

And it takes from kindergarten all the way up through high school and then maybe a couple of more years if you want them to stay in that school.

And it's an excellent school.

I visited several

several times because we were trying to find out if they had outreach programs.

It's run by the Wisconsin Department of Education.

It's free, basically.

And now they have some transportation costs if you're coming in from farther locations.

But some kids can't do that.

Some kids are not comfortable or able to go to a dormitory five days a week and then

be bused home for the weekend.

And so that doesn't happen all that often.

So it's very frustrating that they don't have outreach programs or teachers available to go to other locations in the state.

I don't quite understand that.

But the other part of it is, too, that we found out that my grandson was only getting 30 minutes a month of

deaf education, I would call it.

Otherwise, he was just in with the other special ed kids learning whatever he could do without, you know,

learning

ASL or now he has learned flashcards and typing and spelling of some words

and

he can type on a keyboard.

But it's really frustrating because you just run up against all kinds of barriers to

get him the extra help that he needs.

30 minutes a month is insane.

30

minutes a month.

That's all he was getting.

I thought

it was, you know, at first I said, oh, that's, that's an error, right?

You mean 30 minutes a week, right?

No, 30 minutes a month was

all he

was averaging in the end.

It's just completely inadequate.

Well, you know, and in here, it's just like.

you know, it's like, well, you know, we're using an inclusion approach.

Well, guess what?

If you had an inclusion approach, then you need a teacher who can also then communicate in, you know, a sign language.

I mean, we do this for English language learners that, you know, we provide specialized training so that the teachers can have the skill set.

And, you know, that, I mean, in one way, we can really go on this on, you know,

like what is it about being able to really bring the resources to bear to really say, because like your grandson, and there are some other really profound types of disabilities across the state that just a special education teacher is really the bottom foundation of what they need.

But then that specialized care.

Yeah.

And then if you start talking about equipment and things like that, but, but again, it's, as Johnny was saying, we either prioritize the needs of all of our children or, or we don't.

And what's being said loud and clear here is we don't.

Right.

You know, and, and that's a shame on everybody statement because, um,

you know when it comes to the resources needed there's no lack of resources there's no scarcity of uh hold on how i'll put you there's no scarcity of billionaires who don't have anything you know better to do with their money right uh and so this is one of those ones where you start to go it's like

Man, this is a morality issue too that really points.

But you know what, right now, waiting for the morality of individuals with resources to step up, that doesn't work.

And that's why you have a government and a political system that then steps in and says, you know what, we as a society represented through this democracy,

We value all of our students, and so we're going to create the legislation that gets those resources to all of our children because we value them.

And guess what?

Instead, though, where Angelina, Representative Cruz, is fighting to get, you know, 40% of the

funding.

We will continue our conversation here with Dr. Tim Slecker after a brief time out, coming right back with John and Gordy.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

It's John and Gordy.

With with dr. Tim slecker from busted pencils our guest talking about education and and funding education I just want to get to that point We act like we don't have the money for it.

We can't raise the salaries We can't offer these people more money to do that the job that we need to have them do simply because

The Republicans have this scam going where they build up all the taxes and we have a surplus of four billion dollars.

We have that because they're not spending the money where they should be spending the money.

Instead, they're foisted off on property taxpayers who have to have referendums in order to raise money for their school districts, while they save four billion dollars so they can give it away as a tax cut.

and this is how they get re-elected in this state.

That's the scam.

By the way, Lee and Racine said this, part of the reason we have a teacher, oh boy, all right, part of the reason we have a teacher shortage is that conservative talk show hosts started demonizing them over 25 years ago.

By the way, Lee, they really did that when Scott Walker was elected in 2011.

He also says here we were discussed almost daily in one of Milwaukee's radio stations and They weren't singing our praises people do not recognize education as the separate discipline That it is

and

it's something we have to we we have the money to fund this and they're not Doing it and they're acting like we don't have the money and if we do have the money we shouldn't spend it some weird

excuse like that actually

yeah well I man I kept waiting though John for you to every time you did the four billion dollars you know to put that dr. evil

yeah yeah

you know but seriously we really

this is where again to break this down into community and a neighborhood and and and you know the the homeowners in a neighborhood and the people ever you know yes we fundamentally have a flawed funding system for our schools that rely on real estate taxes that in and of itself is a problem and though guess what affordability I know it's not an issue but it is an issue and um

If you talk about raising property taxes, that creates anger kind of across the board, you know, almost to sit down and say, like, boy, I really want to fund my public schools.

But I also really want to start drinking whole milk now that it's healthy.

And at some point, you know, if I'm going to drink whole milk, they got to cut back on my property taxes.

You know, I'm making fun of Kennedy there.

Yeah.

But you know,

here's the thing because, you know, there was a promise a long time ago to fund it two-thirds funding for our public schools.

That

is gone.

It's it's gone.

But, you know, this is such and you said scam.

It is a reelection strategy that they will never let go of because if you can have an angry population.

And then you can show up and say, acknowledge their anger and then say, you're not going to stand for it.

You get reelected or elected.

And so this is, there's no reason to fix this.

In fact, there's every reason.

to keep it going, to continually throw it back on the population, on the neighbor, the people who have houses in school districts, and say, hey, if we're going to keep the lights on, I'm sorry, but you know, Superintendent X now has to go and put together a referendum.

And boy, as soon as one of those school districts puts out that they're going to a referendum, it's like blood in the water.

for the, you know, wow, look at those greedy schools, again, going to people, you know, it's like, no, this is a game, we understand it.

And this is where you have to have more and more conversations that point out this truth, which is this doesn't have anything to do with greedy schools wanting more money from the taxpayers.

This is a

about negligent, immoral politicians that willfully, willingly, and knowingly have created a system that creates harm and pain upon the children of Wisconsin.

Tim, let's take a quick call here.

Great.

We have Dick on the line, has a question about vouchers.

Dick, go ahead.

Well, yeah, throw in voucher schools.

I mean, I don't want money on towards them.

Sorry.

Just do not.

And, you know, what we're talking about is just keep the electric dumb.

That's what Republicans are about.

I get to kick out of people though that when they're looking for a house for instance, well, I don't want to buy it in that neighborhood.

The school district's not good.

Yes, because

there'll be some of the same people that don't want to spend money on education.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dick, thank you.

We have a candidate for governor, Tom Tiffany, who wants to cut our property taxes.

Like, well, how are we going to pay for our schools then, Tom?

Right?

And the legislators, Republican legislators won't put any money toward the public schools thinking, well, they're not doing very well.

And they have two parallel school systems running at the same time.

I wonder why we're short.

But you know,

go

ahead.

No, I was gonna say though, I will always vouch for the two of you though.

Can we have that in the form of a voucher?

Yeah.

Put it in writing.

Come on.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's a crazy

world.

But you know, the thing is, you know, if the state pays, it's less money.

If we pay separately, it costs a lot of money.

So if the state pays, not everybody gets to pay less in and they don't have to pay higher taxes.

No, it's again, it's boy, I don't know.

Is it a fundamental problem of civics education?

Because and you know what?

I will say it is because.

What ends up happening is that every so often we get, we need to make sure that we instill civics education in school.

And guess what that ends up being?

Memorization.

None of it is, hey, let's look at the property tax issue so that you can actually learn what's really happening.

Dr. Tim Sleiker, we got to leave it there.

Thanks for joining us.

Check out the Busted Pencils podcast at civicmedia.us.

Thanks, Tim.

Thanks, guys.

Kathryn Lake

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