Transcript
Our Elected Officials Choose Not To Fund Education (Hour 1)
John & Gordy · Fri Jan 16, 2026
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That's what it
right here.
I
can
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
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
Well, I don't know.
I think you would.
Yeah,
bad.
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.
Ask it how we get out of this nightmare.
yeah.
For God's sake, John, don't do the Neuralink.
Don't let them put anything in your mind.
That's
keep it on your head, not in your head.
The chip they put
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.
really?
And that's
along with maybe five or six other empty retail spaces I've seen over the last year pop up in Middleton.
about the
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
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.
and
I
It's really an
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
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.
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
until
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.
blob?
Yeah
we thought
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,
that to the
The man is orange and he's a man baby.
He is a man.
No, yeah,
thing
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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
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.
things could have gotten
the
Anyone.
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.
right.
Nice.
You added an about.
We're talking education.
ding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah.
a better,
Well, no.
Gordy, you now get a...
free weekend in Racine.
I can't wait.
By
Right.
I
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,
let's use
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.
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
well, you know,
state in order to pay for this
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.
we're
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
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
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
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,
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
and
all he
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.
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
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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
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
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,
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.
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.
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,
ahead.
No, I was gonna say though, I will always vouch for the two of you though.
Yeah.
Put it in writing.
Come on.
Yeah, it's crazy.
It's a crazy
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.
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