Dom hosts his back-to-school edition of the podcast.

Welcome to Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano, a podcast devoted to preserving your parental rights, including the right to choose the best school for your child. This podcast is dedicated to gaining the option of school choice for every parent in America.

Here's your host, educator and noted talk media commentator, Dom Giordano.

Hey, everyone. Welcome in to this week's edition of Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano.

And it is back to school. This is a back to school special.

And boy, are there a lot of things happening back to school, one of which that I'd like to mention is an example of something that is very underrated.

And one of the biggest reasons we haven't talked about here when it comes to school

choice of a reason why people want school choices, we head back to school.

And that is school safety. All of the stories that I can find, all the analysis that I have found says that school safety was among the top three reasons parents exercise school choice in the largest ever survey conducted a private school choice program.

Heritage Foundation says among the nearly 15,000 respondents in Florida, 36% listed school safety in their top three priorities when choosing a school. Parents have reported similar school safety-related motivations for exercising education choice in other settings such as, wait for it, Washington, D.C. Where have we heard that?

So you think of school safety and you think of some of the schools, maybe inner city, big city.

But a recent survey in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Foundation, they talked about these persistently dangerous schools that were in the Philadelphia suburbs.

And some of them were relatively middle class affluent.

If not exactly rich.

So why would that be?

Well, the reason could be that the metric they use to talk about some of the incidents that happened that sometimes are not talked about, I'm not saying covered up, are there. So parents are very concerned about school safety when it comes to school choice. As I said, every survey, everything indicates that. Think about it. Is there anything more basic? If you don't have that, how are we going to build on anything?

academic. And it surprises people that sure, the academics, sure, the trying to block indoctrination, those all might be big issues why people choose school choice. You can always tell me here on Old School, New School, Next School at domshow at aol.com. I email domshow at aol.com. What's your number one reason why you want school choice? Whether you have kids, whether it's grandkids, whether it's something different,

What would be the reason why that you'd want school choice? What is it about it that somehow or another makes it that big of an issue to you? Why school choice? This safety reason is the reason deep down, oh yeah, people say safety. Yes, of course, safety is a huge reason. Now I have a story out from Fox Business this week as we head back to school.

that gives us an idea of how far parents are willing to go to get a school that's safe and a school with a top-rated pedigree. I told on my radio show a story that I used, it's got to be 25 years ago or more, for a whole show asking people, you have two homes. They're exactly alike. They're in a development. This was in the Baltimore area.

There's only one difference in those two homes. Think outside the box a little bit. And that difference made a $70,000 difference. And again, this is a while ago, $70,000, really big money. And that difference was one by mere feet was in the Baltimore, City of Baltimore schools. The other was in Cecil County, even though they're in the same development. Now, you know what that means. That means by law, your child would have to go to the Baltimore schools.

schools.

Now, I'm sure there might be some decent Baltimore schools, but they really seem to be few and far between.

Whereas if you're in Cecil County outside the Baltimore schools, then you have a decent shot at going to a decent to good school.

Just that difference way back when.

So I'm looking at a Fox News story that says that families are flocking to top rated school districts at a price, Realtor.com says.

Data Collected by Realtor.com shows out-of-district home shoppers looked the most between May and July this year at areas with at least one public school rated eight or higher out of ten. It also focused on districts with an average of at least 100 sale properties. And what they found was staggering as far as the school districts that people flocked to and how much they were willing to pay.

to pay. Some of these school districts really helped to make the housing market incredible in those schools. One was in San Francisco, another one, Laguna Beach in Orange County, the Carroll Independent School District in Dallas, Texas, Reed Union, San Francisco Bay Area, just three of the big. And the difference in housing prices and what people were willing to do to get those homes,

was astounding. So due to the internet, where people have more access to stuff,

records, more ability to do that, should not the people that do not have the means

to be going into pretty much a million-dollar house, shouldn't they have some ability to make a choice about a school?

And that's what school choice does. It gives them a degree of making that choice.

National Columnist Liz Peek, who I've had on my show in Philadelphia several times, makes that point. She says, as we head back to school, an issue that politicians of either party should be addressing, more likely it would be President Trump and the Republican Party are our failing big city schools. The outright failure where year after year you have some schools inside school districts,

where zero kids are reading or doing math on a grade level, on a proficient level. Zero. Some school districts have 20 schools or more like that. How could those schools remain open? What should be done? Well, you don't want to be too radical. Sure you do, but the system is not going to do that. So that means parents have to look outside that. And again, if they don't have the means of some, which are enormous,

To make that choice, that's where school choice comes in.

She mentions, Liz Peek, that in New York City, the nonprofit Citizens Budget Committee estimates the Department of Education will spend more than $42,000 per child this year, more than any other big city.

But she goes through most big school districts.

It's in the neighborhood of $25,000 per student and up.

And you mean for 25,000 per student and up 42 in the case of New York, we can't get better results? Look, that is a system problem. That's the type of thing that is not going to be dealt with overnight. The thing we're dealing with overnight is more and more school choice, which frees people up to engage in this. When I did my annual manifesto about school choice, I talked about Forbes magazine. I happen to have the article still here in front of me.

And it outrages me every time that I read it, because Forbes magazine is the ultimate interview, capitalist, choice, free choice, marketplace. And yet this article went through all these disturbing reasons why school choice won't work. Parents are unable to make good decisions about their kids. Wait a minute. You mean to say a parent is not going to make a better decision than to send their child to the school?

sometimes dangerous, dysfunctional, broken down schools in many instances that have been that way forever. Of course, they can make a better decision. So we have to win hearts and minds, not just with places that you would expect, but even places like Forbes magazine just doesn't. Well, what's their answer? Their answer, I think, is become a millionaire, move to Laguna Beach, and maybe you would have a shot.

By the way, as we head back to school, the percentage of students, says Heritage Foundation, who are in traditional public schools, has declined to 86 percent or about 50 million kids as parents flee from school failures. I'm reading this, too, because it's from a Jersey story where New Jersey is trying to crack down the government there on home scores, passing all kinds of laws and restrictions.

and curriculum and getting a letter from this, that, and the other, making them having to learn the correct view of climate, DEI, and all the rest of this stuff. Isn't the reason a lot of these parents choose to opt out is exactly they don't want to be indoctrinated in the manner that the Jersey schools might be engaged in. Where I am in Philadelphia, I don't know if you can top this nationwide, wherever you're hearing this podcast of old school, new school, next school,

If you can imagine overcrowding in northeast Philadelphia schools, says the Philadelphia Inquirer, has been cresting. Now, the epicenter for this, and some people believe it's due to illegal immigration, as I do, in northeast Philadelphia, Lincoln High School was built for 1,700 students. Nearly 2,500 last school year were jammed in there. So what they did was they have kids going to their

Your lunch period was 9 or 9.15. You had no locker. You had six classrooms in every library with blockers that didn't go up to the ceiling, so you heard all that noise. What's the genius solution this year? Well, this year, the Philadelphia Public Schools are taking the entire freshman class. Picture this now, 900 kids, and they're put into trailers. Yes, trailers with 30 or 40 kids in a classroom surrounding

in high school, the trailer camp. That's what these kids have faced on the first few days of school this year. Now, just imagine that. The idea of 900 kids, the entire freshman class, having to go to school in trailers. That should be unacceptable to anybody that's reasonable. We'll see if there's a political price on school choice. You ought to be able to opt out and engage in that. Now, we know at school choice, one of the biggest problems,

is the teachers unions. They are the biggest enemies of supporting school choice. And the biggest two are obviously the NEA and the AFT, National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Becky Pringle for the NEA and Randy Weingarten for the AFT. Well, a report out this week from a watchdog group says the two largest teachers unions in the United States have dumped a

$43.5 million into left-wing groups since 2022.

Now, this report goes on to break this down and what they're buying for that.

That is serious money.

Over in New Jersey, in the Democrat primary, for governor, just the primary, I believe the figures I've seen quoted were north of $55 million spent by the head of the NJEF.

New Jersey Education Association running to be the governor in New Jersey. Where does that come from? Teachers' Funds. It comes from the teachers' unions. Now, not every union is this way, but boy, these are pretty ridiculous things to see this kind of thing play out. Would you not agree? This is something that definitely should be looked at. So as we head back to school, what are some of the things that caught my attention that you should

be aware of. Well, one, I happen to believe this mission and somewhat it's on both sides, but somewhat maybe coming from RFK Jr., he might sign off on this, is that kids are going to school too early. Teenagers, have you heard about this? The idea is these kids are not learning or learning up to their potential because they can't go to sleep at night.

Now, this is to me a scam. This is negating the fact that we know what works to have academic achievement, that a lot of these kids and their parents don't want to do the work that's required to engage in this. So the idea that these late start times, one, Pleasantville, New Jersey, some kids in the elementary school will not be able to enter school to 8.50 a.m. And parents are saying, how do you expect us to get to work with that going on?

Watch for this. There might be a lot more of this this school year, but it's reaching a critical mass where it is not just a random outlier school here or there, where we're actually seeing more and more of this go on. A couple of other things we're going to see this year that fascism, again, is going to be the point of emphasis. Becky Pringle's group, the NEA, during their summer meetings,

passed a resolution saying they want to go after Trump and fascism.

And it seemed to be the tenor of it was not anything new about reading and math scores, but fascism.

The head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randy Weingarten, her new book out in September,

Why Fascists Fear Public School Teachers and Public Schools.

This is going to be the point. Watch for this.

We're talking organizing students, things of that nature.

The other thing, we're going to see a comeback. I've talked about this before in old school, new school, next school, of so-called math equity and DEI. Groups of a few billionaires are putting out new shiny curriculum they can give to the schools essentially for nothing. As long as they'll follow this, two and two being four is not the goal.

It's to indoctrinate along the lines of math, equity, DEI, inside math. It's one thing in a curriculum with literature or reading. This is exactly, though, in the face of something scientific, math. Watch for more of that as we go forward here. Those are just a few things. We'll update you as more new things happen in the schools.

quite an upswing for the notion of school choice. There's going to be more and more and more of this and various developments around it. And when you have 900 kids, as I mentioned, at Lincoln High School going to school in trailers, the entire freshman class, you're going to start to see the revolution happening around this. What we plan to do is bring you the people involved, the information involved each week, have some fun along the way,

to egg this on, to be advocates, not just for school choice. This show really is about parental rights and the ultimate rights. The first right is to have the means, have the information, and the ability to make a choice for your child's education. Just like the realtor.com story I told you, where we had people spending a million dollars to get a home in the school district because of the school district every bit as much maybe as the home.

And a story that I'd like to end this week with is a story of a woman in the Philadelphia area. And it's a story of what happened during COVID. And it's the story of kids that never had a daycare class, et cetera, and how this family, through the turmoil of all that went on during COVID, made the choice towards school choice and how it's impacting

their entire family.

That's the story we want to see.

What is the basic bottom line here?

Why can't people make the choice?

All right, the more money you have, let's face it, that's a resource.

Maybe those people can make more choices.

I can accept that.

They have more money.

They earned it.

They can make choices about where they're going to live, what area of the country,

what development, all that stuff.

But shouldn't there be some lower level, mid-tier at least choice?

that we're helping every American parent to make about their most precious of all, their kids. Shouldn't there be that element? Wouldn't that be refreshing? What is so difficult to understand about that? Well, when you say that, you're met with hundreds of reasons that are many times just completely fallacious. Sometimes we can have a good debate on it, and that's what we'd like to do here.

as we head back to school. Those are some of the core issues, not just what your lunchbox is hot and all that. Watch for this stuff of the later school times, fascism. Watch in math if we see equity and DEI return. School safety, let's see if that makes its way to the top of the class, so to speak, coming up, or are we still going to be going down that path? We'll be here each week with a new guest or my thoughts on what's happened that week.

Recently, the charter school movement, you know, that people like Andre Agassi is involved in that pit bull. Yes. The rapper singer pit bull. Uh, Jaywin Rose, who was played in the NBA was a big time media sports guy, all involved in this and maybe hundreds of others. Let me know about them. We want to diversify. We want to hear their story. Why in the world would they see charter schools?

And just think of the choices we're talking about. Homeschooling, charter school, parochial schools, private schools, some schools where you go and you're homeschooled, but then you sort of go to a school. We've talked about some inner city schools in Harrisburg and Philadelphia that are a blend of the brick and mortar and also the cyber. The cyber charter schools nationwide. Who would want to stifle that? Well, the teachers union, sadly, and a number of politicians.

But we are on the march. We are winning on this. It's just a question of getting more resources, more information out there. And that's what we plan to do. Thanks for listening this week. Dom Giordano, send me an email at domshow, D-O-M-S-H-O-W, at AOL.com. We'll see you next week on Old School, New School, Next School.

Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano is a presentation of Giordano Productions LLC. Copyright 2025. All rights reserved.