Dom welcomes Dawn Fantasia, member of the NJ Assembly (24th Dist).

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 into a special edition of Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano each week.

And each week we try to bring you a guest that is very, very appropriate on this issue.

We have someone today, and we'll get a little bit more from Dawn Fantasia, assemblywoman from Sussex County.

Her background, vast background in education, driving force for that in New Jersey, driving force in the governor's race, and someone who knows how to deal with bears who break into trash cans in rural areas. I think that's a good resume to have, Dawn Fantasia. Welcome to the show. So Dawn, for people who haven't heard you on the radio with me or have seen you in New Jersey nationally, a little bit of your background and how you came to be an assembly person.

in New Jersey. Sure. Well, separate from politics, education is my trade. I started out as an English teacher and then was a middle school principal, a high school vice principal prior to that, and now I'm at the district level for a network of public charter schools in New Jersey. I actually work with students in remediation and English and math across our school, students who are performing anywhere from two or more grade levels below.

I served in Franklin Borough in Sussex County, which is the county where I grew up, and served on the council for three years. I served as a freeholder, now they're called commissioners, for five years, and actually was director during the COVID era, where I learned a lot from the draconian lockdowns when it comes to education and its impact on our students and what we still feel today. And then two years ago, I was elected to the general

And it's a good place to be based upon the fact that I sit on the education committee, which is very helpful because I feel like that's what's in my wheelhouse. Also, agriculture is another thing that's close to my heart. I sit on that committee as well, as well as aging and human services. So that was my road, I suppose, to the legislature. And it's interesting to be able to do two jobs that actually intertwine with either my passions or my background.

Well, Dawn, thank you. And by the way, you're an unbelievable guest. So you really get it. We'll talk about the governor's race and how it impacts all this stuff on school choice. But New Jersey making news now another form of school choice. And I didn't know about the charter thing. Want to talk about that is homeschooling and a tremendous number of people. I would say a tremendous number are homeschooling in New Jersey. Some of it probably post COVID. It's intensified.

And yet, New Jersey, in the wake of this drive by parents and others, each week we talk about some of the force for school choice of one form or another, the big, beautiful bill nationally, many states, is fighting as if they're the last remaining soldiers in this battle to go after homeschooling people.

What, and I know the guy, John Bercicelli, right, if I'm right, is the architect of the bill here, and I'm kind of surprised at him. You may, you know, more Democrat in Paulsboro area vaguely. What is it that propelled us? Is it just he's been looking at this and he did it, or is there some pushback movement in the legislature about homeschoolers or Murphy, Governor Murphy?

Well, I have to say that we see a frustrating trend. And what that trend is, is when the current New Jersey Department of Education does not have a stranglehold on how students are learning, on the curriculum or the ways that students learn, the assessments that prove the outcomes of how students are learning. We find that bureaucrats and Trenton legislators on the left seem to insert themselves, specifically when it might not align with the

So these new bills, actually, on the Assembly side, one of the main sponsors for one of the most egregious bills is Assemblyman Sterling Stanley. And he is the East Brunswick legislator of the bear hunt or anti-bear hunt, no trash cans, no bird feeder fame. Consistent, yes. So it's really no surprise that here we go head to head again, right? Yeah. So, you know, some of the most egregious parts of this legislation,

that really have people riled up. A, they're unconstitutional. I'll explain why in a moment. But the bills force mandatory meetings where the New Jersey Department of Education sends a representative into your home to do a quote-unquote wellness check and interrogate you and your children. They also require portfolios to be submitted of your students' work each year, your child's work. And then curriculum reviews because they are mandating that homeschoolers align to the

the same curriculum standards that are provided in New Jersey. Now, we know right on its surface this legislation is garbage legislation. It is unconstitutional dating back to 1925. There is a court case where it was decided in 1925 by the Supreme Court that schools cannot force a one-size-fits-all curriculum and that parents are the number one guider of what their children earn.

Then again, in the 70s, there was a second court case that reaffirmed that.

So New Jersey, again, is barking up the wrong tree, trying to overreach and insert themselves into places where they just don't belong.

Some of it is climate. Some of it is apparently the trans issues one way or another.

And Dawn, I think it's a fair statement. Any number of these parents may not be opting out of the public schools solely because of academics or even because of academics.

It's because they see indoctrination. They don't like the fact that as a parent, it is very difficult to navigate in some of these school districts for their child. And, you know, are you going to opt out? I mean, I've always been told that's one of the driving forces of homeschooling parents. They don't want to participate in some of the things we just talked about. Correct. There are a multitude of issues that might propel a parent to homeschool.

I believe we have to walk the line here, right? Because we can't demonize traditional public school and curriculum standards. A lot of thought went into the academic piece. Now, whether it's working or not, whether it needs revisions, it absolutely does. We know, for instance, and Dom, with your English background, just like me, we know that they're moving now towards the science of reading and throwing out the whole language and balanced literacy that we see is absolutely ineffective on a larger scale. So there are pieces that are really

What we cannot do is assume or force different social structures, beliefs that may conflict with the family's religious beliefs or moral beliefs. It is not the place of the government in any circumstance to ever insert themselves in these issues. Parents absolutely should retain the right to opt their child out of what they feel is objectionable content. And nobody cares about the feelings of anybody. It's not about somebody's feelings.

It's constitutional rights. And we're getting way caught up in so many things where it's social, emotional learning and diversity, equity and inclusion. And now we have a real battleground laid out here where it's simply not enough to be, quote unquote, tolerant and say, I just choose to not expose my child to something that I might not feel is appropriate or even age level appropriate. Specifically, when we look at that horrific misnamed Freedom to Read Act, that was a cover for inappropriate materials.

in schools, you know, we have that circumstance and it is never, ever, ever right. And we have bureaucrats, we have legislators on the left that are insistent that you must not only be tolerant, but you must also agree. You must also teach your children. And that's where that line is. And that's a line in the sand and that's a hill that parents are willing to plant the flag on. They are not going to be rolled over by bureaucrats and progressive legislators.

They are your children first. Right? I mean, I'm an educator. I've been an educator for 20 years now. I have an incredible amount of respect for the profession. You know, I even respect and I wish that the NJEA would use their powers for good. You know, and truly advancing not only working conditions for teachers, but academic outcomes for students. Unfortunately, Dom, we just don't see this. Right? We see nothing but overreach and parents are actually trying to escape that type of bureaucracy.

That's what we're seeing today. Let's talk about the NJEA. You and I are not in every state in the country. I assume California and others might be as difficult when it comes to public policy. But as you know, I taught and by I think it's by law, by statute. I taught for a number of years in South Jersey. Your union dues are taken out by law. You don't have to send them to anything. And recently we had a candidate NJEA president in the Democrat primary.

who spent in the $56 million range, I think, something like that to come in fourth or fifth, which is shocking. And yet, Dawn, I don't see a revolt. You and I have talked about it, others in talk radio. And I don't see the average teacher, by the way, to that point. I respect what you said as very political. But I saw in the schools that I was in, some activists thought they were miniature Jimmy Hoffas or something.

And they run with that and they have real power with that. So the NJEA, what is it you would have them do specifically to raise better outcomes for teachers and students? What could they do versus the politicization we're seeing? Well, you know, again, you nailed it. You absolutely nailed it by saying the political end and the actual classroom end seem to be not connecting, right?

of no, these contributions to your union dues are not to be used for politics. They found a back way to do that, right? They found a back door to use regular dues, not dues that was specifically donated by members for political reasons. And they use that dues to fund a vanity campaign for their president. So that needs to stop. That needs to stop immediately. We talk about working conditions for teachers and benefits and perks and things. Think about what that money could

have done for their membership. So start there. Secondarily, I would like to see a governor, as in Jack Ciatarelli, who understands that the tail does not wag the dog. The NJEA does not run the governor's office. The NJEA does not run the New Jersey Department of Education. It's completely ludicrous and it's backwards. Do they deserve a seat at the table? Absolutely they deserve a seat at the table. You have some really seasoned, qualified,

with smart professionals that are in that union and their voices are drowned out by all the political nonsense that goes along. What I would like to see is the NJEA actually dig into student outcomes. Stop making their annual conference that draws, you know, thousands of teachers to Atlantic City each year. Stop having the focus be on feel-good, nonsensical initiatives that talk all about teacher input and not about student outcome. I myself have gone to the

the national charter school convention here for the country. And we did not get lost in the sauce when I went a few years back. It was all about student performance, student outcome, how best to serve students who are really struggling, multiple grade levels behind, coming from perhaps socioeconomic conditions because charters tend to be in disadvantaged areas. How do you reach those students? That seemed to be the crux, the focus of so many of our sessions, so much of the

the work that we did. And what I'm seeing on the other end is it's all, you know, it's the social cause du jour. It's whatever will get a headline. You know, you have drag queen story hour and it's headlining and, you know, everything. You see Randy Weingarten, by the way, have you seen this? She is hosting a panel upcoming. She's the National Teachers Union. And she is hosting a panel called Teachers Against Fascism. On the heels of what just happened with Charlie Kirk shooting and all of the unrest and

an absolute garbage that's coming out. She thought now was an appropriate time with students performing worse in the United States across the globe since the pandemic. And she thinks now is the time to host something called Teachers Against Fascists. So you tell me what direction we're going in and how we write this shit and put it on student output. Yeah, the book, that's the book. It's something like why fascists fear public school teachers. Is it? And that's where this panel's at. You're right.

You would think

with what's happened

with Kirk

and this whole tonality

that's going on now

that might be put off

for a while

or at least

there would be

some covering

of saying

our emphasis

is really

on student outcomes

Talk about the charter schools

Why do people tell you

they choose

the charter school

over say

a private school

They can't afford

the private school

or is there something

in a charter school

that keeps a foot

in both camps

What do parents say?

Well, you know, what's interesting is, yes, in New Jersey, all charter schools are public charter schools, and you're admitted via lottery. So there's no entrance exams. There's, you know, it really is a true representation of the communities that the charter is established in. And, you know, parents usually in the lower socioeconomic earning brackets, which is actually where all the charters are located in the state of New Jersey, what happens is they can't afford private school, you know, so they might be in the state of New Jersey.

in a district that's either they feel is not safe, physically safe for the child. It might be a situation where academics are poor, overcrowded classrooms, things of that nature. So charters were actually established with union support to be think tanks for education. It was supposed to allow you to do things that typically were outside the norm. And I can, you know, just branch off for just a moment and explain to you my experience with that, because I came from traditional public school for a couple years prior to

to joining a public charter school. I was given so much leeway by my principal. And I met my students, 60 students that performed 50% proficient on the state test at that time, the NJASK test. And I taught them for a year. And I was able to take the standards and he allowed me to guide the curriculum and guide which standards and how often I was going to hit on each standard. He allowed me to choose the materials.

So after I got to know the students, I got that freedom as an educator. And that's very interesting to parents. So after year one, 78% of my children were proficient and four of them were advanced proficient. So I went to his office and I said, can I loop with these students? Can I teach them again in seventh grade? Because I think we have something going here. And he said, you know what? Yeah, you can. And I did it again in the seventh grade. And that year my came back 86.5% proficient on the test. Now they were going to eighth grade.

And I said, you know what, can I do it one more time? And he said, yes, you can. Because it was based on student outcomes. It wasn't emotional decisions. It wasn't about my input. It was about student outcome. My class, upon graduation, 96.5% of my students were proficient on the NJASC. 12 were advanced. And 13 of my students gained acceptance to elite schools in Bergen County, Bergen Academies, and Bergen Tech. Is it because I was an amazing English teacher, you know, put down from the heavens? No, it was not.

It was that I was given the freedom and the flexibility to write and guide curricula that would best serve who was sitting in my seats. And that is what can happen in a charter school. And you see it across the state. You see pockets of excellence coming out of charters. You see black students, you see Hispanic students performing at a much higher rate than their traditional public counterparts because it allows you no chains. It's very prescriptive. And that is the beauty of charter.

How many charter schools do you have any sense in New Jersey across New Jersey? The number you know bounces a bit it's always in 80s 85 I believe is is the number of charters right now quite troublingly throughout the Murphy administration there have been no charters in seven and a half years new charters Wait a minute no new charters No new charters and even expansion requests were put on hold and denied and that's due to the NJEA stranglehold with the misinformation that charter schools are

are stealing money from the traditional public schools. No, they are not. The money per pupil needs to follow the child. End of story, period. I don't even know why that is up for debate. And charters can only help promote competition between the traditional public district and competition breeds excellence is what happens. And I was very lucky. In Garfield, we had a great relationship with our traditional public school. The mayor there at the time was actually the middle

school principal at the public school. And he and I had a great relationship. He was a Democrat. Great guy. He used to come and visit with our kids. I'd go and see what they were doing over there. And there was this symbiotic relationship where we didn't fight. We didn't argue. We understood that we were there for one reason, and that was to help the kids. Unfortunately, that is not the norm all the time. That's the exception to the rule.

Now, you know, you follow the governor's race. You're actually inside this day-to-day more of this whole issue of schooling, school choice in it. And you just told us something here on Old School, New School, Next School, that no new charter schools in seven and a half years. How could anybody defend that on the other side that were reduced then to lotteries? I know in Philadelphia, the Mass School, which does great work, they routinely have 10,000 to 15,000 kids on a waiting list.

And again, these are public schools, not going into any religious background.

We're not going outside. They still were public schools, Dawn.

Can Jack Cattarelli bring this up? Does this come up?

I'm saying that because if you bring up school choice, private schools, we know what the argument is.

It shuts down immediately. But this is insidious.

The homeschool issue and the charter school issue both together.

Well, you know, it's it's twofold.

There's definitely a demand versus supply crisis, right? So in New Jersey, with all of our charter schools, and I say all very facetiously because there should be more, there are 28,000 students on the public charter school waiting list across the state of New Jersey. Also, we have the Inter-District School Choice Program, where schools may elect to open up enrollment to neighboring students if they have room. That's been frozen for about 10 years.

And we have, I would guess, about 5,000 kids get placed each year. And we have thousands on the waitlist now for inter-district school choice. So you have these two prongs of parents clearly saying, I want different, I want more. The response is not, we're going to freeze expansion of these programs where there is high demand. Now, Jack Ciannarelli is a huge advocate of school choice.

And I'm going to refer back to Governor Chris Christie. Now, for as unpopular as he might have been on certain issues, there's one thing that he absolutely got correct, and that was with school choice and public charter schools. Chris Christie expanded more public charter schools than any governor. He was a huge advocate, but you know what the magic about his policy was? That when charter schools were failing, he did not hesitate to close them. Exactly.

And under Chris Christie, multiple public charter schools were closed for failing to meet the needs of the students and proving student outcomes. Now that is the secret here in New Jersey. Your students must perform. Stop talking about inputs. Start talking about student outcomes. And with Jack Cittarelli in the governorship, I am incredibly hopeful that we will see expansion of the inter-district school choice program, that quality charter schools will be able to add more seats, and that we will start to see

see the traditional public school start to behave as partners with the charters.

Let me interrupt then and ask. So it's not a legislative matter.

How does the governor intervene to create more charter schools? Aren't these the local school board or no?

Nope, not at all. And thank God the local school board does not have jurisdiction over whether a new charter gets approved or not.

But, you know, New Jersey is a real outlier. We are not very school choice friendly whatsoever when it comes to the public.

public schooling. And other states, take New York State, for example, they have multiple authorizers who can approve charter schools. One, for instance, obviously there's Department of Ed, also SUNY. SUNY has a very robust charter authorization system. In New Jersey, we have exactly one charter authorizer by law, and that is the New Jersey Department of Education, and that is the governor's direct appointee.

Well, you know what, you know, I can't run campaigns here too. Oh, I can say with Jack the next time I talk with him and hearing you, hearing that, I didn't know that. It's one authorized. I don't know if people in New Jersey know that. I'm sure they don't. Yes. Let's, well, you know, I'll make sure I put this out there, Dawn. But if it's that, right there is a tangible issue of showing the metric what you would do to approve these charter schools, the success.

And if somebody's on the other side of that, it's obvious the issue becomes they're just bought and paid for it by the union. There is no rational reason not to open up more charter schools, particularly if they fail, they're out. Correct. And, you know, that's not a safety net or a buffer that we have with the traditional public schools. Schools can fail and do miserably. We can pour, you know, tens of thousands of dollars above the standards per pupil cost into some of these schools.

On that point, am I right that one sticks out to me because of Springsteen, I guess. The Asbury Park, it was a while ago, I read it, it was 33,000, something like that per student, even in times of the place. Oh, much more than that. That was pushing way up, way up, yeah, in the high 30s. And don't forget, Asbury Park is really the poster child for what not to do academically with your students when they did the 64th floor under then Superintendent Lamont Repelette.

who ended up being appointed as the commissioner of education under Phil Murphy for a period of time. And what he did was he took a failing, abysmal graduation rate of his high school students and created something called the 64th floor, where no student can earn any grade lower than a 64. So not handing in something at all was a 64. So also it gets even better. His graduation rate shot through the ceiling. It gets better.

If you were chronically truant or if just X amount of classes and didn't earn credits, let's say I'm a student in Algebra 1, I can earn credits by going and picking up trash in the park or doing community service. That's how I earned my grade to prove proficiency. So, oh my, look, Asbury Park's graduation rates soared under Dr. Lamont Repellet. He must be knowing something. I mean, right, he's got the sauce. So let's make him commissioner of education based upon low expectations.

and failure of students. And we failed those students. We failed them by not having high standards. I'm sick of people saying that students from socioeconomic classes that are less advantaged, students who are Black students, students who are Hispanic students, cannot achieve. I've seen it with my own eyes. They are phenomenal. They are smart. They can achieve. And I'm sick of the narrative that we need to lower the bar so that these students can be pushed along. It's nonsense. Absolutely. Dawn, thank you so much. Where do we find

things, Dawn Fantasia, particularly as this governor's race heats up. And again, I just want to emphasize that nugget. Only the governor through the Department of Education okay charter schools. And again, I have a lot of problems with Christy. I think you do too. But he would be the perfect guy because he's not going to sit there if a charter school is failing. I don't think Jack Cattarelli would either. We want more successful charter schools where at least parents have choice.

Even if not the ultimate choice, which I think is anything they want. So where do we find you? You can follow me on Twitter or X at Dawn Fantasia underscore NJ. Or I'm also on Facebook. I have a page where I really keep updated with the latest issues. And that's Commissioner Dawn Fantasia. I'm sorry. I'm going back to my old page. Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia. Thank you, Dawn. Thanks so much as always. We'll catch up soon. Appreciate you coming on. Thank you. All right. There's Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia.

This week's guest on Old School, New School, Next School. Now, if you want to send me an email of anything that you would like to hear or question that you have, domshow at aol.com, domshow at aol.com. Join us 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.