Michael Geer, President and CEO of the PA Family Institute is Dom's guest.

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 our weekly podcast, Old School, New School, Next School, in which we talk about school choice and all ramifications of it.

But in addition to that here with Dom Giordano, we talk about it in the context of parental rights.

And we have with us someone today who has another context on top of that. Michael Gere is the founding president and CEO of Pennsylvania Family Institute. And someone who just had, we'll get into this, Ron DeSantis, who's prominent in this field, come to his annual banquet. Michael, a little bit about you. You have quite a media background as a producer, et cetera, mainstream media. I think NBC in various places.

What's the media background? It's kind of funny. When I get introduced to audiences, I get introduced to someone who used to work in the mainstream media and now is involved in politics, neither of which win you a lot of accolades in society today. But in any event, you know, I worked in television news at the ABC News Bureau in Washington, D.C. on the staffs of World News Tonight and Nightline back in those early days. And then in Pittsburgh at the NBC affiliate there in Pittsburgh.

and a couple of other jobs in television in addition to that, before then starting Pennsylvania Family Institute back now 36 years ago, 1989. Were you like Bernie Goldberg, what you saw inside the belly of the beast that moved you to do this in your media experience? Not entirely, no. I enjoyed the work and liked kind of having, you know, today's news is today and not worried about tomorrow because tomorrow hasn't happened yet.

And so reporting the news on a daily basis or producing the news for that matter, you don't have these long kind of stretches of worrying about deadlines and stuff way ahead. So I enjoyed it. I guess what I'd say is that a number of issues that were going on in society based on my Christian faith and other things really drew me to want to make a difference. Rather than reporting on the stuff that was going on in society, how can I make a difference? And so it was the sanctity of life issue, the abortion issue that really drew me.

My wife and I started the first crisis pregnancy centers. We called them then Pregnancy Resource Center in the Pittsburgh area back in 1985. And through a variety of different things like that, just felt the Pennsylvania Family Institute, this vision was being put forth. And I threw my hat into the ring, said I'd like to help raise money to get this started. And then next thing I know, they offered me the job as the president.

Well, it is in my experience in talk radio, which goes back 38 years. So it kind of parallels this. It is a giant in this field. So we're really glad to get your perspective, particularly on the cusp of some important elections coming up, even though it's a so-called off year. Where are we? How would you grade both Pennsylvania and you have national reach or a national sense? If we could start with Pennsylvania.

People I've spoken with recently that have national reach or influencers, you know, 2 million people. I asked them, has the Trump administration, big, beautiful bill and other things, 2025, you know, the window closes pretty quickly. Have they delivered so far in your view? What kind of grade would you give them on school choice? First of all, I'd say on school choice with the big, beautiful bill, the $1,700 per, you know, student family tax credit.

that's part of the big beautiful bill that's an option for the states to opt into is a really big step that there is a federal program that gives parents that choice and we at Pennsylvania Family Institute have been advocates for school choice since our inception back in 1989 and saw incremental steps here in Pennsylvania towards that goal over those years. So number one in parental choice in terms of that bill I think that's important. I'm hoping that our governor who has indicated at least through his mouth

that he supports school choice, not necessarily through his actions, that maybe he will be among those who opt among the governors that opt in and say, yes, we'll participate in that. That would be a go a long way to helping advance school choice and give parents rights and opportunities for children. But your sense, you would give them pretty high marks that they've seized the opportunity, the big, beautiful bill. You know, I'm curious what you think as far as the education department being dismantled.

Some people started to think that's going to be helpful somehow or another with school

choice, parental rights. Your thoughts on that?

Well, I think, yeah, I've been an advocate for the dismantling of the Department of Education from even, you know, I remember when President Reagan just taking office after Jimmy Carter, who created the Department of Education, say we're going to dismantle it. Those promises were not able to be kept or didn't were not kept during that time period. And over time, that bureaucracy is bloated.

And so when you think about the idea that local tax dollars and state tax dollars from individuals like you and me and people all across the state and across the country are flowing into Washington, D.C. to be filtered by bureaucrats paying for a whole lot of employees working at the Department of Education, generally just sending mandates back to the states telling them you're going to do it this way, not that way, and all of those things is not helpful to the educational cause. Education really is best when it's as local as possible.

Starting with the family and then with the local schools and and the further it is away from the direction of parents and families and community I think the worse it gets and we see that with the the atrocious scores that we see in the national the naep you know the educational proficiency test. You know since I started doing this podcast I think this 21st 22nd Michael with great people like you and people that have reach one of the things that people tell me is paramount in the

to parents, particularly in places like Philadelphia, maybe in Harrisburg and places you see, is safety.

They don't want their kids to be bullied in school.

They don't want in Philadelphia, some of these people in West Philly I've interviewed, talking about they don't want their kid maybe to be shot.

And they're doing cyber charters.

So when we hear stuff like that, in addition to the academic and the indoctrination, what is it that I have one guy I'm going to ask you about in a second?

But you have more on the ground expertise than I. What is it that's holding together preventing this? Is it just the teachers unions? They have that much sway. What else would be in the minds of politicians to say, no, we're talking about your group, families. This is a core thing when a poorer family, lower middle class or even middle class, can make a choice like this. That's such a boost for families.

It certainly is, and especially on that safety issue that you're talking about. And that's why many parents feel desperate to get some kind of option for their kids just for the sake of safety, bullying, whether it's or just unsafe schools because of shootings and so on. Teachers unions obviously play a large part in the opposition to educational choice and to having options. And because there's a variety of different reasons, the money that's involved in it, the jobs that are involved in it, etc.

and when they believe that people will flee their product to the product that they put on the market with the school districts etc in the the state they they fight back and say no we don't want to have that so there's the teachers union just kind of on the money aspect of it but there's an ideological component that has increased i think in the years that we've been fighting school choice fighting for school choice and against the teachers unions and the education bureaucracy etc and that ideological component is

that the state knows better than moms and dads. The state is ultimately the source of wisdom, the source of what is good and proper, et cetera. And that to allow for sort of different streams of education to take place, et cetera, removes the power of the state. And that's something that they feel threatened by and they don't want to allow to have happened. So when we see like in the New York mayoral election and Mom Domi saying, you know, we're going to close down the charter schools and those kinds of things, it's just that statist mentality.

that ultimately the children are, to flip a Supreme Court ruling from way back, the children are mere creatures of the state. We don't believe that. The Supreme Court previously had said in allowing for Amish to be able to educate the kids the way they want, they said children are not the mere creatures of the state. But there are people in our country today that ideologically believe that children ultimately do belong to the state.

And that's why there's the fight against school choice to give parents those options.

You made my day. You kind of set up by what you're saying. And we all remember we're getting close to an election in Virginia again for governor. When I thought McAuliffe, who I know and have jousted with, was going to win, I thought it was, if not blue, pretty blue. And he took the exact opposite. He didn't say creatures of the state, but he blustered, we're the experts, you're not the experts.

And Glenn Youngkin, who had a suburban calmness and feel, coupled with that, ran away with it. I think he won in what was a blue state then, very comfortably. Yes, no, absolutely. And I think that was the issue. And talking to my counterpart in Virginia, the organization there is called the Family Foundation. They can point to specific districts where there were sort of brush fires of concern among parents with the explicit

that access education materials and woke stuff that was in the school districts. Those specific districts where those fights were taking place were ones that went strongly for Yunkin and put him over the top in that election. And so the power of parents, if they will get involved, if they pay attention to what's happened in the schools, many people were awakened to what was happening in the classrooms across America through the COVID shutdowns and through the coming in, then the TV screens in their homes, through the Zooms and whatever.

The more that people are aware and pay attention, I think, and get involved, I think we do see real opportunities for progress in school choice. I'm just looking at a list here of states. I think it's 13 states now that have universal school choice programs, which is really a recent, looking at these dates, 22, 23, 24, 25, when these things have been enacted. It is the move of the future, and I really believe Pennsylvania is going to get there.

I wanted to talk about one guy who like-minded, Matt Perretta, I think, of Commonwealth Partners, I guess, is talked about.

And the way he said it to me, I've jousted with this guy.

And I got to tell you, Matt Bradford out there in Montgomery County, I guess, Norristown area, et cetera, he said is standing in the schoolhouse door.

In other words, he thinks that Josh Shapiro would try to find a way to maneuver for a presidential run here, please both sides.

But it's the guy, this Matt Bradford and Stacey Garrity, the president of the Senate, almost every Pennsylvania player I've interviewed talks about this guy and his power and his ideology, which is driven to stop all that we're talking about. What's your experience? Oh, yeah, we've witnessed him do that. I mean, in the first Shapiro budget, there was a negotiated agreement with the Pennsylvania State Senate to advance school choice in Pennsylvania to create a broader program.

And it came to the House of Representatives, Matt Bradford being the leader there, just absolutely just said, you know, you shall not pass, basically. You know, I think of the Lord of the Rings.

What's the power, Michael? How does this guy have the power?

Well, part of it is just a party discipline that happens within the Democratic Party. You just can't divert. And so, you know, I don't know fully how he has accumulated that power, except that the party discipline.

that we see it we see it with the budget standoff that's happening in

washington dc right now they just they're voting as a block and part of it is a fear of the

statist ideological people at the base the radical folks at the base fueled by the teachers union fueled by the

seiu fueled by by a bunch of leftist entities to basically say allowing for true school choice is the chink in the armor that will see that structure come down

And that they're fighting tooth and nail to prevent that from happening because they understand. I mean, when you look at what's happening on college campuses and the unrest and the young people who are, you know, you see them, you know, Columbia University and Penn and all these other places, you know, in this past year on the anti-Semitism and the socialism, the wokeness, that didn't just happen on college campuses. That is the product, I think, of what's happening in a lot of public schools. And we see these teachers just saw one on the news yesterday.

They had one of these no kings protests, you know, mocking the killing of Charlie Kirk. Turns out that was a school teacher from Chicago. So, so there that ideological commitment that I talked about earlier, it was teachers union opposition previously and still, but then the ideological part of it that the children belong to the state is, is the reason why these people fight the way they do because they want state control. From your vantage point, coming up, what is it that we should be

you're looking for in this field, Pennsylvania or nationally? What's the next big fight or the next big thing or solution that you say is going to be happening, say in the coming year? Well, I think the advancement of school choice is still something that we will continue to push for here in Pennsylvania. I know that Senator McCormick, Dave McCormick, is pushing Governor Shapiro and encouraging people to contact Governor Shapiro to opt into the federal, the big, beautiful bill portion.

that has the $1,700 tax credit program. That'll be there. I think the issue also, you know, in terms of the woke stuff that's going on at schools, you asked for a grade of the Trump administration previously. I will say that they have done some very helpful things on the issue of the transgender and boys and girls locker rooms, girls sports and all those things. Although the resistance continues in local school districts. The reason, you know, I can talk about Bucks County, I can talk about Montgomery County, other places where there are schools

that no matter what the feds say, they're going to do what they're going to do, and no matter what parents say. And so we see that fight continuing. And that's something that our Independence Law Center, our attorneys here, have been working with school districts all across school boards across the state to help them enact policies that protect the privacy of children, protect girls' sports and things. Because just because an edict comes down from Washington doesn't mean everybody gets in line.

Well, that's why we're glad to have you guys, Michael. It's a pleasure to have you today. Where did we find the Pennsylvania Family Institute? We have a great website that we encourage people to visit, which is pafamily.org. Michael, thank you so much. Thanks for the contribution today. Anytime, happy to help you in anything. Thank you. Thank you, Don. All right, that is Michael Gere, founding president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. Again, if you want to ask me a question,

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