If a foreign army invaded America and tried to make American kids dumb, they couldn't do …

Welcome to Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano, a podcast devoted to shedding light on issues pertaining to making America smart again. These include, among many topics, school choice and parental rights. This podcast is dedicated to reversing the deeply disturbing trend known as the dumbing down of America. Now, here's your host, Educator.

and noted talk media commentator, Dom Giordano.

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

With a question that's often been said, but I think it's apropos of what we do here.

We're trying to make America smarter again. And the stuff that I'm going to tell you that some teachers unions and school districts have concocted this week is amazing.

We're also going to be joined by Corey DeAngelis, America's number one proponent, not only of school choice, but he's the guy taking on the teachers' unions, freeing teachers up to get out of those unions and be independent of all that. But what if a foreign adversary, what if a foreign army invaded America and its mission was to dumb down the population, starting with America's school kids across the board? Would they be successful?

Well, we've talked to a neuroscientist, James Cooney-Harvath, about how this is the first generation that has not plateaued in all these tests, but has actually dumbed down, actually gone down. So I would say it's well underway what they're doing, even if that's not their intent. And I'm going to give you four real good examples that cover the entire country, I think, before we get to Corey DeAngelis.

Everybody knows how big the NFL draft is, right? Well, the NFL draft is coming to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh schools are not so good, but they have a hidden component that shows their corruption and their laziness. And so far, they're getting away with it. And this helps to dumb down America incrementally, slowly but surely. And your school district in your area may do the same thing. Because of COVID, they discovered remote learning. You know what remote learning means?

We put it on Zoom. Maybe you get it at home. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have a Chromebook. Maybe you don't. It doesn't matter. They get to check that box that they had a school day. And that's what they care about. Learning, ha! We got to get to 180. More about that in a moment with the Portland schools. They don't have to get to 180 anymore. So Pittsburgh, even though only one school is within a few mile radius of where the NFL draft will be

held in April in Pittsburgh. They are going to go to remote learning, they say, for the safety of students and everything else for three days of the NFL draft, which really the main thing doesn't start till after school hours. Yep, three days of remote learning. Zelina Zito, nationally prominent columnist, says this will impact all kinds of Catholic charter schools, private schools that depend on busing, etc.

And that only one Pittsburgh school building is anywhere near where the NFL draft will be held.

How do they get around with it? It's their secret weapon. They can't wait to go to that remote learning.

Now, you know, other school districts are looking at this. They're looking at this, the shamelessness of it.

And this is the type of thing that dumbs America down. We already know how abysmal in bigger cities, places like Pittsburgh and others,

The Test Scores Are, etc. But this gives you a window, three days of remote learning. How much learning is going to go about the same as went on during COVID? All right, so that's exhibit number one. I mentioned the Portland schools. Corey DeAngelis, who's coming up, has been on this, breaking this story. Portland public schools, they're turning four days that were originally intended for instruction into furlough days.

And in agreement, the teachers union with the administration around various union issues, they are getting four furlough days. So that means four more days off the school calendar for learning. You can't make this stuff up. What you have are these corrupt, powerful teachers unions, and you have any number of administrators who are going to take the easy way unless parents revolt. Parental rights and or we see more and more

I have some hopeful stories on school choice this week.

All right, one more.

Let's go back to the East Coast here on old school, new school, next school.

Boston schools, headline from the Mass Daily News.

The Boston schools banned Fs.

No Fs.

No kid can fail.

No Fs.

They hired $120,000 a year, several of them, equity grading consultants.

Remember equity?

Everybody comes out the same.

Eliminated testing.

then celebrated record graduation rates according to a new bombshell report.

In other words, graduation rates went up 22% while test scores dropped.

They banned failing grades, spent all that money on equity grading.

They posted an 83.1% four-year graduation rate for 2025 up.

Are you ready for this number?

Here's your nugget of the day from 59.1% in 2006, according to recently-related release data. So what they're doing here is they are lowering expectations. They're fraudulently moving the grading system around. And voila, you have more kids graduating. Is that the measure of a school? How about if we just graduate all of them? How about if you even don't show up? Maybe you don't come in on Fridays. How about two days a week you show?

All right, one more. Let's go back to the West Coast. And this is hopeful, but there's a negative part to this also. San Francisco just voted in the last couple of days, their school district, to reinstate your option to take eighth grade algebra. Now, you know that San Francisco, Silicon Valley, high powered, a lot of money, a lot of Asian students without stereotyping, math oriented.

in that area.

A few years back, 12 years back, they made national news under an equity plan in which they took away the ability to take algebra in the eighth grade.

Apparently, what they're setting up or what they should be trying to do is the following.

Eighth grade, if they take algebra, then you can proceed to geometry in ninth grade, algebra two in tenth, pre-calculus in eleventh, and finally calculus during the senior year of high school.

a crucial marker of rigor for college admissions offices. So why in the world, with it being that competitive, wouldn't they do it? Well, they restored it only by a four to three vote. Even though the scores were abysmal that went down, even though parents were complaining, paid out of their own pocket, had to talk to these selective colleges, were taking care of the math requirement, even if the school isn't. They did it because of equity. They did it to

say that it was removed from middle schools, eighth grade, under the rationale that many students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, would benefit from having more time to master foundational math before tackling algebra. Well, let them do that. But the kids that could do it were blocked from doing that. Why? All under the name of equity. So we've been to both coasts, San Francisco, Boston, Portland,

Pittsburgh and what do they all have in common the fundamental make America dumber again in one way or another they're certainly not making America smart again is it any wonder when you see the teachers unions and these cowardly administrators involved in this that school choice is our only way out but in the meantime school choice is going to take a while to have it the influx of this spread across the country listening so we try to arm

you here.

Parental Rights, what to do with your own child, if you have to be inside these factories for failures, these big city public schools or any public school that's not working, until freedom, until you have school choice.

Now, joining me to talk about all those things, he is the evangelical component of school choice.

He is the guy.

He's just back from a big meeting at the White House.

He's now at the Heritage Foundation.

And in addition to school choice, his organization has freed about 12 to 13,000 teachers in the last year from having to be members of teachers unions in order to be insured, et cetera. His name is Corey DeAngelis, and Corey joins us here, one of our favorites, on Old School, New School, Next School. Hey, Dom, thanks for having me. Good talking to you. Are you in an airport today? Give us a full report. I just got to the airport. I'm going to an event with Melania at the State Department.

tomorrow on education, fostering the future together, it's called.

Ah, well, that's a big-leg company. Very good, Corey. So what airport?

I'm at San Antonio Airport, but we're flying into D.C. later today.

How's the airport traffic?

It's actually not bad in San Antonio. I guess maybe just the beginning of the day, and it's also just a small airport.

Yeah. So, Corey, I thought of you immediately last week. Then I saw on your Twitter the second one of this. Let's talk Pittsburgh first.

Selina Zito lays out that the administrators and teachers unions there for the safety of students are going to remote learning for three days because the NFL draft is in town. And she says only one school is within a couple miles of that. And this then affects, because of the busing, 100,000 other people, Catholic schools, charter schools, caregivers, parents, and they get to essentially take three days off.

Of course. I mean, any excuse not to go to work. And we saw this during COVID. I mean, it was just never ending teacher strike. Basically, they were holding kids education hostage. In that case, it was to leverage that closure for more money. Now it's just let's just make our jobs easier. Any excuse not to work. I just saw a headline last night from Portland public schools. There was a ongoing dispute with collective bargaining between the teachers union and the district. And guess what?

that a resolution of that dispute was to cave to the teachers' unions and shorten the school year even further.

When they already only work about 180 days a year, they shorten it even further to kowtow to the demands of the teachers' unions.

So this is just more of the same, these lame excuses.

I mean, you saw the teachers' unions were even fighting to close schools to protest ICE.

So, I mean, it's all been a political propaganda.

And it's all because a lot of these kids don't have school choice.

Just imagine, Dom, if you could take your money somewhere else, do you think the unions and the districts would be fighting to close every single step of the way?

No, they'd want to stay open.

They want to provide a service for their customers so that their customers want to leave.

So this is why school choice is essential.

Without a doubt.

And, Corey, I did see that.

I follow your Twitter religiously, the Portland thing, cutting four days off just out of nowhere. And again, but we are winning slowly but surely. And I emphasize we are winning as a political effort. I know we're joined in this. I want it to happen overnight. But I have to say politically, it's better for us as a big issue because we know we're winning. We know we're going to win in the end. But along the way, Democrats are dying on these hills.

So the governor of Kentucky, who postures along with Josh Shapiro as a moderate, he kowtows, and he must forget what state he's in, Kentucky, a red state. He kowtows to the teachers union. He will not sign up for the big, beautiful bill. They overwhelmingly override his veto. He's a Democrat. This might send a message to a lot of these Democrat governors.

Yeah, it's insane. I mean, it was more of a political theater than anything. He knew he was going to get overridden. I mean, in Kentucky, you only need a simple majority to override a veto. So you only need 51 percent. And guess what? In Kentucky, they had override votes of about 80 to 90 percent. All of the Republicans voted in favor. All the Democrats voted against. But before the veto, there was a couple of Democrats in each chamber in Kentucky that voted for the bill to opt into Trump's new school choice program.

that was included in the big beautiful bill so it is a bipartisan solution especially here where it's not a penny comes from local public schools it's these it's a federal tax credit where you can get a tax benefit for donating and kids that are in your state can receive the tax credit but only if your governor opts in so Kentucky became the 28th state to opt in despite the wishes of the governor Beshear who had had Randy Weingarten on his podcast recently so he's

He's not as moderate as he wants everyone to believe that he is. And one other Democrat actually did the right thing, wasn't forced to do so, and his name is Jared Polis. He opted in and said that it was a no-brainer and that he would be crazy not to. And Jared Polis, in my view, probably yours too, is not just a liberal. He's a little bit more smart guy, I think, and he does the right thing on this. But he's probably going to run for president or something like that, and he's more than liberal. He's a little bit progressive.

He took the money. Yeah, I mean, so if Jared Polis did the right thing, and he saw that the writing on the wall, he would basically be shooting himself in the foot if he didn't. And it kind of reminds me of the 21 drinking age. If you don't do it, you're losing the free money, basically. And it's even worse than that because these are tax credit donations. And if you don't opt in, that would mean private charitable contributions would flow from your state to other states that do opt in. So if Polis said no, that would mean Colorado

residents would be giving money to kids in Florida and Texas scholarships to go to private schools. Why in the world would he finagle himself to be into that situation? So he was forward-looking. Education Week actually reported initially that there were four Democrats who said, absolutely, no, we're not going to do it. But this was last year, and they just revised their story to point out that three of those four Democrats are now reconsidering their position. That includes Oregon's governor.

or Tina Kotek, who isn't exactly a moderate either. She's even saying that, you know, why in the world would I leave free money on the table? Well, the one with the most national significance, and significance to me, of course, is Josh Shapiro. And he is the ultimate chameleon, the ultimate guy that gets away with stuff. But in the end, since the governor has sole power of this in Pennsylvania, he's going to have to make a decision. And I got to tell you, I can't call it one way or another with this guy, Corey. He's that shifty.

I think he's looking for some kind of I didn't inhale you know moment here with it yeah.

Dom I thought he was going to be first I mean I don't live in Pennsylvania but I thought he was going to be one of the first Democrats because he said he supported lifeline scholarships in 2022 and then blamed the house and said oh you know the budget I vetoed school choice because of the house was controlled by Bradford who's a Democrat and that's the problem which we all knew he was trying to have his cake and eat it too at that point.

But then now, you know, the decision's squarely in his hands. All eyes are on Shapiro. I emailed his education person and had a discussion with him, and now their pivot is to kick the can down the road as long as they can, and now they're saying, you know, they're not saying no, they're not saying yes. They're saying, oh, we need more information. At some point, they're going to have to make a call one way or the other, even though they would probably like to straddle the fence as long as they possibly can.

Right. And we had Martina White, the state representative, who's been critical here. The guest submit, they actually grafted out well over a half billion dollars Pennsylvania would get, over a half billion. Yeah. And America First Policy Institute just put out a new tool today. You can check out your state, how much federal education tax credits you're going to be missing out on in scholarships if your governor doesn't opt in. So you can go check that out at AFPI and see how much your potential.

I'm guessing that's where that number came from.

Corey DeAngelis with it. One final question then we want to know about your book, Corey.

And that is the message. You're now at the Heritage Foundation in a great role. It's a great fit.

With the teachers unions, I haven't seen polling or a sense, but are Americans on to this?

Did COVID help us see what a just well, you know, this this Pittsburgh thing to me, it shows the corruption,

the laziness, the blatancy of it.

Yeah, we've seen recent polling showing a record low confidence in the public school system,

especially among Republicans.

I think this was the Gallup polling showing less than 10 percent of Republicans are confident in the public school system overall.

And teachers unions, a new poll just came out last week from Harvard University, of all places,

finding that most Americans think that teachers unions shouldn't be involved in politics.

So for that coming out of Harvard, that's a big deal.

A.L.E. is a left-wing institution. And a lot of teachers are saying, screw it, we're leaving the unions too. They're too political. And since the past year, 10,000 teachers have already left their union and joined an alternative called the Teacher Freedom Alliance. It's covering their personal liability insurance for free. And also my group, Americans for Fair Treatment, over the past six months alone, 2,000 teachers about have contacted them for help with getting out of their public sector union.

So that's a big deal for the teachers also to throw their hands up and say, you know what, this has gone so far off the deep end, you are making me look bad, and so I'm going to disassociate.

So, Corey, tomorrow are you getting Melania Trump to sign your book, or have you already done that?

I haven't yet, but that would be nice. I'll have to try to figure out how to get that done. But, yeah, it's going to be fun. Tomorrow's actually my birthday as well, so maybe that'll be a great present if we can figure that out.

Corey, the title of the book, give us the book too, please. Yep. Yeah. It's the parent revolution. It's endorsed by her husband, Donald Trump and Secretary of War, P. Hexeth and others. Check it out. It's the parent revolution. And if you want to opt out of your union, you can go to optouttoday.com. Corey, thank you so much. Enjoy tomorrow and happy birthday in advance. Thank you so much, Tom. Great talking to you. All right. That's Corey DeAngelis. Corey laid out everything imaginable there.

about where this movement is. The good news, one I just wanted to highlight a little bit more, because the Wall Street Journal broke this guy down. Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, I think we mentioned with Corey, he's one of the leading, quote, moderates on the Democrat side. He would not take the money, the new money, from the big, beautiful bill that has nothing to do with the schools. Yet Kentucky, the legislature, vetoed him.

overrode his veto. And he is incredible that this guy is that much of a captive of the teachers' unions. Wall Street Journal lays it out. They say the Kentucky governor with his eye on the White House dissembles about a veto and about us. In other words, trying to say that the school choice movement is doing something that would be negative for kids. Tell me about it, Governor Beshear.

Why would you not take the money? And thank God that legislature in Kentucky overrode his veto overwhelmingly. So we're up to 28 states now. Kentucky with a Democrat governor, Beshear, is one. Polis, who I'm trying to get on this podcast in Colorado, is a bit of a progressive, but he said plainly he took the money. If not, he'd be letting down his constituents, people in his state. Other states would get this.

Pennsylvania, where I'm headquartered with Josh Shapiro, who's another, quote, moderate running for president on the Democratic side, we would stand to get possibly a billion dollars ultimately in funding under the big, beautiful bill. So 28 states now are in. I predict we're going to get to 40 by the end of the year, if not more, as we head into 2027.

So the movement is alive. You'll be able to take advantage of this. But in the meantime, as all this is going back and forth, you have to tend to your own, fight for your own kid if they're in a public school. And as I told you today, the San Francisco, Portland, Pittsburgh, and Boston, look at the shenanigans. These are like enemy armies making America dumb again. And on this show, we aim to make America smart again. That's what we try to do.

each week.

If you want to send me an email, let me know what's happening with you, any suggestions you have, it's domshow, D-O-M-S-H-O-W at AOL.com.

Have a great week. Join us again next week. Old School, New School, Next School.

Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano is a presentation of Giordano Productions, LLC. Copyright 2026. All rights reserved.

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