Giving School Choice a Higher Political Profile

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. Welcome into Old School, New School, Next School with Dom Giordano.

And this week is a huge week. It's our first week after the one-year anniversary.

And we've been talking about, we did talk about last week, the YAS scholarships going on in Philadelphia.

Wanted to update you on that because it's both something where we reach people in the Philadelphia area,

But it's also something that is a microcosm of what's going on nationally. Here in Philadelphia, we had 17 schools now say they're going to shut down, be shut down, Philadelphia public schools, and their students will have to relocate. So the Yass Foundation of Jeff and Janine Yass, who are big benefactors of the school choice movement and kids in general and scholarships, they've jumped in and they have a scholarship.

right now that is going to make available to a great number of children coming from those schools are called the Opportunity Knox Scholarships. And these scholarships will go toward high quality schools that are within the neighborhood of these kids. And I have the website for you. If you know of anybody in any way, shape or form in the Philadelphia area, you should apply for this.

It's the OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org. OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org.

And as this develops here in Philadelphia, you know, what could possibly be wrong with that?

I'm looking at an article that breaks this down, and they say these scholarships offer 500 students, $8,000 annually to attend private schools in Philadelphia.

Anticipating institutions have pledged to cover anything beyond their zero cost is what it comes down to says Caroline Allen director of the YASP prize the review says that sounds generous and in some ways it is but the details complicate the picture they say these 500 slots represent just over 10 percent of the students sent to be displaced by the closures well the people who wrote this let's do more we want to do more are you kidding me

We want to liberate every kid. That's the whole idea of this show. Liberate America. Will you help us? The eligible schools, they say, are almost entirely Catholic institutions, with LaGuardia Academy in Kensington being the only exception. Yeah? Well, these are the high-quality schools. Should we send them to deficient public schools? Do you want these kids to get an education? Supporters like me say this is a lifeline for vulnerable kids caught in the middle of a bureaucratic

upheaval they didn't ask for. Critics see something else entirely.

So they go to this woman, Ali Shaw, of the Little Sis Public Accountability Initiative.

She called it the disaster capitalism playbook exactly, describing it as using a moment

of crisis to advance the long-running push for school privatization.

Now, my counter to that, Ms. Shaw, is that the families shouldn't have to wait for these institutions to reform themselves. A, I don't think they're ever going to reform. They're resistant to that. Their whole methodology is not to reform. And this idea that we're going to look this gift horse in the mouth. So here's the bottom line. If you know anybody that might be displaced, any kid, any child, at least have them apply. It is not hard to do.

The website and all the information is there. OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org. OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org. OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org. And this Liguoria Academy. I took a look. Forbes Magazine wrote about this whole thing. And they talk about this as a wonderful place in Kensington helping kids. Why in the world? Why in the world?

Do you have these critics that come out of the woodwork? What have they done? False promises that years from now, this system, this monopoly called the Philadelphia Public Schools will suddenly be changing, and then you'll see. Is it really that bad? Yeah, it's really that bad. And most of these public schools in big cities are really that bad. The Oasis, the Mastermans, and those exceptions, they're okay. But why in the world stop people from making this life choice, which,

The guy that runs, Michael Marone, I'm going to get on the show. He leads the La Coria Academy, a private secular high school and credit recovery program in Kensington. He says, how do you like this word? Have you heard of supermarket deserts where there's no supermarkets? This area is a choice desert, noting the paucity of nearby schooling options. That's right. Take it or leave it.

which routinely might be challenged for one reason or another might even be unsafe.

Not here at the LaCouria Academy. And the skills learned here are much different maybe than what people would get in a public school.

Also this week, the architect of these scholarships made a point that it's kind of my mission on my radio show and talk radio 1210 with all these big guests that I bring on.

They said, we've reached a point in the school choice movement, Jeff Yass writing in the Washington Examiner, where we are winning with the big, beautiful bill. The thing that has to be done now, this has to be a top issue in elections. In other words, we have to get politicians to be talking about this right here in Pennsylvania. I encourage Stacey Garrity every time she's on because Josh Shapiro is on the other side of this.

In other words, I get it. There are big issues out there. Affordability. It seems to be the number one thing people are talking about. All kinds of crunches on the American family. All kinds of things that one party or another promises. But the bottom line is school choice is, if there is any magic elixir out there, something that will liberate America. And the best line I saw in this piece in the Washington Examiner was, school choice isn't radical.

The alternative is to say that we're going to continue with a system

where kids routinely were seeing so-called proficiency rates,

which just means they're barely getting by, of 30%, 20%.

Harrisburg schools, 11% and reading or math.

That's radical to continue to send kids back with no hope to these failure factories.

Let's liberate America's children.

It's right there. We're right on the cusp of it. And as I said, if you happen to know anybody that's in the Philadelphia in any of these schools, there are 17 of them. What the heck? Just send a note. Go to OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org. Just let them know you're interested in this. Let's see what happens. But I am adamant that we are on the cusp of this. You know, as we the big, beautiful bill allows people to deduct $1,700.

that they contribute to school choice, essentially, new money, on their federal income tax.

We're on the cusp of this because this goes into effect in 2027.

Approximately 33 states have signed off, and we have three or four Democrat presidential aspirants.

You heard last week's show when we talked with Jorge Elorza about this.

He bets me that all the Democrats are going to sign off.

Well, that's good, but it's going to take some pressure. It's going to take this word, this phrase, school choice, to be on the front lines of every political debate in America. Think about it. Think about it. If more and more kids were educated, how much better the country would be. Why is this seen as such a pipe dream or so hard to do? It's a little bit hard right now, but we're working on moving it forward.

And as I said, now is the moment to strike. Now is the moment, as we come into the midterms, to try to make this a debating point between the two parties. This is going to be a real dogfight for control of the House and the Senate. That this at least should be in the mention. Here's why. It's not just the money. It's not even just the kid. This fundamentally says something.

about how a person thinks, what they're allied to, what their mission is, and what they'll be like in office. And if you are against school choice, I think you fundamentally misunderstand America. You fundamentally misunderstand the Constitution. And I think, unless proven otherwise, you're a captive of the teachers' unions, who are the ones that want to stop this. I see Randy Weingarten out there this week. She suddenly jumped on the too many screens in school for children.

You know, less stuff on computer, fewer things with cell phones. I'm in agreement with that. But Randy Weingart is one of the major architects, if not the major architect, of keeping kids out of school at the height of the COVID epidemic. And look at what's happened. And many public schools lavishly were given all these COVID funds. They misspent it, in my view. They didn't go into great, intense one-on-one or small group tutoring, which may have gotten us through this. No, of course they didn't do that.

And now she wants to jump on the no screens movement. She's the one that put kids on screens. She's the one that went to the CDC when they were ready to reopen schools, essentially, stamped her foot and her big unions and the other unions. And they did not do that for an ungodly period of time. And where were those kids on screens, allegedly zooming in their home? Those days are over. Our movement is moving forward and it is a movement.

Remember, just a small microcosm in Philadelphia.

Let's overwhelm that.

And I'll be talking about this on my radio show.

To let people know, anybody in those 17 schools that might be displaced by this,

OpportunityKnoxPhilly.org.

Doesn't that ring a bell that that's exactly what's happening here?

That opportunity is knocking.

And we're not going to be shut down by people standing in the schoolhouse door.

We are going to move forward with this. So two big things from this week. We're winning. And now's our opportunity to put this on the front page politically, to agitate, to say, why is this not an issue to be debated? Because it's got everything, media, the rest of the media. It's got much more than just the future of children, obviously. It's got how do you see the world? What is your commitment? Where is your commitment?

And this woman that criticized this Ali Shaw, I was even thinking of bringing her on the podcast. It'd be quite a shootout. How in the world is this somebody just trying to exploit people? How are kids and parents being exploited if they can get a great quality education coming out? It's almost like here they suddenly had a major miscarriage.

and then a lottery ticket drops in front of them. In other words, because of this misfortune that their schools, many of them not so good, are being displaced or shut down, they have the opportunity to get the lottery ticket to go to these schools close by that are very effective, love kids, and will, I'm willing to bet, in the greatest, greatest majority of cases, give them a world-class education. So that lottery ticket, we just have to cash it.

You have to let people know.

All right.

It's opportunityknoxvilly.org.

Now, next week on Old School, New School, Next School, we'll have on one of the

architects of this, one of the administrators, and we'll have Janine Yaston, who is one of

the architects of putting this money out and putting this idea into play out of the lemon,

making lemonade as far as the future of these kids.

And I'm told they are getting a healthy, a very healthy number of people applying for this. Many people don't know about it. The media is not telling people there's going to be billboards. The media are going to be coming on and saying, you know, whatever your local news is, hey, did you know your kid can get a free world-class education here in Philadelphia? The very kids that are being shut out of these schools. Here's all that you have to do. Just apply to this. If you qualify, you pick the school.

and the rest is up to you and your child. One place, OpportunityKnocksPhilly.org. It does knock. It does not knock with people like Ali Shaw living a pipe dream, saying that someday these schools are going to be great and you're making that day harder to get to. No, Ms. Shaw, we're saying right here, right now, this is our time, this is our moment, and you are not going to stop us.

And any politician worth their salt will recognize this is an issue they want to address.

Thanks for listening this week and every week. Want to send me an email? Go to domshow, D-O-M-S-H-O-W, at AOL.com. Be happy to reply. Keep the faith. This is big news happening here. And next week, we'll talk with one of the architects of this right here on 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.