Building Political Support for School Choice

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, and tremendous guest over the years.

I've talked with Matt Briette. He's now the president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs.

Matt, what does that group do? What are you doing today?

Yeah, so we will celebrate 10 years July 1st.

So we are an association for entrepreneurs and philanthropists, people who've done well, but want to share that prosperity across Pennsylvania and the country. So we engage in politics and try to advance good public policy as a result. And so my folks that I get to have the pleasure of representing are those who have lived the American dream. And they want that not only for their kids and grandkids, but for all the employees that work for them.

and it built businesses all across Pennsylvania.

Well, that's a good startup because Jeff, yes, is somebody who comes to mind. He and his wife that are doing that. And he recently wrote a column that it's about time to talk about this. And you're one of the best guys I can think of to strategize and do this. Some of it's bare knuckled, some of it in his column in the Washington Examiner, which I agree with. We need every vote now. We're winning hearts and minds.

But my goodness, and I'll get to my favorite, Matt Bradford, who I'm going to make famous one way or the other, across the country as a living example of what Democrats will do. Well, we got to start with Republicans. So the ask column says something I agree with. If you're a Republican, I would say it this way. And not only you can't vote against school choice, but if you are not pushing that at every second of your career, you're not a Republican. The Republican Party in any shape, way, form,

Something is wrong there. You're pretending or you don't understand what it means. Yet across the country, we're seeing even in Texas, Democrats banded together to stop Governor Abbott. And we had a browbeat and corral some of these Republicans. So first of all, what is it that they're afraid of? Usually politicians are afraid of. And do you agree if they can't wholeheartedly sign off to this, they have to be primary. We need somebody else.

Well, the reason that there are obstacles to what seems to be a very common sense idea, the notion that, hey, we are have decided as a public policy that we are going to fund the education of children, that those children should be able to take those dollars to the school that best serves them. I mean, we do this for 18 year old freshmen in college. You can go to any school and take public dollars, but we don't allow an 18 year old senior in high school.

And the reason that that is dumb, it's very simple, it's politics. And the ones who have the biggest, you know, stake in this political game are the teacher unions. And they are some of the biggest political players in the country. They effectively wield a veto over democratic policies and the democratic party. And so because they profit from a monopoly, they don't want to let any of their

leave and take those public dollars with them. So they will fight everything tooth and nail. And in fact, we've even seen it this week that the House Democrats, led by Matt Bradford as a co-sponsor to Bills, want to decimate scholarships for 30,000 plus kids in Pennsylvania, low-income kids, that would otherwise be trapped in failing and often violent schools. And so the teacher unions and their political

that they help elect are the ones that stop this. And frankly, you brought up Jeff Yaz and I've known Jeff for two decades now and his policy passion has been school choice. And for him, it was this was a common sense thing. But why wouldn't it get passed? Well, when he realized, look, you have political obstacles to good public policies. And that's why he started investing in politics, because if you don't like the policies,

you're getting today, you got to change the politicians that are in charge of them. And so that ultimately is where the gloves have to come off and remove the people that are the obstacles to letting kids get into schools that actually work for them. And you're the guy, though, you know how much over the years I've fine-tuned my own thinking due to what you've done with the Commonwealth Foundation. It's deeper than that. I see it with Garrity Shapiro now in that how do we get, how hard is it,

And I talked to Mike Johnson, the speaker, when he was on the show. And his answer was okay. I think this is one of the three or four biggest policy issues because it's not just about money and school choice. It's a tell on everything else. Why are we unable to get it into the policy debate? I like what Stacey Garrity is doing on the AI processing, the listening tour. I think school choice, though, the numbers say that. Are they tepid numbers, though?

People are not out there with the pitchforks because they don't know something, I guess, about it.

Yeah. Well, school choices enjoyed a real blossoming across the country, particularly in red states.

And I would say that this is the silver lining of COVID because it exposed a lot of people who thought, oh, I thought my public school was just doing fine.

But when they were able to peer in because of remote learning, trying to learn on the internet or through your computer, a lot of parents found out that their school was not satisfying. And so that's why you've seen this explosion of school choice in the red states. And it's the red states that we are seeing universal school choice. But the blue states, they are still controlled by the teacher unions and the Democratic Party, which are really,

one and the same. And that continues to be our obstacle. But to your point, Dom, I believe, and as a former teacher, that was my first career, seven years in the middle school and high school. Education is the foundation of everything else. And the reason that I can say that for multiple reasons, I'll just give you the financial one. When we fail in education, kids are then in the pipeline for either our prisons or our welfare system. And that is where

Most of your tax dollars go. They're going into our welfare programs or in corrections. And so we pay for the failure of our public education system in many, many ways for years and years, maybe for the entire lifetime of these kids we fail. So and then it's just a moral issue, right? When we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of a child's educational career and we don't give them the basics of

reading, writing, and figuring. It's a moral failure, and it's criminal what we're doing to these kids. So these are all the reasons, but you know what? When it comes down to many times, it will even be in Republican rural areas that go, our public school system is doing just fine. We're happy. We have control. And so it can become a bipartisan obstacle in getting to empower parents. So we continue to have these political challenges.

on what is clearly just a common sense policy solution.

Now, the politics of this with the most relentless or in my mind, ruthless guy I've ever seen and jousted with, Josh Shapiro, who I think when the dust settles after the midterms could potentially be a prime candidate moving forward.

Dave McCormick, in a look, I realize politically he has to say I'm hopeful Josh Shapiro will jump on board.

We've already had Paulus and we've had one other Democrat, at least. And Pritzker has broken the code saying that he might be on board with the money from the big, beautiful bill. Will Josh Shapiro do that? What's the pressure that has to be exerted on that to do that? Well, Josh Shapiro has avoided answering that because he has continued to say, well, we need to see the guidelines that come out from Treasury. They are out now. There are no more excuses for not to do that.

I think you know Jared Polis who is a progressive Democrat he said this is a no-brainer because the taxpayers of Colorado where Polis is the governor are going to be able to take this tax credit the no-brainer is that boy our kids can benefit from it and it can be for kids in public school and private school and so this is where Josh Shapiro who is more concerned about Pennsylvania Avenue than Pennsylvania is going to

to try to figure out how far he can go and not offend the teacher unions. They've put out a statement, you know, put out their warning shot across the bows of Democratic governors. And so we'll see if Josh has any courage. I don't think he has a whole lot. He is a politician that licks his finger and puts it in the wind. And when the winds shift, we saw this on data centers. We saw it on school choice from when he ran his first time.

So I'm doubtful because Josh Shapiro lacks courage. I'm in agreement. We even have Kathy Hoko of New York pretty much signing on. I think Pritzker, I want to talk the politics of this on the Democrat side, I think he's thinking there could be a lane there to make this case. I'm doubtful of that, but I hope he's a trailblazer and that some Democrat distinguishes himself on this. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, it would be nice.

I mean, I was hopeful when Polis jumped in and then when Hochul did as well, that this would allow for a lot more Democrats that were lacking the courage to kind of follow. Because again, it is a no brainer. All of the taxpayers, whether they're in a blue state or a red state, a state that's opted in or not, is going to be able to take this tax credit. The question only becomes whether kids can benefit. And it does not affect state finances by one penny, because this is all federal tax credit money.

So there really is no excuse for any governor to not put their state into this federal scholarship tax credit. So it's just a matter of who's willing to stand up to the powerful special interests of the teacher unions that, again, are a big faction within the Democratic Party and wield veto power over candidates. So that's where they're going to have to choose. Are we going to stand with the union bosses or with the kids who are going to be?

That's really what it is a simple a or b choice

We're talking with matt briette and matt from commonwealth what's along

president ceo of commonwealth partners chamber of entrepreneurs

matt the power of donors of entrepreneurs and others i wanted to ask it this way we know the yes family but

i don't know of anybody that cares about as much i think he has said something like

This is the one thing that I really care about. That's it. All these other politics, etc. The people you deal with, they agree with us and all that. I don't see enough fire here, though. How do we get that part going? Because then these donors can have a massive impact. Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. And that's why I wrote a book called You Gotta Win Pennsylvania, A Call to Entrepreneurs to Save America. Because what we've seen, Dom, and this goes back 20 plus years,

that the Democrats have figured out, and there are progressive entrepreneurs, that if they pool their resources at the state level, that's how you can impact national outcomes. They did this in Colorado in the early 2000s. Colorado was a solid red state, but there were four progressive billionaires that said, we need to flip Colorado. And they went to work and flipped Colorado in election cycle 2004.

and 2006 flipped it from red to blue and they have sustained it. They have then taken that model all across the country and they're really focused on Pennsylvania. And so progressive billionaires from George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman, you name them, they are pooling resources and putting them at the state level. Sadly, I'm here to report, and this is the reason I wrote my book, is that national conservatives are not countering that effort. They'll invest at

the national level. Like we got plenty of money in for Dave McCormick. We had parody with him up against Bob Casey. But they are not countering things at the state level with what the progressives are doing. We're getting outspent in the competitive races four to one. Thankfully, we've been able to hold them off until this point. But I wrote my book because I'm trying to rally national conservatives to counter the progressive left, what they're doing at the state level. They understand if they

They can control the country and we have to counter them at the state level if we want to have a national impact. I want to go on that point and take it out broadly. It goes beyond choice. Virginia, just the governor there, signed this week, as you know, but for listeners, this bill that would say they're part of the popular vote coalition and that even if Virginia's popular vote went for a Republican, they would go with whatever the popular vote is nationally.

I don't see a Republican winning that. Trump is just this unicorn. And as a result, if they got Pennsylvania, they would be very close to the 270 needed in order to turn the presidency on the popular vote. So to your point, I think it's a really savvy one. If I'm a big donor, they come to you and what we can do on the state level in Pennsylvania, those dollars are much better spent than just throwing it into a pot nationally.

where it's just all over the place. Right. Right. Well, there are seven battleground states today, Dom, and Pennsylvania being the largest of the seven. The Democrats' electoral math requires them to win Pennsylvania if they want to win the presidency. If they don't win Pennsylvania, they have to win four to five other battleground states. That's a very, very expensive endeavor, and it's why they have focused their resources.

on Pennsylvania, why we are number one and why they are really going after us. And so that's why this strategy has to be countered by national conservatives that want to save America. And you do it by winning at the state level. So that's what we're trying to rally. That's what we're trying to move because you are right. Pennsylvania would very quickly go the route of Virginia. We have not had complete Democrat control in Pennsylvania since 1994.

That's a long, long time. And if they capture control, I guarantee you, they're going to move in those directions, just as you've seen Spanberger moving Virginia. And it will happen very, very fast. And Josh Shapiro, despite all of his moderate rhetoric and talk, he is going to go hard left. Why? Because he has to win a Democrat primary, and you got to be pretty progressive to do that in 2028 if he wants to run for president.

So he will sign up for everything that the progressive Philadelphia Democrats put on his desk if the Democrats gain complete control. It would be disastrous, not just for Pennsylvania, but for our country if the Democrats are able to capture Pennsylvania in this November. I highly recommend the book. Where do we get your book? Give us the title again, Matt, and where do we find you? Yes, You Gotta Win Pennsylvania is the title of the book. You can go to yougottawinpa.com.

You can get it on Amazon and you can find us there. Matt, thank you very, very much. Have a nice weekend and thanks for coming back to the podcast. You bet. Good to be with you, Dom. All right. There is Matt Briette, president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs signaling the politics of this and where this goes. We'll be on this here. Thanks for listening this week to Old School, New School, Next School.

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