Learning Loss: The Teachers’ Unions Must Answer

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, welcome in everyone to this week's edition of Old School, New School, Next School.

If you're a new listener or just to reaffirm, Dom Giordano, the host, former teacher, now talk radio host in Philadelphia and used on matters educational nationally.

One of the biggest things we're going to talk about this week, this show is about stopping the dumbing down of America's kids.

And that's a mighty task. And one of the best ways to do that are parental rights and school choice. But it is amazing how dumb American kids are getting every day. There's no denying it. If you feel that, you are on the right path. We're going to be joined momentarily by Ryan Walters, former superintendent of schools in Oklahoma, big time national player, now heads up the Teachers Freedom Alliance. Because what this does, this Freedom Alliance,

It liberates teachers from the big unions, the NEA, the AFT are the two biggest in the country. They are, in my view, we've said it in previous shows, both of those unions, Randy Weingarten particularly, they are the enemy of parents. They're all about control and teachers control. And what does that do then? It helps the dumbing down of American kids. I mean, there are enough other reasons we'll go into why they're getting dumber every day, but this is one of the biggest.

And it occurred to me to get Ryan Walters on this week to talk about this because we've just seen the testimony of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci squaring off with Rand Paul talking about the entirety of COVID. We've seen the diaries of Dr. Fauci that are out there that are pretty explicit on any number of areas of weakness. But the one that I want to center in on is COVID and schools.

and kids. Parents erupted because they saw what was going on in schools.

They also erupted because they knew that schools were kept closed way too long.

And they also know, and I want to reaffirm, this is one of the biggest things as a parent of why your kid may not be up to par, why America is losing, is learning loss from all that nonsense when it was unnecessary.

at a certain point and we're zooming and we're not zooming at home. You can imagine the learning loss that happened. So what happened? Part two of COVID, a lot of money was allocated. It may be a hundred billion dollars, who knows, to catch up that learning loss. And I've recommended on this show countless times. You need intense one-on-one tutoring to do that or small group tutoring. That's the thing that needs to be done.

to bring America's kids back to par. And par is barely there, proficiency. In other words, before COVID, what was going on with kids was not good across America. They were being dumbed down. Some of them are dumb, and they're even dumber today. Let's use that word. Let's use plain language. So how do we get out of that? One of the lessons of this is to curtail the power of these big teachers' unions.

Case in point, it came up during the Fauci testimony and other documents that are out there that at a certain point, the CDC was ready to say return to school. Email surfaced. The head of the CDC was pushed back on by Randy Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers. The Biden administration then continued to curtail the guidance to get back into school in physical places.

in places like Los Angeles, their union, Chicago, they were awful. Why do they do that? It's about power. It's about saying, this is our power. We can shut you down on a moment's notice. In the future, you better play ball with us. And the result, in my estimation, and a lot of documentation is that we are seeing this learning loss continue. Now, of course, that's one of the reasons why the big teachers unions are also tooth and nail,

against school choice.

A new analysis released by the American Federation of Children

estimates that approximately 51.7 million children nationwide

will qualify for scholarships under the Educational Freedom Tax Credit.

That's the big, beautiful bill.

That's the thing where people contribute $1,700 to get a tax break of $1,700.

That money goes to nonprofits state by state,

And it's distributed to parents who apply for it. There is a huge demand. Nearly 52 million kids nationwide qualified for this. Look, if you're a parent or some of these parents that don't want to do it, God bless. You're in a school district you like, you're willing to put up with it, whatever it may be. But the bottom line is a lot of people want to get away from this. That's what's at stake here. So as I said, Ryan Walters has founded an organization.

the Teacher Freedom Alliance, which is liberating teachers by giving them protection that they would get, insurance and other things, if they were the member, a subsidiary of the NEA or the AFT. And that's critical. And their numbers are growing day by day by day, people that don't want to be part of this union. These are teachers I would highly recommend that don't want to be part of that.

And legally, they don't have to be anymore. But reassuring them, giving them the backing is what Walters does. So this is all part, as we in some places actually start to think about going back to school, of the big puzzle, what do you do for your kid? Choice is number one. Two, I'd recommend between now and the start of school, wherever you're listening, whatever you hear this podcast, to consider a tutor, to consider someone locally,

to take a brush up to have them hit the ground running, going back to school, whatever the school might be. But we have sunk a hundred billion dollars into this, this COVID testimony with Fauci. And we have not achieved any kind of Manhattan Project. There's no Manhattan Project here. There's not even a Brooklyn Project or a Staten Island Project. The Manhattan Project, you know what that was. We had to build a nuclear weapon to win World War II. Man, if we're doing it by the way the money was wasted here, that would never happen.

All right, so first, I'm going to play you one of the leaders of the California teachers who recently spoke at the AFT convention with Randy Weingart. And this gives you the attitude. They think things are going fine with them because they're in power, they still have their jobs, they're still doing what they want. But is your kid, did they experience learning loss? Are they up to par? What is par? You want the best for them. That's where parental

rights and choice come in. Here is the California teacher and then we'll be joined by a guy who's a large part of the solution. There's many parts to this. That is Ryan Walters here on Old School, New School, Next School. Fight back against this fascist regime. We need to be in the streets, wisely using our wallets, battling in the courts and winning at the ballot box, the center of our democracy. All right. So,

Again, what they're up to now, calling for this march on Washington. Please let them do this before the midterms. Let's talk to Ryan Walters to get his sense on that, on school choice. And also, remember he did a lot with the Bible. I might start off with that in Oklahoma. I have a cut here of an interview he did where some on the left are saying the Bible is anti-Semitic, not us. Oh, man, the Bible? Let's go to Ryan Walters on

Talk Radio 1210. Hey, Ryan, welcome in. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. So, Ryan, I had this one cut. I don't know if it was an Australian outfit or whatever, an interview I happened to see the other day of you. Who is it that's out there saying the Bible is the thing that is anti-Semitic? Oh, we've got these left-wing groups that, you know, act like they're coming at it from, you know, a religious perspective.

that the Bible is anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, that's just the, that shows you the lengths they'll go.

And by the way, it's projection. I mean, it's like, okay, the teachers union and the left have been the ones that have been anti-Semitic. They're the ones that have been pushing this curriculum in schools to not show the state of Israel, all this type of stuff. And then they want to come in and claim, well, the Bible is anti-Semitic. I mean, it's just a joke, but all they want to do is continue to push this left-wing indoctrination in schools and not have to be able to do this.

have any ability of teachers or just parents to be able to have honest conversations about American history, American exceptionalism. And so, you know, when you talk about the Bible in schools and its role in American history, that's got to be there. And so they are just really twisting themselves into knots to try to make this claim that somehow the Bible is offensive in a school.

You and I follow this, Corey DeAngelis, our mutual friend from the inside and all that, but I think even the average person, when they see some of this this summer, realizes that the NEA and the AFT with Randy Weingarten, A, you have figures up there that are screaming, just screaming, saying wild things, the Chicago public schools had. The other thing is they're getting more and more explicit and expansive in being part of the left wing of the Democrat

Party on actual policies. Are we seeing that or it's just that we have better ways of tracking it?

No, I think you're right. I think that they're really showing themselves and getting more and more extreme by the day. And they're starting to hold these speeches more publicly. I think they were doing similar calls to action behind the scenes.

But they have just become such an out-in-the-open tip of the spear for the Democrat Party that, frankly, they're leading a lot of the ideological craziness of the party. You look at this and you go, the Democrat Party has gone from claiming to represent the working class just a couple of decades ago to just all-out transgender absolute craziness. And you're going, wow, that party has really done

two huge steps to the left and you look out and you go, well, who is probably the most public face of that craziness from an apparatus standpoint? It's the teachers union. So I do think that they have really taken on the tip of the spear in this driving of a woke agenda into the overall democratic platform. And again, you watch the things that they're voting on, calling Donald Trump a fascist, you know, pushing abortion rights, pushing transgenderists.

You're going, okay, I mean, this was the teachers' union conference? Not reading, not arithmetic, not how do we make sure that our kids are, you know, prepared for the next generation of jobs? No, no, no, no, no. It is, you know, Trump's a fascist, left-wing policy, that's their focus, and that's what they're going to continue to push and drive.

Governor Westmore in Maryland, at the most recent convention, he's leading the charge or trying to with them.

the attack on the big beautiful bill the new money not any money taken from anybody by the way some of it goes to the public schools too in which people are going to donate then nonprofits distribute the money is that wise politically to still be fighting that kind of rear guard action on this and look i know you and admire what you've done i just think we ought to you ought to stop this move over with mike johnson we need a little

help here on this issue Ryan Walters would make this like a rallying cry across the country if they really want to still fight this oh I think absolutely like you know if the Democrats want to take on and say they don't want parents to be able to direct their funding of their kids education they don't want things because here's like you pointed out this isn't hey this isn't just for conservative parents or parents in red states this is for

of all backgrounds, red state, blue state alike could have access to this. Also, public schools can utilize the tax credit for things like tutoring services, for other options of different types of programs in their schools that they've wanted to explore in the past. This truly should be a win for all students across the country. But don't forget, the Democrats are going to bend the knee to the unions. The teachers' unions want to direct the funding of every taxpayer

in education. So if any mechanism that says parents, you can decide, parents, you can make decisions on the way education dollars are spent, the union's going to fight it. They're going to fight it every step of the way because this takes them out of power and it also, again, enables parents to decide, look, if a public school system is being run by the teachers' union, run into the ground and causing kids to have a poor education, take your kids somewhere else. The teachers' unions cannot allow that.

We're talking with Ryan Walters. And Ryan, the outfit you're heading up now, which really helps to back teachers, because it's easy to say, well, just don't be part of the union and the dues and all that. I taught in Jersey. That money was taken out. The NGA was by statute. It was in the law that they could take the money out. I never saw what the dues were. I had no say in it, nothing. And there were 250,000 members. Jersey's got a population, but that's a lot of people.

The head of the NJEA just ran to be governor in the primary, spent $56 million of those dollars and came in fifth. So how are you taking on those unions? What are you providing for teachers, maybe some listening still, that want to be part of the Freedom Alliance? Absolutely. And by the way, we just, you want to talk about a stark contrast. We just held our national summit last week in Dallas, Texas. And we come down there and what are we, we have Secretary Linda McMahon.

She's one of our keynote speakers. We're talking about classroom management, classroom discipline. We're talking about how to infuse the best methods of reading instruction into the classroom. We talked about how to teach American history using primary source documents. We had hundreds of teachers there in person, thousands joining online as we do this. This is what it should look like, a teacher organization. And so that's what we're providing for teachers. First of all, we provide them liability insurance. That's something that unions dangle over their head of where you're

We're happy to provide that as well. But we actually say we want teachers. We want to help teachers be better teachers. That's what good teachers want to do. They constantly want to be honing their craft. So we provide professional development opportunities like this. And we've got teachers. We've got thousands of members now nationwide. And again, you know, you got teachers union on one side calling Trump a fascist and rah-rah-rah at their conference. Our conference, we're talking about reading instruction. We're talking about how to teach the Declaration of Independence at every grade level. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's,

It's crazy to see the difference between what good teachers are doing and wanting in the classroom and what the unions are pushing. That's two core things, too. There's such a breakthrough in reading. The other thing is classroom management, classroom discipline. A lot of people could be great teachers. They can't control it in the beginning. And the things that they need to do that and get through it, that is worthy, not this other stuff. That's right.

It's tough. And we should be focused on making sure that every teacher has the proper training to be as good as they can be. And instead, you got the union that's got hundreds of millions of dollars that's funneling them towards the furthest left wing candidates in the country. When in reality, any kind of teacher organization should be focused on how do you teach the science of reading? How do you ensure how do you get students caught up from behind when they're more than a grade level behind? How do we make sure that we're instilling citizenship in the next generation so that this can continue

to be the greatest country in the history of the world. These are worthwhile goals, and the union is actually doing the exact opposite. Absolutely. Where do we go to find your group, Ryan Walters? No, I appreciate that. It's teacherfreedom.com, teacherfreedom.com, and we're all over social media, so Teacher Freedom Alliance. We'd love to have teachers join us, and parents, taxpayers, you can join up as supporters as well to keep track of the work we're doing. We're going to continue to fight to get America's education system back on track by bringing back common sense.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Ryan, thank you. Thanks for the great work you're doing now. Thank you.

Appreciate you. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this week's edition of Old School, New School, Next School.

Each week, I'll be adding my top 10 reasons why America's kids, in my estimation, are pretty dumb. I might even take the pretty out in some circumstance. Does it have to be that way? No.

We've identified today, though, one of the enemies of moving forward toward that, and that is the big teachers' unions. And the teachers that are fleeing that are part of the solution. Also, school choice is one of the biggest parts of that solution so that we just don't willy-nilly say, pass them on, that's learning loss, that was due to COVID, we can't do anything about it. Why do we spend all that money? Now, if you have a question, you have a comment, you can always reach me.

DOMSHOW, D-O-M-S-H-O-W, at AOL.com, DOMSHOW at AOL.com.

I will see you next week.

The second big reason why America's kids are being dumbed down.

We'll have that for you.

Dom Giordano, Old School, New School, Next School.

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