saturday, july 18, 2020. i'm on scott. thanks for watching. i'll see you again tomorrow night. ♪ is is life, liberty and it's a great honor to have a man that i followed my entire life, as a teenager, i hate to date you back but you had an enormous influence on me and so many other people. welcome. we appreciate you being here particularly in these times.

you've written a fabulous book, very relevant to what's going on today. charter schools and enemies, charter schools and their enemies. we'll spend significant time on this but before we do, i know the people who watch this program very curious on your take on the events taking place, the nation's direction, was going on in our inner cities, was general take? >> i think things wouldn't get to where they are now. we are adult human beings talking about getting rid of the police. talkingpo about reducing the number of police, reducing resources put in police work at a time when murder rates have been skyrocketing over what they tre a year ago in 2019.

it seems frightening, how many people are in responsible positions, any nonsense on this. i do believe we may well reach a point of no return but there's a time. the roman empire overcame many long history but eventually, it reached were simply could know r longer continue on. much of that from within, not just the barbie and attack from outside. mark: i seem to recall, and 18,

19, a letter back and forth between john adams and thomas jefferson and jefferson said i've been thinking about rome and america and he said, the romans could never have come up with any kind of government to save itself towards people because the people lost their virtue. he said any of the others but the united states different. i'm here to tell you, if we lose our virtue and what we see in the street right now, i don't think we can describe it as virtue. will we see on the media and what we hear from the democrats, there's no kind of government who can protect us from ourselves. >> absolutely. the "wall street journal", some are conducting a study and quoting a study, they didn't say

how but there are so many people who are just caving in. at one time,d i was proud of the university of chicago of how they handle themselves in the majorwhen so many universities were caving in to all kinds of demander but in the past year, the university of chicago, they suddenly decided they will do away with requiring sat and others admissions test. that means they want to be able to mix and match people's demographic appearances rather than the academic situation. that no benefit, those admitted without the same as other students. i saw this in the 1960s when i was teaching at cornell and i learned they were on academic

probation. i went over to the administration to look at the test scores of black students. it turns out the average black student at that time, where the 76th percentile which ones they were not really qualified, they were better than three quarters of all american students who took the test. why were they having academic problems then? because of the cornell liberal arts college at that time,, the average student was at the 99th percentile. the black students would have been so much better off somewhere else with a work is at a pace and in a manner that was something they could handle. they could graduate but they put them in the top 1%, the amount of reading you have to do at that time, the amount of mass presupposed, all of that went into making it harder for them to learn things they could have

easily learned at another university. mark: systemic racism, oppression, you hear it on college campuses and from very wealthy and famous sports stars, you hear from media types, what does that mean and whatever it means, is it true? no meaning that can be specified and tested. it does remind me of the propaganda tactics of joseph, and the age of the nazis. he spoke and said people will believe any lie long enough and loud enough and that's what we are getting. i don't think even the people have any clear idea. the purpose is byhe having other people cave in. mark: i noticed most people who

use that phrase don't live in the communities they claim to be supporting and defending. some have left the communities never to return except on thanksgiving to hand out urturkeys. others throw money into the community's for school but they don't live therefore send their kids to school there. they live among the systemically racist, i suppose. isn't this part of the problem with the left? they are hypocrites. they claim they want equality for all, they claim they will be the withering away of the state. police departments reimagined and so on. every time you look at a marxist state, it's a top-down centralized police state, is it not? >> absolutely. trying to get away from social differences, they create their own who have their own stores

that they alone shopping. their own medical facilities and everything. mark: want to know if you agree with me, which you don't have to, the 1860 election in the 1864 election, the two most important elections. 902020 is one of the most boring elections in history even apart from thero candidates from 1776 projects versus the 16 project. democrats have tied into the 1619 project and many of the republicans are trying to defend the 1776 projects. you see it that way? >> what i see is if the election goes to biden, is a good chance democrats will and control all branches of congress and the

white house. the kinds of things they are proposing, that couldld be the point of no return. mark: that's why iio feel like election is different than all others. you written this fantastic book, charter schools and their enemies, which is the kind of books you write, the kind of thinking you had your entire, and its this, freedom of libert. we believe in competition, toys and ideas. you don't believe in physical impediments whether religion or whatever it is, you believe in the american dream and you view charter schools as part of the potential for liberating in her cities, getting poor kids educated and i want to get into

that in more detail but why is it so hard to do in our inner cities to give poor, mostly minority kids and the parents to go to schools other than the government building happened to be down the block? >> it's because you have a powerful vested interest in the public schools as it is. charter schools are the greatest threat to that. i was surprised at the magnitude of the difference between students who are being educated in charter schools and those educated in traditional public schools in the very same neighborhood and the same thing. there's a huge amount of data in the book based on that particular situation. the charter school in public school in the neighborhood are

in the same building and they have some of the very same to you can compare the third-graders compared to the third-graders in the other school. both, 90 +% minority students, both from low income families. when i did that, i found the mathematics, something like 10% of the children educated in the traditional public schools in the building past the tests compared to 68% of the charter schools in the very same building. i didn't expect level of disparity but there it was more than 100 schools. more than 22000 students. mark: when we return, i want to

ask you why are charter schools so successful when it comes to the students? and government run publicer schools so less successful? we'll be right back. ♪

welcome back. your excellent book, charter schools and their enemies. why are charter schools, and really nongovernment schools more successful been government schools? they get a ton of money, to get attention from the political elites, all the support they can possibly need in myy opinion whereas charter schools in others, they are like this child, if you will. >> first of all, they operate under completely different constraints. traditional public schools clearly are a world of their own unlike most other institutions whether it's sports or churches, automobile dealerships, whatever. they only survive is institutions to the extent the contract clientele.

those schools don't have that problem. it's automatically supplied to the clientele whether the clientele want to be there or not. given each school, the school its own geographic monopoly, with its own geographic area, they don't have to compete among themselves. competition is enormously important because human beings are so gullible. if you insulate people from paying the price of being wrong, you will get a lot of wrong things done. you will get institutions being run for the benefit of those who run the institutions rather than the clientele being designed for it. in the case of m the charter school, is like so many other businesses, they get -- no one is assigned to go too a charter school, their students are all volunteers, the parent

volunteers so charter schools must produce students coming in or they go out of business. given that those conditions, you attract an entirely different kind of person. the traditional public schools, teachers are practically impossible to fire no matter how bad they are. in charter schools, ifac the teachers can't teach the kids, nobody cares how many degrees they have or any of that stuff. mark: so there's enormous institutional opposition to charter schools, it comes i guess from the teachers union which is enormously powerful, which is a campaign funding source forso state and local democrats. they basically collude, i take it to prevent the option of

charter schools and other options being available particularly in the inner city and the parents in the inner cities, what would they like to do? do they want to send the kids to charter schools? >> in new york city, 50000 students in traditional public schools on waiting list to get into better schools.s. if those students were able to transfer if they want to, and each child in new york city, the state spends more than $20000 a year on them, that comes out to more than $1 billion a year that would move from the traditional public schools to the charter schools the students were able to transfer so obviously job number one for the teachers union and the traditional public schools is to prevent those students from transferring even though they have a legal right to. one of the ways is to simply

have a fixed o number of charter schools set up beyond which they cannot go so here in this situation last year with the federal government gave the charter school more than $9 million and ordinarily, it would just expand into other buildings and so on what they are up against this arbitrary number, they can't do much. among the other ways many cities especially a with the population is going down, there they can schools, they've been vacant for years and local authorities prevent charter schools fromrt using that building because they were able to have more classrooms, they'd take students of their waiting list and students would move to the charter school. mark: thiss is credible to me.

president trump calls it a civil igrights issue and he's been talking about this for a long time and he's made efforts to expand and the funded effort to expand through grants and so forth and then you have the democrat party is absolutely against this. barack obama, the first african-american president and what one of the first things he does? he puts the brush on it. is this a civil rights issue or of the democrats going to get away with this constant monopoly control of our school system? >> it depends, just recently, joece biden said the teachers union, when he becomes president, teachers will be the number one priority in the schools. it's an extraordinary statement when you think about it. children are supposed to bee the number one priority.

if you have situations where the main thing is teachers have tenure on the job and there are all kinds that can be told, they have no incentive, they get paid regardless of whether there students learn or not. in charter schools, particularly successful ones, teachers to get goodo results move up and the ones who don't, move out. mark: do you think, i'm not generally a fan of antitrust laws but do you think should be applied to public-sector unions? i'm thinking they should. if they're going to be applied in the business and corporate side, if onebu toaster company wants to buy another, it has to be viewed by the department of justice and antitrust division and when it comes to i the teaching of our children, look at this ironfisted control over these school systems are not sure how else we can break through.

the teachers unions had the run of the place. >> yes. i'm not legal authority but i believe some years ago, there was a law that said unions are not. that way it's not going to go but if they would just make the charter schools have equal treatment, when there students, you provide classrooms for them. new york city, for example, in the recent years, there to 12 public schools half empty and yet, charter school people have a terrible time getting into those places because there are

all kinds of roadblocks. in some parts of the country, empty school houses have been demolished, make sure charter schools can't get in. mark: there just needs to be away to bring a liberty agenda. some kind of agenda controlled by these for half a century. you're right about that and i trust laws.ig i think they've got to update them to reality was going on in this country today. when we return, isn't it true that we also have towns and states passing legislation to make itak more and more difficut as a fundamental legal matter to have competition charter schools? will be right back. ♪

the country in mourning saturday night as we reflect on the life of john lewis. he died from cancer at 80, john lewis was one of those influential leaders in the civil rights movement. when he is 23, he worked with doctor martin luther king junior, helping organize the march on washington in 1963, two years later, he let the margin somewhat, a place he would come back to visit whenever he could. >> 1965, americans so dearly, we

were ready to die for her. >> president trump plays his civil rights work and says the family was in his prayers. john lewis was 80 years old. ♪ mark: welcome back. we had, at the turn of the last century, the radical progressives, they had an enormous impact on public education.ce teaching basics, that's not it. you have to social impacts, social activism, the effects of social studies on the community you see that over the last century and it's getting worse, it's not getting better. he had an enormous influence so my question is, charter schools,

are charter schools more focused on getting kids to learn the basics in literature and english and mathematics and science as opposed to the public schools that are into the social activism stuff? >> yes. in fact, that's one of the things the critics complain of. in california, there charter schools last year that were forced to essentially carry indoctrination courses and the content of the courses were. in california in recent years, they've already mandated the charter schools teach this education. it's really an indoctrination for the advanced attitudes.

it's to be taught at an early age in which is grotesque. mark: about patriotism? basic allegiance to the country. everybody doesn't have to agree on everything and everybody knows history is full of positive and negatives but i b t the sense, particularly in the last several months that a lot of the hostility towards the d country, the founders, the founding documents and so forth, the breeding grounds for g thiss in public education. >> absolutely. if you're serious about mathematics and science and things like that, you really cannot squander the time of schoolchildren on these other adventures in indoctrination. almost regardless of what the

indoctrination is because especially with kids from low income areas where the parents may not have aslo much education and other people in society, these s students need a real grounding. many of these charter schools, that's what they get. also, they have to have behavior standards, you can't teach that in the schools. in california, they passed incredible laws that specified that students in early grades cannot be suspended for disrupting classes or activities in the school so what you're saying is, your licensed and troublemaking. the reason is simply that this is one ofan many ways schools cn be kept from becoming so much better than traditional public schools.

it would be a lot harder to raise traditional public schools up to the level of charter schools but it's easier to bring the charter schools down to the level of traditional public schools. mark: it seems to me when we were raising our kids, too, we better look at the textbooks your kids have, the lesson plans, you better question them about what their learning in the classroom when they go ton these public schools as parents, not just funding and funding increases for teachers and god knows what else goes on in the public classrooms. in other words, parents need to be active, not active as captured as activists on behalf of the school system but on behalf of their children and find out what's going on in the classrooms and make noise when they find out the kids are being brainwashed. i don't see enough of that, do you? >> no.

i think competition would take care of a lot of that. among the things parents who send their kids to charter schools say, they're physically safer, they learn good behavior and so on. you have all those things. that will take care of itself. most of thee parents in neighborhoods where that's a real problem, they will move their kids out of traditional public school which was why evere are so many ways to keep the kids from being able to transfer. mark: i think there needs to be a total rethinking of public education and one of the areasuc is competition, charter schools and other types of schools. doctor systems, whatever you can put into the system to give children opportunities but this

whole notion that you hear all the time, the teachers are paid enough, the school district doesn't have enough money, we need to build no schools, everybody buys into it. they think it will improve quality of education. maybe it's time for people to say no, we demand choices, we demand alternatives and otherwise, we believe in you want to defund the cops? let's defund the school systems unless they are responsive to that. what you think of that? >> i think it's a good idea but we don't have to worry about that, the public doesn't have to worry about this is what the market does a lot, they do what satisfiest them. to find the quality kept up just by the competition but the teachers and institutions are so protective that this is why they can get away with the institutions for their benefit rather than the benefit of the

students. mark: when we return, i want to ask you this, we are talking mostly about the inner cities, mostly about minority students, not exclusively but mostly. is the continued opposition to allowingut freedom of choice too to better schools and get a better education and a safer environment, is that becoming a matter of bigotry? i'm curious to know what you think about that. we'll be right back. ♪

welcome back. fabulous new book, charter schools and their enemies by the great doctor sowell. i'm focused on educating our children is the key. what they are learning, how their learning, where they are learning is the key. lest we ask this, unless we take

effort to reform this as a nation, the same thing will happen it will get worse generation to generation which leads me to my question, the same thing over and over again, big government schools, centralization, the democrat liparty, unions beating the democrat party and vice ang ver, in order to break this, most of what we are talking about is happening in cities and in inner citieses, core areas, majority, minority areas. can we call this bigotry? >> i don't think it's so much ideological. some ofde the officials who tryo block and have succeeded in blocking charter schools for using vacant buildings that have been vacant for years, i havee said we can't be helping our competition so you put the

people in charge of the existing system in charge of making rules for charter schools, they set rules to represent certain and prevent the students from getting into the charter schools. the old argument, if it's not broke, don't fix it, the model for charter schools, if the date broke, then break it. otherwise the students will go. mark: you think it would be tolerated and otherwise communities? many cap leave, they are immobile because of financial reasons and other reasons. in other parts of the country, people leave or pick their home based on the schoolve system. the left wing white woman, i watched joe biden, he's become left-wing. i see nancy pelosi and schumer and all these people and then i

see a leftist who is also black who are part of this collusion but still, if there's systemic racism, it seems to me when you look at the inner cities, something systemic is going on. maybe it's not in their best interest for seems to be applicable to one group of people, particularly black people. >> if the family income is high enough to afford it, the parents knowdi that, public schools know that. they will be quality level, maintained in the community because there's only the implicit threat that they will lose money and jobs so under the circumstances, it's different.

they are preventing black kids from going to those schools with government support. it's not so much about religion, it's the fact that traditional catholic schools, many have loan of tuition that people of moderate income sacrifice. they will send their kids there. that reduces competition and what they don't want is competition. mark: is in this what we see across the board with the left? whether healthcare, no competition. whether it is other activities, no competition. whether it's schooling, no competition. even when you get to universities and t colleges of which there are obvious nthousand, and ideology, the demand adherence to set of

standards. free speech, freedom of association depending on who's doing the speaking and associating is supported ordo opposed, isn't this a problem across the board t when it comes to the left? >> absolutely. in my career, scenic develop, when i was teaching at cornell in 1965, we have people of all kinds of persuasions just from the economic department. when i left, there was an orthodoxy put in there. if you didn't agree with it, you're just out of luck. i saw my wonderful young woman, courageous who stood up putting standards on the academic, behavioral standards.

they not only fired her, they made it impossible for her to get another job anywhere else. mark: this is happening in an extreme way as a result of last month's antifa. we'll be right back.

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mark: welcome back. future of american education. a fabulous new book by doctor sowell. what are the dangers charter schools face as we go ahead? >> all across thes country, ther attempts to force charter schools to follow rules that will make it difficult, if not, impossible for them to maintain the quality they arty have. in california, you cannot suspend students for doing things that one time they would have been expelled. for example, charter schools, the largest chain of charter schools in the country are now

gotten rid of their model that says be nice, pay attention and so forth. that's considered politically incorrect because itt suggests the problems of minority students is not systemic racism and things like that over the past year or so, they've been talking more and more in the lklanguage of the political lef. they have schools in both cases the question is, how longg will it continue? they don't understand the dangers when you allow internal changes and external obstacles to pile up. that means even though charter schools may survive, they may not survive excellent institutions which is what matters.

to a black high school in washington, for more than 70 years had outstanding educational outcome and they changed this one thing, they changed itne from a neighborhood school and just that one fact caused them to go from 81%, it's an all black school, 81% of the students went on to college which at that time, 1953, was a higher percentage than any public high school, black or white in the city of washington. just by 1960, only 20% will going on to college. today, one of the worst high schools, it's not a matter of the charter school surviving the institution, it's the educated

quality surviving. that's what the enemies of the charter schools undermining. mark: and never surprises me the level ofss deviousness on the lt because what you are describing their is the institutions from within. if you can't beat them, and devour them. that's right, that's very sinister. i want to thank you for writing this magnificent book. how to strongly encourage the audience to get a copy. this lays out the case. i want to thank you also for a career that's influenced so ma many, i wouldn't do what i am today in part, if it wasn't for watching you and being your books and all the things you've done to this country. i want to thank you, doctor

thomas sowell. take care. we'll be right back. ♪ma we're always here to help with fast response and great service and it doesn't stop there we're also here to help look ahead that's why we're helping members catch up by spreading any missed usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so you can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most and that's just one of the many ways we're here .. our extended release melatonin helps you sleep longer. and longer. zzzquil pure zzzs all night. fall asleep. stay asleep.

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mark: welcome back. it amazes me when i stand back and watch what goes on in this country. we will have debates for days and days and days over the president's tax returns which are our daily meaningless to the vast majority of the american people there only useful for the democrats want to club him over the head. we see the other debates going on about what is needed in the inner cities, systemic racism, we get to hear lebron james comment on it in hollywood actors and don lemon and media type to know nothing about it. and they are so disconnected, i'm sorry it is true. and yet we have this issue, basic education, court education, learning arithmetic and literature in english and science and history, the things

that are needed to get along in society to assimilate into this culture. and what do we have, we have a democrat party, a national education association, and american federation for teachers, affective and optically the controller cities and controls all education but particularly the cds were many people are too poor and are told you're going to go to the government facility, whether or not your kid is threatened, whether they are safe, getting educated or whether or not that you like it, in america. what we need is a liberty agenda, what we need is a constitutional agenda. what we need is a true two-party system in our inner cities. we need cops to protect our people. we need capitalism to create wealth, we need all the things that exist in the rest of the country that are applied to the inner cities that are run by the democrats and their surrogates.

joe biden is running on bernie sanders agenda. that is the anti-liberty, antichoice agenda, the agenda of the iron [♪] jesse: welcome to "watters world." i'm jesse watters. biden the dangerous liberal. >> center left. that's where i am. jesse: that's a flat-out lie. even "the washington post" wrote biden's vision comes into view and it's much more liberal than it was. biden is way left. i'll show you biden issue of by issue and you will see he's a radical lunatic that will destroy the