the district where the public schools were failing it was because of a lack of opportunity in the public school system that the state provided the benefit. >> that's not maine's issue. a. >> for more than a century, maine allowed at the schools to participate. for a century, religious schools could participate and that was fine. if there were secular options and public options and private options, options in maine and outside of maine. in 1980 the state does a reverse course based on the establishment clause that says no longer can you attend don't you think about going to be a jewish state school or local catholic parish school for a century that had been fine. this wasn't about providing a substitute for the public education. this was about a turn in 1980 based on the interpretation of the establishment clause that for some reason if it wasn't clear after mueller or zelman that that was wrong, it was certainly clear the state continues to stand by this case. >> can i take you back to justice breyer's point and at te chief justices hypothetical there is a strange status decision and we

that is the benefit at issue here, food public education. private schools are sometimes enlisted to deliver the benefit of no constitutional significance. frequently outsourced delivery of public benefit programs and it does notot change public nate of the program. it should be no different when it comes to education. the reason schools promote a particular faith are not eligible to participate simple. maine is determined as a matter of public policy, public education should be religiously neutral. this is entirely consistent with this court's holdings public schools must not infiltrate religion and instead promote tolerance of religious views. petitioners want a different benefit. instruction designed to instill religious beliefs at taxpayer expense. they are not being discriminated against, they simply are not offered the benefit that no family in maine is entitled to. from a different perspective, this court made clear the government is entitled to define the scope of financial benefit to advance its own value judgments even when they disadvantage activi

send them to the public school if it exists. send them to the contracted school that exists, or don't. >> and that is always true with a school choice program your honor. that was true in zelman that. program is specific -- >> and one way to make justice sotomayor's point i think is to ask whether this is different from a typical school choice program. this is not a state or locality saying we just love choice, we think everybody should get as many choice as they want. this is really a default program for a very small number of students living in isolated areas where the state has decided it cannot, it does not have the resources to provide public schools. and the state would wish to say public schools for everybody. you know, you go to portland maine, it is just public schools for everybody. the state would wish to do that. it can't do that in communities in northern maine so it's come one this extremely cabined program. and i think, you know, one question here is whether we should view that in this same way as a kind of zelman

schools. you also have public options, but you refuse to also subsidize religious schools. and once they pass the law that changed that in montana and say, we will fund any private school just came back in and said, right, you don't have to subsidize private schools but, but once you start, you can't exceed religious school just because. and so i think here's, here's the differentiation of what's happening on the supreme court decision. in this particular case, it hinges on that there is no public options in those areas where those kids are going to practice. right? well, now i want to say looking at headline from public schools across the country, parents are not in the road actually with the agendas there being time school is that, is that well show in the last midterm election? so should it be a parents choice? oh absolutely, i think we've established in this country that we're going to have choice options for charter schools are now a part of the dynamic of the pantheon of different schools and we are going to be having access to. but the question again, hinges on this

some amassed my asked me, how do you convince people in public schools when they are so broken? e schools are broken, too. everywhere hugo, we are all trying to show up in these communities and your kid is going to leave with wounds and some gifts with any decision you make so there isn't a simple choice for anyone. a school community is such a i complex ecosystem and so profound the impact it has on each of us as human beings so i love you sharing your story because that's what i hope the book helps people do, unpeeled layers of their own educational history so they can potentially make different decisions for their own kids and one of my big hopes is white list parents. talking about communities they don't know anything about is if theyey a get so this language oe playground and schools, it is so toxic and perpetuates misunderstandings who the school communities are in these cities so if you've never been there and don't know people from their, i plead with you to have the humility to not lamely understand schools are worth looking at. >> i think that is beautiful because your

america and were kind of like a beautiful motley crew and oakland is about 40% white and 10% of public schools are white in our school is probably around 10% white kids at this point. and now that i've looked into the expanse, it's like getting out of the matrix and if you're trying to see in the matrix, there is nothing brave about it we get to go to a totally amazing in person school just like any other imperfect school in your question about hard versus easy in your perceptions now that i'm living into it there are so many hard things about being surrounded by white highly resourced culture like elite culture, there is so much competition and so much unspoken status sizing insomuch expectation in the way in which you parent in those communities, i actually think in a lot of ways i have it much easier now because him a part of the culture where there's people from so many different perspective values, religious backgrounds there is no one thing that everyone thinks the kid to be doing at any particular point, there is a culture that we are all doing our best, that for me feel so much easier

one of the wives really wanted to go to the neighborhood integrating public school. think one wanted to go to private school, to send the kids to private school. it was the stuff of divorces. they could not and finally settled on the private school. she said i'm scared to have your book sitting around when they come over because i feel it is this explosive thing. having strife within your relationship you are not alone. often has this kind of strain. pay attention to your own educational trauma that might be coming up. find someone, even one person you can feel accompanied by free thinking about send your kid to an integrated school and it feels like you are going against the grain. think the dangers and a white people let's get a critical mass of people's go to this black and brown school we get into gentrifying and they're coming in with these white ideals in the white savior stuff. do not go in that direction. i think it is important is emotionally comforting there someone you know was also going to send their kids to school. look for that person. do whatever you c

>> an assumption about public schools. i mean, i think a lot of people just don't know the peak of integration in america was in 1988. a lot of people think public schools are more integrated than they are. i think also people have this idea that they are ascended in a way that is unjust, but they do not actually understand the depths of it. i will just give an example of a narrow community here in oakland. the school that my kid goes to, now probably raises close to $10,000 a year from private fundraising. not money coming from the federal or state or county government. but when we first started going to the school, i think the most raised was like $5000. many years when nothing was raised at all. no ptas at all in our community. and then at school, literally, less than a mile away, raises $150,000 annually from their pta ywithout a lot of trouble. and, so, those numbers mean really fundamentals things. are they trying to integrate art ? do you have a nurse on staff? these things deeply affect students lives. in one of th

isn't that the same thing as public school, but you know what main you be main. so in their case, they do not pay for religious schools because they say the curriculum isn't the same as a state funded public school, but yet they're paying for the private schools. in this fairness, do you believe well in maine it does a unique situation. i think is kind of similar to but not, but basically what they have is in the areas where those children do not have a public school, then the only option that they have is that the state subsidize them to go to a private school. so the state had a responsibility to educate your children, and that option is what they're instituting. so that factual differentiation is really where it centers on in the city, in, in the state of maine as of in other places in the country like montana where the supreme court said, hey, look, you stuff to that private schools. you also have public options, but you refuse to also subsidize religious schools. and once they pass the law that changed that in montana and say, we will fund any private schools

who think public schools and by and large a pretty good numbers in the public school. property taxes are really high compared to the schools not as high in new hampshire. looking at some of those things to makes you really think about what's important. i'm curious thank you for asking this what advice you give to a parent decide what school system to send their children shoot? >> i've said this a little bit because they do not underestimate how your own educational trauma or comfort is showing up. i've seen by the way a lot of these decisions become very fractured in marriages and within relationships. i had one friend i want to give it to my friend, just to female friends who are married. one of the wives really wanted to g go to the neighborhood to integrate public schools pretty think the other wanted to go to private school. once the stuff of divorces. they just could not and violently settled on private school. she said it even scared to have sitting around i feel like it is an exclusive thing. to be having strife in a relationship you're not alone. the deeply hel

they've been open, and their kids are doing a lot better than the public school kids. >> right. e have burnout, or, you know, we think it's too hard -- the kids or the cases are rising. parents understand this is just a reason for teachers unions to not go to work or to to have les of a workweek. and it doesn't matter to these unions that it puts parents in a terrible bind in terms of short notice, not being able to find childcare, not being able to go to work themselves. remarkable this is happening in the wake of all this backlash we are seeing against school boards and recall elections that people are still playing with this political fire. david: and, bill, this is why people -- even people who have been supportive of the unions in the past for public schools like mike bloomberg, the former mayor of new york has■ç announced in e "wall street journal," by the way, that he's going to be spending $75 million, a lot of money -- $750 million for charter schools. he took some big swipes against the union in the editorial in the in the wall "wall street journal". >> of course he did

eight in ten public school teachers are white, yet half of the public school students are students of we improve that aspect of education in america? >> so i don't think that we have to have, you know -- we should definitely have more black and latino educators because that is what our country looks like, but i don't think you have to be black or latino in order to teach a more accurate history. the problem is that our teacher preparation programs are not equipping educators with the knowledge that they need to teach this history better. when you look at the survey by teaching tolerance, they found that about half or slightly more than half of american educators say they don't feel equipped to teach about slavery, and they really struggle to teach about slavery. it's kind of ironic that we're seeing these bills being passed, these anti-history laws that make it more difficult to teach about slavery and racism and our country's long history of racism when, in fact, we have educators who are struggling the opposite way. they're holding mock slave auctions in their classrooms. they're ha

population. >> is that sending a message about public schools?> i think for this year for sure parents were frustrated about delayed school reopening resume district schooling was not meeting the needs of many students and parents felt like they could do things better for tickly once they got an app on one's they were learning in the classrooms and remote school beginning last spring i think part of it is that in the overall growth in homeschooling over the past couple of decades has been really more of a desire to provide a personalized customize education in the u.s. department of education data through 2012 and 2016 shows the number one reason that parents are choosing to homeschool as a concern about the environment of other schools including bullying, negative. pressure and that sort of thing in the number two reason and number two motivator was a desire for academic excellence that is a reflection on the conventional school system but really a sense of parenting the empowering to help guide their children's education and learning and give t

because after all education that we like public schools so we will emphasize that. is not much different. >> who wouldn't say that? >> so then the low cost private schools. but we can accept that. and then as soon as their country with that proper department for education. and then to unionized teachers and that is reminiscent. but they are not big enough. they want that standardize with the public education but that proper curriculum and proper assessment so with the mainstream educational advocates as a form of colonialism. >> i don't think it was accidental. because what it is saying is those from the international agencies usaid the department from international development in my country they all say we know how education should be done. we know how it should be done and then go from the sons of liberia and the slums and south sudan all these places but then they go there and actually parents prefer a different way to do it they like the low cost private schools because they are accountable to them they don't have tai chi teachers who don't strike but they were c

population. >> is that sending a message about public schools?nts areer frustrated abot the reopenings not meeting the needs of many students and particularly what some of the kids were learning or not learning in the classroom. part of it is in the past couple of decades more of a desire to provide a more customized education and the department ofu education data from a 2012 and 2016 shows the number one reason that parents are choosing to home school is concerned about the environment of other schools including bullying, negative peer pressures, that sort of thing and the number two motivator is the desire for excellence so that is on the conventional school system and a sense of parenting re- empowered to help guide the children's education learning that they may be getting elsewhere. >> you use the term coercive schooling. what does that mean? >> this idea that we are compelling students to be in school as well as through the course of top-down measures and a subject at this time and in this role with little customization on the standardizati

and for me, as somebody who is a public school kid, i went to public school my entire life, and i haveght message to these kids to separate them from, you know, to separate them in groups based on black, white, etc. >> i would say that not all schools are created equally. so you know, we can't say it's running rampant in every school. but tommy, they were bold enough to put that up on a sign. this is something that they were proud of and my question is like for me, with biracial kids, do they have like the half white, half black night? >> when we're talking about this, i'm glad rob pointed it out, generations of americans of all colors and all political affiliations fought to end our horrible past in our nation. now that they're trying to bring it back especially at that age for students, that's what really gets me. if you can pull your kids out of public school, the problem is the people that really need that true inclusion and true diversity and sense of belonging regardless of race or socioeconomic status or what have you are the people that can't afford to go to private school. the

i'm a product of public schools. i kids have gone the public schools.y parents are public school teachers. but you know what the curriculum there is all about. ultimately it is about less and less freedom for the individual. where do you think that comes from? that is not a god thing. >> it is important to clarify what we mean by freedom. one of the great lies of modern america is that freedom is being able to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. that is not freedom. it is not freedom to have a nine-year-old chemically castrate the way god made them. it is not freedom to have 12-year-olds doing marijuana recreationally. that is not freedom. it is the opposite of freedom. freedom in the classical sense we need to renew as conservatives is the pursuit of virtue of how you ought to li ve. freedom and liberty means to go and live in a way that is meaningful and deep and beautiful. that is a complete difference were some people say we just want to have people do whatever they want to do however they want to do it. i do not think we should b

and then last, i have an 11-year-old daughter in public school in washington, d.c. my comments on critical race theory is, i do think that there is a progressive agenda, and there is a backlash against it. especially in cities that are far left. d.c. included. and some things should be taught in the home. i understand about teaching the scope of american history, but there is a trend among academics that push to the left. i think there is a backlash, youngkin definitely tapped into that in virginia. i think that teaching children in the elementary age about lgbq celebrations i think it's coming up in june, the d.c. public school has lgbq celebrations scheduled for this coming june. it's at the elementary level. i have problems with that. i think that's something that should be taught in the home. should be left to the parents to discuss. if they want to teach that sort of thing in the public school system at the high school level or maybe sixth grade and beyond, seventh grade and beyond, at the elementary level, no. that's inappropriate. i think there was a lot -- i

charter schools, after all, are public schools. t parents -- available that parents can use at private schools, whether it can allow parents to select any private school they want, anywhere in the nation, but exclude private schools simply because they teach religion. that's the discrimination at issue in the case. this has nothing to do with whether religion can be taught in charter schools or other public schools. >> amy, correct me if i'm wrong. your daughter is 19 now. why are you, given that she's been educated, still fighting this fight? why your passion on this issue? >> we are just trying to see this through to the inevitable end of it. and it's been very good for her and a great education. we couldn't have asked for anything better for her. >> bible study was a part and parcel of her daily curriculum, right? that's how every day -- you can understand then someone who might be agnostic or atheist and is a taxpayer, they're watching this and saying, geez, i'm unsettled at the idea that my tax dollars are going for amy's daugh

do you think it could become a fact throughout all public schools throughout the state of florida?y cannot testify with their expertise, this is the actual thing the university is supposed to be about, debating ideas, theories, having real informed conversation and having your faculty experts be able to lend that in the service of expanding democracy is the kind of thing you would imagine a state would want to support. but that's not actually what is in the republican playbook, and that's not what desantis wants to see. so absolutely this is going to have upstream effects. this is also the same man that he wanted to have a civilian force that he would be in charge of as sort of a second army, if you will. so this is absolutely dangerous. i mean, we can sort of make light of it, and we can crack jokes about it. but this is absolutely central. and the people of florida need to be paying i attention to this as well. while it may score political points, the brain drain that happens as a result of this kind of incursion on academic freedom intellectualism is horrible. i will also add, d

>> well i am a product of public schools. of what the public high school.ic schools. but i also believe in accountability and i believe in choice. i think parents have a right to have a comprehensive quality education for their children. and a lot of folks in pennsylvania are frustrated. parents are frustrated. they're frustrated about the school closures, which lasted too long. they're frustrated about the power of teachers unions. they are frustrated about the lack of choice and a lot of kids especially in urban areas in pennsylvania are trapped in failing public schools. we need to introduce the concept of accountability, of competition, in education, and make sure that there is true educational opportunities throughout the state because education is a gateway to a better life and i want to provide that gateway to all children in pennsylvania. >> shannon: my mom was a teacher for decades and still instilled in me that if you get the child the ability to read on their own, they will have much better prospects down the road and down the line. bill mclean,

grandfather was a police officer my grandmother was a guidance counselor and the counselor in the public schools but even in the 1980s really and a very observable way you can see what happened when the social contract unraveled in manufacturing was outsourced and automated and cutbacks in the social infrastructure and government spending. and really to see what it was look like when the rug was pulled out spirit that some of the parts of the book is helpful to the reader the way that you describe the sense of loss a childhood that witness the richness and that that met with laws and policies to live in a can find one —- a combined space. so talk about that change leaving chicago to go to school on the east coast. >> but to an all-white town designatedus and horse-drawn carriages. and then that was very unheard-of. and then to what they thought about black people. and with every single type of being not was not my experience. tdl in the first time and that realization that white people did not know very much. and then make where workers in the teachers and everybody on screen that created this a

so what we said was public schools picked up on that message and the kids in public schools, the same thing. and we have had a public school system in canada, is founded on what supremacy for generations. and that's why there's such a schism between the leadership in this country, usually $90.00, men and indigenous communities. one of the most troubling realities for indigenous children in the foster care system. there are more than $40000.00 indigenous kids in that system. and for context, they make of 8 percent of the total population, more than half of the foster care system. do you see the crisis of child welfare as an extension of the residential school problem? we said was that in reality, the residential schools themselves were child welfare system and the child welfare system. we see today's just a newer version of the residential school system. the intent being stake, children away from their families. and to put them to situation with a system believes that they will become better citizens become more civilized, will be better taken care of than indigenous people can do. and

population. >> is a sending a message about public school. >> for this year for sure, the school reopening's and district schooling and viewing it as not leaving many students and parents during a better particularly ones that what some of them are learning about what they are not learning in the classrooms, really beginning last spring and part of it is that and i think that overall, the growth in the homeschooling has been growing for decades has been really more of a desire to provide a more personalized customized education in fact the u.s. department of education from 2012, and 2016, number one reason parents are choosing a two homeschool is concerned about the environment of his other schools including building negative peer pressure and that sort of thing in the number two reason it, and keep motivator was a desire for academic excellence. so that's a reflection on the conventional school system but really a sense of transparency and it to help guide their children to the army and give them a more robust education that they could get than any where else. >> so this idea of

the new york times is reporting some public schools are once again taking kids out of the classroom if you can believe it this time by shortening the school week, taking fridays off, claiming it is the only thing they can do to keep teachers working and then there's this from unicef release just hours ago. the covid 19 pandemic has been in the biggest threat to progress for children in our 75 year history. covid 19 is rolling back virtually every measure of progress for children including a staggering 100 million more children plunged into poverty. even if your kid wasn't plunged into poverty, the long-term effects of the lockdown going to be staggering. we are seeing the depression, drug use, alcohol abuse, this is just the beginning and it is all because of the politicians who abuse their emergency authority in the last 20 months and embolden incompetent not bags who hate parental involvement in education and pretty much everything else about america and as for the surgeon general's report it closes with this line on tackling the mental health crisis. our obligation to act is not jus

more than 1.5 million kids taken out of the public school system. ool enromment is down 22%. >> martha: thanks, gillian. betsy devos joins me now. great to have you with us. thanks for being here. i want to start by getting in this piece of audio from justice kavanaugh. listen to this. >> i understand they're seeking equal treatment, not special treatment. they're saying don't treat me worse because i want to send my children to a religious school rather than a secular school. treat me the same. >> martha: thoughts, betsy. >> this is a very importants cause and one being watched closely by all of those that have been long advocating for parents to have that power and control over where their kids go to school, where they go to learn. this last 1 1/2 years has brought millions more to that table. in is an important issue and an important case that will be decided soon, but it's already been decided by many families that could make that decision based on the resources that they have to afford it. what we have been long advocating for is that all famili

no public institution of higher education, school district or public school, including a public charter school, shall correct or otherwise compel students to personally affirm, adopt or adhere to any of the following tenants. here is one of the tenets. >> let's stop before we get to the tenets. let's do this piece by piece. you have been a student. i have been a teacher. i don't know if you have ever taught. >> i don't know. >> i don't know if i was a good student either. >> i am guessing as a student you weren't compelled to do anything. >> i did go catholic school. >> and which is a little stricter than the public schools, there wasn't a lot of -- i mean, you were compelled to take gym class. you were compelled to sit in your seat. >> not in history class. >> well, in history class, one never knows. but this notion that these schools are compelling students to believe x, y, or z, i would love to see some examples of this compelling going on. in history class, there is not a lot of compelling going on. >> here is one of the tenets that are now off limits. for instance, teachers are not

not just last month, detroit public schools left kids out in the cold, literally. when they abruptly announced that schools would be closed every friday in the month of december. and on friday before thanksgiving, they informed parents the school would be canceled the entire next week with no online option at all. this is insane. my next guest has been living through this nightmare. kaitlyn is the mother of a fourth-grader in that school system. caitlin, as a single mother myself, you know, i am thinking of how you are getting pie here. you need to make a living while you -- >> i appreciate you having me on tonight to hear the parents side of the story. i want to be the voice of the voiceless. so it has been -- there have been ups and downs. and my son started off with the virtual pretty well last year. and then as things kind of drag down, where the brief period of time was extended a month and half come every week was going another week, going another week, and then another shutdown would happen. and it was supposed to be a week and it turned out to be an month an

officer in the 1960's, and my grandmother was a guidance counselor, social worker in chicago public schools and yet in the 1980's, it started to see in 0 very observable discernible way when the contract began to unravel, when the automakers, and cuts in government spending and i grew up seeing what it was like when the rug was pulled out from under a sort of of striving, black working middle class. >> that's one of the parts of the book that's helpful for your readers, there's a way in which you describe a sense of loss over time, a childhood that witnessed the rich diverse it i within the black community and although the context of segregation, which is another concept that you explored in many ways, meant that black people were by dint of laws and policies, forced to live in a con fined space nevertheless you sue tremendous richness and humanity of all stripes and didn't require you to look at black people through a narrow lens. talk about that change, leaving chicago to go to school elsewhere on the east coast. >> when i was just in middle school, i went away to boarding school, moving

hawaiian culture has to be taught in public schools. h hawaiian. >> anthony: right. >> nainoa: now it's, hawaiian identity is into everything. it has to be recognized in everything. you're going to go to molokai. >> anthony: yep. >> nainoa: that community is powerful. >> anthony: when i mention to people, locals in oahu and maui, other hawaiian residents, that i was going to molokai, the response was almost always surprise. molokai did not have a reputation for being welcoming. that it was dangerous to go over there. that those molokai dudes were mean, inward looking, unfriendly, tough as iron, and quick to get pissed off. as it turned out, that was not my experience. >> walter: so we like to brag about what we don't have. we don't have traffic lights. we don't have a building over three stories. we don't have traffic. >> anthony: nice. walter naki is a skilled fisherman, and today we're headed out for some octopus. >> walter: you know molokai's nickname, right? it's called the friendly isle. >> anthony: yeah, but it's famously not the f

some are taking measures of their own hands to curb the spread like in d.c., we're public school students and staff are required to show negative covid test results before turn school. i'm joined now by the president american federation of teachers, randi weingarten, it's great to have you randy, and i think -- i guess i want to start with where you feel like your membership is, about the return to school after this holiday break. >> so, first off thank you for having me. everybody -- i've talked to a lot of people, of text a lot of people. everybody is apprehensive. they are concerned. there is essential that we are gonna try to do everything in our power to reopen schools in person because we all know how important that is for the social, emotional, mental health well-being of kids. we are watching carefully the transmissibility, which like omicron dissent is a different cat. we know, and i've been on the phone with people from south africa, that vaccines and boosters seem to be working. there is a much milder case if you are vaccinated, or boosted, or have some kind of immunity. that's

so that the public school system and the school boards and the teachers unions understand how the dynamics are supposed to work. the parents are in charge. the parents are the best equipped to make the best decisions for their children. and the schools have to live with that. and the thing that it's also crazy about this scotty is for the people that supposedly scream about science and data and facts and want to vaccinate school age children. they're ignoring the science and the data and the facts from the cdc. when children ages 0 to $19.00 have a 99.9 percent survivability rate with this virus. and when you get to age is 10 to 9000 with no underlying conditions. it's 99.9996 percent. it's absolutely insane that they're doing this without parental consent. i want to bring in january it who is actually an education advocate amongst the other channels that we've had them on before. in jan, i want you to look at some of the issues that are, that are presenting itself right now. you've got in portland kids that are eating outside in the cold in the, in covering but they're still outside 60 to

pretty pretty this particular brand of public school. >> there was all this video claimed as joannenum in massachusetts, with high-performing charter schools in bostonn and one of the reasos i started to write about these issues wasn't this ms. about immediate attentionte that they got and yet when you actually look, there's been studies about test scores and there are very few academics and actually done any research into what it was like a for the kandiss who attended schools and teachers who t work there so joanne, pics up and she takes her notepad and i want you to start by just describing what a typical day was like for you at * academy. >> 730 so a lot of her kids have an extended school day throughout the school year and had flexibility to do things like that so, so parents would be dropping the kids off the back of the school and there was to tension is pretty strict, a teacher at the door checking your past and they would walk in and expected to be silent. and get the lock on a certain square tile. they had to be silent and straight in a single line and the classrooms were