Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: RFK Jr. Scandal, Urban Family Decline & America’s Education Crisis

Transcript

Normally Podcast: RFK Jr. Scandal, Urban Family Decline & America’s Education Crisis · Normally

0:06
Speaker 1: Hey, we are back on. Normally they show me normal
0:08
Speaker 1: it takes, but when the news gets weird, I'm Mary Cathorham.
0:12
Speaker 2: And I'm Carol mark Witz, Mary Catherine. My youngest son,
0:15
Speaker 2: the football playing one, has a concert at school today
0:18
Speaker 2: because he has started playing the trombone and the keys.
0:22
Speaker 2: And you know, the joke about this in our house
0:23
Speaker 2: is my other two are like straight A students, and
0:25
Speaker 2: he's a little fast and loose with the grades. But
0:28
Speaker 2: he's the one who's going to get into any college
0:30
Speaker 2: he wants because a football playing trombone player is just
0:35
Speaker 2: a popular thing.
0:36
Speaker 1: I love a trombone player. That's fantastic.
0:39
Speaker 2: Trombone is like the same size as him.
0:41
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that. We also
0:43
Speaker 1: had a performance in our house today and I had
0:46
Speaker 1: skated into school like two minutes before my daughter got
0:49
Speaker 1: on stage, as is my way. I love it. Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: but it was lovely, although I always because they go
0:57
Speaker 1: to this little school where they sing these little adorable songs.
1:00
Speaker 1: And I am really good at controlling my emotions in
1:03
Speaker 1: public unless little children sing about Jesus to me, and
1:08
Speaker 1: then it is absolutely embarrassing. I have to stand at
1:11
Speaker 1: the back because I will be sobbing. I want to
1:15
Speaker 1: see this. And then my kids think it's so funny.
1:17
Speaker 1: They're like, every time she comes, she just cries in
1:19
Speaker 1: the back. It's so cute. I can't handle it. I
1:24
Speaker 1: love it.
1:25
Speaker 2: I love it. Ie where little kids sing about Jesus
1:28
Speaker 2: to you and watch you cry, it's.
1:30
Speaker 1: Like really, it's like immediate, immediate, alrighty.
1:35
Speaker 2: Okay, all right. So remember when everybody was like the
1:40
Speaker 2: Democratic Party is over forever and will never rise again,
1:44
Speaker 2: and you and me were like, I think they'll rise again.
1:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're rising.
1:48
Speaker 2: They are rising again. It turns out that one of
1:52
Speaker 2: the two parties did not actually just drop dead after
1:56
Speaker 2: losing a political presidential election. They had things go their
2:00
Speaker 2: way in the off year election, as we've talked about
2:02
Speaker 2: on the show. And now some midterm numbers are out
2:05
Speaker 2: and they are looking absolutely bleak, and yeah, I don't
2:12
Speaker 2: know who could.
2:13
Speaker 1: Have predicted who could have predicted this? Yeah, the generic
2:16
Speaker 1: ballot numbers, which is what pollsters asked to get a
2:20
Speaker 1: handle on, like sort of, you know, if there were
2:23
Speaker 1: a Republican or a Democrat, not specifying anyone whom you
2:27
Speaker 1: have personal feelings about, which way would you go? And
2:30
Speaker 1: We're looking at like a fourteen point spread in favor
2:33
Speaker 1: of Democrats right now. That matches. It's bad. Republicans historically
2:38
Speaker 1: do not run at the same party ID or generic
2:42
Speaker 1: ballot numbers as Democrats. Generally, they often have an advantage
2:47
Speaker 1: on that. But had we had come to parody and
2:50
Speaker 1: even gone beyond Democrats in many polls, and so this
2:53
Speaker 1: one doesn't, it doesn't bode well, I'll tell you that
2:57
Speaker 1: it doesn't.
2:58
Speaker 2: Right, you know, it's the The problem is that the
3:01
Speaker 2: right is mired in I don't use the R word,
3:04
Speaker 2: so I'm just going to say abject stupidity. They loudest
3:08
Speaker 2: voices on our side are like re litigating World War
3:12
Speaker 2: Two and finding Hitler to be the good guy. They're
3:15
Speaker 2: obsessed with Israel and turning our closest ally and yes
3:19
Speaker 2: they are our closest ally into our greatest enemy. Not
3:23
Speaker 2: just like we should stop funding them, but like, actually
3:25
Speaker 2: they're evil and want to bring down the country. They're
3:28
Speaker 2: discussing whether the first Lady of France has a penis.
3:31
Speaker 2: And these are the people getting millions and millions and
3:34
Speaker 2: millions of views, leading thinkers, leading thinkers, yeah, on the right,
3:38
Speaker 2: And so I just can't help but blame the conversations
3:43
Speaker 2: that the right is having because this is what people see.
3:47
Speaker 2: And if I were to see, if I wasn't super
3:51
Speaker 2: into politics and I was kind of pay a little
3:54
Speaker 2: bit of attention and suddenly I'm hearing Hitler is good
3:57
Speaker 2: and you know, elevating the Nick Fointis's, et cetera, I
4:02
Speaker 2: would be like running in the other direction from these people,
4:05
Speaker 2: which is what I feel like the normies will do
4:08
Speaker 2: if the conservative world doesn't get a handle on this
4:11
Speaker 2: and start talking about actual issues that actually matter to
4:15
Speaker 2: real people and make that happen, you know, through the
4:19
Speaker 2: election and beyond.
4:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you have to keep convincing people. And
4:23
Speaker 1: I think this is a good thing. Republicans are still
4:26
Speaker 1: ahead of where they were because turning Latino voters and
4:31
Speaker 1: young voters, particularly male young voters, not young female voters.
4:35
Speaker 1: But turning those demographics into a swing vote is an accomplishment, right,
4:40
Speaker 1: Like those are voters that in the past the left
4:42
Speaker 1: was like, these belong to us. Okay, so you did
4:45
Speaker 1: some work. You turn them into swing voters. They can
4:48
Speaker 1: swing the other way. And that's also, by the way,
4:51
Speaker 1: good for those demographics because people have to compete for them.
4:54
Speaker 1: This is a thing that makes their relationship with politicians
4:58
Speaker 1: more healthy. Well, unless I guess you don't politicians talking
5:00
Speaker 1: to you or trying to figure out what you're into.
5:03
Speaker 1: That's just what happens when you're a swing better. But yeah,
5:07
Speaker 1: they can swing back. And to your point, Carol, if
5:10
Speaker 1: you're not delivering on promises to them, if their lives
5:14
Speaker 1: don't look measurably better, then you're going to run into
5:18
Speaker 1: trouble reconvincing them that the time they pulled the lever
5:22
Speaker 1: for you was did what they thought it would do.
5:26
Speaker 2: You know, yesterday the House unanimously basically, I think one
5:30
Speaker 2: person said no, but passed, you know, releasing the Epstein files.
5:34
Speaker 2: As we've said many times on here, release the Epstein
5:37
Speaker 2: files whatever. But it's irrelevant, it's irrelevant to people's lives.
5:42
Speaker 2: It does not matter. I can make a prediction that
5:45
Speaker 2: there's not going to be anything interesting in those Epstein
5:47
Speaker 2: files that we don't already know. If there were, the
5:50
Speaker 2: Democrats would have released it. Be serious here, But all
5:54
Speaker 2: of this, and again, if you're talking about Epstein and
5:59
Speaker 2: whether or not he was a pedophile or you just
6:01
Speaker 2: like the girls a little bit, younger, or if you're
6:04
Speaker 2: talking about all the topics that I covered in the
6:07
Speaker 2: first few minutes of this, you know, first ladies of
6:10
Speaker 2: France and their penises. I think you're going to find
6:14
Speaker 2: the American people very turned off.
6:17
Speaker 1: Well, and I think too, I'm a bit with the
6:19
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom crowd on the idea of the She's for them,
6:24
Speaker 1: they them, I'm for you ad. That ad was very successful,
6:29
Speaker 1: and I think some Republicans probably over read how successful
6:33
Speaker 1: that ad was. Right. One of the reasons that was
6:36
Speaker 1: successful is a because that stuff is crazy and gone
6:39
Speaker 1: too far from normal voters, but also because it I
6:42
Speaker 1: think it's a signifier of people being out of touch
6:45
Speaker 1: when they care about this thing more than the groceries
6:49
Speaker 1: that you're trying to buy. So that cuts both ways. Though,
6:52
Speaker 1: if you're a Republican and that's all you talk about,
6:55
Speaker 1: and I think it's a righteous fight, it is a
6:57
Speaker 1: righteous fight to keep boys out of women's dressing rooms
7:01
Speaker 1: in the Northern Virginia schools, you should be mad about it.
7:04
Speaker 1: You should talk about it. But if it becomes the
7:06
Speaker 1: only thing you talk about, people will think you're not
7:09
Speaker 1: paying attention to other things. In addition, like I think
7:12
Speaker 1: that the economy buoyed partly by the AI industry and
7:16
Speaker 1: energy unleashing that Trump has had a large part in.
7:19
Speaker 1: He has stimied himself to some extent with tariffs, and
7:22
Speaker 1: you can see that with the admission that, like we're
7:24
Speaker 1: going to remove some of these tariffs, that it'll bring
7:26
Speaker 1: prices down. Now. I think, look, he loves tariffs. He
7:30
Speaker 1: was very clear about it. Yeah, you be lighted on
7:33
Speaker 1: that he likes to make the deals. However, if you
7:36
Speaker 1: are sort of like futzing around with prices and bringing
7:39
Speaker 1: them up in certain areas of people's lives for things
7:41
Speaker 1: they really like, like coffee and bananas, they will react
7:44
Speaker 1: badly to that, right, and they'll notice. Yeah.
7:49
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:49
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, look, Democrats are also talking about
7:52
Speaker 2: Epstein NonStop. It just Republicans have been unable to capitalize
7:56
Speaker 2: on their distraction. They've been capitalizing quite well on our distraction.
8:01
Speaker 2: And I think that they've also just the Republican being president,
8:04
Speaker 2: like you said, the fact that he does have some
8:07
Speaker 2: control over prices in some capacity, I think that they're
8:13
Speaker 2: able to pin certain things on Republicans in a way
8:16
Speaker 2: that Republicans just haven't been able to do.
8:18
Speaker 1: In reverse, I would also note for Republicans, like, be
8:22
Speaker 1: careful with whatever plan you're coming up with. I know
8:24
Speaker 1: this is like, you know, the chances of that happening
8:27
Speaker 1: are low. But the shutdown messaging. Some more recent polling
8:31
Speaker 1: after all the fallout and after the government has opened
8:33
Speaker 1: back up, shows that Democrats wiped the floor with Trump
8:36
Speaker 1: on shutdown messaging, which is not as it should be.
8:40
Speaker 1: I feel very like, right, where's Brian Stelger crying about
8:43
Speaker 1: a post truth society?
8:44
Speaker 2: Now?
8:45
Speaker 1: When when literally where is Brian? Literally? These people vote
8:49
Speaker 1: fifteen times to keep the government shut but the message
8:53
Speaker 1: that people got was that it was Republicans. Now, I
8:56
Speaker 1: do think that's partly because Republicans are branded as that
8:58
Speaker 1: party shut down party.
9:00
Speaker 2: Sure, yes, but it wasn't them this time.
9:02
Speaker 1: It wasn't. The fact is you have to factor that
9:06
Speaker 1: into the way that you are doing messaging, in the
9:08
Speaker 1: way that you are making decisions. If people are primed
9:10
Speaker 1: to think of you as the guy who does that,
9:13
Speaker 1: you need to be a lot louder or a lot
9:14
Speaker 1: clearer or Donald Trump needs to use the bully pulpit
9:17
Speaker 1: in a lot clearer way. Gosh, that guy talks all
9:19
Speaker 1: the time. But like do it in primetime. Do it
9:22
Speaker 1: in primetime on the networks. Yeah, make them carry you.
9:25
Speaker 1: But I think that is a real warning sign for
9:27
Speaker 1: whatever tactic they take on in the future.
9:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, Republicans have some time to turn this around. It's
9:33
Speaker 2: just that we're in such disarray right now that it's
9:37
Speaker 2: almost funny to think back to, you know, not that
9:40
Speaker 2: long ago. Donald Trump only got elected a year ago,
9:43
Speaker 2: and the message around the country was that's it. It's
9:47
Speaker 2: over for Democrats. Republicans are going to win everything forever. Listen,
9:51
Speaker 2: if you listen to Normally, you know two people who
9:54
Speaker 2: were saying maybe not, maybe not.
9:57
Speaker 1: You got to keep convincing people politics is it's you
10:01
Speaker 1: got to keep the politic in gooing. Alrighty, we'll be
10:04
Speaker 1: back on normally in a few minutes. With the scandal,
10:08
Speaker 1: let's sex scandal, this thing good old fashioned fun.
10:15
Speaker 2: We are back on normally. Where Look, is this a
10:19
Speaker 2: sex scandal? It's so hard to say, because let's just
10:23
Speaker 2: put it out there. Olivia Newsy wrote a book about
10:26
Speaker 2: having an affair with RFK Junior where no sex has
10:30
Speaker 2: had and I find that perplexing personally. The book is
10:36
Speaker 2: called American Canto, and it is a tale of Robert F.
10:42
Speaker 2: Kennedy Jr. On the trail meeting Olivia Newsy and the
10:46
Speaker 2: love that developed between them, the insane texts that they
10:49
Speaker 2: sent each other. But again no sex and as far
10:52
Speaker 2: as I understand, not even not even like a kiss,
10:55
Speaker 2: like nothing.
10:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should set the stage to Olivia Newsy for
10:59
Speaker 1: the stage. Don't know. Is like a was like a
11:01
Speaker 1: very up and coming young journalist, got these fascinating profiles,
11:06
Speaker 1: got access to people, I'm gonna say in intimate ways,
11:10
Speaker 1: and by that I mean like she would get these
11:11
Speaker 1: one on one profiles where she spent a lot of
11:13
Speaker 1: time with folks and would turn out interesting work about them,
11:18
Speaker 1: like high level political people. Then she blew up her
11:21
Speaker 1: career to some extent by having this sexting relationship and
11:26
Speaker 1: probably seems like infatuation with RFK Junior. While she was
11:30
Speaker 1: covering him, she was also at the time engaged to
11:33
Speaker 1: Ryan Liza, who is another political figure, wrote for Politico
11:38
Speaker 1: for a long time, has written for Esquire all sorts
11:40
Speaker 1: of outlets, and so this became public. She then went
11:43
Speaker 1: after him in court saying he's like blackmailing me and
11:46
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. Ryan stock up for himself and
11:48
Speaker 1: was like, no, no, no, none of that is happening, right,
11:52
Speaker 1: she writes this book, at which point we find out,
11:55
Speaker 1: by the way via some of these excerpts, did she
11:59
Speaker 1: just have really good before because I remember her writing
12:03
Speaker 1: being better than this. And then Ryan Liza, on the
12:08
Speaker 1: release of this book, is apparently mad that she said like,
12:12
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about this anymore if you
12:13
Speaker 1: won't talk about this anymore, and then wrote a book
12:15
Speaker 1: and then wrote a whole book mm hmm, and Ryan
12:19
Speaker 1: Liza is like, okay, I will write about the Danieu
12:23
Speaker 1: mal the unraveling of this relationship. And it's a it's
12:27
Speaker 1: a subset post essentially entitled How I found Out?
12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, the How I found out? Man just texting you
12:33
Speaker 2: as I'm reading it, And then I'm reading How he
12:37
Speaker 2: found Out? And he's actually a beautiful writer.
12:40
Speaker 1: You don't think his final revenge is that he is a.
12:44
Speaker 2: Well done And he finds a note about a water
12:48
Speaker 2: tower and how she would drink all the water and
12:51
Speaker 2: the water tower above his house or and and then
12:54
Speaker 2: he's like, I don't have a water tower, but that's
12:56
Speaker 2: not about me. Yeah, And then we get to the
12:59
Speaker 2: end and we find out.
13:01
Speaker 1: That because the whole time you're thinking it's RFK Junior.
13:04
Speaker 1: And by the way, spoiler alert, because y'all don't never read. Yeah,
13:06
Speaker 1: y'all don't need to read six pieces about this sex scandal.
13:09
Speaker 1: We're just going to tell you about it. I'm going
13:10
Speaker 1: to tell you about it.
13:11
Speaker 2: We're gonna we're going to give you the away, the ending.
13:13
Speaker 2: You get to the bottom. And it's from twenty twenty
13:16
Speaker 2: and she slept with then candidate Mark Sandford. Now, if
13:22
Speaker 2: you don't remember who Mark Sandford is, he was governor
13:24
Speaker 2: of South Carolina, and he went missing for a few days,
13:28
Speaker 2: and then he came back and said he was hiking
13:31
Speaker 2: the Applechian Trail, but in fact he was having like
13:34
Speaker 2: a full blown affair with some woman in South America
13:37
Speaker 2: while totally married and in the governor's mansion.
13:40
Speaker 1: Correct. Yes, he went away.
13:42
Speaker 2: For a few years, came back as senator.
13:45
Speaker 3: I believe no, No, he's a house member, house member,
13:49
Speaker 3: and then ran for president and she, Olivia Newsoo, profiled
13:53
Speaker 3: him and ended up sleeping with him, allegedly.
13:56
Speaker 2: At his South Carolina home. That was some good revenge
14:00
Speaker 2: because that piece was like everybody pretty much was like you.
14:03
Speaker 1: Got to read this. Yeah.
14:05
Speaker 3: Well.
14:05
Speaker 1: Also revealed in this piece is that she had a
14:08
Speaker 1: long time, long term relationship with Keith Olberman, Yeah, who
14:13
Speaker 1: paid for a lot of high end jewelry and clothing
14:15
Speaker 1: and a place for her in New York City and
14:19
Speaker 1: that Ryan quote you know her from this entanglement. Oh oh,
14:24
Speaker 1: the entanglement where I get all the Cardier and the
14:26
Speaker 1: nice bags.
14:27
Speaker 2: But Keith Olberman.
14:29
Speaker 1: Look this, there's there is a thing about this story
14:34
Speaker 1: that annoys me in a very specific way, because tell me,
14:38
Speaker 1: I don't love when people can't hold their ish together
14:43
Speaker 1: in public under rather minor duress, when.
14:48
Speaker 2: I actually no duress at all, no, no.
14:51
Speaker 1: Dress at all, Cardier bracelets and a burgeoning, beautiful career,
14:55
Speaker 1: when I have held mine together under extreme duress in public.
14:59
Speaker 1: And I don't like that it pays to unravel like
15:04
Speaker 1: this in public. I don't think it's healthy for her,
15:06
Speaker 1: or for the audience, or for media. And I actually
15:10
Speaker 1: kind of wonder if this is like a last gasp
15:13
Speaker 1: media scandal. It feels like very very old fashioned.
15:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:18
Speaker 1: And I actually was speaking on a college campus the
15:21
Speaker 1: last night and asked if anyone knew who this person was?
15:26
Speaker 1: Not one right, No, one knew who this was. And
15:30
Speaker 1: in the media world, these people are important, right they
15:32
Speaker 1: have cachet totally, Yes, in another generation.
15:35
Speaker 2: None, right, I had to explain this story, not had to.
15:38
Speaker 2: I chose to explain this story to a lot of
15:40
Speaker 2: normies in my life, including my sister in law who's visiting,
15:43
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, you don't know who any
15:45
Speaker 2: of these people are. Yes, but like you know, we
15:47
Speaker 2: have to stop for every Like you know Keith Olberman,
15:49
Speaker 2: he used to be on ESPN, but now he's like
15:51
Speaker 2: this internet lunatic who just screams at people.
15:54
Speaker 1: This is the problem. Everyone's arc is so long. Yeah.
15:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, the normies enjoyed the gossip and
16:01
Speaker 2: then they went on about their lives. They will not
16:04
Speaker 2: remember who these people are going forward. They don't matter
16:07
Speaker 2: to them at all. I wish them all the best.
16:10
Speaker 2: I wish them all the best.
16:12
Speaker 1: I'm a bit of a grump about this story because
16:14
Speaker 1: it is fascinating to talk about it, and it makes
16:16
Speaker 1: me like a little annoyed with myself that I find
16:18
Speaker 1: it so fascinating because I don't want to be into that,
16:22
Speaker 1: and also I'm annoyed at the playing into the stereotype
16:26
Speaker 1: of this Songeen new smart young woman who I think
16:29
Speaker 1: in many ways was a talented reporter, right, and now
16:33
Speaker 1: everything she's done is tainted and I that's not a pun,
16:39
Speaker 1: and I don't know.
16:40
Speaker 2: What it is real, but it actually, guys, is a pun.
16:43
Speaker 1: I don't know what's real and what's not. And that
16:46
Speaker 1: is part of the problem with modern media, such a problem. Yeah,
16:51
Speaker 1: her version of getting access is so much more lude
16:54
Speaker 1: and obvious, but like the bias and the access gaining
16:59
Speaker 1: that she's doing is just a dirtier form of what
17:02
Speaker 1: we've seen in many other places, and you can't trust it.
17:04
Speaker 1: You can't trust these people.
17:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, where like where does the information come from? On
17:08
Speaker 2: my one of my group chats, my Florida group chat,
17:11
Speaker 2: they have a running joke that I get my tips
17:14
Speaker 2: from Hunter Biden. Like occasionally I get, you know, a
17:16
Speaker 2: big tip, and they're sort of random, my big tips
17:19
Speaker 2: because I have a lot of tipsters, and they're like, okay,
17:21
Speaker 2: it has to be Hunter Biden, like somebody like really
17:23
Speaker 2: high up. And so I just want to say, I
17:25
Speaker 2: have not slept with Hunter Biden for any of these tips.
17:30
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, thank you. There is a thing here where where,
17:33
Speaker 1: particularly for women who are in the industry, When something
17:37
Speaker 1: like this happens, it makes everyone suspect suspect just as
17:41
Speaker 1: like that's the problem with sexual harassment and systematic abuse
17:45
Speaker 1: like happened with Roger Ailes. Is like everyone looks around
17:47
Speaker 1: and goes, oh, you must have done that too, because
17:49
Speaker 1: you were young when you got hired at Fox, and
17:52
Speaker 1: to which I have a very good answer, which is
17:54
Speaker 1: rodri Aiels was neither professionally norse actually interested in me,
17:57
Speaker 1: and athletics were not their thing over there, so I
18:02
Speaker 1: was like in the clear. But it does not feel good. No,
18:06
Speaker 1: it does have every woman looked at in this way
18:09
Speaker 1: and think, well, how does she get that interview?
18:12
Speaker 2: Right?
18:12
Speaker 3: Right?
18:13
Speaker 2: Yeah?
18:14
Speaker 1: Who's associated Olivia? I don't appreciate it.
18:16
Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more on normally and slightly
18:20
Speaker 2: less sexy topic, but let's talk about education some more.
18:27
Speaker 2: We are back on normally, where it turns out that
18:31
Speaker 2: there is a sharp decline in the number of families
18:35
Speaker 2: with young children, and that that's under five in major
18:38
Speaker 2: cities in the last like almost twenty years. It looks
18:41
Speaker 2: at from two thousand and five to twenty twenty four,
18:44
Speaker 2: Chicago had a thirty one percent drop, Boston thirty three percent,
18:48
Speaker 2: New York thirty four percent, La thirty six percent, San
18:51
Speaker 2: Francisco thirty eight percent. And the cities that have gained
18:55
Speaker 2: population are Austin, Orlando, Raleigh, Charlotte, Dallas, and some others. Now,
19:02
Speaker 2: as my kids like to say, one hundred percent of
19:04
Speaker 2: the people who confuse correlation with causation die. But I'm
19:08
Speaker 2: going to risk it and correlate anyway and point out
19:11
Speaker 2: that all of the places with this population drop were
19:14
Speaker 2: the strictest on schools reopening, and the places with the
19:18
Speaker 2: big gains weren't now one hundred five years old. Means
19:21
Speaker 2: these people are not kids are not in school yet.
19:24
Speaker 2: But I think that a message was sent to parents
19:27
Speaker 2: and it was well received. Where schools were closed for
19:31
Speaker 2: over a year, you know, a year and a half
19:33
Speaker 2: in a lot of places, and parents got the message
19:35
Speaker 2: at schools just weren't important. And just to clarify, of course,
19:39
Speaker 2: only public schools were closed. Private schools were open. Parents
19:43
Speaker 2: got the message public schools cannot be relied on in
19:46
Speaker 2: these cities, and they left.
19:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think American cities liberal American cities during the
19:53
Speaker 1: twenty twenty to twenty twenty three, and look, I want
19:57
Speaker 1: these cities to succeed, sure, but too I looked at
20:00
Speaker 1: them and was like, you guys are committing suicide. You
20:04
Speaker 1: are already the cost of living is so high, and
20:06
Speaker 1: the cost of living is so high for some perks.
20:09
Speaker 1: And the perks are like activities and theater and music
20:12
Speaker 1: and good dying food. Yes, all those things, right, And
20:16
Speaker 1: then what did you do? You took away the perks,
20:19
Speaker 1: but you left the cost of living. And then you
20:21
Speaker 1: added some public safety disarray, just like danger everywhere, chaos, vandalism.
20:27
Speaker 1: And then you tell people when they say it's hard
20:31
Speaker 1: for me to raise children here, this is just the
20:34
Speaker 1: cost of doing business.
20:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, it's always been like this, Like no, I
20:37
Speaker 2: really wasn't always like this.
20:39
Speaker 1: And that is not an acceptable answer to them. So
20:41
Speaker 1: what happens is they go, I don't know, this seems hard,
20:44
Speaker 1: dangerous and expensive. I think I'll move on to somewhere
20:48
Speaker 1: like Raleigh, where I can get a decent little piece
20:51
Speaker 1: of land with a decent home on it for a
20:53
Speaker 1: much lower price and there aren't vagrants on every corner
20:58
Speaker 1: because it's a different style of governs than it is
21:01
Speaker 1: in my city, and you're right, Carol. The schools are
21:04
Speaker 1: a huge part of this. I know, of course, like
21:07
Speaker 1: people I know in DC, it's basically understood that none
21:10
Speaker 1: of them are sending their kids to public schools there.
21:13
Speaker 1: That's just not even a possibility. It's off the table.
21:16
Speaker 1: So it's this other huge expense on top of living
21:19
Speaker 1: in an expensive city. And by the way, what do
21:22
Speaker 1: you get for sending your kids to those schools? Well,
21:26
Speaker 1: I have a still mad about it, bro for.
21:28
Speaker 2: Us, still mad about it, bro, let's do it.
21:30
Speaker 1: Are still mad about the inability of schools to educate children.
21:35
Speaker 1: And The Atlantic has a piece called a Recipe for
21:38
Speaker 1: idiocracy What happens when even college students can't do math anymore? Now,
21:42
Speaker 1: this is the jumping off point. Is this? You see
21:45
Speaker 1: San Diego study which I appreciate those professors flagging its
21:49
Speaker 1: saying we need to do something about this, because they
21:51
Speaker 1: could have kept hiding the ball easily. Yes. The opening
21:55
Speaker 1: paragraph to this is for the past several years, America
21:58
Speaker 1: has been using its young people as brats and a sweeping,
22:01
Speaker 1: if not exactly thought out education experiment. Schools across the
22:05
Speaker 1: country have been lowering standards and removing penalties for failure,
22:08
Speaker 1: the results are coming into focus. I just want to
22:10
Speaker 1: list a couple of the things that she discover rails here,
22:14
Speaker 1: just found out of that. Now, this reporter, by the way,
22:16
Speaker 1: I don't want to go like, I don't know what
22:18
Speaker 1: her personal views were on COVID and closing schools. She's
22:21
Speaker 1: very young, so like she's just reporting. Fine, let's I'm
22:24
Speaker 1: not going to hold her feet to the fire over this.
22:26
Speaker 1: But the elite class in general, one of the courses
22:29
Speaker 1: tutors noted this is the UCSD, but students faced more
22:33
Speaker 1: issues with logical thinking than with math facts per se,
22:37
Speaker 1: meaning they did not even know how to read and
22:39
Speaker 1: begin solving a word problem. Okay, scary. The decline started
22:45
Speaker 1: about a decade ago and sharply accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic.
22:49
Speaker 1: One theory is, of course, that attention shredding influence of
22:52
Speaker 1: phones and social media is to blame. But that's not all.
22:56
Speaker 1: Or maybe students have stopped achieving in math because school
23:00
Speaker 1: have stopped demanding it of them.
23:02
Speaker 2: Maybe that's it.
23:03
Speaker 1: During the George W. Bush administration, federal policy emphasized accountability
23:07
Speaker 1: for public schools. Schools that saw poor performance on standardized
23:10
Speaker 1: tests received increased funding at first, but if scores still
23:13
Speaker 1: didn't improve, they had their funding pulled. Research suggests that
23:17
Speaker 1: this helped improve math outcomes, particularly for poor black students
23:22
Speaker 1: after those of us.
23:23
Speaker 2: Who were there though, that was called racist. Yes, even
23:27
Speaker 2: though it helped poor black students go ahead.
23:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, After twenty fifteen, federal government backed off from its
23:32
Speaker 1: accountability measures. There's more. The pandemic supercharged the decline. Districts
23:38
Speaker 1: that spent most of the twenty twenty one school year
23:40
Speaker 1: mandating remote learnings saw students fall more than half a
23:43
Speaker 1: grade behind in math. Districts that reopened earlier saw more
23:46
Speaker 1: modest declines, and then to cover it up, many districts
23:50
Speaker 1: adopted things like No Zero's policy, forcing teachers to pass
23:54
Speaker 1: students who had little command of the material. And then
23:57
Speaker 1: finally the colleges discontinued, particularly in California, standardized testing so
24:02
Speaker 1: they couldn't know that these kids weren't learning. So just
24:06
Speaker 1: to review pandemic closures, expectations, universal expectations, punishments for not
24:13
Speaker 1: meeting expectations, and standardized tests not acceptable. Yeah, what are
24:19
Speaker 1: the things we've been saying for for years feeling it's
24:21
Speaker 1: those things actually I feel like I feel like we
24:24
Speaker 1: may have said those things. We have said those things.
24:27
Speaker 2: The non standardized testing is sort of the colleges bad here.
24:32
Speaker 2: It's like you allowed students in without a standardized method
24:36
Speaker 2: by which to judge them. Everything became subjective and you
24:40
Speaker 2: had to know this was going on. Why did you
24:42
Speaker 2: get rid of SATs? And I understand the pandemic era explanation, like,
24:47
Speaker 2: oh not everybody could have taken the SAT in twenty twenty.
24:50
Speaker 2: I mean it's twenty twenty five, how are things going now?
24:52
Speaker 2: Everybody could take it like well your chimble mask.
24:55
Speaker 1: Some of that was the you know, this compassionate response,
24:59
Speaker 1: like things are hard for everyone, so let's not make
25:01
Speaker 1: it harder by holding people to expectations. And I actually
25:04
Speaker 1: want to there's actually research that shows I'm familiar with
25:07
Speaker 1: this because of my own family going through bereavement and
25:10
Speaker 1: losing a parent. When you go through something tough, it
25:13
Speaker 1: actually isn't the answer to drop standards and to get
25:16
Speaker 1: rid of and to be as kind to yourself as possible,
25:20
Speaker 1: Particularly for kids going through hard things, keeping standards is
25:25
Speaker 1: more beneficial to them. Yeah, keeping their schedules is more
25:29
Speaker 1: beneficial to them, And so I think some of that
25:32
Speaker 1: was well placed, like, oh my gosh, everything's so stressful
25:34
Speaker 1: right now, but you're right, five years later, this is
25:37
Speaker 1: just hiding failure. It's just hiding failure. And eventually you
25:41
Speaker 1: get to the point where college students cannot do middle
25:44
Speaker 1: school math or elementary school math.
25:46
Speaker 2: Yeap, and teachers' unions try to get parents to opt
25:50
Speaker 2: their kids out of the standardized test way before twenty twenty.
25:53
Speaker 2: I remember in Parkshall, Brooklyn, where I lived, super left area,
25:58
Speaker 2: it was just there was pressure to get opt your
26:00
Speaker 2: kids out because kids shouldn't be taking standardized tests. Oh
26:04
Speaker 2: my kids are taking standardized tests, so they'll be not
26:07
Speaker 2: opting out here. But yeah, there was a lot of
26:09
Speaker 2: pressure from teachers unions on parents, especially on left parents,
26:13
Speaker 2: to say that we shouldn't be held accountable because our
26:18
Speaker 2: kids are failing at every level, and teachers should be
26:21
Speaker 2: held accountable. Of course they should. The better teachers will
26:23
Speaker 2: get better results. That's how it works. And this misplaced
26:27
Speaker 2: idea that nobody should fail and all failures should be
26:30
Speaker 2: hidden leads us to this moment.
26:33
Speaker 1: And I think what concerned me perhaps most about that
26:36
Speaker 1: is what I feel like the underlying problem is is
26:38
Speaker 1: that we are losing societally the skill of thinking, and
26:43
Speaker 1: you could see it the skill of learning itself. Yeah,
26:47
Speaker 1: and that is the part where like you can't just say,
26:50
Speaker 1: like a calculator in AI is going to be able
26:52
Speaker 1: to do all this for you. You have to learn
26:54
Speaker 1: to think, and those muscles are atrophying extremely quickly.
27:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think all these things were bad ideas ten
27:03
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, and it's a.
27:06
Speaker 2: Yeah here we are listen to us going forward? Is
27:08
Speaker 2: really the message here from all three segments, I think, Yeah,
27:12
Speaker 2: I'm not sure we commented on sex scandals before, but
27:15
Speaker 2: don't have one.
27:16
Speaker 1: Hey, you know we could do just look at our
27:18
Speaker 1: lives and how we've conducted ourselves. I think that you know. Yeah,
27:22
Speaker 1: although I have said that the trashy, crazy trajectory for
27:26
Speaker 1: a media career is rewarding in the cash area, were.
27:30
Speaker 2: Doing it all wrong. Actually, if you want to, if
27:32
Speaker 2: you want to be want to be upfront about it,
27:34
Speaker 2: because we are being not maximizing our.
27:38
Speaker 1: Being not insane and being not trashy must be rewards
27:41
Speaker 1: unto themselves because they're going to have to be and
27:46
Speaker 1: we're doing those things.
27:47
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
27:51
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
27:54
Speaker 2: in touch with us at normally theepod at gmail dot com.
27:57
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act Mo