Latest / Earn Your Leisure / Should the Department of Education Be Dismantled? With Secretary Miguel Cardona

Transcript

Should the Department of Education Be Dismantled? With Secretary Miguel Cardona · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and sure they definitely can be, but understanding a professionals
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It might seem boring to safe plan and make calculated
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: what helps you live or more happily fulfilled life. P
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: National Association Member FDIC erness What's Up? You ever walk
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: into a small business and everything just works like the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is a breeze,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and you're out the door before the line even builds.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Odds are they're using Square? We love supporting business that
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: run on Square because it just feels seamless. Whether it's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a local coffee shop, a vendor at a pop up market,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: or even one of our merch partners. Square makes it
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: easy for them to take payments, manage inventory, and run
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: their business with confidence, all from one simple system. If
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you're a business owner or even just thinking about launching
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: something soon, Square is hands down one of the best
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: tools out there to help you start, run and grow.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It's not just about payments, it's about giving you time
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: back so you can focus on what matters most ready.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn more. That's
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait, don't hesitate.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Let's Square handle the back end so you can keep
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: pushing your vision forward.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: What do you think of a particular candidate saying that
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: he wants to dismantle to the Department of the ad
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and can you tell us how much of a travesty
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: that would be for black and brown people if that
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: ever happened.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I heard about that, you know, And out of
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: respect to the Hatch Act, I'm going to be very careful.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: I'm going to speak to you a Secretary of Education.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I can tell you that I've read Project twenty twenty five.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: I can tell you that this agency and what we
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: do is ensure equity and education.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Education is a public good in my opinion.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: My colleagues on the right are trying to privatize it
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: and monetize public education.
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: Which always ends up with the winners and losers when
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: you do that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: It didn't work with the for profit colleges that we
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: have to go after, and they took advantage of a
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: lot of first generation students. Like I am right, it'd
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: be a travesty when no one is holding folks accountable
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: and we're going to have a system to have and
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: have nots if the Department of Education is not doing
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: their job to make sure that special education equity happens,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: racial equity happens, to make sure that public education is
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: a right not something that you pay for, which is
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: what's happening in some of these states that want to
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: privatize vouchers and all that.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: So listen, there'd be a lot at stake.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: We're going backwards in some ways with some of the rhetoric,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: and I would hate to see public education become victim
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: to the division in our country.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Public education, regardless of your Republican or Democrat, is.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: A public good that all students should should should have
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: access to.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it is It is a complicated system though, because
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: even for people I think they're uneducated as far as
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: even what your role is right, because you're the head
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: of your secretary of education in the United States, but
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: every state has their own educational board that mandates their
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: own educational curriculum, and then cities and then townships and
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: so on a federal level, you guys don't have any
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: say so on what states do, right, yes and.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: No, And you're right.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I was the state Commissioner of Education in Connecticut, and
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I was a district superintendent, and I was a school principal.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: At every role, I had a different responsibility. As Secretary
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: of Education, it's my responsibility to make sure.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: That the laws are being followed. So we have an
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Office for Civil Rights.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: So when we have some state education group or states
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: and districts not providing special education to students who missed
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: it during the pandemic, or when we have states that
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: are looking the other way, when black students are coming
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: forward and saying I'm being picked on based on race.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: There's a systemic racism that's making it hostile for me
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: to learn. That's my role to say, we're going to
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: step in, We're.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Going to do something about it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: It's also my role to take one hundred and thirty
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: billion dollars, for example, of the American Rescue Planned dollars
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: and distribute that throughout the country and make sure that
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the states are using it equitably. It's also my role
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: to make sure that if I'm looking at your achievement data,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: that your Latino students are not for may points below,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: not Latino students, and that you have a plan to
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: close that gap. So at the federal level, we have
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: some responsibility around civil rights and around equity, and around
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: grant distribution based on the whims of Congress, but also
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the administrative priorities.
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: So there is a role there, well, how do we
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: how do we when you're talking about education reform, right,
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: and it's based on tax dollars and obviously if you
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: live in a lower income neighborhood then your school is
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: going to be less funded. Then, so the education system
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: in America is tiered and it has a higher level
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: of education for people that have that has more money.
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: That in itself is unfair, right, So to me, that
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: would lend to a system that is broken. If something
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: is unfair, then that it's broken, right. It's not it's
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: not working on the same level for every single person.
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: So the idea of centralizing the education system is not
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: necessarily a bad idea. It just depends on what you
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: want to how you want to actually utilize that much power. Right,
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: But what is your thoughts on just education overhaul, just
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: in general, even outside your role now you're a lifelong educator,
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: how is it ever possible to have kids in the
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: South Bronx have the same education as kids in Greenwich,
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: Connecticut and they go to public schools.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: Listen, I was a commissioner in Connecticut and I had
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: kids in Greenwich, and I had kids on the street
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: and Bridgeport, which is one of the poorest communities in
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the country. And my mentality back then, you know, I'm
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: a first gen Puerto Rican kid from Meriton, Connecticut, which
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: is eighty percent free and reduced lunch saying, look, I
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be the anomaly. I shouldn't be a counter example.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: You know, my experience I think prepared me for this role.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: There are too many kids that look like me that
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: don't have the opportunities that I have. So I do
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: agree with you that we need to really shake it
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: up and make sure that all students have equitable opportunities
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: and that we hold each other to account. Now, with
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: that said, keep in mind, I was the commissioner in Connecticut.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: I was a district level superintendent. I don't want the
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: federal government telling every school system what to do, because
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: imagine if Betsy DeVos had.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Her way, because right like the pendulum swings the other way.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: She wants to put bibles in every school. And I'm
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: a Christian man, I love me some Jesus, but it's
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: not the public school's job to put Bibles in classrooms.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Nor is it a public schools job to say that
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: these students, because they don't fit the mold of what
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: most students feel like, shouldn't be welcome in your school.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: They're talking now about specific curriculum that would push I
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: mean back then during her time, it was seventeen seventy six.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you remember that, but they were.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Trying to push a curriculum that was discounting the negative
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: impact of slavery. And I mean, we see that happening
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: in some states where they're trying to talk about the
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: benefits of slavery. So I don't want a Secretary of
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Education pushing their curriculum down people's throats. I want to
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: make sure that I'm fighting for equity, for evolution, for
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: outcomes of results, evolution meaning evolution of our schools, to
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: make sure all students have access, and holding folks accountable
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: if some groups of students are treated less than others,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: which is what we've seen in this country and which
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: is why we take this role very seriously. And I
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: want folks who are paying attention and kind of wondering
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: whether to sit this one out. You got to make
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: sure you know what's up at stake, because if you
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: think you know, there's a challenge now when you have
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: no system of oversight in these states that are talking
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: about getting rid of African American history, when you have
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: no oversight over these states that are saying that if
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: you're different, or if you're born gay, you don't belong
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: in our schools. If you think it's bad, now, just wait.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: So people got to get active, they got to get engaged,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: and they got to start speaking up for what they
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: believe to be the values of this country.
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 9:18
  Speaker 6: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 9:25
  Speaker 6: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
• 9:29
  Speaker 6: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President t America's laws,
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: border and families will be protected. Sponsored by the United
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: States Department of Homeland Security.