The State of Education with Melvin Adams

Ep. 42 "The Failure of an Educational Assembly Line" - Guest Steve Newman (Part 2 of 2)

November 16, 2022 Melvin Adams Episode 42
The State of Education with Melvin Adams
Ep. 42 "The Failure of an Educational Assembly Line" - Guest Steve Newman (Part 2 of 2)
Show Notes Transcript

The math doesn’t add up—failing students doesn’t equal success. As we conclude our interview with Steve Newman, Melvin asks tough questions about how policy makers view school budgets and who the “assembly line” education system is leaving behind. Failing grades create battle lines, and Steve shares how lost accountability is creating space for the government he feels to use schools as a social experiment, a veritable lab for social change. On the small scale, he expounds on how school districts can define their own social justice "truths.” He also concludes with a passionate exhortation for citizens to encourage their leaders who are taking action. 


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VOICEOVER: Welcome back to The State of Education with Melvin Adams for part two of our interview with Steve Newman. Today, Steve shares the challenges and debates that policy makers face when tackling the problem of low testing scores. He and Melvin also discuss the dangers of lowering math requirements, how testing can provide accountability for lawmakers, and the challenges Christian educators are facing in Virginia.

ADAMS: What are the biggest challenges that the state government faces as it considers the present and a future of education  in Virginia? Now, you've talked a little bit  about this and I know politics drives almost all of this, but obviously you have your perspective and then what it seems the leadership, at present, is thinking. And again, we have to be careful of assumptions. But what are those [00:30] biggest challenges? 

NEWMAN: Once we lost The North Star, and I think that is some form of accountability—A through F grading for schools—some way for parents to understand whether Johnny is learning just the basics. Not an extraordinary test, just the basics. 

When we lost, for instance, we actually lost the test in social studies. So in other words, it was just gone. [01:00] Once we lose those, the battle lines become almost everywhere. Right? Because now there is aime factor. You have 180 days that these people are going to be with our children, we're not really that worried about math, history, science, and English anymore. 

So the battle lines are everywhere now. So, I would tell you that The Left is in the catbird seat today. I think they're going to continue to try to penetrate the borderlines of pressing [01:30] for major agenda items. Because they're not having to be bothered or interrupted by requirements. . 

Technically the SOAs are there—math, history, science, and English are required there. But if you don't have any accountability (let's say in inner city Roanoke) and they decided that there's no one watching, we're going to grade our own back tests and no one's going to really have a big deal [02:00] if an F is an A or a C, then it becomes a social experiment as it was in the late seventies and early eighties.

So I would tell you that the moving away from accountability, and the multiple fronts of liberalism invading our school systems, is the top, the second, third, and fourth most compelling problem that we have today. When anyone has to teach math, history, science, and English, [02:30] then you have a good product coming out. And ultimately there can be some difficulties around the edges. Right now, the difficulty is probably going to come to the core, which is what our children are learning?

ADAMS: Yeah.

ADAMS: Here’s another question that goes along that same line. Once laws are passed, policies are established, those policies then apply to all education in the common-welth, or are there exceptions? If so, could you give us some examples? For example, public schools certainly fall under that jurisdiction, but what about private schools [00:30]—whether it’s K12 or college/university level—homeschool, charter schools… talk to us a little bit about that. 

NEWMAN: Sure. It’s one of the most critical items, and an item that I think you need some senior legislators on both sides of the aisle to be there. Because one of the questions I asked myself, and often asked the legislative staff, when we get bills is, “Is this bill going to apply [01:00] in the K-12 arena to public schools, private schools, and/or homeschools?” And you get the answer to that. 

And oftentimes, if you have a senior member and someone has a push that they’re trying to get into education, others members can have success in saying, “Listen, I’m opposed to this bill, but if you’re going to do it, don’t do it to private schools, don’t do it to homeschoolers—if you want to do it, let’s just do it to the public schools” and that oftentimes is successful. Sometimes not, [01:30] but in general, with some of our senior members in the Senate, we’ve been able to get those policies adjusted to just public schools. So that’s been very helpful. 

In the past, we’ve had a very favorable environment in Richmond for homeschoolers. I am very much in favor of homeschoolers, I happen to send my kids to a christian school and I love kids in all the settings out there, but basically the homeschoolers have had [02:00] very good success in general. 

The code of Virginia is built in such a way that is generally favorable to homeschoolers today. That’s starting to crumble now as you’re seeing more and more of the leftwing policies they want to make sure all children are indoctrinated kind of similarly. While we’ve been able to hold that back and be kind of a finger in the dam, I am very concerned about moving forward Christian schools, private schools, [02:30] Catholic schools, and homeschoolers, could be indoctrinated with the same policy that is being pushed out to some of our public schools. 

ADAMS: What is your view on the idea that more money is the solution to improving education—and in particular fixing failing schools? And the followup, what accountability is there to the taxpayer who funds it? 

NEWMAN: Money is a component. It is not the component. I'll take Henry county, Virginia, for instance—they’re a relatively poor school division—[00:30] their math history, science and English scores extraordinarily well, for a number of reasons. One, the administration of that school division loved the children, and two, the home environment was really, really, really important. 

When you look at the mosaic of a school division or private school division, there are many items.  Money is one, and it has important value—to make sure that the school doesn't have mold and it's a good learning environment. [01:00] But it's not the only measure. 

The other measures—the SOQs, the SOAs, and other items—are just so important. And the other is what is going on in those families. You know, we love our children, right? But here again, the government can't love our children like we love our children. So if a child comes to school unloved and without discipline, that's a tremendous burden that a school division has to keep up with. [01:30]

So money has some importance, I think in the past it was just one component. Now that we've moved away from all the other standards that were bedrock items,  money becomes the only item. So, the determination of whether or not you have high quality schools, how do you rank in the 50 states—on teacher pay, on education funding, that type of thing... Here again, it's something that is of some value [02:00] and it would be wrong to say it doesn't have any value. But it's something that  should be put in context. 

Unfortunately we’ve seen a number of our Catholic schools shut down recently because they didn't have the basic funding to continue to operate...so it's a component. What you did have in those schools is love and you have high quality and desire for education accountability. And those schools were succeeding, but because money left, [02:30] they didn't in the diocese could not support them, so you had a struggle there.

In my opinion, when it is a function, it should never be seen as the primary function. 

ADAMS: I think that's a great answer. It’s certainly that topic that we can have very lengthy and engaged conversation around. I appreciate you bringing out the points that failing schools don't just fail because of lack of funding. [03:00] Failing schools fundamentally fail because of poor leadership. 

Often a key factor is the breakdown of the family and that support network around those children. We all know that children do best when they have good leadership in schools, engaged teachers, and strong support at home [03:30]—those things together make formulas for success in our children.
Part 10: 
School Choice | Interview with Sen. Steve Newman | Part 10 of 13 
[00:00 to 03:14]

ADAMS: So do you support the need for greater school choice—including charter schools, private education, homeschool, expanding tax credit and opportunities, education savings plans, and other things that are out there?

NEWMAN: The short answer is yes; I have supported almost all of those and I have sponsored many of those in the past under the McDonald administration. [00:30] The approach that we were headed towards was to make sure that children have access to all the options—and children learn differently. For instance, we had a big push for lab schools. That was where Liberty University, UVA, Lynchburg College, William and Mary, or other colleges, could link up with a school and they could mentor back and forth. 

And that was a great plan! Of course, it was basically defunded by the current administration out there. [01:00] We have charter schools in Virginia, but there are very few. As a matter of fact, we make charter schools very very difficult in Virginia. That is because of the local school division that wants the monopoly—and I understand they want the monopoly. They're the ones that have to approve a charter school.  Well, that's not the way it works in other areas. And as a result of that, we basically have very few charter schools. 

The idea of having vouchers, tax credits, or that type of thing has been complicated in Virginia. There's a couple of words [01:30] in the constitution that were never meant to limit the capability of keeping funds from going to parents, but they've been used in that form, unfortunately. We found some ways around that for a certain type of a tax credit, which is not really funding the school, it is a funding of a tax credit that has been somewhat successful in that area. You can have a refundable tax credit, [02:00] which is a form of voucher that comes out. 

I'd really like to see us put aside the barriers we have around education—the idea that a monopoly is the only way to work it—because kids learn differently. When it comes to some kids that have autism—and these are wonderful, brilliant kids that can go on to do extraordinary things—but they learn differently, and being in a certain type of classroom is unbelievably distracting [02:30] to them. But if we can get a different mechanism, that is more of a hands-on education, that really does work. 

I know that kids with dyslexia, for instance, their minds are thinking totally differently. Why are we trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? Those kids are kids that God loves and we love, and we need to make sure that educational options are available. 

So having a multitude of options available to kids, as long as our core goal is that we love children [03:00] and we want to do what's best for them, we will have multitudes of options. If we care more about the government and more about public schools, we'll have a single option. More options, not fewer, is the way I'd like to see us go.

ADAMS: Let's talk a little bit about testing requirements and school assessments. You've told us about some of the recent changes in some of the curriculum, and things that aren't required— and I assume, therefore, that testing in those areas is no longer an accountable measurement. But, for some time, testing was everything. [00:30] Would you like to see reform in the focus of testing and school assessment so that teachers can really teach rather than function as an assembly line worker in a factory called “school”? 

NEWMAN: My answer is going to be yes, but…. We had actually gone through and made a lot of those changes. We had removed the No Child Left Behind extraordinary testing—every test. And we've basically gone to a very small skeleton framework [01:00] of just testing math, history, science, and English, that's all. And you do it every couple of years—you could have it in third grade, sixh, eight, ninth, and12th grade. Just make sure that the kids are getting the fundamentals. 

Well, when some of the Educrats determined that there was the pushback on No Child Left Behind—and I understand that, and I had some pushback on that as well—their goal immediately became get rid of all accountability and they thought it was an opportunity to do it. And honestly, they were right. [01:30] They have basically won that battle. 

We passed a law in Virginia, at least the Senate of Virginia passed it—and unfortunately it was killed in the house recently— it says that the federal government doesn't require the test, we won't have any tests. That's really just unbelievable. 

So the key, I think, for people who care about education is: You should not go to one or the other extreme. You should not have a teacher that only teaches to a test [02:00]—that’s not productive and we have fallen into that path—but you have got to have a certain amount of accountability. 

We found out through the Standards of Learning Framework tests that Petersburg was failing. They were failing generationally—they were failing the kids generation after generation. What the Senate Finance Committee did is we went in and found that it was a leadership problem. So we plugged a leader out of Chesterfield county and put him in Petersburg. He was a leader! He went in there to love those kids, [02:30] but did it in a way that allowed them to make some repairs to those schools. 

Unfortunately, if that occurs today—and I'm sure it is occurring in Petersburg and other areas— you will never have the early warning. You will not know. You will just say that that classroom is not doing well, the SAT tests are not going well, just put more money in—that's the only option. 

So,  it is a “yes, but” answer— I think it's a critical distinction between having too many tests and having no accountability whatsoever. [03:00]

ADAMS: What about the recent decision by our government to scale back math education? You've already talked a little bit about that, but how does that make our students—or our future job force stronger and more competitive in a global market—and what can be done? What should be done? Talk to parents, educators, policy makers… [00:30]

NEWMAN: Well, this is part of the movement, right? We want to make everyone the same and the monopoly does that pretty well. And it puts people in an assembly line. Think about what they wanted to do, they wanted to eliminate higher level math. That's an insane idea that only an Educrat could come up with. Parents—and I'm proud of them—said “No” on the Right and the Left. They say, “what are you doing? Why are you doing this?” [01:00]

Not every child learns math the same. I was not great at math but my son's an engineer and is pretty good at math—we’re not the same. My mind thinks differently and I'm more of a marketing guy and he's an engineer and that's okay. There are certain things I excelled at that others could not. 

That's really a horrible idea. The governor's office kind of was very proud of themselves in wanting to get rid of a higher level math, [01:30] and then when the backlash came, they said, “Well, we'll think about it. We're not going to do that today.” 

But the very same thing is occurring today with the governor schools—Thomas Jefferson high school in Fairfax is probably the premier public high school in the world, certainly in the United States—unbelievably effective at taking some of those extraordinary learners and getting them to a great place—some cancer research being done there is extraordinary. [02:00]

And the liberal Left wants to get rid of that. They want to make sure that you don't get into that school by academics now. To me, if you need help reading or you're dyslexic or you have a math problem, we should have the ability to help you move your way up and make sure that we fulfill you. I would like to make sure that if someone wants to be a welder or a Police Officer—whatever it is—they have a pathway to get to those. [02:30]

Some are just extraordinary at science or math, and we should have some pathways there. I think the net result of this is there's going to be a dramatic demand for private education and homeschool education. If they're successful at putting everyone into a very singular box, and I think that's what they want to do— equity is what they're pushing hard, it’s the keyword. 

We're not all equal. [03:00] We have equal opportunity. That's where it ends up coming out. I'm thankful that God didn't make me the way that some of those people that understand math were. It's just not what was best for me.

So, I'm very concerned about this; I’m glad to see that parents have started to push back. There was a pretty big push in the bill and legislature last year basically to do great damage to the governor's school, but we were able to kill that bill, but there's still a push out there to continue to do that. [03:30]

ADAMS: As we wrap up today, I know that legislators like yourself work very hard to find solutions and to make things better for our citizens. Please take a few minutes and talk to parents and educators, who also want the best for our most vulnerable and valuable assets—our children (and even adult learners)—how can they better [00:30] engage in their roles as parents and teachers, particularly, with our government to put forward solutions in education?

NEWMAN: Well, that is a key question and it basically is that the government heads toward those that show up. And so if you're not showing up, then I assure you that the other side is and the other voice is being heard today. The key thing is to show up. [01:00]

You know, as a legislator, I have a full‑time job. That's the way our founders wanted it to be and some of my friends on the Democrat side are the same way. I will tell you this, I have a great relationship with Louise Lucas, the current Chairman of the Education Committee—I have a fantastic relationship with her and we don't agree on policy. 

But Louise loves children, right? And so I urge people in Louise's district, for instance, to share with her about their compassion for children and how they want them to do better. [01:30] Everyone else that's on the education committee—even if they’re Right or they’re Left—you have to assume that they have the best interests of children involved. It's just a matter of philosophy on how they get there and you can influence that. 

But if all they hear from is the Educrats, if all they hear from is the local public schools, the VEA and the superintendents association, etc… then that's the perception that they have [02:00] of where we all want to go. It's not, I mean, parents just need to be involved. And having views on the Right and the Left is helpful, but if we do not engage with people as citizens, then I think we are somewhat doomed to failure. 

So I would really urge you to get involved. My suggestion would be to consider engaging personally with your legislator. You'll be surprised to know that many of them will meet with you. Emails are of some value [02:30]—they're not great value—writing a letter actually matters more to me than the pack and stack emails that are out there, especially if they're done in a form type way, they don't matter that much. Becoming personally engaged with your legislator is important. 

And the last point on that is don't assume that your legislator, who you think is doing the right thing, is being encouraged to continue to do the right thing. We all get weary in well‑doing. I've been there for far too long (about 30 years) [03:00] and you get beat up and it is often important that you have someone that says “I'm praying for you” or “I'm wanting you to continue to move on.” Because you will, even as someone who thinks you're doing the right thing, get all the discouragement you need, but you also need the encouragement. So whether it’s someone that's liberal or conservative, they agree with you, they don’t agree with you—make sure that you are engaged. 

ADAMS: Thank you Senator. And thank you for your years of service here in Virginia [03:30]—for your wealth of knowledge on these topics. Thank you for taking time to speak with us today. You are in our thoughts and prayers as you continue your efforts. And if we can help in any way, please let us know. 

We encourage all of those who are listening today, to do as the Senator suggested. To connect, get to know your representatives, [04:00] communicate with them, let them know your thoughts on matters on anything, but particularly in education. Show up to your local school board meetings.

If you're in Virginia, in Richmond, show up to the legislature when they're in session or whatever state you may live in. Get engaged because it does make a difference. Your voice matters [04:30] and it's time to use that voice for the good of our children and education in this country. So God bless you.