Episode 2. Introduction to the Messes: Experts Chime In

In this introductory episode of the K-12 Confidential podcast, hosts Shawn and Trina—a married couple with over 35 years of teaching experience—discuss the current state of K-12 education in the U.S., touching on various systemic issues such as poor literacy rates, teacher shortages, inadequate pay, and flawed teacher preparation programs.. The episode sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of 'messes' in the education system, with the goal of mobilizing teachers and stakeholders towards systemic reforms. Special guests, including fellow teachers, experts, and the hosts’ supportive family members, will join future episodes to explore themes such as special education, school climate and culture, DEI initiatives, canned curricula, and governance issues. The hosts also promote a petition to establish a national governing board for K-12 educators, aiming to give teachers a significant role in educational decision-making.

00:00 Introduction to K-12 Confidential

00:36 Meet the Hosts: Sean and Trina

04:01 Podcast Format and Expectations

08:17 The Teacher Pay Mess

15:49 Teacher Preparation Challenges

20:45 The Teacher Shortage Crisis

24:58 Special Education Struggles

30:30 Climate and Culture in Schools

35:30 The Impact of Technology on Youth Behavior

36:33 School-Wide Behavioral Interventions

36:58 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Education

39:18 The Politicization of Education

44:26 Teacher Health and Wellbeing

48:47 The Reading Crisis in Schools

51:52 The Problem with Canned Curriculum

58:06 The Need for Teacher Leadership

59:41 Call to Action: Sign the Petition

We need more teacher voices to this this justice! Visit us at k-12confidential.com to request to speak on the podcast.

Sign the petition to join the movement to save K-12 Education!

Transcript

 Welcome to the K 12 Confidential podcast. We're so happy to be here today. My name is Shawn. My name is Trina. Shawn, tell everybody about who we are, how we know each other Well, uh, we are on our 20th year, 21st year of marriage. Woo hoo. Yeah, we, we met, uh, way back in the early two thousands, and we were both sort of, uh, outcasts in that town, sort of weirdos and sometimes, uh, we, we weirdos find each other and, um, we found each other.

And even though there were a lot of problems out there, um, it still holds a, a, a close, you know, a place in my heart because it's where I met my wife. It's where I, we had a, a son. Um, we, we forged a really good existence out there. Um, but there, there came a time where the, the yearning for where I spent my youth, um, was too strong.

And, and we, we took a chance and moved out here and it's been, um, what, 15 years now. Yeah, we've been here a long time. You may hear some little rugrat noise in the background. That is our new dog, Mo, MOE. There he is, uh, shaking himself. He is our new adopted rescue dog, if you think he's part Shihtzu, but he is definitely part terrier and he cannot be away from us.

It's only his day three here in the house. And um, he's just a lot. He's a sensitive little punk like us, so he is gotta be here with us. You're going to hear little doggy noises in the background. Um, what about what we value? You know, our home is one that's definitely filled with love and beauty and, um, you know, I've always been a punk rocker at heart, even, you know, now I'm a little older.

Um, and I, I take that spirit with me in, in most things that I do and, um, especially in the classroom and you know, in our family, us, our beautiful son, you know, we always strive to do what's right. We always look for the truth of the matter. And, you know, we're always fighting against injustice. Like we use our positions to try to make this world better in real.

Fundamental ways, and I think mm-hmm. This podcast of ours is, is just sort of a us sending out yet another signal into the universe, to those of us who, you know, maybe can connect with our message, who we are, what we're about, or want to know a little bit more about, you know, education and, and our stance on it.

So I'm, I'm really excited. Me too. Thank you. Look, we're just rebellious teachers who speak up and we are those teachers at our respective sites. 'cause we don't teach at the same site or in the same district even, who get a little bit of that eye roll because we're kind of mucking up the yum slowing things down.

'cause we're calling out things that don't work. And over the years, especially during COVID, like Shawn and I, were each other's. Collab team. We were our department meetings, 'cause we were teaching in lockdown, in Zoom meetings, and we really only had each other. And so we really grew our understanding and knowledge of where all these basic problems are coming from and really starting to develop a love and appreciation for all teachers, even the ones that don't like us and even the ones that we don't like love, because we're all part of this oppressed system together.

So today we're going to provide another introduction to the messes. Previously you heard my sister, who's also a regular guest host, come on and unpack it with us from a lay person's perspective. But as promised, we're always gonna bring on an expert to follow up in each theme. So before we move on to the first theme, which is the teacher shortage mass, you're going to hear the two of us experts, especially my husband who's got another decade and then some on me in this profession.

Really. Quickly each mess. So what can you expect from the podcast? Look, some of these episodes are gonna have no video and that's the deal with the ones with Shawnee doesn't wanna be in a video, but also I've recorded a ton of content that is audio only and some of that is gonna come out too. So sometimes you're gonna see if you like, prefer YouTube.

Sometimes you're gonna see videos that only have still images. Um, and other times you're gonna see, you know, people moving around live video. So you can expect that probably about half and half. And then you can expect four regular co-hosts. My sister, Mandy, she's our lay person. Um, you can expect to see her from time to time at the top of each thematic category.

Helping me make sure that we're explaining this to people who don't teach Also. My fantastic husband, he is a badass. He has been my light and my salvation when I have been down in the dumps about this profession. He will be coming on and you'll also hear from, uh, my dear close personal friend Manuel Allen, who has equally, I think even a couple more years than Shawn.

So those are the co-hosts you're going to hear on a regular basis, including myself. But then you're also gonna have guests coming on, interviewing guests for each of those different messes that we're gonna talk about briefly in just a moment. And there's a returning guest that I have on and throughout a few of the different themes, and that's Dr.

Paul Bruno, who you're going to hear from really in the very next episode. Originally I found his paper on the teacher Shortage Mass, and he came on and recorded a couple years ago about that, but he's gonna come on and talk about other things too. He's amazing. So four co-hosts, teacher experts, and by the way, we need more teachers from around the country, from all levels, all political stripes to come on.

Please email us. By reaching out on the website, K12 confidential.com, if you wanna come on and be a guest. Okay. So that's what you can expect, and including the fact that some of the identities are even concealed from some of our teacher, uh, guests who are experts because they don't want retaliation at their work site.

We get it? Okay. So let's start by unpacking the messes each one real quick. I didn't do it all with Mandy. I'm gonna do it all with Shawn today. So the first mess is the most titillating mess. Can, can I just say something real quick? Mm-hmm. Um, before we get going, I know it's been dragging me, kicking and screaming to this microphone and, um, I appreciate your patience.

And all I could say is that, you know, sometimes the darkness of the universe kind of tells you. To just sit still for a while and, and not, you know, not do anything. And sometimes we, um, uh, the dwellers of the dark need a, a, a little light in our lives, and that's definitely you. Um, thank you for motivating me.

I know. I promise to you to, to, uh, keep trying. Well, I mean, it's do or die time, isn't it, honey? Like it's bad folks. It's really bad. And I never wanted to be anything other than a hundred percent anonymous. I didn't even have a personal social media, and neither does Shawn, but this is it. This is our. Hope for the future.

This is what we can do. This is us using our world, you know, thinking globally, acting locally, to try to shore up democracy for future generations. That's what we can do. So that's why we're doing it. We're not getting paid. In fact, all of the expense for the podcast is coming out of our meager teacher salaries.

Don't feel sorry for us, but do please listen and thank you, honey for that boost of confidence. Um, okay, so the teacher pay mass. This was one of the first areas, honey, that I started recording, you know, back a couple years ago because it's the one that like is most titillating for teachers. Like we, we all know teachers don't make enough money, but like so many of the things that we unpack in these message, it's kind of more complicated and nuanced than that.

'cause it's like deeply more insidious. And um, in the episodes on that theme, we talk about what step and column is. And if you're a teacher, you're like, oh, I get a raise every year. Yay. Or I get a raise every few years. Yay. And. What I've learned is that step in column looks wildly different from district to district to state to state.

And sometimes if you're not a teacher, you don't know what this means, but really you get a little bit closer to what I now call a complete salary. Each year you teach and sometimes even as you add units, but it's all a freaking sham. No other profession starts out like this. I know that a local nurses union floated this, the management floated this to the union when they were on strike, and they're like, no, we're not starting out at less than half of a complete salary and taking over 20 years to get there.

Um, I really think it's important that we control the narrative and call that for what it is. So what do you want the listeners to know about Stefan Colum? Well, I think it always surprises people, um, when, when they hear. How we get paid as teachers. And it's, it is kind of a mystery because, you know, in the, in the, the world outside of education, you get hired for a position, you put your resume, you do your interview, and you agree upon a salary at that moment.

And that's generally a, people in the tech sector, they're making six figures sometimes, you know, right outta college. And I know that with, you know, other, other positions, other jobs out there. There's not the, the, there's the sort of dam leaves kind of, you gotta perform. You may be getting paid a lot, but you gotta perform or you are, you're, there's somebody waiting in line.

So teaching, you know, we. We get paid, you know, but it's not like that in surrounding areas. A lot of people don't know that you can get paid this much in one district, and then the neighboring district is, is much less. And you factor in things like healthcare that we pay for. That's right. Um, and, and other things.

And a lot of young teachers are really surprised when they get their first paycheck after taxes, retirement, um, whatever the district forces you to pay for. Sometimes it's dental or vision and then whatever, um, whatever medical plan that you pick. And a lot of people don't really realize that in order for us to go up the pay scale, we actually have to spend money.

And, and I know people say, well, people out there with a higher degree who choose to get like a master's in business are more marketable and will get higher paying jobs. So it's kind of commensurate. No, no, but the reality is. You know, somebody getting a master's degree that's maybe a couple years worth of their time for, for people in school districts.

Um, it's not only money and time spent taking classes in units, but also years of service. For example, in my district, um, the, the pay scale tops out at year 27. So wait, wait, wait. 27. It takes 27 years to earn a complete salary. And that's only if you max out on units. And when I started there, uh, years ago, it was actually 30 and the union had to bargain that down.

Oh my God. So that people start making their full salary at, at, at 27 years instead of having to wait till they're almost retired at 30 years to get that. And so, you know, it's really surprising to people that we have to sing for our supper so much. Um, but when I first started teaching, it was, you know, you go to the local college or you go to one in, maybe in the Bay Area and you actually sign up for classes and you go to classes and become a student and teach at the same time.

So a lot of people like myself, once a family comes along and expenses come along a house, that sort of thing, um, spending $350 a unit just seems a little less desirable. Um, and, and you know, I've waited a long time, almost 20 years to finally. Top out and it's, you know, I hustled my bustle the last couple years and finally topped out.

But you know, I'm only year 25 this year, so I still have a few more years only. I love how you say only, well, I mean too, like, I think the thing that kind of blows people's minds is like, okay, once upon a time there was a more comfortable cushion for people in this income bracket. Like you could afford childcare, you could afford your, um, medical plans, you could even buy a house and you could save for your kids' college and even take care of your aging adults.

That is not the case anymore, and you and I don't own a home, and we both have two teacher salaries. We don't make enough money to buy a home. And yeah, you need access to generational wealth, to float teaching because you're so freaking impoverished the first decade of teaching, right? You need. Fresh supply of money from another earner make, or a spouse or spouse who earns a wage doing something else.

And a lot of that's right. That's why it's for male privilege. We, female teachers need a dude they're married to who's not a teacher to float this thing well, and vice versa. I mean, I have plenty of of friends whose, whose spouses are not in, um, education and just the, the. Savings on medical benefits alone, I know are, are astronomical.

$30,000 a year. We pay for our family of three, just for the premiums. 30,000. Uh, well, and the last thing I wanna say is, uh, and this is one that a lot of people don't know in, in most professions, um, there is what's called a cola, which is a cost of living increase. That it should be automatic. Amen. And in most jobs it is.

So the cost of living is very expensive. And what that's meant. Is that for years now, I've heard the figure, 25 years, I've heard 30 years I've heard just an, uh, an astronomical number of years that the, that districts all around California and our state, um, have failed to meet just the simple cola raise.

So you hear, you know, teachers bargaining for this percentage trying to get raises, the cola's not even factored into that. And I had a, a friend of mine who teaches economics, uh, put it this way, that, you know, with t let's say 27 years of lack of a cola increase, even if it was just, you know, a couple percentages of that, four or 5% that it's supposed to be, the districts would owe us 20 a 27% raise.

Yep. That's that. And that's why they could never do it. So they've backed themselves into a corner and they've reached a point where, sorry, you know, it's like one of these, these, uh, multi-billion dollar companies, um, who are getting in trouble, uh, claiming bankruptcy to get out of, of, of paying their fair share.

So anyways. That is a hundred percent true. Uh, so our, our teacher salaries have been experiencing severe deficits, real deficits when they don't keep keep up with cola. Um, and I also wanna say too, this problem of the cost of living increase and teacher salaries not keeping up with them, that is a nationwide problem.

It's not just California. Across the nation, teachers are having like a severe deficit in their, uh, salaries. 'cause their salaries don't keep up with cola. But let's go to the next mess. Uh, the teacher preparation mess. So guys, this is different from state to state and is decided upon at a state level. We do a very good job, and I wanted to say this too, like we bring in on teachers from around the country on the podcast of trying to unpack exactly what it is.

And it is very different from state to state. But one thing is true. Honey that I noticed is, it kind of sucks everywhere. So there's a lot of stuff, a lot of hoop jumping, a lot of paperwork, a lot of expensive and onerous crap that is not a good indicator of future efficacy later. Um, yeah. So I'm gonna let you respond to the teacher preparation class.

Well, you know, they've made it so hard to become a teacher. These days and coupled with the debt that it takes to just get your teaching credential, it, it's become an undesirable, although, although necessary profession, it's one of those instances where we need teachers just like we need doctors, we need police officers, first responders for now until AI takes over.

What, I mean, what would happen if, uh, you know, we had a shortage of doctors and there's only, you know, a couple doctors in one city because they made it so difficult to become a doctor. And that's the thing is like people go into law, people go into, uh, engineering these high paying jobs because they know that all the time that they spent passing the bar, getting their medical certification will pay off.

In, in fold, right? Like it'll pay off greatly. But teachers can't say that you have these kids getting their credentials, paying a lot of money, and now, you know, now debt forgiveness is kind of off the table. So they just don't see a future in education. And, you know, this has created a major shortage in districts all around the country.

And I talk to young teachers who are trying to get it done, and even after they got their credential, it's multiple years of just lots of, of different hoops to jump through just to get your credential and then to get hired permanently in a district. It's not like you're, it's a given once you get hired.

You got, there's a trial run and mm-hmm. And so it could potentially take someone four years after they've gotten their degree to finally have a solid, solid career. Um, so yeah. Well, not not your degree, your credential. Your credential, yeah. Well, and so, I mean, I, I remember when I first started teaching in the early two thousands, 2000, 2001, I worked with teachers who had started teaching in the seventies.

And when I was talking about getting my credential, um, renewed, because you have to do it every five years back then, I was complaining about the fact that I had to prove that I had taught in a school for five, the past five years in a public school. I had to, uh, prove three other things and then send that in along with the check.

Um, and these teachers were, were. Lifetime credentialed. Yeah. They, at some point in the past, they decided to, um, make 'em for five years, at least in California. And the last time I renewed mine, honey, I didn't have to prove anything. No. I just, they just wanted my money. Yeah. These days it's all just a money grab.

Did the check clear? Yeah. Right. Did the check clear? Exactly. Look, the teacher preparation mess is disgusting and gross. It, it, it winds up being eight years of higher education at your expense. And it really is eliminating a lot of really good talent. And again, really relies upon access to generational wealth because it is expensive.

And are you gonna wanna go into this low paying gig and pay a hundred grand for all this non No. Um, you don't unless you have that kind of generational wealth. So if you're talking about we have a serious representation problem in our profession, that is a big reason why. Would you wanna go into a little paying gig and carry debt for the rest of your adult life, for the glorious honor of being a teacher when your entire family is banking on you to get you out of generational poverty?

No. Well, not only this, but I think a lot, a lot of younger kids who are getting into this profession don't really realize how much work goes into this profession. It's, it's not just a 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM position. It's, it's a lot of hours, a lot of time spent and, and you know, there's a lot more factors involved as well, the emotional impact, all sorts of things that make this.

Profession, unfortunately an undesirable one kid, you, you ask, you know, 10 kids what they want to be when they grow up. I guarantee the majority of 'em will say something else than teachers. So in the teacher preparation mess episodes, just like in all of the episodes, you're gonna hear different teachers come on and really explain what their personal narrative has been in different locations.

So you get to hear in detail what is going on with the California preparation process, but you're gonna hear other states too. So the next mess that we wanna. Preview that we'll be unpacking in the podcast is the teacher shortage mess. And really this is one of the first mass I began to dig into because I started in a, what we call a high needs, really low socioeconomic urban district where the teacher shortage was profound, but it's also really about an in special education settings.

And we're gonna have Dr. Paul Bruno, come on. He is from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He wrote the only scholarly article trying to quantify the teacher shortage on numbers. And it gets misquoted and taken out of context every year by members of the press because it's very difficult to characterize anything in K 12 at a national level, particularly this problem because school districts are not reporting the numbers.

They just aren't. And some of the worst offenders of non-reporting is the entire West coast. Our state of California, so you earlier mentioned liberal or conservative. A lot of these problems don't line up with a liberal or conservative slant. You wind up seeing red, blue, and purple in every tier of the problem, and this is definitely one of them.

What is your experience with the teacher shortage mess? Well, as somebody you know, from a boots on the ground perspective, I've seen, um, you know, I work at a pretty big school and there's been a lot of turnaround now there's always turnaround in regard to like, um, retirements, right? I happen to be sort of in the middle.

Um, it's sort of a little further than the middle of my career. Um, and where I started, there were a lot of people who were in their last decade of teaching. And so, um, especially after the pandemic, there's been a lot of people who just said, okay, I'm done. I'm retiring. Mm-hmm. Um, and what I've seen is a lot of these waves of hiring with maybe a lack of real support on the ground level, the classroom level, a lot of, a lot of young, newer teachers, not just young, but newer teachers just don't, don't make it.

And so I've seen a lot of turnaround in my department. I've seen a lot of turnaround in other departments and turnaround being, you know, people get hired for a year and then they don't make it. And I, I, it's really sad for me to, to get kids in my classroom and say, I had Mr. So and so last year. And it is sad, but it is, it is hard when kids learn to love.

A, a person and they don't even get an explanation while they're not there anymore. And that's not even talking about the administrator's problem, the shortage of, of administrators out there. Oh yeah. It's a revolving door. Like at my school, I've had probably 10 to 15 administrators in the past 10 years of them there.

And my school has a lot of them. And we've seen people shuffled around. We've seen people come and go and um, although we have had the same, same principle for some time, my career is kind of marked by principals who would. Be there for a year or two, add, um, you know, vice principals as well. And they saw it often as a political step, as a stepping stone to maybe the district office.

And since I've been teaching, it's been like that. You'll get a new principal, they'll be there for a couple years, they'll move up to district office or district office somewhere else. And, um, and so with the revolving door of leadership, a revolving door of teachers, um, it, it leaves kids sort of wondering, uh, who cares about them, right?

Because, um, the teacher that they love, the principal that they love short time sometimes. Well, and I don't think that the administrator's job is one that is tenable. Like, it's either you sell out or maybe never had any scruples to begin with, um, but you sell out or you burn out. Like it's a really awful job.

Yeah. I mean, we have a number of admins and I I, every time I see them, they, they're just looking stressed out. I know. And if they're not. Then they're not doing their job. And I, I commiserate with them. I feel so bad for them because they've been given a job that no one person, or in my case, six people could, could do.

No, it's, it's impossible to please everyone to run a school. Um, the system isn't set up for, for success. And, um, so a lot of survival mode, a lot of, uh, putting out fires rather than having the opportunity to really stop and think about real permanent solutions and preventions to some of the problems that permeate every, every campus.

So, okay, so now I'd like us to pivot to the special education mess in the teaching because we refer to this as sped for shorthand. The, the laws which set the stage for special education in K 12, um, were passed a year after Title IX law. It got this big system. Implemented to provide special education services to our nation's youth, unlike Title ix, which passed a year earlier, but it's not working as designed and it winds up being this herculean thing that piles on the paperwork for special education teachers and doesn't pay special education teachers more.

I don't know if this is popular or not amongst, uh, K 12 teachers, but in my interview with, uh, Paul Bruno, we do talk about the fact that certain gigs should be paying more. But what happened recently in California was a teacher's union went to the California legislature out of desperation because their leaders were failing to hire enough special education teachers, and it was having huge impacts on the ground floor, on campuses, and we all know special education of the teacher shortage.

Special education is one of the most impacted departments. And so instead of fixing that problem, which in a way would sort of fix why no one wants to be in our profession in general, but instead of addressing that problem, the legislature up apparently turn to superintendents and leaders and school boards, and they cooked up a plan called inclusion.

So basically what they're doing is they're just gonna be mainstreaming a bunch of special education students and hiding behind this term inclusive tier one practices. So SPED is a lot. We unpack it with experts. Shawn, what do you think about the special education mess? Well, like you said, um, this issue of a teacher shortage, you know, if you want to see the, the drastic effect of this, um, the, what's been done to our special ed departments campus, you know, on campuses all over is really the canary in the coal mine here.

Yes. And, um, you know, if there's a teacher shortage in general, there is. Certainly, um, a large number of vacancies in special ed departments, you'll just open up some of the, you know, uh, the, the teacher job websites and you'll see just an inordinate amount of sped positions open at any given time, and they don't pay them anymore.

Although, I know, because I know a lot of SPED teachers and I love them, and I, I I will tell you, they do a lot more work Yes. Than, than some. Yes. And, um, and they're not necessarily paid for it. No. And I know some sped teachers that stay at school till eight o'clock at night, especially during testing time.

Um, and they're just. Outgunned, understaffed. And so their solution, much like the solution to the issue of, um, with our English learners, is to simply eliminate specialized programs and mainstream them. And that's what they did to our English learners boo. And that's what they're trying to do to, to sped students.

Um, and they are are erroneously claiming that by having separate programs like Special Day class or in my case, uh, sheltered, uh, English instruction was um, denying students of their civil rights according to their interpretation of the law. And the reality is it's really just dollars and cents. Why would they pay somebody to teach?

15 to 20 kids when they could just double up the size and say, all right, you're a, you're a teacher of English learners, now you're a SPED teacher. Now we're all sped teachers, we're all English learner, uh, certified. So that's their solution. And, and to be honest, it's, it's just about money. That's it. Yeah.

I mean, we have this coded phrase, I say coded because I know the, what it really means, and the way it's used is in special education we have this phrase least restrictive environment. Right. Teachers, we know this. And if you're a parent with a student with an IEP, an individualized education plan, which, uh, Shawn and I are both, we had a student who just graduated, um, with an IEP and we're gen ed teachers.

It views like least restrictive environment is just coded language for the least expensive option. We see K 12. You're the emperor with no clothes. We see it. So we unpack the special education mess extensively. Again, I'm not a special education teacher and neither is Shawn, but our guest host Manny, is she has over two decades of sped experience, so she'll be coming on to unpack that mess for us to do some justice for our special education teachers who deserve more pay 'cause they have more expert knowledge.

And our special education students who are really getting the raw end of the deal. Okay, moving on. Hmm. Climate and culture. If you are not a teacher, you're thinking, wait, what? The weather outside? No, no. K 12 is so jargony climate and culture is code for really what we say is how your campus feels over time and the extent to which everybody is sort of aligned behind a common mission.

But really the real deal is when we talk about climate and culture, we mentioned climate and culture problems. So that's coded language for how crazy and unsafe your campus is. And climate and culture issues really stem from. Uh, the soft bigotry of low expectations. I didn't coin this phrase, Dr. Kareem Weaver.

Did I talk about him extensively in the Reading Mess episodes? I love this guy, but it's really like internalized racism, internalized ageism, not believing that children or certain children are not capable of behavior conducive to learning and people just adults making excuses for children and not holding them to high expectations and high standards, and really just.

Campuses that feel just nuts. So we talk about this and unpack it extensively on the podcast, but I wanna get your reaction when I say climate and culture, what do you think, Shawn? Well, you know, I've worked at lots of different schools and some of them are, uh, very large. And I can tell you this is just the conclusion that I've come to, that smaller is better.

If we want to do better. If we wanna do better by kids and families, we find a way to make things as small as possible. Because in a school with thousands of kids, with six people in charge. It's hard to get some consistency. And so what happens is, you know, we have these policies laid out, but this stuff is very nuanced.

And so rather than take a nuanced approach and really try to shift the culture, a lot of times admins are just putting out fires all day, every day. And they're, they're not given an opportunity to really plan to shift the culture of a school that has become toxic in some ways. And it's not just my school, it, it's every school.

Yeah. Kids have changed since that pandemic, and I, I will admit that, but that's also been used as sort of an excuse in the past few years to excuse poor behavior, to excuse wild behavior. We haven't pivoted with the kids to help show them the, the light and so. On any given day, you have, uh, attendance problems are rampant.

Right? And that's a behavioral thing. A lot of kids don't see the merit of coming to class on time. Some not coming to class at all, walking around campus causing a ruckus. And you add, you know, bad actors on things like TikTok and you have instances of kids vandalizing schools in a major way with no remorse, writing horrible graffiti on the wall, doing things that, um, we haven't pivoted to, to prevent.

What we need is consistency. Yes. We need clear policies that are consistently enforced. We need to stop making excuses and deal with issues when they pop up in a way that shows kids that this is how you be a citizen in the world. 'cause right now they're learning that. You know, some of these kids learn that school is for hanging out.

School is for fun school is for other things than selling drugs or, than than school or, yeah. Selling drugs are even trafficking of females on your campus. Like it's bad. Like things that are going on in K 12 campuses are egregiously bad, dangerous, illegal. And the leadership of K 12 school districts wants desperately for you to not notice this because, you know, real estate values are tethered to, um, the reputation of your local school district.

And, you know, they do things like doctor their, what we call climate and culture data, where they don't, you know, properly document all of the problems that are going on on a campus. Our schools feel. Like a hair trigger dangerous, like anything could happen at any moment and we're all just surviving each day.

And you know what I know is that kids can be better if you expect better and you provide the real help that they need to be better. It is not rocket science. We can do this, but we just need to radically re-envision how schools are led well and get teachers involved in the decision making process. Amen.

Because I have no doubt that every teacher I know. Has their class on lockdown, their little kingdom. They've got their policies, they build relationships. But when you go outside of your classroom, that's when you really start to see the larger problems at play on campuses all over. Yeah. America. Um, these kids have been raised on technology.

They have been, um, indoctrinated into a, a online culture that is toxic, misogynistic, racist, violent, taking pleasure and joy in the pain and suffering of others. We're trying to teach these kids to be human beings and we need to stop looking at it just as an individual teacher issue, like you need to manage your class and really look at.

Our campuses as a whole and come up with a plan to, to help that because there's no reason why if you go out on campus and see kids interacting with the campus, that you get a different experience. And it happens to me all the time. I've had, you know, none of my students, um, would do some of the things that I see out on the yard.

Um, and it's because they know that once they leave my classroom, there's no consequences. At least not consistent ones or ones that really show them that what they did was, um, was questionable or wrong. Thank you. Well, we talk a lot about this and we unpack this in the theme and we dig into this mess.

There's so many things to talk about. The school-wide behavioral intervention plans, restorative justice for or against. There's so much to do here. We talk about PBIS, so many things. So you can look forward to a rich, a rich nuance conversation about this once we get to that theme. Next this topic kind of.

Flows out of the climate and culture mess is the DEI mess. Diversity, equity, and inclusion mess. Uh, this is a biggie. Of course, everyone is talking about DEI right now. And, uh, the official stance of this podcast staying very bipartisan is that yes, we are for any initiative which takes a student or any person in the K 12 world notices that they're arriving at work, they're arriving at school with some kind of a lesser opportunity to thrive.

Noticing what that is and mitigating that. That's really what DEI work is. And really, all children are an historically marginalized identity. They fit with all of the others. And so there's really two sides of this debate. Like one you're in a district or a situation where DEI is like not mentioned and it's become like a bad word.

And so anything quote unquote woke is off the table. I just saw something on Instagram yesterday, honey, where uh, Oklahoma teacher was talking about a woke oath that they had to take to not have anything woke in their pedagogy for fear of, I don't know, being fired. So that's one side of the CONT continuum.

On the other side, and this is kind of where Shawn and I are, there is DEI work, social justice is a huge part of certain districts in the K 12 context, but it's highly exclusionary and so they're only privileging certain identities, others not, right? It's all coded language for really race-based equity work, which I say over and over again is.

Fine. So long as you're calling it that, and not saying this is all the EI work, but it's really only African American social justice work. And I say we need that and that needs to be the only focus at times. But what actually gets done for African, African American students winds up being really superficial and doesn't actually shift any of student outcomes or make things feel any better for African American students.

It's all very cherry picked assessment based data. That is all I, I mean, I call it bull bologna on all of it. You can say bullshit. You're in, you're in a safe space. I mean, I think, you know, politics and education are. Heavily tied to each other, and it's always been that way. But historically speaking, teachers have been trusted as experts.

Teachers have been trusted with the youth of, of today. Parents and families trust us with their kids to do the right thing. And it's only recently, oh, maybe in the past, I don't know, 10 years that, um, things like equity. Have not only become buzzwords, but have also been co-opted by opposite sides of a political spectrum for reasons that have nothing to do with with kids.

I've heard that teachers are indoctrinating kids. Mm-hmm. I've heard all sorts of accusations that, that we are the problem and we are in strange times. 'cause never before has, uh, have, have edu has education and teachers been so vilified. It, it feels like we are in some dystopian anti-intellectual, uh, future society.

The scary part is it's right now. And so I, I think we need to flip the script on the, the whole conversation and really, um. Use Socratic questioning when faced with criticism for di uh, diversity equity inclusion practices. Like in my, in where I've worked before, it's never been an issue, but I know in some states, um, you can lose your teaching license for even mentioning certain words like equity and inclusion.

So we're lucky enough to live kind of in a bubble where we're pretty free from this, but we read the news every day and we thank our lucky stars that we work in a place where, at least for now, um, we are not under the microscope at all times, but there are little bits of it creeping in here and there.

Um, that new law that passed that that parents can opt out of any curriculum that they see fit, we're gonna have to wait and see how that plays out because, um. It really opens the doorway for all sorts of of things. And, um, so I think it, it's not a, a new conversation, but the attitudes that we see towards diversity, equity, inclusion have shifted and now it's become a highly politicized term when in reality it's just the way that we've always done things.

Education has always believed in equity and inclusion and trying to create citizens in the world who believe in these things as well. All we're trying to do is get the best student learning outcomes. Really. Like, don't we want all of us to be literate, thoughtful people? Well, when you have a student showing up on your campus and they are suffering the effects of race-based inequities, they have experienced systemic racism and they're showing up in your space, triggered or unable to learn.

You wanna dig into that and figure that out, like that's what we're trying to do. We want all of us to thrive. We want this grand experiment of American democracy to be successful. So that's all we're trying to do. This is not affirmative action here. People. We're not trying to make lower the standards for certain groups.

We're trying to get everybody. At the best functioning level possible. And so in education we understand that you need to meet people where they're at, right? And so standing in the space, even like defending the very concept of DEI is a big part of what we talk about in the D-E-I-M-S. And we really dig into some of the misconceptions, uh, that people have about DEI work and I really invite and I've had on people who are, you know, identify as Republican who are conservative, bringing their concerns to the table and having a loving and honest conversation about it.

'cause we are spoonfed political vitriol from both sides that it's just totally inaccurate. But then I also go toe to toe and I push back against people on the left who try to very narrowly define. Uh, what the work is and who gets to be seen in it. If we had a more inclusive lens. And that's what's so ironic about DEI work particularly in K 12, is that it's so exclusive.

But if we were more inclusive from the beginning, I, I think we would have been in a better position to defend DEI work once it was under attack. Like if we had a message for low socioeconomic students, which is the lion share of kids in America, if we had a narrative for them. We could have stood on less shaky ground as a DEI protective force, but we didn't.

We set forth with highly exclusive identity based things that polarized America. And I'm not saying identity, it isn't important to protect and defend and DEI work, but there's a better way to do it. That gets more people on board. And so that's what we talk about. Well, and part of the problem with the way that this stuff is rolled out in school districts is, um, it's not a nuanced approach.

Yeah. And things like equity, inclusion, uh, discussions of diversity, they're highly nuanced conversations. Oh, yes. And you've gotta have trust of all stakeholders and you have to be consistent and clear with the way that these things are rolled out. Thank you for that. I wanna switch gears to talking about the teacher health mess and in this mess.

These are some episodes I actually have not recorded yet. A lot of these, I've got back episodes from the past two to three years. This one, I don't, this one came to me as I was really reflecting on our mental health crisis and our profession, but also. Some of the really sad and tragic physical health outcomes we've been seeing, um, in our population, anecdotally from the people we've known, this profession will chew you up and spit you out, and you don't have access to great healthcare, even though you pay an arm and a leg for it.

Um, and it, the, the vicarious trauma of holding all the trauma of the kids, it manifests. Physically we are kind of a mess as teachers. What do you wanna say about this topic? I mean, I, I, I don't know the numbers, but I'd wager that, you know, if they surveyed teachers that things like anxiety and depression would be pretty high.

Um, I took a course a few years ago about what's called trauma stewardship, and it was all about, um, self care. That often goes to the wayside because teachers take care of everyone else. And through taking care of them, we often experience, um, uh, peripheral trauma, right? Like if you have a, a kid that reports to you that they're abused, that takes a toll and, and.

You know, we, we often are told to suck it up and come to work. You know, when we went back to work with the pandemic, after the pandemic, we were some of the first to be asked. I know people who work in the tech sector who are complaining just recently that, oh, my boss told us we gotta go back, back to work.

I don't wanna hear it. Right. Because, um, you know, teachers often forego their own health, their mental health wellbeing, uh, because we care about kids and, and we're always gonna do the right thing. And sometimes that's been used as leverage against us. And so, you know, in my, my experience, just my personal experience, um, I.

List a number of people in the past decade that I've known and loved who've retired, and then soon after a year, maybe two, passed away for one reason or another. I've heard aneurysms, cancer is rampant, depression is rampant. Um, and that's just one of my biggest fears as a teacher because I keep seeing it time and time again.

Yeah. Like, all right, I'm dreaming of retirement. I'm looking for that sunset, and then all of a sudden the other shoe drops and it's just so sad every time it happens. Um, and it happens a lot more than I think people, people know. Um, we, we give our all to this job if we're doing it right, and that definitely takes a toll on us and the people around us, our families.

Um, and I'm lucky enough to, to have another teacher in the house and like, you know, during the pandemic it was real weird teaching in different rooms and, and really getting an eye for what we did. But I'm lucky, you know, a lot of my friends, they don't have. Maybe teacher partners and so they don't get to bounce off what happened today.

Um, and I do that a lot, Trina is my, my sounding board and my ballast at times because um, if you don't have that, you know, what's the, what's the, the alternative? So I think definitely, you know, for you teachers out there, um, take care of yourselves. Like that's one thing I've learned after years of teaching.

'cause I used to go in on Saturdays. Yeah. I used to go to every school dance. I used to go to the Disneyland and all the trips and everything and everything. And then you have a family and you have children and that definitely, um, changes your perspective and my perspective now, um, is take care of yourself.

Don't work on weekends if you can really avoid it. Yeah. Sometimes you got a stack of papers, but really take care of yourselves because, um, like we said, there's a shortage of you and we need every good teacher that we can get. Absolutely. I, you know, I, I think this profession relies on martyrs and people who just pour their heart and soul into this work, and we really need to stop doing that.

We really need to stop volunteering our heart, body, and soul and really expose the fact that this profession is not tenable. I, we talk about that a lot more in a lot more detail in future episodes. So I wanna talk about the reading mess next. Um, in this theme, we have some experts come on to really unpack the horrific tragedy and this, as you know, honey was one of my points of entry into this entire.

Vein of conversation. 'cause I was seeing kids in middle school who were not being given chance, the, uh, any opportunity to learn to read and then being told that they just have low reading achievement data. Um, but really this comes from the fact that the nation's first and second grade teachers who really hold this esoteric knowledge of how, how to teach the foundations of reading.

'cause after second grade, we're doing something qualitatively different. It's a very different situation, what we're doing to support reading after second grade. These people, they don't have any power to lead any of the decisions. And the people at district office, the school boards. They don't have any experience teaching reading.

It's gross. It's, it's, it's a profound problem and it's why we have piss poor literacy rates in America. I mean, I just think it's also one of those things that maybe the public takes for granted, especially those with the privilege of having a good education, being able to read it in an early age.

There's a privilege that comes with that. And I, you know, I talk a lot about privilege in my class and really try to make transparent, um, uh, the, the situation. And one of those is, is something that people take for granted. And that's reading like most adults assume. Oh, adults, they can read. But, you know, I've looked at the numbers and we are very, very high in regard to adult illiteracy.

Mm-hmm. That means there's a, a huge chunk of our populace adults who are functioning fine. And don't get me wrong, like, it doesn't mean they're failures in life. No. It just means at some point someone failed them. And the reality is we've got a lot of adults out there who. Who really can't read. Now I teach high school, so I don't see it as much, but I also traditionally have taught English learners and I've had a number of students come from impoverished areas who are illiterate in their native language and of course in English.

And so I've dabbled in this and, and I can say at least at the high school level, I don't really see too many reading interventions happening outside of maybe special ed classrooms. Mm-hmm. Or um, uh, een English language development classrooms. Um, but they're there. You know, I have kids every year who are questionable.

It's questionable. Well, I mean, the idea here is if you're not in special education, why would you need reading intervention, which is. Help if you're far behind in reading, because K 12 should, by the time you're in high school, 'cause K 12 should have done its job by now. There is a profound lack of understanding.

There are children being matriculated all the way through high school that cannot read. Yeah. And it is an embarrassing problem and I kind of feel when I, you know, you and I are punk asses, but I kind of feel sometimes it's intentional. Like there are people, elite people somewhere that are like ringing their hands like Mr.

Burns from the Simpsons. Yes. Don't read, don't be literate. Yes, yes. I mean, really sucks. Yeah. It, it's a profound problem. Which brings us to the can curriculum mess, which is one of our favorite messes to complain about. Boo. His I don't name. The can curriculum companies, the textbook, big textbook companies, 'cause I don't wanna get sued by them, but there's really only like four or five, right?

And they tend to like volley for top dog. And the one right now that is in the top is the one that's being shoved down my throat and it, this company is going to clear $2 billion in profit this year and we are in the bottom quartile of the world for literacy rates. Ah. Clearly they fail. Take it away.

Shawn. What do you want people to know about can curriculum? You know, it, it's always a part of every school, right? There's always a book room with a series of textbooks. And the sad part is, you know, traditionally you look at most of these textbooks, they're just rotting in there. I've seen warehouses in school districts that are just like burn piles of old books.

Mm. And so a lot of money is being spent on, on this stuff. And traditionally, wherever I've been, my department, my school stance was one where here's this, here's this textbook, here's this curriculum that they gave us. Take what you need from it. It's a good resource maybe. And I've used textbooks before.

I've used anthologies, but the understanding has always been that like. You're the experts in the room. Use this curriculum the way that your expertise sees fit to use this, to enhance this, the, um, experience of your kids in the classroom. Um, now things have changed a little bit, especially since, you know, high stakes testing, SBA and all that stuff kind of came into play and has a lot of, uh, political meaning, not just academic meaning.

Um, there's a real push to fulfill these, uh, these nebulous requirements, uh, that, you know, the district management is telling us, Hey, you know, we need to, uh, have something to point to basically. Like we are, yes, we're Common Core. This book, this textbook, this chapter, this page, you can look it up. It's all referenced.

It's easy. And, um, now there's, there's kind of a real push for scripted stuff and, and even more now, uh, ai. You know, we used to have, for example, summer school in my district, traditional summer school, where if a kid fell short of passing during the year, they were signed up for summer school. It was six weeks, it was a regular class, and they'd get a semester's worth of credit.

Now it's all computerized. So you have a teacher in the room because of a formality. Although I, I foresee that. Going away pretty soon, um, with 80 kids instead of 30. And they're all doing different things on the computer. And Mr. Robot is their teacher. And, and that's sort of the wave of things. Um, so I mean, I think that can, curriculum may have morphed into ai, but it's still sort of the same thing.

It's the constant push to save money, to eliminate real human jobs and to make our kids into, uh, lever pulling, button pushing consumers. I, you know what I hear what you're saying about saving money because what you're, what the alternative is what we argue for in, in our petition, which we're gonna talk about next, which is teacher leadership.

Over our own profession, teachers make our own curriculum, but textbook companies are actually pulling in billions of dollars in profit for crap that does not work. And the reason why it's being proliferated, I. I saw it start, Shawn, when I was in that first high needs district where we were like, okay, we acknowledge we don't have enough veteran teachers.

Like that was the whole beginning of the PD that we, and we were given this canned curriculum den scripts. Okay. So since we don't have veteran teachers, instead of dealing with why we don't, here's a dense script. Yeah. We're just gonna make teaching color by numbers. Yeah. Color by numbers. And we have the money to pay for these denser curriculums because of the weird step and column system.

Our teaching population in our district is all brand new, so we're saving a ton of money. Right. And so the camp curriculum companies in this for-profit, weird juggernaut that is CAN curriculum in America, they learn they can make a lot of money charging school districts for dense curriculum. And so now I'm not in a high needs district.

I'm not in a district that's impacted by the shortage, but I saw. These companies come peddle their balogna. Oh yeah. Away. Sell them to the district and say verified curriculum and teach it with fidelity. And when it came down into my high achieving district that I'm in now, I told everybody, I'm like, you wait.

They're gonna be coming in to make sure we're doing the paint by numbers teaching. Oh no. We'll say we're doing it and then we'll do right by the kids. I said, Uhuh. They're gonna expect that we're gonna do this exactly as it's been laid out. And sure enough, that's exactly what's happening right now. Well, and it was always seen as sort of like an inside joke amongst teachers.

You go to a teacher conference, um, and they have a, a ballroom set up with tables and all the vendors, the textbook companies that are trying to, to lure people in. And they would, you know, I would always just get a bag and fill it with free candy and pencils and rulers and a little, all the free stuff that they, and take a little sample.

And then we laughed it off and went, ah, look at that crap. You know? Mm. But now, um, they don't even have to, to do that. They just, we, they have districts knocking down their door saying, Hey, we need. To raise SBA scores because local, uh, you know, local housing prices are based on those scores. Mm-hmm. It's good for the economy.

So let's throw all this money at, um, you know, what was once just a book, you know, those books that filled dumpsters and burn piles. Now it's just Chromebooks and AI and, and apps that they're, that they're selling. It's, it's the same, uh, uh, a Wolf in sheep's clothing. It just looks different. And with AI it's even more.

Um, easily, uh, maneuvered into a school. 'cause you don't even have to wait for physical books to show up. Here you go. Right? Absolutely. And it, this gets into the K 12 governance mess, which then bleeds in perfectly to the petition, which is this, like the school boards and superintendents don't sit in their seats long enough to be called to account for the fact that the crap that they spend money on does not work.

It doesn't work. And these school boards, these local micro local control, like we're hearing right now, everybody's talking big talk about shutting down the US Department of Ed. And part of that conversation is good because we're finally acknowledging the failures of K 12 education, but we're blaming the wrong people.

And that is Mo scratching. Hey Mo. Uh, he's so cute. But anyways, it is the problem. The problem stems from local control and these school boards. There's constantly rotating and changing seats. They don't have any experience in our field. They don't know what they're talking about. They don't have access to the information that they need to.

It's all being filtered through the superintendent. And it is, it is leading into widespread lack of accountability. And really, and this is what Dr. Paul Bruno and I talk about is, uh, inability to even begin to characterize the problems on a state level, much less a national level. Like when I could not even get at the national literacy rates for this country from this CIA who was able to get it for all the other countries.

Like it's a serious lack of cohesive accountability and reporting of our issues. So that gets us too. The petition. So when I talk about the petition, honey, a lot of times, like when I talk about it with teachers, they always go, what? What? No, that could not happen. Or when I talk about it with people outside of our profession, they go, wait, what?

You don't have that? And it all really started when I was reading one day, something that Diane Ravitch wrote, educational scholar in our field. Oh, okay. So K 12 teachers are the only profession in America today that don't have a national governing board. And I just like let that sit with me for a while and I was like, oh wow.

Wait a minute. So like. The American Medical Association gets to set its own standards of practice and board of ethics and decides what doctor preparation should look like. And something is similar happening for lawyers and all these other professions in America. And we don't have that. And it's not only that we don't have a seat at the table and it's being, uh, populated by non-experts.

We're not even there at all. Only non-experts are calling the shots. The K 12 subcommittee of Congress is probably the most powerful institution at the federal level, and they are. Have no experience. Kevin Kiley has no experience teaching in the classroom. But you know, so that's our problem, is how do we create something?

And how did, how did our profession get established in the first place? Well, it was established by Congress in the 1830s because under the noble goal of, hey, we have a democracy, and we get a bunch of people here who don't know how to read, we gotta figure that out. In ancient Greece, the example we borrowed from everybody who was a citizen could vote because they really made that citizen a very narrow definition of wealthy land owning men.

Now we're gonna say, all these people can vote, but yet they can't read. How are we gonna. Create this system, we'll pay women a third of the salaries of men to, to make this work. But the problem was women at the time could not vote own property or sign contracts. And you as a man in our profession today, and all men are all still receiving the brunt end of this structural sexism that was baked into our profession.

So what we're saying to Congress is, and we need a hundred thousand signatures on the petition, which you're not gonna get bothered for money, and we're not gonna sell your information to anyone because it's all done in house. We haven't used any of those cringey petition, um, uh, platform makers, uh, so that we can say Congress, establish a K 12 educator governing board, let us be released for part of our day, or up to two years to serve at site, district, county, state, and federal levels of leadership.

You need some expert voice in this work. Uh, we have huge problems in K 12 education and our variability to effectively self-govern, desperately hangs in the balance. I don't know that many people would disagree with that statement. Like, we're kind of a mess. We need the best of us to lead us forward into the problems.

The big problems that we have to face. And so that's what we're saying is let us lead, give us a seat at the table. What do you think, honey? I mean, I think people would look at teaching and say, wait, there's a lot of teachers groups and what they don't understand is, you know, like NTE, uh, CTEA, like all these organizations, they're just advocacy groups.

Mm-hmm. Maybe lobbying groups, but they don't have any say in the way that things are run as the Department of Education, which is slowly being whittled down. Right. Because, um, we have people in charge who think that it should be state's rights, and we have people in at the state level who think that it should be district to district.

And that's what I think I want a lot of people to know is that from district to district, even districts that are neighbors, you can get a very different experience that depending on who's in charge, depending on the populace, depending upon all sorts of things. And what that means is that. You know, people are selective and you have people leaving undesirable areas in droves and moving to other places where, um, they, their kids can get a decent education and that leaves kids who don't have options, the poor, um, maybe, uh, kids who, who don't have that, that sort of ability to just pack up and move to a better district, um, kind of in, in, in the mud.

And, uh, so I think definitely that, trying to consolidate things a little bit. Mm-hmm. Even at a state level, if they want to do that. You don't want to go federal, you don't want to have a, a mess like the Department of Education. Um, then give us sort of a state governing board made up of teachers that can make decisions.

'cause right now it's superintendents, it's administrators at the site level making these decisions. And some of them haven't been in the classroom very long at all, if ever. I mean, ultimately what people don't understand is that superintendents and people at, at district office, they. Call themselves educators, but as soon as they take that desk job, they become politicians.

And they taught for a very short time, a very long time ago. And usually they're making decisions about, well, they're making educational decisions about grades and subjects they've never taught and they don't have the humility, right to ask veteran current teachers. And let me say this too, that like even site-based admin who may be taught a a long time, but they haven't taught since COVID Lockdowns and they haven't taught in this post pandemic world, they're irrelevant well to a lot of the decision.

I mean, come on, teaching is so different. You really need to have a lot of experience in this post COVID world. Well, and you know, going back to our point that that administrative jobs, you know, I feel bad for them because it's an me too. It's an impossible job. And, and part of that job, um, means that they don't get to visit the classroom as much as they should.

That's right. Um, unless they're at a small school. Right. Elementary school teachers maybe can more often. But a, a school where I work, that's, that is huge. A huge school. Um, it's hard for them to just pop in and see what's really going on in classrooms so that they can have a truly informed, um, perspective on things.

They are operating in cubicles. We are operating in tandem, but we are often not operating together. And, you know, they don't have tenure, so they can't speak truth to power yet. They have the power to speak up. They can't use it. And a lot of what we do in education is just like. Piles and piles of box ticking and hoop jumping to make things look right on paper so that if we're audited it, we have all of our ducks in a row, but none of it, and that even includes what we're doing in California.

These L caps, none of it is equating to improvement of the student experience or the teacher experience on the ground floor. Like what we wanna do is make authentic, real reforms to make things better. Things are bad and you're not getting the complete story. Our world is so bizarre. I'm working right, right now, as you know, with an education reporter on a long form journalism piece.

And this is a, this is a person who has a PhD in journalism who's been an education reporter for years, and she still doesn't know what she doesn't know. And every time I try to explain something to her as her informant, she has to go back and do a ton more research. Our world is that bizarre. Guys, if you're a teacher, you understand it's gotta be us.

We need you to come on the podcast. This podcast is for all of America, but it is the voice peace of teachers. Please come on and email us, tell your story. We've gotta get a hundred thousand signatures on this petition. We are trying to save K 12 education. We're trying to stand up and for a high quality public secular education in this nation and in defense of the US Department of Education, but we wanna be involved.

We wanna roll there too. I agree. I think that, you know, um, you should sign this petition and, um. Don't worry about spam mail or anything like that. It's not connected to any services. So sign, tell your friends, sign it. Let's see if we can get something really going on so we can get some movement. We can start moving forward rather than running in place like we've been doing for decades now in American education.

We love you America. We love you. Bye bye. Thank you for listening. You can help this vitally important movement by signing our petition found@k12confidential.com. Liking and subscribing to our YouTube channel and following us on Instagram.