Inside Texas Education Reform | Mary Lynn Pruneda

Mary Lynn Pruneda has been at the center of Texas education policy for years — and this conversation proves it.

As Governor Abbott's Education Policy Advisor, Mary Lynn was the lead advisor on House Bill 3, one of the most sweeping school finance overhauls in Texas history. She served as General Counsel for the Senate Education Committee under Chairman Larry Taylor, and today she's the Director of Education and Workforce Policy at Texas 2036, where she works on assessment, accountability, and school finance.

We get into what real policy change actually looks like from the inside — the competing interests, the tradeoffs, and why the structural problems in Texas education keep showing up in the same places. If you care about where Texas schools are headed, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.

Oh — and she's an 8th generation Texan. When she talks about the future of this state, it's personal. For both of us.

Visit Texas 2036.

About The Ashley B. Cash Show: The Ashley B. Cash Show features conversations with education leaders, policy experts, parents, teachers and reform advocates who are working to transform K-12 education. Host Ashley B. Cash brings her perspective as both a parent and business owner to explore systemic education issues and practical solutions for creating better outcomes for students, families, and communities.

About Ashley:  As both a mother and business owner, Ashley brings a unique dual perspective to education reform advocacy, driven by her desire for better educational outcomes for future generations and informed by her firsthand experience with the skills gap facing employers today. Her passion for transforming K-12 education stems from witnessing the real-world consequences of educational failures and recognizing the critical need for a system that prepares students for diverse career pathways, not just college. Through this podcast, Ashley champions solutions including aptitude-based education tracks, expanded school choice, practical skills integration, and alternative career pathways that align with students' individual strengths and interests.

Follow @AshleyBCashOfficial on Instagram & @Ashley Bowes Cash on Facebook.

Visit www.AshleyBCashOfficial.com for more content and features. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to the Ashley B Cash Show. I'm Ashley, and today I am so excited to welcome our guest. She is someone who has been in the heart of Texas education policy for years, working at the highest levels of state government, the private sector, and now leading policy research that will shape Texas for generations to come. Mary Lynn Prunetta served as Governor Abbott's education policy advisor, where she was the lead advisor on House Bill 3, one of the most significant school finance overhauls in Texas history. She's worked as general counsel for the Senate Education Committee under Chairman Larry Taylor. And today she serves as the Director of Education and Workforce Policy at Texas 2036, where she focuses on assessment, accountability, and school finance, some of the most complex issues in public education. Oh, and did I mention she's also an eighth-generation Texan? So when she says she's interested in the history and the future of Texas, she means it. Mary Lynn, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Thank you for having me, Ashley. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

I'm so glad to have you here. And you know, um, I've been working on education stuff and really trying to get entrenched in it for the last six years, but you've been doing it even longer at that at the deepest level. So just kind of go over a little bit of your history, your the uh, the highs and the lows.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, so I started my career when I was in law school. I got a job at the Capitol. Um I actually wanted to, I went to law school to become a national defense attorney. So we were in Iraq in Afghanistan at the time, and so I thought that that was what I was gonna spend my career doing, was just being a war lawyer, a war lawyer for the United States of America. Um, but then I couldn't find a job. And so I found a job at the Capitol doing general counsel work, and I was in the education committee because it's just where the job was, and I said yes to the first thing that came across my desk, honestly. And then I realized one day I actually realized that I just liked controversy.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

I didn't necessarily like Well, the warlord, the war, the the the law lord for the yes, no, that makes sense that you like controversy.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Well, but the the funniest thing is though that I actually think education is more controversial than national defense. Oh, I agree, and it's also equally as important because it's what we're doing with the tiny souls.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

I actually think it's more important because if we don't educate our citizens right, the children correctly, then you can just forget about us being a country.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

No, I agree with you. It and it is so controversial, and um people are very polarized by it, and people are very not engaged in it. There are people who are engaged in it, but there are also people who are like, I am staking my stick right here and you're not moving it.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yeah, and I think too, people are colored by their own experience, whether it's what they had in school or maybe oftentimes what their grandchildren are currently experiencing in school, and that adds this entire new dimension to any kind of policy conversation. It's like with water policy, you can talk about pipes in the ground and you can talk about water supply issues, but no one's there, no one's like worked as a water pipe person, you know, yeah, or had know someone who's worked as a water pipe person, whatever they're called, but everyone knows a teacher. Yeah, and so it's it's yeah, it's a lot more controversial.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Yeah, no, and and you run into your kids' teachers in school, you run into your old teachers at restaurants, and you run into your friends who are teachers, and you hear bits and pieces, and then people think they know the whole, yeah, right? Or they want something changed based on this one little piece data point, and you're like, but in the scheme of the whole data points, yeah, you know, it's it's tough, and it's tough, and it's very because it involves children, it is very emotional too. Absolutely. As it should be. This is critically important. We need to be doing the best for every single child so that what I think the importance of education is, is that I think that when we are giving the kids the tools that they need to have the best life they can possibly have. Absolutely and I think that's why I'm in this fight because I'm really concerned that we're not providing the best tools for the kids these days. And I base that off of the data points, right? Like what are the map scores? Yeah, what are the scores, the reading scores, the math scores? Like, what are we actually seeing coming out of school? And unfortunately, they they're not good.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

They're not good. And I think one of the biggest problems in education, particularly public education right now, is that parents don't know that. When you ask I think it's like 90, 92 of parents in Texas think that their kid is ready for the next grade. When you and I know that it's a sub-50%, and it's been sub-50% for the past 40 years.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah. I I do think because in in I was we were actually at the Texas Public Policy Foundation um policy summit this week, and one of the things that they discussed was contextualized grading that we are giving everybody A's when in fact they're really making a C or D. And I've seen it with my own kids. They will come home with a test grade that's like a 65 or 70, and I'm like, what? They'll go, don't worry, mom, I can correct it and I'll get a hundred. And so, like my children, because they didn't study, it's their it's really their fault. And and perhaps there was some instructional issue, but um, I really think the teachers are trying to do a really good job. Um, but the the fact that they they should get, honestly, my kids, they should get the 65. And I should know that they're not doing good, and then I can correct it. But if you're a parent that's just looking at the report card every month and you see A's, you think, oh, they're doing great. And you also think about it in relationship, what was I learning in sixth grade? Well, I didn't make A's, my child is making A's, they're doing better than me. Yeah, and and what you don't realize is that A is based on the rest of the class. That A is not based on did they master the topic.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think in something happened like 20 or 30 years ago in public education where we became consumed with this concept of meeting kids where they are. And that I think the data is pretty clear that that's really not what kids need most of the time. They need high expectations, and we've dropped them. They need consistent high expectations and they will meet it. Yeah. And that's the problem with grading. I think we've just graded down to the lowest common denominator, but then also we're grading them on things that aren't even on grade level. Right. Because there's lots of data that shows that most of what kids are consuming in a lot of our classrooms is two grade levels under, one grade level under. Because again, we're meeting kids where they are and where are we going to meet them at the kid that's the that's struggling the most in class. Yes. That's and that also the thing that I don't think we've ever done a good job of in any state that I know of is gifted children. And what do we do with children that are truly exceptional? Is it do we put them in some kind of competency-based education model? Like there's there's a lot more that we should be doing because we're just holding back a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

Well, and and I am really not a fan of us putting kids of all grade of all levels into one classroom because and I know that it was done under the no child left behind, which is a great premise. No child should be left behind. But I would argue that the way it was implemented has left more children behind. It has not raised the children that were not performing well up, it has pulled pretty much everybody down. And worse, those kids who were behind, they're even further behind. And that's not okay. And um, I I really advocate for us starting to group children in discipline per discipline by their ability. And what I would like to see us do is the kids who are behind, they get more tutoring, they get more a lower uh student-child ratio, they get more help, right? And the kids in the middle, they maybe get the same, and the kids who are flying, they get a great curriculum, and they maybe have one teacher that guides them and answers questions and lets them go. But those kids that are behind need more. We need to start intervening earlier, like honestly, and this is gonna probably fuel fire a few people up, but I don't think that we should be graduating kids that aren't at grade level. Yeah. At any grade.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Well, in theory, we're not supposed to do that in Texas, but that we do what's called individual graduation committees, and we just IGC kids out and put them on the way to graduation when they've consistently many times not demonstrated that they're ready on state exams.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Well, and the reality of that is everybody's been worried about their feelings, but I'm worried about their whole life. Like we are putting them in a situation where they aren't going to be able to pursue opportunity. We're putting them in a situation where they're gonna have a hard time making a live and we're putting them in a situation where they may eventually need to be on some sort of government subsidy, which I don't think that that is going to give them that self possession and feel like they're in self-control and feel like they're happy and like I want them to be happy, I want them to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, and my argument to a lot of people is just graduating kids in this situation, it's untexant. It is like do whatever you want in New York and California, but leaving a child unprepared and not ready for the rigors of adulthood is not something that I think my state is about.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

No, it's not, it shouldn't be. Yeah, and it wasn't historically. So, like, how do you think we got here? And what do you think we can do about it? I mean, let's just talk about, let's just figure out at the end of this podcast, I want us to have all the plan to fix it. I think I think we can get there. Yeah. No, but um it happened. I mean, I I I go back to there have been four times in the history of our country where we have transformational things happen in our education: 1913, 1933, 1953, and in the mid to late 80s again. And um I think it was when we went from a more skills-based system to a we were trying to create workers for factories that we like had the first major, like, oh, that was it, and I know that there were good premises behind it. Um, but I also think that when we decided to go all college prep for everyone, that that was another issue.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, I tend to think in Texas in the 1980s when we had the Perot Commission, and you know, we really doubled down on something that I I would love for us to go back to one day, no pass, no play. Um, we did see academic improvement. And we continued to see academic improvement while George Bush was governor. And then something happened in 2009, 2011, where it was like we decided we decided to press control, alt, delete on a bunch of good ideas and things that were working for students. And I wasn't around, I wasn't doing this work in 0911, but I just cannot wrap my mind around why the adults in this state decided that some of those changes were good. Because if we had just continued to do those things, we could have been the Mississippi miracle. You know, and we have this big national story, and everyone's just talking about this incredible literacy turnaround in Mississippi. What Mississippi did was what Texas was doing before 09 and 11, and it just it irritates me to no end that for whatever reason we abandoned reading academies, we abandoned math academies, we abandoned any type of regulatory structure around our curriculum, and we just returned to this wild west, and that didn't work for kids, and the legislature's done so much effort over the past few years to claw some of those things back. And I really feel like we've missed this story of like, but why did we go away from them in the first place?

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Why did we go away from the science of reading? Because I mean, and all and that's what that's what Mississippi returned to was the science of reading, the reinstigated phonics. They made sure their teachers were really well trained in whatever the curriculum was that they were using, but it had to align with the science of reading and have phonics, explicit phonics in it. And I honestly think that when we really missed the boat in Texas, I want to say it started with they wanted to go to holistic reading, where we're no longer gonna have explicit phonics, we're no longer gonna have explicit spelling or explicit grammar or explicit vocabulary. We're just they're gonna absorb it through the holistic reading, and I think that really led us astray. Um, and and I want to see all of that put back in. I mean, you know, and I and I think the newer blue bonnet curriculum has quite a few of those things in it, um, although it can be vastly improved as well. But um, I don't know, talk to me a little bit about that. You were engaged in that, you're engaged in the battle.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, I think so. I was focused really on the blue bonnet math and making sure that what we were putting forward was something that districts were going to be adopting quickly so that we could fix what is the area that we're actually the most like truly struggling in right now, which is mathematics. I think it's gonna be really great, but I think we need to do more to help districts get it into place. Um at the same time, I think I think curriculum is good, but curriculum's not a silver bullet.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

No, it's not. You have to have the teachers have to be trained and they have to know it well enough for them to be able to use all the methods to then teach it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I yes, a thousand percent. And and then also one of the things that no one talks about with Mississippi, again, to my constant irritation, is that one of the first reforms that Mississippi put in that led to the Mississippi miracle was rigorous accountability and intervention in failing schools and campuses. And yet in Texas, we continue to do that. We continue to try to intervene in failing campuses and failing districts, but get just publicly shamed constantly for just the mere effort of trying to make a kid's life better. And it drives me up the wall.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Um I agree with that. Because we we we have laws that say if your school, your school or your school district has been failing for a certain number of years, the state of Texas can stay take in and take it over for the sake of the children. And yet when we try to do that, they press lawsuits against us, they try to say that we're taking over their city. Well, you want your kids educated well, right? And that's what we're trying to make sure is happening.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah, and I mean, I just I I can't, again, I've we're talking about things I guess the theme of today is things I can't wrap my mind around. And one of those things is that there's a high school in one of these districts that's just teetering on the edge of takeover. Ten percent of its children are on grade level in high school.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Only 10%.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

That's horrible. Before 2019, it was over 50 percent.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

So in six, seven years, it has dropped substantially.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

And if a group of adults that is running that school district can't fix that problem, I don't think of a like a better reason I can't think of a better reason to take over like a school district, then you have hundreds of children that have been failed for now six years, and yet it doesn't seem like the people that are in charge can fix that. I think we should put other people in charge and fix that for kids.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

You know, one of the things that I've seen, um, and through no paul no fault of the public, I think it's just for lack of of being aware, right? Is how little engagement people have with their schools, with their school boards, with their state board of education, that people like they might think like most people's engagement is my child, my grandchild, right? And that yet when you look at the overall community around you and you start to see that there are kids who can't fill out applications for work, can't count change, or having a hard time doing basic math, or not good readers, like there's serious problems, and it's not fair to those children, but it's not fair to the community either.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

And we've got to get more engaged. Every one of us has to get more engaged.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Amen. I think that would be the solution. Like that would be the single greatest education revolution in the country.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Because if all the parents were standing up going, why is my kid making an A when they're really getting a 60? And that 60 is not based on them mastering the topic that's just per their class, their their local friends. And why can my senior in high school like honestly, the reason I'm doing all this, one of the many, but it's about my kids, but now it's about all the kids. But my a few years ago, my senior in high school, who'd been to private school and made straight A's because it's happening there too. Oh, yeah. Um, was writing his essay for college, and I kept saying, Let me, I want to read it. I want to see what you've written, I want to see, you know, and he's like, Mom, don't worry, the teachers are helping me. I was like, Okay. A couple weeks ago by I'm like, I want to see it, I want to read it. No, mom, I got it. Don't worry about it. An hour and a half before it was due to his first university, he showed it to me, and I was like, Jaw on the like, I'm like, Well, wait, you've been making straight A's. This cannot be what you have just written. Like, you know, and I thought I was an involved parent because I'm like checking the grades, making sure everything's good. Did you do your homework, all that stuff? And he was making A's. I was blown away at how watered down not only the curriculum is what they're actually doing, but also how watered down the grading is, right? And and I was like, if this is what we're doing in private schools with straight A students, we've we've got a real problem. Yeah, you know, and not I know I'm not gonna say that I don't have high standards because I do, but but still. Um and he's much better since then. We have been, he and I have spent a lot of time together working on his writing, and he's a much better writer now. But you know, and all it took was just, you know.

unknown 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

You know, I think one of the things that if if I were to commend anything to parents watching your show is to just put aside the thing in your brain that tells you you can't do it because you don't know enough and that teachers are more expert than you. Sure, they know more about pedagogy, which is just a really fancy word of saying that they know more about how to teach math and how to teach English. But we know definitively from data and from research that being a good reader is actually just as much about content knowledge as it is phonemic awareness. You know, we call it, it's called the like the fancy name for it is Scarborough's reading rope, right? You're braiding in content knowledge with your braiding in phonemic awareness, and that's how you arrive at the ability to read. You can teach content as a parent. My mom growing up, she used to go on rants about Richard Nixon. I know a lot about Richard Nixon because my mom talked about Richard Nixon for whatever reason. And my father talked a lot about he was an electrician, so he talked a lot about building, a lot about the physics behind electricity. I understand those things because mom and dad taught me it is such a low lift for you as a parent to say, okay, what do I think a kindergartner needs to know about? They should probably know about George Washington. We're gonna pull up a YouTube short with me holding the phone and me in total control of the YouTube experience. We're gonna watch a couple shorts about George Washington, and then I'm gonna spend two minutes telling my kids about the first president of the United States and why I think he's important. Congratulations, you have just provided an excellent lesson in history to a kindergartner. It is the the level that you have to go, it's so much lower than what most parents think.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Well, and there are so many great books out there that are, I mean, and it might be above your child's level, but if you sit there and read it to them, they are absorbing that. They are seeing, and I I mean, I had my mother, so I'm dyslexic. Um, and I'm also about to be 54 years old. So way back when they didn't do as much as they do now for that. And um, but my mother loved reading and she couldn't stand that I was not a greater. And I had great, great kindergarten teacher and great first grade teacher who were like, there's something wrong here. And so my mother's response was just to sit with me. And at the time I hated this. I mean, I loved it and I hated it, but um my mother would sit with me at the dining room table every single night with her finger underneath every single word, just going reading and reading and reminding me that's the the, you know, that's b, you know, and just like going through every word. And there is so much to that time, and there is so much, like I I think back on it fondly now. I remember the time being like, I don't want to read, you know, it's so hard. And um, and now I'm so grateful as an adult, and I fondly remember those times now, you know. But but it doesn't matter, just spend the time and it will make a huge difference in your child's life. Um, in fact, the number one data point for whether a child is gonna be successful or not is parent engagement. Are the parents engaging in the child's education, which can just be reading a book? It's makes a huge difference in the in the in in their education success if you will read to them. If you will go over the the the YouTube video about George Washington. I mean, there's so much education now online. You can find nearly anything that you want to teach. And and by the way, more and more parents are doing that because they are now homeschooled. So true. Because I think they're fed up. The parents who are starting to get engaged and really how realizing how bad the system is. I'm not saying the teachers, I think the teachers are fabulous. Most of them are absolutely great. But the system, the way it has been watered down, the way the curriculum has been watered down and destroyed, and and the fact that we walked away from some things that worked really well and lowered our expectations and decided we needed to be nice instead of making sure the kids were getting the skills.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Yeah. You know, one of the things I think is the most fascinating educational trend coming up that no one has poll tested, no one has the data on. It's just a vibe for me right now. But I think we have a lot of young parents, like 25 years old, that actually were in the public education system not very long ago, that I think are gonna be public education skeptics. And I don't think that the people running the public education system now are fully prepared to serve these much younger, more nimble, more adaptable, more throw the book out, I'm just gonna do what I think is right for my kid. And I think we're starting to see that in some of the enrollment data because we saw the state of Texas has a hundred thousand fewer public school children than it did last year. Wow. And you see all of these articles about districts having to adopt budget deficits, having to close facilities. That's just going to get worse. There are fewer families coming to Texas, and then we're also having immigration shifts. There are all of these confounding factors, wholly apart from this education savings account conversation, that are driving.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

But it doesn't, there that doesn't happen. That's not where the numbers are coming from. Um, so you know, my husband and I are really involved with Texas Tech University, and I sit on the Texas Tech Foundation board, and we got some data the other day, and you probably are aware of this, but I just want to say this for the audience there is actually 20% fewer 18-year-olds over this five-year period than there ever has been in like 30, 40, 50 years. Um, and fewer people are having babies also, which is also leading to those lower enrollment numbers. Um, and I do think with that, there are people who are just fed up with the system that are pulling their kids out and choosing to homeschool them or do something different, or possibly move to a state that has better education, uh, you know, um, and it's it's sad because we should be doing better for all of these kids, and we really got to figure that out. And I know that you and I are both working on policy to try to make it better and do, and let's talk a little bit about so what policy did you like from last session? What do you think is gonna have the most impact? And then what are you working on moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

God, so I first of all I have to say this before I list like a specific policy. I'm such a fan of the Texas legislature. I am too right now, especially. I do not get nearly the credit that they deserve about what they have done for children and families in this state. Like, regardless of party affiliation, it's not a party thing. It's a thank you for what you've done, Texas legislature, because you are incredible. Let's talk about it. Texas is invested, if you're just interested and primarily interested in how much money Texas public schools get, we have put billions and billions and billions of dollars into the public school system over the past, let's call it, six years, when other states are just struggling with a couple tens of millions, maybe God love them, a hundred million here or there. Texas is just putting our money where our mouth is, which is at our kids. And so the other thing that Texas has been incredible at is actually asking themselves, well, okay, if we're gonna spend this money, what is the single best way that we can use these dollars to improve literacy and mathematics scores? First one, teacher in the classroom. Texas has the only statewide comprehensive incentive pay structure in the country for teachers. There are teachers in the state making over a hundred thousand dollars a year purely because of the work of the Texas legislature, and there are other states clamoring to try and do the same. Right. But they just can't keep up because honestly, they don't have our pocketbooks, so it's a little different.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

But so, teachers, do not let your principal and superintendent tell you there's no funding because Texas above the regular investment, they added an additional nine point five billion dollars last year. 8.5 of it was in HB2, which is the one that 60% of that money is supposed to go directly to teachers. So do not let them tell you that there's no funding because they dumped a ton of money toward teachers last year. And it is, there's quite a bit of it in the merit-based pay, but they call it TIA.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Um teacher incentive allotment. And um and then there was an across the board pay raise across the board pay raise. I mean, there were some really great things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

So in I think so, putting more money in public education is a great thing, but also spending that money in the best and highest use is I think arguably just as important, if not more important. So they did House Bill 2 last session, they did House Bill three in 2019. Last session, we did some career and technical and workforce reform, kind of targeted towards high school and House Bill 120. Really hoping to see more of that this year. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Let's look on it. Um, and then gosh, there's been so many other good things. There was the high quality instructional materials bill from a few years ago that we're still we're still implementing in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

And that's the thing I think that a lot of viewers don't realize. Like, you're like, why can't okay? So they put this money toward it. What does it do? Well, luckily the money for the teachers that will go toward the teachers this this next year or their their incentive allotment now. Um, but it oftentimes the changes that are made at the legislature, then they have to go to the Texas Education Agency and being adopted and and filtered down, and then they have to go to the SBOE and State Board of Education and be approved, and then it has to go to your local uh school board and be approved, and then it has to start being implemented. And if it's curriculum, there's a whole nother layer in that that it has to go. The curriculum companies have to create the curriculum and then distribute it, and they want several years to do that. So some of the changes that we want and that the state is doing, some will happen quickly and some will happen over a period of years rolling out. And it's still frustrating to me because I want it to happen right now.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, you want it to you want to pass the bill and then two weeks later you want to see money in the pockets of teachers, and unfortunately, we can't work that quickly. We want to implement it, like it's happening, we want to implement it right now, and then it's even worse when you know you have to pilot the program to prove the proof of concept, and then you have to wait a couple sessions to get it passed. And change takes time.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Um, but I think that's one of the things that's important for us to remember, and for anyone that cares about public education to remember is that sure, change takes time at the legislature, but undoing change takes moments. And that is why I think it's so important for everyone to be involved and everyone to be engaged at the legislature, watching what's going on and asking difficult questions and asking, like, well, why is it this way? Or what uh what exactly are you doing this way? And how how are more kids reading and doing math as a result of this revision or this strikeout? Uh, because it just it takes a millisecond. And I think that's one of my big takeaways going back to 0809. I mean, it just took some people deciding that some things needed to be undone. If our children still cannot read like they would have been able to if they hadn't have done that.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Right. When they took out the science of reading.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

And they backed off from accountability and they backed off with reading and math academies.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Well, and then there was the whole calamity of COVID, which put everything behind. Because I know that there are school districts that were performing poorly before COVID, and then during COVID, we stopped holding them accountable entirely and have just recently started that back up again. And so, um and then you saw kids because the masks or whatever reason, they they weren't speaking as well, they weren't reading as well, they were they were out of the classroom and they weren't with a teacher, which also goes to point out how amazing the teachers are because I tried to be a teacher when during COVID and it was horrible. And and I remember all my friends and I being like, we need to pay teachers twice as much because this is not fun, right? And um, I've never respected teachers more than that time. In fact, I had gone to my congressman and was like, we need to pay teachers double when they get back here. They should be making a mint, and I still believe that they should, but um, but but COVID really has kind of sent everybody for a tailspin, and we're starting to recover from that as well. But um the numbers aren't showing that we're recovering very well.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

No, especially in math, yeah, particularly in middle school math. I think if you're gonna be concerned kind of on any category, subject, and age ban, I think the argument is middle school math because those are the students that missed a lot of their elementary, their formative mathematics instruction due to COVID, and now they're in this upper level mathematics when the teachers don't know how to remediate down to a third grade level in eighth grade.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Like that can't happen. Well, the concepts that and that's the problem with math. Yeah, it all builds on itself because I I remember talking with my own kids and being like, he's like, I hate this, or whatever it was, fractions or something. And I was like, Well, buddy, guess what? It's the rest of your life. You're gonna need to know this. So we're gonna we're gonna get in here and figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

So it's so true. Yeah, math is so so often, I think. Sometimes I've actually it's so funny. I've seen some states, they do like a big literacy bill, and God love them, they want to do just as big on math, and they just delete reading and they put math and then they'll like run the same bill. And it's like, but you cannot do that because math, like, you know, you learn to read and then you read to learn. Like, we kind of understand that about reading. Mathematics is completely different. I saw one study actually once that said that you know the most important grade for mathematics, according to this researcher, it's kindergarten. Oh, yeah, right? What a we're not can no parent. I live with in a community with a lot of kindergartners right now. None of those parents know that this is the most important grade, most formative grade for mathematics instruction. They're just trying, they're playing soccer on the weekends. They can probably count to 20, like most of the time when they're focused, but they're not really, they're not doubling down on mathematics instruction in kindergarten, because who knows that? Who knows to do that?

SPEAKER_03 32:30

So you know what I think is so critically important, and I'm gonna confess that I did not do as good a job of it with my kids. Like, you know, when you see a little girl or a little boy and you're like, Oh, you're so pretty. We need to say you're so smart.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Because that confidence is so critically important in the classroom. And um I know that because as a child with dyslexia, when you start to fall behind your peers, even though nobody's telling you that you've fallen behind, you know it. You know, and it does something to your confidence level, right? You think, oh, I'm not as good, or and then and then but that enters your psyche and then it impacts everything that you do. It really does, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

I always uh I always had the fortunate so parent, a mom talked to me and she was like, you know, this is a great way to handle this, and she told me she's like, when they say something bad about themselves, like I'm bad at school or whatever, it's like, don't talk about my Noah like that. Like you don't you don't get to say that about my Noah, and that's been a nice strategy for me as a parent when when my kids are like, I don't think I'm very good at that. You don't get to say that about my kid.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

No, and then also too, I think you also say, you know what you're really great at is this. Yeah. You know, because and that's the thing, like with my own boys, I remember um especially with them being dyslexic, um because they weren't as good at reading, right? And so it was and I and I saw their confidence drop. And I saw that like at my oldest, we ended up going to a specialist school because he was coming home from school every day crying. And he's like, I'm not as good. And he's like, I'm not, and nobody was telling him that, I don't think. But he knew he wasn't on the same shelf of readers as his friends were, you know, and and it he wanted to be reading the same books his friends were reading, and his friends were all talking about these cool books, and he was reading these boring books down here, yeah, you know, which were the basil readers that like, you know. And um and he wanted to be reading those books and he wasn't able to. And so um, you know, I'd be like, you know what you're really good at? You're really good at like he always played sports because he was really good at sports and and needed that to build his confidence. Yeah, you know, and so I was like, You're really good at soccer, let's go, you know. We'd work on his reading and the reward would be to go play soccer, yeah, you know, and um just finding those ways that you can bolster their confidence, but it at the same time using that as leverage to get him to work on the thing that they're not as good at, right? Yeah, yeah. Like I was always like the okay, here's the carrot. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna do this hard thing first so that then you can have the carrot, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

I'm glad yours are motivated by sports because mine are motivated by sugar. Oh yeah. If you count to tent, you get an MM.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Well, I do have to tell you, I was that parent that threw the Cheerios in the toilet because I had boys, you know, and I was like, aim for the Cheerios. And if you hit the Cheerios and you don't get on the seat, you get Skittles, they're right on top of the toilet. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

I wish I'd known that during potty training. Man, that would have been great. You know, I had a an interesting but also a little bit of a terrifying moment the other day with one of my four-year-olds, because he came home from school, he's in public pre-K and he goes, Mom, I'm bored. Oh, oh no, like this is this is actually a legitimate problem that we have to address. Why are you bored in pre-K? Like, it's there's something about the teacher, there's something about you, there's something about the curriculum. Am I gonna have to remediate you every day when you come home with like first grade material? Like, I don't, I don't know. As an education policy literal expert, I don't know what to do with my kid being bored in pre-K.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Well, and you know, that's the problem with best parents is we were not given a instruction manual when we got these kids, right? Like, I am still looking for that. If anybody has one, I still want them. I have a 16, 17, and 20 year old. I still need the instruction manual. Yeah. Um, yeah, and you think you know, and then when it's your own child looking at you saying something, you're like, oh no.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah, I could probably write a policy brief about boredom in the classroom, but when it's my kid, I don't know what I'm gonna do. So you reminded me, my husband and I, we had premature twins a few years ago. And I remember we finally got them home from the NICU because they were in the NICU a long time, and he said the exact same thing you did. He was like, There's not a book. Yeah, they're just gonna let I don't have to do anything, I just get to take this kid out, these two kids, out of the hospital. Like, what?

SPEAKER_03 36:43

I remember, you know, you have them and they're nurses everywhere and they're all zooming doing these things, and then they like bring you your child and they like make sure you can strap them in the car seat, right? They make you bring that car seat in, and then they let you walk out the door with them, and you're like, they just let me walk out with this baby. Like, I don't know what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

First thing you do is call your mom and like you're coming over, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Like you're riding in the car with me because I don't want to be eleven in the car. No, and I mean, but that's the truth. Like, it's scary being a parent. And it really is. I was talking to somebody else last night who is my age, but it's it's him, it's a guy, and his wife was there, she's a little bit younger, but they he has his first child, yeah, and he's he's 50 and he has a three-month-old. Wow, and but he's always wanted kids, and I'm so glad he finally found a partner and and has a child. But um anyway, he's like, I'm 50 and I have a baby and I don't know what to do, right? And he's like a very successful businessman, and he's like, I don't know what to do. And and and I said to him, I said, you know, I'm 54, I have four kids, and I think I failed with all of them. Other people tell me they're great, but I see the things I'm like, oh, I messed up on that, and I didn't do that right, and I wish I could go back and do this. And I think we all just have to have grace for each other. And like we're all everyone is trying to do the best they can.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

And uh hindsight's always 2020. Yeah. Remember that, yeah, you know. So, but um, okay, so we we we have brushed on the topic of data. Yeah. Let's get into it. I know you've got some good data points to tell people, some updated numbers.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, yeah. So in Texas, I think most people think, you know, we're Texas, we're gonna be at the top of the like public education pyramid nationally. We're actually somewhere in the low middle when you compare kind of our aggregate kids to the aggregate kids in Louisiana, Florida, New York, California. We do well on a couple of our sub-populations, though. But it's not good news. I'm gonna tell you why. So last time I pulled the numbers for African American boys in eighth grade mathematics in Texas, we were number one, okay, compared to every other state in the union. Do you want to ballpark how many of our kids are actually at basic on NAPE in that category? The best in the country. 11%.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, let's back up. So we are number one in the country for African American boys.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Eighth grade math, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

Eighth grade math. We're number one. And that means 11% of them are at basic, which is technically below grade level in Texas. That's not okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

It's not. It's I think it's and that's one of our best data points. For that popul, it's the best one of the best data points in the country for that population. It's you see, you kind of see these trends. That's not okay. No, no, by no means. Um when you actually when you look at you know Texas's performance on what we call an adjusted basis, so you compare like our Hispanic students to again Hispanic students in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Florida, New York, we actually typically perform in top five. And that's been pretty consistent over the past few years in the country. But the problem is that no one, when no one, you know, we have these conversations that's so frustrating. You know, people trot out this data point, they're like, well, we're doing pretty good. Like, look, we're at the top five in this, and I'm like, well, yeah, it's like 20 or 30 percent of kids are actually on grade level in that demographic. That's a moral harm. Yeah, that's not something to be proud of. Um, and then also worked for the governor. My experience is when we had you know these big meetings about trying to bring people into Texas, you know, you're recruiting like Samsung or you're recruiting Tesla. They're the corporate executives in those organizations are not sitting there going, Well, it's okay, we'll just look at your adjusted numbers. No, they're just saying how many people can read and do math on grade level, how many do you think are gonna get some kind of certificate that I need to run my business, and that they're gonna be good workers and they're gonna show up on time. That is actually the corporate calculation. And Texas over the past few years has had this amazing economy. We're again, so what's because of the Texas legislature? Um, we're just killing it on all of these kind of economic numbers.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Yeah, yeah. I say this all the time. I'm like, we're number one in economy, we're number one in job growth, we're number one in growth, but we're somewhere between 24 fifth and forty-fourth in education.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Well, and how long can we sustain these number one, number one, number ones when we're dragged? We're being dragged down by a sub-par education system.

SPEAKER_03 41:27

Yeah, we can't. That's that's like why I'm here doing this, right? Is because we've got to do better and we've got to do better now. And I do appreciate that the legislature is actively trying to work on it.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

But we need everybody actively trying to work on it, right? And and I'm and and please don't get me wrong, I think we've got some really great teachers and they want to do the right thing, and that's not what I'm talking about. But our curriculum has to be better. We have to go back to the things that we know worked. We've tried all these other things to be nice, and we've tried this holistic reading, and we need to go back to things that actually work, to the science of reading.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

And then also keep holding people accountable. Hold them accountable. There was this big push last session to back off of assessment and accountability. And you know, it's frustrating because people say they put it in such nice packages and they use such nice words that are so parent-friendly and parent-focused. So they'll say, Well, we need to evaluate the school environment holistically. We need to look at all of the great things that public schools offer kids. I agree. But I also think that accountability systems should be fair and transparent, and not a single one of these people that come with these ideas to the legislature have an accountability system that is technically fair and technically compared fair uh technically fair, it's transparent and it meets validity and reliability standards that accountability systems have to meet. We can put, you know, how many kids play the Piccolo into the accountability system till the cows come home. But I'm gonna tell you the way that band programming is funded in Texas is actually inequitable, and Grady ISD is getting 10 times what Chilli Cathy ISD is getting, even though they're the exact same size district in rural Texas. And so when you're thinking about these conversations, you know, people are so quick to these talking points that seem that seem vibey, they seem fair, they seem to like uh resonate with your emotions. But what it actually comes down to is things that are bad for kids.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

So yeah. And I mean, so I I have said this a few times, uh it frustrates me that neither the SBOE nor any school board that I have found to date, I'm not saying there's not one, but um have put the outcomes of the children as a priority. As far as I'm concerned, it should be safety first, outcomes of children second, and then you worry about all the other things first, next. But and and I would put the teachers' uh well being up there high too, but but like let's like make sure that we're making choices based on is this going to produce a good outcome for the students.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

You know, I Um there was this guy that used to run a bunch of our school school board programming in Texas, and one of the things that he would always say during his training, I think you'll love, is that he say student outcomes don't change until adult behavior changes. And I that's exactly what has to happen. It's just across twelve hundred governmental entities and the ten thousand school board members and the twelve hundred superintendents. That's a lot of behaviors to change. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

So and people don't like change.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, who wants to make their job harder? Nobody. Right? Who and change means it's gonna be harder for a little while until it's better. Right. And um now, having said that, I think one of the many problems in education is that we're asking our teachers to do too much. Um and most people are not aware of that because they think to themselves, oh, the teachers only work nine months out of the year, they've got it easy. Um, but it's very hard when you have 30 eyes looking at you every day, all with the desire to do different things. Yeah. Um, and when you're asked to do so many different things in a day, like if the teacher was just asked to be there and teach and to use their free time to work on the lessons for tomorrow and to do the grading, I don't think it would be as hard. But when they're asked to be there to meet the cars in the morning and to make sure that they're take doing lunch duty and they're doing all those things, and they don't have any time to prepare their lessons for tomorrow or to um uh even eat themselves sometimes, right? Um, I think that's too much. And yet simultaneously, 60% percent or before this last legislative session, let's say that, 66% of the dollars were not making it into the classroom, which means also not to teachers. Um I'm like, what is that 66? Why can they not be doing some of those things that the teachers are being asked to do? Right? They're getting more of the money, let's shift some of the more of the burden their way, you know. And um, and I know that that resonates with a lot of teachers because uh unfortunately we have teachers leaving, really good teachers leaving the school system because and and everybody's like, oh, they're not being paid enough. And I'm like, well, that's part of it, but that's not what they're really upset about. They're upset about the fact that they're not respected, they're upset about the fact that they're being able to ask to do so many different things, and that they don't have time to do the one thing they really want to do, which is be the best teacher for those kids.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Yeah, you know, and I think when you go to some of these schools that are just really committed to what is what do kids need first to read and do math on grade level, and that's the thing that we're all here for, and we're obsessed with it every day. One of the things that you see is that they have this commitment to putting instructional dollars into the classroom. And I think there's no better example of this currently in Texas than Houston ISD. Yeah, which I I know a lot of people hear a lot of bad stuff about Houston ISD, but of telling you I've been there twice. It is not what people are telling you. You're being sold a very bad story about what some incredible people are doing for children. And so just approach those articles with a lot of skepticism. Um, but one of the things that I think you see in Houston is just this, like honestly, a gutting of their administration. Like they fired, I think, 1,400 people in their central office.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

Which is part of why you're hearing bad things, by the way, because those people are not happy, but that doesn't mean it's not for the best of the kids.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah. And then you go to those schools and it's like from the assistant superintendent down to the principal, down to the assistant principals, they are constantly cycling through classrooms just offering teachers instructional support. And that there are no substitutes now in that entire district because they already have people that are paid like$70,000 a year, I think, as like assistant teachers that go around and make sure that they understand what the teacher's doing in her class. So if she has to leave because her kid's sick, there is zero loss learning, is the most incredible thing. There's no movie days in Houston ISD. There is, you know, today is a learning objective, everyone learns it, and we are all focused on making sure that kids understand that, um, even when the teacher, the teacher of record isn't in the class. And so it's it's been incredible to get to go to that school over the past few years.

SPEAKER_03 48:24

And I and I know that that's you know, there has been a push in curriculum to just dump curriculum on teachers and not ever actually teach them how to teach the curriculum. And so I love that Mike Miles, who's the superintendent there in the Houston School District, and and that is a school district that was taken over by the state and is showing really, really positive data points in a very short period of time from that takeover. And um I think there's a lot of things that every school district can learn from what's happening down there in Houston right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 49:04

Yeah. And um he's got a a no-nonsense approach. Like he's like he's tough, but and again, back to high expectations read high results, right? And I think we've got to start raising these expectations in the classroom too. We, you know, and what's our best way to get there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Well, I so one of the things I've tried to do over the past year is spend more time in schools and more time finding these just incredible instructional leaders that are so busy focused on taking care of their kids that they don't ever come to the legislature to testify. Like that's who I want to talk to about, how they're helping kids. They're doing the work. And um you know where I think some of the best schools in the entire state of Texas are? Where put money, good money on it. Webb County. You know where Webb County is? No. It's Laredo.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Yeah. There are some of the best elementary schools in this state kicking the kicking the brains out of Hyde Park, Alamo Heights, those ones that people pay tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes to go to. I would put these schools in Laredo up against them any day. And I'd put my kids in Laredo ISD before I would ever put them in some of those fancy districts. Why is that? When you go and you talk to these prints these superintendents, first of all, they're just incredible men. Um, and you hear just their commitment to there's just no excuse. Like it doesn't matter that your house is a block from the border, it doesn't matter if you're a block from the river. We are going to give you everything that we possibly can to get you on grade level in reading and math. But as a child, as a student, we're gonna hold you accountable to that. We're gonna daily provide you a high-level instructional quality, but also daily measure your performance, and then we're gonna communicate with your parents about how that kid is doing so that we all as a community work together to make sure that that kid gets what they need to master that learning objective and be ready for the next day. And I just wish that that was the kind of superintendent leader that people actually talk to in Austin. I wish that those were the people that I I would love to put their heads on billboards with like their favorite educational quote, because I think they're the kind of people that we should aspire to be because they're doing what really I think a lot of particularly like elites, both in Texas and on the East and the West Coast, don't think is possible. Like it's true educational transformation in Webb County.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

So I love that. Yeah, I love that. I'll have to I'll have to go and visit. Yeah, you should go, yeah, and meet them and just find out what they're doing. And that's um, like I have been pushing for a real uh just like you said, accountability. Um, but I also want that like because I hear people say all the time, well, you can't compare that school to that school because they're not apples to apples, you can't compare the financials because they all use different accounting methods, you can't um you can't compare this school to that school because this school has more um a higher number of low socioeconomic kids. And I'm like, no, that's not true because there are schools that are doing amazing, amazing things for all students, including the ones, and obviously Webb County is probably one of those. And and you're right, because I have seen the numbers when you adjust for socioeconomic those schools that everybody touts is the number as the top 10 are not in the top 10.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Very much no. And I think if a lot of if more particularly affluent Texas families actually realized how poorly some of their school districts are doing, there would be riots in the street.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

And I I live in one of those districts. Yeah. I live in a very poorly performing, affluent district, and I'm constantly just praying that um our accountability scores go up before I put my kids in public school and before they enter a first grade.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

So well, what do you think are the things aside from the legislation that we're trying to pass, um, that parents can do like with their schools? I mean, yes, we can all read to our kids, we can all be more involved, we can be, you know, the the parent, uh classroom parent for the your teachers. You can um you can go and be on the PTA and you can be a booster, and you can be there, be with your kids, be with the teachers, interact with the teachers, ask the teachers what they need, all those things. But is there I mean supporting us in the legend in the the trying to take this really good policy is something they can do, but what else?

SPEAKER_01 53:28

So I think first thing I tell every parent that I know it's that you are your child's first and greatest teacher. And so your obligation it is to make sure that they are on grade level and do not listen to what anyone else says. You evaluate for yourself and you use a website called Learning Heroes. Okay, learning heroes is one of the best parent-facing resource I have ever found. Learning Heroes has very quick, easy little snapshot tests that you can do with your kid from K to eight that you can actually look at whether or not they're meeting grade level standard. That start there. First of all, do your assessment. Um, the second thing is use the resources on Learning Heroes to talk to your teacher. They have a list of questions that parents can use when they go into their parent-teacher conference to actually get to the true outcome of the kid, to actually get to how that student is truly performing in reading math, science, and history, and to help have a more constructive conversation. Then you know, Billy's doing great. Billy was nice to Sally the other day on the playground, and I was so proud of him. That's very important for Billy. But what what the teacher is supposed to be doing is teaching them reading and math. And so the third thing that I think that they can do, um, I don't want to say like question what you're being told, but I think approach people that are telling you that assessment in this state is not actually a valid form of measurement, which a lot of parents are hearing right now. So if I had one message to parents, you're gonna get a lot of nonsense about the star test and the state approach to assessment. It's largely not true. What is true is that the star test is actually the first piece of paper that hasn't functionally lied to you the entire instructional year because of the rapid amount of grade inflation and the fact that your child is probably being provided curriculum that's below grade level. And so the reason that people don't like that piece of paper is that that that piece of paper, that test, cannot lie about whether or not your student is reading or doing math on grade level. And so that's the third thing. The fourth thing, talk to your other friends about whether or not what your school is doing is enough for the kids in your community. And then if it's not enough for the kids in your community, then go talk to your school board member. And then if you don't find the answer that they're presenting you with satisfactory, then go to the school board meeting and then find sources of information like yourself, like my organization, um, that'll give you some better resources around you know how kids are actually performing.

SPEAKER_03 55:50

And I think the other thing to that is that don't believe everything that you hear. Always, always do your own research. Go to really reputable sites, go find the data out for yourself because and and two, there are always two sides to every story. Yeah, listen to both. Like I don't ever just listen to Fox News, I'm also looking at MSNBC and CNN because the answer is probably somewhere in the middle in in nearly every situation, and there's so much misinformation out there. Um and so even if your best friend is saying it, check it because you don't know where she got it. I'm not saying she's lying, but she may have been misinformed as well. And and just like on the star testing and how bad it is, guys. We have to have a measure of testing that is across the state that we can use not as a data point to say, are we doing well, are we doing bad? How does this school compare to this school? How does how is this group of kids doing compare to this group? We've got to hold everybody accountable.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

There's no other way to do it. No, truly there's not. The one thing I I did forget my other advice to parents because it's emerging. Uh, technology. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:08

Oh, oh, that's one. That's a whole that's a whole nother podcast into itself right there. And that was on our list of things to talk about today, but there's so much.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

So much. Yeah, we'll come back and talk about it another time. But I think for right now, don't let your kids on companion bots. Just control all, delete all companion bots from your technology for any child under 18. Um, and then for not companion bots, so for other types of emerging education technologies like AI, um, if your child is sitting there interacting with a screen, there's a lot of cognitive science showing that they're declining in gray matter. And so limit the amount of time that they're interacting with a screen.

SPEAKER_03 57:45

Even if it's good, even if the content is good, you have to limit the amount of time. And I saw another study recently that said the worst content, whether good or bad from an ethical moral standpoint, is the short form content because it teaches their brain to only uh pay attention in short bursts, and then when they need to do something long, they're incapable of doing it. And so watch out for the short content. But I'm with you, we've got to limit the screens, and that's a topic we're gonna come back and talk specifically about technology because there is so much to unwrap in that, and more of it's becoming, I mean, because Finland, for example, there are there are countries that went 100% to teaching via computers and now are abandoning them in all forms except for teaching specifically computer technology, um, because it it did bad things. And um, I think people are starting to be aware that screens are not great for their kids, but y'all, it's rewiring their brain. Like buyer beware, yeah, limit it, get rid of the short form content, get rid of the companion bots, like just those three things will help tremendously. Um you guys give them an old school coloring book and crayons.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

And let them be bored.

SPEAKER_03 58:59

Yeah, let them be outside. Think about it. All the adults out there, think about when we were bored, how we engaged our brains and we figured out things to do. And you know what the best thing to do is when your child says they're bored, make them go clean out the closet. I'm like, well, if you're bored, I can find something for you to do and they will figure out something for themselves to do, right? Um if there's there's your piece of advice for today. Make them clean out the closet.

unknown 59:27

Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

But anyway, well, Mary Lynn, thank you so much for coming on the show. Would you please tell people how to engage more with you, where to find you, and uh let them know how they can connect?

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Yeah, sure. Uh I work for an organization called Texas 2036. Uh, we're a nonpartisan think tank that really just works on ways to make Texas the best place to live, work, and raise a family by our bicentennial, which is in 2036. So you can find us online across almost any platform, or you can find me online or like on X, for example, at Mary Lynn Prunetta. And love to hear from you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 59:59

Well, thank everyone for joining us today. This has been another fun episode, and we are so excited that Mary Lynn Prunetta will come back and join us and we'll dive into all things technology. But thank you for joining us today. Please tune in next time where we discover more ways that we can transform our K through 12 education system. See you next time.