All Things Texas Public Education with Jason Whitely

In this episode of Capitol to the Classroom, we’re joined by award-winning journalist and WFAA Senior Political Reporter Jason Whitely for an insightful, real-world look at the current state of public education in Texas.

Fresh off the primary elections, we dive into what the results mean for educators, students, and communities across the state. From the growing momentum behind school vouchers (ESAs) to the realities of school funding, Jason helps us break down what’s happening—and what could be coming next.

We also explore:
 ✨ How political decisions are shaping public education
 ✨ The truth behind voucher application numbers and what they actually mean
 ✨ Why public education is directly tied to Texas’ economy and workforce
 ✨ The rise of alternative school models like AI-driven learning and what that could mean for the future
 ✨ How educators can (and should!) use their voices to influence policy

As always, we bring our perspective as public school educators—sharing the real impact these decisions have in classrooms every single day.

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, or just someone who cares about the future of education, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

🎧 Tune in and join us as we connect policy to practice—one conversation at a time.

Jason Whitely's Bio- https://www.wfaa.com/article/about-us/team-bios/jason-whitely/287-61699914

Y'all-ITICS Episodes Referenced:

Third Future Schools: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6wzgIMC747Zmv9OHXTgSMD?si=276b5d7c8af4441c

AI Schools: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5s527viig0d15w69fMEZwu?si=0cc9eed3a3e941e9

School Choice: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tdY82xs3C6vOUQQaDmMAD?si=e74688cbe24c479c

Latest Comptroller Report on Education Savings Accounts: https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20260316-texas-education-freedom-accounts-reach-200000-student-applications-ahead-of-tomorrows-deadline-1773676264632

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hey guys, welcome back to Capital to the Classroom. We're super excited to have you here, and we're super excited because it's spring break. We made it to spring break.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

We did flying by. And we're super excited today on our episode. We're going to be joined by WFAA senior political reporter Jason Whiteley. We're going to discuss all things public education. We're going to look at the post-primary temperature in the state because, man, there's a lot of things to talk about there. We obviously want to talk about the voucher program that's kind of coming to fruition and then just kind of what we can expect maybe coming forward with the next legislative cycle and just how public education will be impacted. We want to take the time to introduce our guest for this episode, somebody who we all have a ton of respect for, is a major player in the political field, especially in the DFW area. And that is WFAA's senior political reporter, Jason Whiteley. So welcome, Jason. We're so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, I not to go and make down a rabbit hole, but we've, you know, we're within our first year of this podcast. And when I was in Austin for Raise Your Hand, Texas's advocacy summit, we were kind of just thinking, okay, it's time for an episode. And, you know, what do we want to do? We watch Inside Texas Politics, my wife and I, every Sunday. Of anything. Yeah, it's we love it. And then we I listened to Yolitics, and I know others do as well. So I thought, I wonder Jason Whiteley. I don't know. I wonder if he would. So I took a shot in the dark, literally, and sent you that message. And you responded, I think, within a day. I wish I had a camera on my face. It was. I was fanboying big time. And I remember going, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. He responded. He responded. And so we kept that dialogue going. And so, man, I we I'm just so thankful that you are here. And we appreciate it. And I know this is going to be an outstanding segment that we're going to have. So to tell the people about Jason, real quick, you can catch him on Sunday mornings at nine o'clock. Nine o'clock, nine o'clock. Yep. That's right. For inside Texas Politics. Good 30-minute rundown, Fast and Furious. And then, of course, he has a very popular podcast with him and the other Jason, who I feel like we should have invited as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Oh, he doesn't wake up anytime.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

High Wheeler, if you're listening, but you can find that pretty much anywhere. Another great, great podcast. I mean if I'm wrong on any of this, you know, Jason has 26 Emmy awards. You've got five Edward R. Murrow awards. You've got five for the Best General Assignment Reporter. You've been named the best TV broadcaster in 2023 by Big D Magazine. I mean, you've you've got it all. Impressive.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Hey, I appreciate it, man. It's been fun. You know, I I always said TV news is a front row seat to life because you get to go places and see things that most people watch on TV. And it's I I've been blessed to be able to make it this far in TV and love DFW. Outstanding.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

And I hope you have many years still ahead of you.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

I guess if you we kind of jump off here from the national spotlight, we know the primaries are done. I know you are you finally rested from your election night coverage?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Spring break's coming up, so I cannot wait. So we're recording this during your spring break.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

You guys are troopers to be doing this during your spring break. Well, we we we couldn't say no to the opportunity, so we we had to do it. And I guess kind of without getting too much into all that, for you and everything, what are your biggest takeaways from this primary cycle that's just come through? And maybe with regards to public education, what do you think we now know and could see for public education going forward on the ballot?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Let's start with the U.S. Senate race because it looks like you know, John, the Republican side at least, John Cornyn and Ken Paxton are running against each other. But the polls are wrong about Ken Paxton. Cornyn did better than the polls showed. So if he is the nominee, if he gets elected for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate, I expect kind of more of the same. But he's going up against a Democrat. Democrats really get motivated every, you know, six, eight years, and he's going up against a Democrat named James Talarico. James Tallerico is the nominee, and he is a former middle school social studies teacher on the east side of San Antonio. Education is near and dear to him, too. So I would expect, at least in that race alone, that that you could anticipate public education for the top race on the ballot in Texas this fall to be front and center because that will get talked about a lot. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And obviously we have a not a teacher, but former trustee in the Austin area, a fierce supporter of public education, Gina Inojosa, that's running for governor.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

She's a Democrat.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

She is a Democrat. And do you see anything shaking out potentially in that election?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

That's a great question. And the producers at the TV station were always like, oh, hey, the biggest race is a governor's race. You would think it would be the biggest race, but it's just not the biggest race because Governor Abbott has a massive war chest, a massive bank account that he can run with. And when you have money, you can message and then you can frame the other person however you want to frame that person. It's going to be hard for Gina Hinahosa to just to fundraise to get the money to really shake things up. There's a runoff for lieutenant governor as well. Just a reminder for our listeners here, too. The lieutenant governor in Texas really is the most influential person in Austin, not necessarily the governor. It's the lieutenant governor that decides the legislation. And Lieutenant Governor Patrick, in his years, has really amassed power, amassed influence. He's changed the rules in the Senate to make sure that his priorities get through. His priorities do get through. And he's also worked successfully with Speaker Burroughs, another Republican, to get things like that to happen. So I think that in addition to the governor's race, watch the lieutenant governor's race as well. Lieutenant Governor Patrick obviously has a lot of money, not as much as Governor Patrick, but Hina Hosa's gonna have a tough race. We'll see what happens with the Democrats running for lieutenant governor.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

So my question with that, because we were kind of talking about that too, is the U.S. Senate race gonna have a bigger impact on Texas public education than you think the governor's race will?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yeah, that's a great question, man. I think that the Senate race is going to bring voters out. And you know, when you go vote, depending on where you are, your ballot might be, you know, three or four inches long, or it might be three or four pages long. You know, fatigue comes in on page two and maybe on page three. But but the U.S. Senate race is going to get people to the polls. If it's John Corning versus Tallar Rico or Ken Paxton versus Talo Rico, that'll get people out, and then the governor's race and lieutenant governor's race, they will benefit from that as well. And you know, if Democrats get more to the polls for Talo Rico, then I would guess Gene Hinajosa would probably get more votes than normal as well.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Which I did see with this primary, it was the biggest voter turnout in years. For Democrats, yeah. Yes. So I thought that was pretty interesting. So with that being said, you know, what do you feel like? What is your background and your connection to public education? I know a lot on your yolitics, you have a lot of different people on there that talk about public education. And then what issues in education stand out to you the most right now?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Absolutely. I'm a public school kid. My wife's a public school kid, and we live in Dallas ISD. Clearly, clearly, the biggest public ed issue right now in this state is school vouchers. We're still in the testing period for this. Republicans got it passed over Democratic objections, and uh the the most recent information came out from the acting comptroller Kelly Hancock's office that 160,000 applications have now come in. What we don't yet know is how many of those applications that remember the legislature set aside enough money for 100,000, and so there are 160,000. Now, between us, I never would have guessed there would be 160,000 applications. But here's where the numbers kind of break down. Some of these applications, we reported early on, I think when it was up to like 50,000, half of those first 50,000 were for pre-K, not for, you know, your exclusive high schools and middle schools and elementary schools. So you're gonna have a number of these when the numbers come out, the final numbers, this ends on March 17th. That's when the cutoff is and the decisions will start coming down. I'm curious to see how many of these are for preschool, pre-K, how many of these are for tutoring, dyslexia tutoring, math tutoring, and then how many are left over for actual elementary, middle school, and uh, and high school. And then I'd been talking, and I think at the end of the day, you guys probably know this as well. It's the Catholic schools, those parish schools across the state that are really going to benefit from this. We had the Diocese of Dallas on last year talking about how they were just all for this. And they even had capital campaigns going. Some some dioceses across the state do, because they expect a big influx of students to come in. So I'm curious to see how many are actually going to show up, how many of these voucher school applicants that get accepted are going to come from public schools. I stopped predicting in politics a long time ago. So I I don't know how many are going to come, but I'm I'm fascinated to see these parish schools are excited to see that, but I I'm still a little skeptical.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

And we I know what we've seen, there's been some headlines of and you guys were brought this up on Inside Texas politics one time of some notable schools backing out of saying we're not gonna take the money, we're not gonna do it. But I feel like I've never really heard a reason potentially why.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, that's a great question. And you think about the exclusive schools across the state. I can speak about the ones in DFW. St. Mark's is an exclusive school, boys' school in Dallas. There's Country Day in Fort Worth. These schools already have lines of dozens, perhaps hundreds of people who want to go to these schools. St. Mark's, for example, has students from around the world that apply. So they don't necessarily need to accept the vouchers over here from kids in this line if they already have a long line at this point. But I kept asking the acting comptroller Kelly Hancock over the last few months. I'm like, so this really doesn't benefit everybody. At the end of the day, if I'm a parent and my school, my private school, does not accept these, then it's not school choice. I don't have a choice. He said, We think that you're eventually going to have these more exclusive schools come online. There's a school, there are a number of schools, and I can't remember them all off the top of my head. Ursulin Academy is a girls' school in Dallas. It's a it's an exclusive school, and Ursulin has decided to accept these vouchers. And the acting comptroller, Kelly Hancock, said, We think that that will make Ursulin more competitive. So people in those long lines at these other schools might start drifting over to Ursulin. But again, it's up to Ursulin and all these other private exclusive schools to decide how many they will accept.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

I was listening to your episode on it, your most recent one. The conversation was it's not only going to make the private schools competitive, it's supposed to help make the public schools competitive. And so I think our concern as public school educators is there's no accountability. They tried to say, well, the families are the accountability. And that's not how it runs in public school, right? So we're held accountable with our star scores and I mean so many other things, you know. So to me, I think that's where our biggest, like, I guess, frustration with the whole voucher system is, is that that feels like kind of a cop out from the people who are at the top saying, well, that's the accountability. But then there's been a bigger push in legislation in the last several years for more accountability on public schools. And so it's like you're putting all of this push for accountability on public schools, but you're in our minds taking our money. And so you're making it harder. The demands are heavier, but the funds are not there to support the need.

SPEAKER_04 11:31

I feel like that goes along with sped referrals too. Like at private schools, they don't have to do the testing for a special education evaluation. That comes to our public schools. And then we have to use the personnel to do that. And while we do get a little bit of money for doing those referrals, it's not enough to cover the cost of especially like a high needs um student that needs a full individual evaluation of all components.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, I don't think that's gonna change either. And and you know, we're still uh, what is this, March? So we're still nine, 10 months away from the legislative session in January of 2027. And I would I would guarantee you that they're going to hold up, the Republicans are gonna hold up, you know, 160,000 applicants just in the first year. We didn't think there would be anywhere near this. And they're right. I guarantee you they're gonna go and ask for more money from lawmakers. Look, there's interest. Hey guys, there's interest. And, you know, that said, I'd I never would have guessed there would be as much interest. And and I was skeptical of that the entire time. That blew me away. But you're you're exactly right, Matty. At the end of the day, there is no accountability for these private schools.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

And that's not gonna change.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Our district is in a really unique situation because we're a very high-performing districts district on the outskirt of huge districts that some parts are high performing in those districts and then other parts aren't. And so those districts are fearful of the lack of enrollment, you know, having to close schools. And so I think for us, when we're talking to our legislators, it's hard because it's like their big picture is taken up by those bigger districts, and we are here being like, we need some help because we are not, we're not just high performing, but we're growing so quickly. And people are coming here because of our public schools and and extracurriculars. And so I think that's where the whole voucher thing was really frustrating for us because it was like, I used to tell my husband all the time, like, Argyle is the closest that we can get to my, you know, a private school education for our kid in public schools because of how high performing and the standard of excellence here. And so I think that's where our frustration working in this district and talking to lawmakers, we're like sometimes feel like we don't get seen as much as the other districts who are having those bigger issues.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, and remember, you know, I think two things are gonna happen here. I I think first, you know, lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, Republicans run the legislature. Republican lawmakers didn't have a choice. They defeated this year after year after year after year. And then finally, Governor Abbott, under political pressure, said, This is a priority, and if you don't pass it, then we're going to campaign against you. And he knocked out what, eight or nine lawmakers, yeah, a good amount of them. Hardcore Republicans he knocked out. Yeah. Hardcore Republicans who agreed with the governor on everything except this one single issue. And these are these are uh rural Republicans, suburban Republicans, knock those out. So I think the message was clearly sent to everybody else. Get on board with this, or we're going to run against you. And then separately, I I would say too, I think at some point the the arc with with vouchers is going to is going to peak because you have an area like Texas, an area like DFW that is is has is seeing explosive growth. And the reason it's growing, two reasons that it's growing. Number one, this massive airport we have. We have two, but DFW being the massive airport.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

And maybe one in on the way in McKinney.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Right. And McKinney too. But secondly, the reason businesses go anywhere, you guys know this as educators, because they they want to have a pipeline of workers coming out. And if education is up in the air, we we already rank lower nationally for education, but if education is up in the air, then why wouldn't a company go to Oklahoma or somewhere else that might offer a little better incentives with a better guarantee of a pipeline of workers?

SPEAKER_04 15:08

When we went down to Austin to advocate during the 89th legislative session, I remember going in thinking that our fight would be against vouchers. But once we got there, we spoke with a lobbyist and had the opportunity to talk with Missy Bender, and they gave us some important tips and advice that legislators had already made up their minds on vouchers. And so we shifted our focus to something that was really affecting us at the time was school funding. We had just had to cut a bunch of stuff because of our budget deficit that we were in. Just a little background that school, Texas schools are funded through two main things, the basic allotment and what we call buckets, which is the maintenance and operation bucket. And while the basic allotment is the foundation, the price per student amount that we get, I know that that wasn't raised since 2019. And now they did a little bit. But I think the biggest thing to note is, you know, while lawmakers did pass a little extra funding during this last session, it hasn't fully helped us through the challenges that we are continuing to face. And so, Jason, my question is for you. Can you kind of talk to us now a little bit about school funding when it comes to basic allotment versus the buckets?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

You know, if you talk to any of the elected leaders, Lieutenant Governor Patrick, for example, the most powerful politician, most powerful lawmaker in Austin, he's gonna tell you, and he's technically right. We passed more for public education than than we have ever passed in the in the time that I've been in Austin, uh and the time he's been watching Austin. And he's correct about that. So a billion dollars went for vouchers, and then what was like eight billion, I believe, eight and a half billion. But about four billion of that was for teacher pay raises. Teachers deserve a pay raise. But that's a great question, though, Katie, about well, well, why not just put that money to the basic allotment to, you know, increasing the amount that every district gets, which is a basic allotment per student. And and that's going to be looked at, I think, uh, again next year. This voucher thing's not gonna go away. There's you know, I guarantee you going into next year, vouchers are gonna be huge and everyone's gonna be, you know, waving their flags. What a success it was. But the steady drumbeat from educators across the state is not going to wane at all. And when you have these voucher, you know, students go to these schools and perhaps leave public schools again. I don't know how many are gonna leave public schools, but if that happens, then we're gonna have our first evidence of whether vouchers are impacting public education. And that that's what I'm curious to see come uh come off.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

And it might be interesting too to note that in that comp trollers report that what is it, over three-quarters of the current applicants were already private school students. So if we leave three out of four around, yeah, three out of four. So does that one out of four what's that situation look like?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, and remember too, then this is something else that we're waiting to see how it actually plays out. So let's say that that I get the ten thousand dollars for, you know, my kid doesn't have a disability, I get the ten thousand to go to a private school. The state doesn't cut one check in August for ten thousand dollars. They will pay quarterly. So if I get to, you know, X school, private school, and it doesn't work out, my child's not accepted, my child not accepted by his peers or her peers. Or if if it's too hard or too easy, or if it's the drive's not working out for me, then that money, the rest of the$7,500, only$2,500 gets paid. It's paid in quarterly. Where does the rest of that go? Does the rest of that go back in the general fund for vouchers, which I would presume it would, or would public schools get any cut of that for having to, you know, shift and accept the evaluation, yeah. Accept the kid back into uh public schools? We're still in that learning phase here, and and I think this first year is going to be a little, I don't want to say rough, but it's gonna be growing pains.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah. And I think that might be a good segue to we were talking about this earlier, but if there's gonna be more added emphasis in the voucher program, you know, Raise Your Hand Texas put together this legacy endowment uh for education to basically find a way to take money from the Rainy Day Fund and invest it to have that money solely and purposely be to supplement state funding for public ed. And would you think that would have any serious traction amongst lawmakers if it's a way, if it's a win for maybe both sides to get what they want, could that money be used to, you know, solidly be used to help public education in these last, you know, tumultuous several years we've had?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

I'll preface it with I am not as much of an expert on on raise your hand Texas as as you guys are, but but I would also say look back at history. Everyone talked about the Texas lottery. This is gonna be the savior for public ed and the state, and here we are. So I think something like that would I I would think something like that would have traction. Hey, educators, look what we're doing. Look what we're doing. We're investing cash right here to help you guys in the years to come. That would be an easy win, I would think, for for Republicans which are in charge of the legislature, but there's a long time between now and then.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

And then so you know, you mentioned the lottery. It's funny. Like, do you think this state legalizes gambling? And if they say it's for education again, is it, you know, fool me wants shame on you kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

No and no.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Okay. Next question.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

No, I mean, let me let me talk about that for a moment because when when Mark Cuban sold the Dallas Mavericks, are the Mavericks staying in Dallas? Yeah, I think they're I think they're staying in Dallas, and I think City Hall will go away. The stars, I don't know. But but when Mark Cuban sold to the Adelson family, everyone, everyone in the newsroom, everyone at WFA's like, oh, gambling's coming. There's no question that he they own a big site near the old Texas stadium at 114 and 183. And and so I started calling around to the lawmakers because it's Cuban doesn't decide, Adelson doesn't decide, it's the state legislature that decides. And more than that, it's Lieutenant Governor Patrick that decides if he's on board with this or not. And I have talked to the lieutenant governor multiple times, and he says there is there is no momentum at all for illegalized gambling.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

No momentum at all. And if you look at some of the lawmakers, some of the candidates who have run with gambling money, with Adelson money, they haven't scored yet. They have not scored yet. I've talked to other lawmakers in Austin, and they say, listen, they can put as much money as they want behind some of these campaigns, but there's just not an appetite for it in Texas yet.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Right. Oklahoma's not the best uh success story, or New Mexico is not the best success story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

That's fair. So I kind of want to segue us back to thinking about, you know, school vouchers and school choice. You guys talk a lot, or I've heard a couple podcasts on Yolitics about like the AI school model and Public schools getting creative with we're now gonna have to be creative with different ways that we offer choice within our public schools so that we can still get that funding. Can you kind of talk to me about based off like in the political realm, what do you see public schools going?

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yeah. That's a great question. And you guys might have more insight than I do, but I I think in this sense, I think vouchers are good to challenge public schools. Competition is good to blow up the the regular mindset of thinking. Like when I went to school, oh, everyone goes to this class, they get off the yellow bus and they do this, they do that. This is just the way it's always. Blow it up. Blow it up. Now I will say, but the challenge with that is uh like Dallas ISD, for example, has I I I think they call it open enrollment. You can go, if you're a Dallas ISD resident, you can go wherever you want to go. Only if that campus has room to let you in. So when my oldest son was in kindergarten, we applied at three different schools and we got into our third choice. And that didn't work out at the third choice. So again, we're we're going through growing pains on this, but I I think this is good for public education and for the nimble districts. And I would say the nimble districts are the suburban districts, Argyle, Plano, McKinney, these other districts are the ones that are able to adapt and think outside the box and bring in the new, young, fresh thoughts on public education. I think that's gonna be very beneficial. We're not there yet with public education in this state. I don't know if there's anyone in the country that is really doing that well with public education, but you can start to see the seed in some of these districts across the state. Hey, we're offering this and we're doing it because of X reason or Y reason or because of vouchers. We want to make our district just or parts of our district just as competitive as anybody else. And when you look at it, you know, I I think public education has more resources, obviously. A heck of a lot more resources than specific private schools, but they have more of an opportunity to do that. And the challenge is going to be on those school boards, on those educators, on those principals and leaders within these districts to come up with ways to differentiate themselves.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

And offer choice within our public schools.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Well, something that's huge in North Texas, too, is just youth sports. So we see a lot of these families taking either the homeschool route or the virtual route so that their students can attend all of these trainings or practices or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, but Maddie, you talked about this being like the closest to private school here in Argyle ISD. And that's what a a lot of suburban parents think. The reason we live in Plano is for this reason alone for the school district. We moved here.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

And these are the same families who can afford for their children to be in these high-level sports. Exactly. But it's like the time, they don't have the time to go to a full eight-hour school day. Yeah. You know, and so I think that's where the the you know, the virtual school model is supposed to be appealing of, you know, you can still, you know, be on these club teams and, you know, go to all these practices, or especially, I mean, I danced growing up and I had friends who they were homeschooled because that just two hours of school and five hours of dance.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

And I think ideas like that will get absorbed in public schools. I think I I remember when I was in high school and and I I was envious at the time, but I remember being like freshman or sophomore, and there were there were some juniors or seniors that would only do a couple classes a day, and then they'd go to I can't think what they called, like an internship or or something like that. Co-op. Co-op, something like that. Yeah. And I'm like, gosh, that's awesome, man. They leave at 11, and then you have to go to work. But, you know, when you want to get out of school, I think public schools, successful ones, will adopt these type programs. A couple hours of, you know, of education and then dance, or then AI, or then sports, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

And then we saw the uh the Texas Sports Academy, which is kind of filling that model like the alpha school that you guys brought up on Yolitics. And so to kind of give people who haven't listened to that or don't know, it was, and correct me if I'm wrong, it was two hours of straight AI education. Alpha school. Alpha school. You sit at the computer and it was it was progress-based. So you had to you started off with a task. If you didn't meet the requirement, well, then you went back and did it again. But it was all kind of AI, and then they opened it up basically in the afternoon for life skills stuff, I guess, if you would, or more practical learning, things that aren't necessarily educational, where this Texas Sports Academy would kind of re reflect like an IMG academy for Texas. And so before I kind of bring up, I guess, my general thoughts to that, like as a parent or whatnot, and we're obviously educators that have been teaching for a long time, like I listened to all that and it broke my heart. Also, I don't feel like you're teaching. You're not learning. And I literally wrote down, are we learning?

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Can we probably we're talking about the alpha school, right? Correct.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

But I think you could yeah, I mean, I what are we learning how to run a you know post pattern at the Texas Sports Academy?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah, no, it's shooting oops, and it just broke my shit.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Alpha 32, go they missed a layup. Yeah, I think for the alpha school model.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Can we give just like a super quick snippet of what alpha school is for people who again it was and we can link the episode, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

And they build it as you know, it was an opportunity for, and I believe they are taking the voucher money. They are, but they it was two hours of instruction in the morning, all AI driven. And you move on based on your skills and accomplishment of set standards and whatnot. And then in the afternoon, there's no more classroom instruction, if you will. It was learning practical, real-world life skills, how to invest in the stock market, how to ride a bike. I remember that was a huge part where they were trying to get kids to learn how to ride a bike. So it was more skills-based, but your whole education was driven by AI in the morning for two hours. And again, as a teacher, and this even I need to finish this thought for I could, gosh, I could go off. But the whole third future schools that you brought up too, listening to that kind of daily routine and structure in that, and it it broke my heart because I felt like that's not why I got into education. And if I didn't get into teaching to be a babysitter, and that's really what I kind of felt it was. So as a teacher, it broke my heart to hear all that. But then, as you guys, you know, brought up on your episode, it's now minus the state takeover, but it has appeared to have some success. The third future.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yeah, and and I'll just lay out those separately here. So the the AI schools, a woman in Austin is a woman who created the AI schools, and I can't remember if she was an educator or just a concerned parent that thought her her child wasn't getting everything that uh that she could out of public schools. But the the concept there is interesting. And I think, again, I'll preface it with saying, I bet this concept, while they're growing, I think this concept is going to get swallowed up in public schools. Just the way political parties will see uh an independent, you know, Ross Perot that brings up an idea and they'll you know take that idea and seize upon it. I think this concept will get swallowed up at some point. But the idea is is you know, like you would laid it out there, Stephen, you you go and and you use AI and you master this brand new technology. Imagine going to school in the 1990s when a chair just dropped on me. Imagine going to school in the 1990s when when you know the internet was just really uh hitting mainstream. That's happening now with AI. And the concept is let's take our kids out of the textbooks, let's put them where the future actually is. And then after a few hours of that learning, then they go into project-based learning and they'll work on, you know, for a few weeks bike riding or learning how to invest in the stock market. And and they've had success with all these. And then the question we had in this episode, too, was you know, you guys may say I'm wrong on this, but I think a big chunk of going to school is a social component. You know, you learn how to invest.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Is it hard to manage sometimes? Yeah, right. It's part of it.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

My heart goes out to you on that. But, you know, learning to get along, you know, learning learning how to handle, you know, someone who's upset at you, things like that. I don't know how much of that actually happens. And they said, oh, it's the same thing that we we our kids do go through that. Now, separately, and we can address this more in a moment, third future schools is essentially this idea that districts can opt into if they have a failing campus or two. They can turn over, instead of, you know, re you know, releasing the entire district to to state control, turning it over to state control, these districts can just turn over one or two of their campuses that are failing to avoid a state takeover. Now, the the question with that is the third future schools that has a number of these contracts across the state. I think we went to Wichita Falls for our episode. I don't want to characterize what it's like. I haven't seen it, but our reporter says, you know, that there's no messing around. They cut out all the fat through the day. You don't get to get in line for lunch until you answer multiplication questions.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

That broke my heart.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

And if you don't answer that question correctly, you go to the back of the line. You still eat, but you go to the back of the line.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I would be last. I was you're you ain't lying. I would be right there with you.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

We'd all be in the back to the So that that's something else that that I'm curious to see how that plays out. There's a lot of politics and a lot of political pressure behind third future schools, and these districts are just so worried about vouchers and so worried that the governor's gonna unleash the TEA on them.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Well, and I think at the end of the day, it it's coming down to what do we as a state define as learning? Do we define learning as high test scores or do we define learning as true learning? And as teachers who have been in the classroom for so long, we know, you know, I think Stephen and I both come came and Katie came from Title I, you know, backgrounds, and then we came to Argyle. And we know that our students are so much more than that, and their families know that they're so much more than that. And so I think that's why when you hear about the fear that AI is taking over, or even with some of the curriculum stuff coming down from the state, you know, they have these like highly, you know, these highly qualified materials that they're funding schools. And it feels like sometimes it's taking away the joy out of, you know, planning and teaching. And so I think that is not that we get into teaching selfishly to bring us joy all the time, but um, I think that's a fear. But I did want to also mention, we sent all of this to our lovely superintendent, Dr. Carpenter, and she said that she was in Apple Austin a couple of weeks ago, and even Apple was saying that there's, you know, not to push the fear of AI taking over the job of a teacher because we're always gonna need problem solvers and and problem detectors. And we're also noticing as a district, our families are really pushing for paper and pencil. Like that classical, you know, education of you know, I don't want my kid, and even as a mom, you know, we want less Chromebook time or you know, I don't want my kid on a on a screen for so long. And so I think that we see these, and then sometimes it's almost like this unnecessary fear plays inside of us because it hasn't played out yet. And it's the fear of the unknown. But we know our community and we know, you know, our our kids and ourselves, and it's just not what's best for them. We're lucky to be in a district where that's showing through scores, but our kids are genuinely learning. And so I think that is as a state why we want more educator voices to go talk to these lawmakers who maybe think more business minded or or whatever. And it's not always about the scores and how are they going to contribute to our communities and be actual critical thinkers who have learned have a deep understanding.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Always say, like, I ask my students every year when they finish up and we leave, like, you know, did you enjoy my class? Do you like history more now than you did at the beginning of the year? But I've also kind of added, have I given you skills that you can use in any situation beyond my classroom? And listen, I in education, like you we AI is not going anywhere. We know it's finding a way to adapt and make it practical. And I'm trying myself to find ways to bring it into the classroom in a way that just doesn't solely drive everything that I do. And I feel like part of the reaction again is it's it's my job to prepare them for the future. And so when you hear about some of those other school concepts, it just are these kids getting the skills? Are they getting the personal skills? Are they learning how to build relationships? Are they learning how to be organized and structured? Can we think? Can we interact with people? I will present.

SPEAKER_04 33:58

Can we give a presentation? Can we just sit down and take a test?

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Did I model appropriate, respectable professional behavior? And I will die on that hill all day long that we strive and are good at that. And it's good. I am better than AI when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

But the biggest compliment I got from my fifth graders a couple weeks ago is I wrote something and they were like, Did you use Chat GPT to write? No, I'm smart.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

No, but I'm I got through college without Chat GPT. I'm not I think if you're not finding a way to use it and get on board, you're you're behind the eight-ball. It can be a good tool that can be used to give you great ideas, even as a teacher, of things that I never thought. I just the whole part of it driving somebody's education, I will just never ever become comfortable with something like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

And I think, and uh well, the kids who are going to these schools are are you know a tiny percentage. Remember, it's public education that is doing the massive. Absolutely. You you guys have the behemoth of the students and the influence out there. That's why I think that that you guys, as public educators, will see what might be working, what you can take from these different uh places and incorporate them. Uh Maddie, you mentioned the technology backlash. And I I teach journalism once a year overseas for U.S. military, uh the children of U.S. military personnel, and it's over in Asia. And I was shocked that the kids didn't have weren't using their mobile phones to take pictures and to share. Instead, they had these little crappy point shoots that I had in 1999. You put a card in and out, and it wasn't. I'm like, are you kidding me? Just, you know, it takes you forever to they they love that now. And it's it's fascinating to see how they're going back to some of these old things because they're growing the digital generation is kind of tired of this.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

A lot of high schoolers use digital camera cameras.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

My 18-year-old sister had like found my digital camera from like 2009.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

It's vintage.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Ah, it is, but they use them now. Well, kind of to pull us and just wrap us up. As you can hear, we're very passionate educators. And to us, public education, public funding is everything. When we go, you know, when we're talking to our lawmakers, when we're making decisions about who we're voting for in primaries, we're so we're a big part of us is just looking at public education. But to you, as somebody in politics, how big actually is public education to our lawmakers and to everybody else?

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I think it's big. And it it's kind of the trendy thing now because of because of vouchers, and that's what where the political money and political influence was. But now that we're we're gonna see what actually happens with this. Remember, the end of the day, education is directly tied to the economy. Directly, and people might not think about that, but if I'm a giant corporation, I'm not relocating to Texas, as Governor Abbott loves loves to tout, and Governor Perry loved to tout, I'm not relocating here if I cannot be guaranteed that these districts are pumping out really good students that are going to universities here or that will come back here and go to work for me. So it's directly tied to that. Now, there this is a mid-year, uh midterm election this fall. There's gonna be massive things that are probably gonna be on top of public education, affordability, gas prices, perhaps the war in Iran, if that's still going on, who knows? Uh, there'll be a lot of things there. But at the core of it is going to be public education. You guys know you've been to the state capitol, you've talked to lawmakers there, you've seen how it works. But I will say this, and you probably recognize this, there are dozens and dozens of industries and professionals that go down there advocating their own cause constantly. And not all of them get face-to-face and one-on-one time with these lawmakers. Public educators are a big one and an influential one. And if you make the case, I think you have public education's kind of seen as the dirty thing now. Oh, you guys aren't doing a good job, and it's obvious looking at the test scores. That's not you can't you can't lay that out across the board. There, there might be a campus or two on some of these large places, like Houston, for example. They had one or two or three campuses that were failing, the largest school district in the state, H I S D, Houston Independent School District, and they took it over and they haven't had the kind of success yet that the TEA said they would have. So there is a tremendous amount of interest. Parents are behind you guys. Lawmakers will go where not only the money and the influence is, but they will go where the constituents stay. And that's why you guys know the teachers' unions know, teachers' associations in this state, not unions. They know they they load up buses all around the state from Corpus, from Dallas, from Argyll, from everywhere, and they trek to Austin from Lubbock and other places like that to have that conversation. Continue pushing for these, continue pushing for these things. And and and again, I I don't want to get on a soapbox here, but I would say show them how you're incorporating some of these good ideas that have been done done elsewhere. Show voters, in case you haven't noticed, voters are completely fly fine with burning everything down. Burn it down, let's start over. And so it it it would it would not be unhelpful if you guys show that we're willing to break out of our shell and our egg and and willing to try something else. And that would be something that a lawmaker could go on the floor of the House or the Senate and brag about. I know, you know, my own constituents, 28,000 students or 150,000 students are doing this in my district and they're doing it across the state. People say there's only you know one way to go at this point, and it's up for public education. So there's tremendous opportunity, I think, among public educators, not only to see how these voucher rollouts go, but also seize upon some of the other ideas that these other folks are getting headlines for.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

And we've we've done a whole episode on this of, you know, as public educators, our voices have to be heard. And I know Maddie has sent in pictures of what she's doing in our classroom to lawmakers, and we don't always get a response, but they're seeing our names, they're seeing our district. They're like, we're dinging their inboxes and they're seeing from our Gal ISD, you know, we're telling our friends, let's let's blow up their inboxes. And so I I hear you say, like, keep going, keep emailing.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Have them come to your campus, add them to your social studies classes, fifth grade. They would love they would love that. Go to the history class.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

I mean, we have a couple times. They don't always come or reply, but here, keep inviting.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Stay on stay on top of it. Hey, the week of the 19th, we're having, we're we're talking about Texas history in the legislature. You know, why don't we do that? You know, I think there's you would get and and have Republicans and Democrats come in. I I bet you could get a couple a year onto your campuses.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Yeah. I think too, like I the silver lining with the voucher thing and from my outlook too is that it has the privatization privatization.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

I know you don't think about it. It's elected by vowel.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Because, you know, I mean, public education has has been, you know, pretty consistently a democratic issue, even though we would all agree here it's bipartisan, right? And so it's kind of pushed people out of their comfort zone. We saw it with the special election, and people are kind of choosing to vote on that platform versus other things. And so I think, you know, in our last episode, we talked a lot about our economy is dependent on our schools. And even locally, we we've talked to business owners who say, you know, like, you know, I want those high-quality, you know, people coming out of our public schools. So I do think that we are in a good place with, you know, being able to use our voice. I think our main goal has been teaching teachers how to use their voice and helping them realize that it is valuable.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Remember, lawmakers hear you guys. Lawmakers hear teachers specifically. They put four billion dollars aside for teacher pay raises. And there's again debate on what whether it should have gone just to teacher pay raises or let the districts have the leeway to spend it as needed. But lawmakers, Republicans in charge, lieutenant governor, they hear the drumbeat from public educators.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

Yeah, that's so good. Jason, thank you so much for coming on here today. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

We appreciate your bucket is filled, and then some, yeah, it's very just insightful. And again, we all kind of said it, but just thank you so much for giving up your time to come talk with us and talk about public education. And you know, if again, you can catch Jason on Inside Texas Politics on Sunday mornings at nine, and then you can also catch Yolitics, worth a listen wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

We could put you on the payroll there, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

That sounded great. Just like ours, you can catch Capital to the Classroom on anywhere you get your podcast. Keep up the great work here, guys. Yes, thank you. We appreciate you so much, and thank you again for everything you've done.