Ernie Williams - Should Oregon parents worry about school safety?

Oregon ranks near the bottom nationally for public schools despite spending billions on education. With low academic performance and poor safety rankings, many parents are asking where all that money is going.

Ernie Williams, CEO of Go To Green, joins the show to discuss Oregon's school rankings, what the data says about student safety and achievement, and what changes could help improve education in the state.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm glad to get to your phone calls and emails at 866-A Lars. That's 866-439-5277. Send your emails to talk at LarsLarson.com or poll on X today. Should America ban surrogacy deals involving foreign nationals? Meaning when a foreign mother or father orders up a baby from an American surrogate, that should be illegal. Now, if you ask me, would you be willing to go in and ban surrogacy altogether? I would. I would. Because I don't think that children should be turned into a commodity. And I would accept from that any description of, say, uh if you're trying to say if you have children who need to be adopted, that uh that yeah, that should be allowed. Adoption is a different matter, but that's when a child needs a home. In this case, you're creating a child specifically to make a home for them. Somebody is ordering them up like you'd order some kind of product on Amazon. The Pollon X can be found at Lars Larson Show and at LarsLarrison.com and brought to you by Ultimate Truck Services. If you rely on trucks for business, Ultimate keeps your biggest ass heads on the road and running right. Find them at Ultimate Truckservice.com. Now, I want to talk to Ernie Williams about something that is really, really disturbing involving one of the Northwest states that we serve. Mr. Williams, welcome to the program. Thank you very much. How are you? So you're I'm doing well. You're the CEO of Go To Green, and it has estimated that Oregon now ranks 48th in America when it comes to schools. Can you tell my audience what that's all about?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Well, all we do is we lead a pathway to safety. So when there's uh there's some kind of an event, whether it's a fire alarm, a gunshot, something, we light uh green blinking lights. So people that don't know which way to run, we light that pathway to run. And then we have a red light that tells the responders which way to go to get to the threat as quick as they can.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Sounds like a good plan, but Oregon doesn't rank very high when it comes to safety for students in public schools.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Uh I I don't think so. Um they uh right now I think they're more worried about their political agenda than they are about the kids at school.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah, sadly, the the education test numbers are terrible. When it comes to safety, Wallet Hub ranks Oregon 45th in America. Test scores, reading scores is 44th, and 43rd for pupil-student ratio. And uh, and I I you know for the life of me, I don't understand how teachers can walk in and say, we demand a raise, we're producing terrible results, but we're demanding that you pay us more to produce bad results.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Well yeah, I think that's all driven by the federal government or the government on what the kids are what we expect out of them today, or more importantly, what we don't expect out of them today.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Very good. Mr. Williams, uh, tell my audience where they can find out more about Go to Green.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Uh www.go, the number two, green, as in the color green.com.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

And do you have that uh established in a number of school districts already where you can you can show some track record with it?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Absolutely. We're in Texas, Oklahoma, and up in northern North Dakota.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

How long has it been around?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Uh just a couple of years. We're a pretty new little company. If everybody's worried about the shooter, we're worried about the people without guns getting them to safety. Let's let the experts worry about the shooters. Let's get some.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah, and I I would imagine it works better if you've got a school resource officer in that school at the time, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Absolutely. But but uh even if you don't, uh the lighting process. So if you have a child stuck in a hallway when an actor shooter goes off, the blaky green lights, instead of going and telling them, hey, go stand on a toilet and hope he doesn't look in here, we have a pathway out the building. Go to the nearest phone, call your parents and tell them where you're at.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Sounds like a sensible way to go. Mr. Williams, thank you very much. I appreciate the time. 866-Hey Lars. That's 866-439-5277. Let me go to Dan in Camus now, listening on the Radio Northwest Network. Dan, I take it you heard me talk about how Vancouver has now directed its police to stop citations for certain misdemeanor crimes because they're worried that there won't be enough defense attorneys in court to represent the accused. What do you make of that?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

This is the most egregious thing I've ever heard. So, you're gonna arrest somebody. What's my recourse since you didn't arrest them?

SPEAKER_02 4:55

I don't think you have any recourse, do you?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Well, no, they get away with the crime for free.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah, they do. And imagine do you imagine that when van when the word gets around that and and and you know, I know people will say, well, Lars, you're helping spread the word, but when the word gets around to the criminal class that Vancouver PD is not even gonna write you a ticket for having committed crimes like shoplift or uh or other crimes that are on their list, uh, when that gets to the bad guys, the bad guys are gonna say, Good, we're gonna do more of it, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Well, yes, let me give you an example. I uh Cam Escape Park, I knew a guy that lived there for years, homeless, no driver's license, no tags on his truck, not even in his name, and the police let him go for years. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

And all that does is encourage more people to go out and commit more crimes, or just simply not follow the rules. And then at some point, even law-abiding citizens start saying, hold on, if I'm if they're not going to be expected to follow the law, then why should I follow the law?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Well, I agree with that. Why should we?

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Well, in this case, I've got a fix for it. I think the judges in Clark County, who are elected officials, should start assigning defense attorneys. Say, if we don't have a somebody to defend this person, then we're going to assign you to the job and you'll get paid what public defenders get paid. Not nearly as much as private sector attorneys make, but there is a way to solve that problem, and the judges have to be part of it. But I think both in Oregon and in Washington, the judges have simply said, it's not my problem. Tell the taxpayers to pay more money so we can hire uh public defenders. Fact is, the public defenders, many of them make very, very good incomes. Many of them are making six-figure salaries. They aren't quite seven-figure salaries, but they're making a lot of money. I mean, the idea, the the old notion that somehow the poor public defender who's barely able to keep shoes on his feet, is down there just scraping along, trying to do his best. No, in fact, an awful lot of public defense attorneys make very, very good incomes, and now apparently they've decided to threaten the rest of society and say, we're not gonna provide the service. Well, when they stop doing their job and the police say we're not gonna do our job, and the courts say we're not gonna do our job, and they put everybody at risk, there is absolutely no reason for a citizen to say yes to any kind of public safety levies. I'm gonna encourage people to say no. By the way, if you believe in supporting American craftsmanship, veterans, and independent talk radio, go to my website, pick up a limited edition Lars Larson show challenge coin, proudly made by American veterans. Everyone comes with a personally signed thank you card. That comes from yours truly. All proceeds benefit veterans. You're listening to the Lars Larson show. We'll talk about Seattle taxes next.