Tampon Tim, School Choice, and Pop Girl Summer
TOPICS DISCUSSED
Free School Lunches and Tampons in Bathrooms
School Choice with Jon Valant
Outside of Politics: Pop Girl Summer
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EPISODE RESOURCES
Pop Girl Summer Playlist (Spotify) (Apple Music)
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TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.
[00:00:14] Music Interlude.
Beth [00:00:14] Hello, everyone. It's back to school season.
Sarah [00:00:33] Hallelujah! It's been too long of a summer. I'm sorry. I don't usually disrupt the opening, but can we just get a hallelujah, Beth? Can we get a hallelujah?
Beth [00:00:41] My kids are so happy to be back, and I am so happy for them to be back.
Sarah [00:00:46] I'm happy for everyone. I'm happy for everyone.
Beth [00:00:50] And honestly, every teacher that I've talked to has been like, yeah, I was ready to come back. It's time. I hope that's how everyone feels. I hope that's the vibe. Well, today we're going to embrace that vibe and talk all about school. We are going to begin as an interesting dynamic in the presidential race has emerged of talking about free school lunches and tampons in bathrooms.
Sarah [00:01:10] Well, we got a former teacher on the ticket. Of course, we're going to be talking about school.
Beth [00:01:13] Then we're delighted to have Jon Valant here. Jon is a senior fellow in Governance Studies from the Brookings Institution. He is going to discuss school choice and what will be the first of several conversations about school choice that we plan to have this fall. And Outside of Politics, we're going to discuss Pop Girl Summer and the major songs of Summer.
Sarah [00:01:31] Thinking about me, yeah... [Singing]. Okay, so we are in Chicago as you're listening to this. We are at the DNC. Is this so fun? We're so excited to be here. And we have really dedicated ourselves to bringing our premium community along with us. So we're doing dispatches from the DNC in the morning. We're doing posts, we're doing videos. We're really just trying to share the experience with our premium members. So if you have not yet, why don't you subscribe at Apple or join us on Patreon and you can soak up all the fun along with us.
Beth [00:02:07] You can also join us as a subscriber on Substack and get some bits of that experience. There'll be different experiences in each place because of the opportunities and limitations within each of those platforms. We don't make the rules. Patreon gives us the most ability to share quickly in different forms, and Sarah said it best that we really want our premium listeners to feel like they're part of our group text this week. So we hope that you will join us there if you aren't there already. We also would love to see some of you in Nashville. We'll be at Edgehill United Methodist Church in Nashville on Sunday, September 8th. We'll put more information about that in the show notes. Next up, let's go into the lunchroom and the restroom in schools and talk about how we can better support kids and families.
[00:02:48] Music Interlude.
[00:02:57] Sarah, as you mentioned, we have a teacher on the ticket this year. Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota has a long history of teaching in public schools. And part of his record involves making lunch free in the state of Minnesota.
Sarah [00:03:11] Yeah. As governor, he made-- was it breakfast and lunch? I think it's breakfast and lunch free. We go to a school where everything is free, all meals are free. And I loved hearing him talk about the stratification that can happen otherwise where some kids are free and some kids aren't, and there's enough status at play and social capital that comes into play with kids in schools with what they're wearing and what they're carrying, and Lord knows all that stuff with the Stanley Cup. Lord, God, can you imagine? And so, I loved hearing him say we're not going to do that. We don't do that anymore. Everybody just gets fed. Because we know in the summer in particular that kids really struggle (kids below the poverty line) because they get fed at school. And so, let's just do away with it. Let's just feed kids. I know that people have this knee jerk reaction to the government giving something away, but it really does feel like feeding kids should not be one of those places that triggers some sort of fraud, exploitation. Oh, no, will they not have any will to find purpose and meaning in their lives if they get fed breakfast and lunch every morning? Doesn't seem like the right application of those concerns to me.
Beth [00:04:32] Well, we have a lot of programs already that provide free and reduced lunch based on family income levels, and sometimes the administrative burden of figuring out who should pay and how much is as expensive as just giving the thing to everyone. I don't know the research on school lunch and whether that's true here or not, but I can imagine that's a reasonable question to ask and a reasonable judgment to make, that it's better to eliminate that work and say, we're going to feed everybody.
Sarah [00:05:01] Yeah.
Beth [00:05:02] Do you know how it's funded in your school district, Sarah? Because Kentucky doesn't do this. It's not statewide.
Sarah [00:05:07] So we have enough kids, I think, below the poverty level that just everybody gets it. And let me tell you, it was baller during the pandemic because we all got food stamp money, too. Everybody in the district got cards with a certain amount of money. And it was like a child tax credit. I was spending a lot of money dealing with the fact that my children were not home from school. Obviously, I'm not below the poverty line, but I did have to hire a lot of childcare help to help me continue to do my job from home during the pandemic. So believe I didn't feel an ounce of guilt taking that money and buying our groceries with it to offset the massive expense that came from having to figure out what to do with my kids when they were home from school during the pandemic.
Beth [00:05:50] I don't think there's a one-size-fits all here, other than I hope we could all agree that every kid should be able to eat at school, and every family should be able to feel confident that their child will be able to eat at school. We have a school in a district with a really healthy tax base, and so I can understand how some schools might feel frustration about our district getting extra resources for anything because we have a really healthy tax base. I mean, fundamentally, the way that we support public schools is pretty screwed up.
Sarah [00:06:26] It's so messed up.
Beth [00:06:27] And it makes it hard to write policy on top of that, because you start out with such serious unevenness in what's available to each school. I am totally open minded for a school district like mine on how we get to every child getting breakfast and lunch for free there. Because we see at school board meetings in the middle of the year, notices going out about people with big outstanding balances. And I think about the stress of that for those families, the embarrassment of it, the weight a child might feel if they're having to take letters home. And I know our school is sensitive and careful about those things, but even in a place with a really healthy tax base like ours, this is an issue. And so, if they want to triple my school fees at the start of every school year to underwrite free breakfast and lunch for everybody, do it.
[00:07:17] If they want to turn the cafeteria into, I don't know, the advanced auto parts cafeteria, where you zoom in to fuel up for a day of learning, great. However we can do this so that kids and parents can take one thing off their list. And lunch is complicated enough when you think about-- I mean, you know as well as anyone does the needs children have when they come in to eat are complicated. We get lost in, I think, silly debates about healthy lunches when what is healthy for one child could be very dangerous for another child. It's already going to be hard. It's never going to be perfectly equal. Kids are weird about what they eat. Aside from things going on with their bodies, there's a lot going on. Let's make it as easy as possible. That's my mindset.
Sarah [00:08:04] The calculations of a family's financial stress are hard to measure. And so just saying if you're below the poverty line you get free lunch-- it sounds really good on paper, but Governor Walz I heard him in an interview talking about he was hearing a lot from families that were like we don't meet that, but this helps us a lot. This helps us a lot. It was interesting. He shared that he heard a lot from stay-at-home moms and primary caregivers that this helped them basically release some of the stress of packing lunches and preparing breakfast and help them focus on some other stuff that their kids needed, because everything gets hoisted on to the family. I'm just not in favor of-- this feels like the debate with J.D. Vance and a lot of what even you named in project 2025. It feels like the debate between the two parties as governments can help families or the governments are in the way of families. And I'm on the government's help families.
[00:09:04] I'm here for the government stepping in and saying, you need some help? You need some tax relief? You need us to pick up a part of this day for you? I'm just not opposed to that. I don't have this Animal Farm fear in my head that they're going to, like, take over and tell me how to raise my kids. Obviously, I have a diabetic child, so I'm making like a billion decisions a day. But him aside, I have plenty of decision points when it comes to my children. I have too many decision points when it comes to my children. I just do. It's exhausting. So any point in the day-- and this is what our free lunch definitely does for me-- when my kids are like, "I want to take my lunch," I'm like, "Baby, you want to package it yourself? Fine. But otherwise, hell no!" And even if it wasn't free, then I'd be dealing with money on their card. And are they spending it on crap and donuts instead of eating their lunch? It's like a whole thing on my part of my life I don't ever think about. And you know what, guys? It's beautiful. Come. Come, the water is warm.
Beth [00:10:00] Yeah. I have a recurring calendar reminder to check the balance in the account for my girl’s lunch [crosstalk].
Sarah [00:10:07] Ew, I don't like that at all.
Beth [00:10:08] Because you can only fund it to a certain level at a time. And it's not enough for the entire year. You can make it recurring, but then I will forget about it in the summer. So I just put it on my calendar and I go check it, which is fine for me. But my gosh, the amount of executive function that parenting requires, especially for families who have kids who are not school age and kids who are school age at the same time, anything we can do to make that easier to me is a win. And anything that we can do to make the administration of schools a little simpler is a win. The only thing in this arena that I am against is the federal government or the state government telling schools they have to do this and then not funding it.
Sarah [00:10:52] Yeah, nobody loves an unfunded mandate.
Beth [00:10:55] I don't want any more of that. It seems like in Kentucky we just keep layering on to schools you got to do this, this and this and good luck figuring out how to pay for it. I think that has to stop.
Sarah [00:11:06] No, I agree with that.
Beth [00:11:08] Well, let's talk about the feminine products in bathrooms, which is something that Governor Walz talks about. It's something that Governor Shapiro has put in place in Pennsylvania. And I am so grateful.
Sarah [00:11:18] They tried to call him Tampon Tim. They tried to call him Tampon Tim.
Beth [00:11:21] Great. I think he should wear a shirt that says, "Hello, my name is Tampon Tim." I think it's perfect.
Sarah [00:11:25] Look, when we went to England, Scotland and Ireland, I don't know if you noticed this. Everywhere we went, from the tiniest restaurant to the biggest shopping center, had free tampons and pads in the bathroom. And it was glorious. And I thought, why is it not like this everywhere? When do we decide everybody gets toilet paper no matter where you go, but you don't get tampons and pads because that's bullshit. And it's particularly bullshit when it comes to young girls that are figuring out how to manage this part of their lives-- this brings tears to my eyes-- for the first time in their lives. And to be so stingy about this. What's wrong with you? What is wrong with you? Do you know what a pain in the butt this is for like, oh, I don't know, 30 years of your life. I can't.
Beth [00:12:24] As a mom of two daughters, one who's been through this transition and one who has not yet, the amount of brain space, again, it takes up as a parent. When do I start sending this with them? Because you don't know when that first period is going to hit. So when do we start putting this in the backpack and what do we put it in and how do we talk about it? And will the teacher have some supplies if I haven't prepared her well enough? And will she feel comfortable asking for them? Now, the girls of America have made incredible progress-- and boys too-- in being comfortable talking about this. I don't think they worry about hiding this the way that I obsess about hiding it. They are so open with each other. I know that Jane and her friends share. It's wonderful and I'm so thrilled. But the next step to me is realizing this is the same as toilet paper. This is a basic human need that must be met. And why we're putting the burden on sometimes nine-year-olds to manage that kind of thing at school every day, it is outrageous. It just needs to be done. And again, I'm open. If they want to call it the Always bathroom and stuck it with that product, I'm thrilled. Our kids are advertised to in so many ways that are disguised as content. I miss straight up sponsorship. I'm happy for them to do that in schools. But if we are able to find some money to permanently fund this at the state level or the federal level or whatever, I think that's great.
Sarah [00:13:52] And did the Trump campaign have a policy argument or was it just more periods are gross? I don't think I saw a policy argument. I think I just saw periods are gross mainly was the vibe. Is that what you saw?
Beth [00:14:07] I haven't seen much other than tampons and Tim. He's effeminate. Periods are gross. Like, just kind of this is big government and democratic weirdos wanting to talk about these things. I don't like the no tax on tips policy as a matter of policy. I think that's bad policy. We can talk about that another time. But I do appreciate that Kamala Harris was willing to say, yeah, okay. Good idea. I'll do that too. And this is one where I think they ought to be like, yeah, okay. Good idea. We'd do that too.
Sarah [00:14:41] They would never, Beth. They would never.
Beth [00:14:44] I know. But especially if you want to own the idea of the family as your space, this is one of the most direct ways that you could support families. It really is.
Sarah [00:14:58] They're not going to do that.
Beth [00:15:00] Alise is pointing out that there's also been discussion about tampons in boy’s bathrooms, and I did see that. I forgot, but I did see that.
Sarah [00:15:08] Boys might know about tampons. What would they do? It would be so scary for them. Oh, get over it. I was so stupid. I have purposely made it my goal in life. For my boys to understand women and their bodies. Nobody's leaving my house thinking women only have two holes. Do you see what I'm saying here? You understand what I'm laying down? That's not going to happen on my watch. If they get tackled in the street by some Daily Show reporter, they're going to know the damn answers, okay? And so, I don't care if there are tampons in the boy’s restrooms. I don't care where there are tampons. I don't I don't know why this is so-- again, that doesn't sound like a policy argument. It just sounds like periods are gross and boys are scared of them.
Beth [00:16:02] It sounds like we want to make everything about transgender kids because they are our new punching bag, and those families are our new Trump punching bag. It's cruel and it needs to stop. The idea that there would be enormous waste because of the very tiny population of transgender students in a state or in the country is absurd. It's absurd. Let's have grown up conversations about this.
Sarah [00:16:29] Do they think maybe tampons expire?
Beth [00:16:31] I don't know.
[00:16:32] I think maybe they do. I do think there are people in the Trump campaign that would send a woman to space with 1000 tampons. Is that the number from the song? I hope everybody sing this song where this true story of the first female astronaut and they asked her how many tampons she would need. I think it's 1000. Isn't it 1000? Or maybe it's 100? Maybe it's 100 tampons.
Beth [00:16:52] It was a hilarious number I remember.
Sarah [00:16:54] Yeah, we will put the link. And they tied them together like sausages for her. These are literal rocket scientists. And that's what they thought was happening. What are we doing?
Beth [00:17:07] I don't know, but I do know that if you as a party want to plant seeds in the next generation that you are a party that's for them, putting period products in bathrooms is a really good way to say we are for you.
Sarah [00:17:22] And I heard Frank Luntz say-- I saw him in an interview and Frank Luntz is a very famous pollster, focus group guy. Pretty accurate. I listen when he talks. Let me just put it that way. And he said, "I'm trying to do a focus group right now for under 26 undecideds, and I cannot find a young woman. I cannot recruit or find a young woman who is undecided under the age of 26." Boy, I wonder why that is.
Beth [00:17:56] I am sure we will continue to talk about this as the race continues on. We are going to shift gears now to not just what is in your school, but what school are you attending and how is that being funded? In the state of Kentucky, we have a constitutional amendment that's been proposed [inaudible] amendment two. Right now our Constitution says that the common schools are funded by taxes, and public money may not go to schools other than the common schools. And our Republican controlled legislature would like to change that to give themselves the flexibility to implement school choice programs. We don't know which ones. They just want the flexibility to do something in the arena of school choice. So we want to start today with some foundational information about the so-called school choice movement with John Belmont. He is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and also the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy there. And we really appreciated him spending time with us, breaking down how these policies and programs are unfolding across the United States.
[00:18:56] Music Interlude.
Sarah [00:19:06] Jon Valant, welcome to Pantsuit Politics.
Jon Valant [00:19:08] Thanks so much for having me.
Sarah [00:19:09] I was reading some of your writing at Brookings, and you described an information vacuum surrounding school choice, charter schools vouchers. And I thought, yeah, because I feel like I've been engaged in this policy area for, I don't know, several decades since I was in public school. And I feel no clarity at all around what we're talking about, what the challenges are, what the research says. And I don't know if that's because education policy itself is so decentralized. I don't know if that's because there isn't any good research that we can point to. I have a feeling you're going to tell me that part's not true, but why does it feel so opaque when we get into conversations about vouchers and charter schools and school choice?
Jon Valant [00:19:59] So you are not alone in feeling that information vacuum. And what's really troubling about it is that it's not just that there's information that's not out there for the public for all of us who are parents and who are thinking about schools. But there's also very little information that's available to people who are making policy, because it actually is a case of we're doing a whole lot of policymaking right now in creating these big programs that are fundamentally reshaping our school system without hardly any research to guide what we're doing. So it is very much a case of kind of building the plane as policymakers are flying it. And so that that information vacuum is not just you, that is that is there for everyone who's trying to make policy right now.
Beth [00:20:40] So what's your methodology when you're trying to assess school choice programs? I was talking to my husband about this this morning and I said I really want to understand what success looks like in school choice programs and if it's available. And he said, "I would like for somebody to define success for me in school choice programs." So how do you think about what kinds of questions you're asking and where to go for answers?
Jon Valant [00:21:01] So that's a great question. And when you're talking about success for school choice programs, it kind of starts with the question of what do schools do? What is it that we want from schools? Because unless we know what we want schools to do, it's very hard to know what we would want some specific program to do. For part of it, I think what we kind of all agree on is we want kids to be in environments that are safe, that are welcoming, that are friendly, that teach them at least the basics. So they have a good grounding in kind of core academic subjects, where they're getting to know people who are unlike them, and to understand and appreciate viewpoints that are different from their own and that they're getting kind of a well-rounded educational experience.
[00:21:38] And so, when we go and we do evaluations of different school choice programs, there is kind of what we would like to study, which is all of those things and build this really rich understanding of, hey, what is the experience of being in these programs and how are these policies really affecting students? But inevitably, we're constrained in what we can actually look like. And so, one of the challenges when it comes to school choice research is that it tends to focus on test scores, which are kind of the most visible indicators of student performance. And they're not meaningless. They do tell you tell us something about what students are learning, but they're limited. And so what we know about these programs is kind of limited by what we can see.
Sarah [00:22:20] It feels like to me that part of what happens is not just a lack of defining success, either in public schools or in education generally, but there is a defensiveness from the public school system. And so you get trapped in this vicious cycle of people with honest to God critiques, fair critiques of the public school system, saying, I'm not happy with this component. The Economist just did this big section on the fact that test scores or sort of-- I don't even know if it was test scores or it was like IQ points or something. But they're not rising. And this is not just in the United States. We've sort of leveled out. We're not making the gains we were making in education in the 90s and the early 2000s. And they point to a lot of different components of that and a lot of different causes.
[00:23:14] And it feels like you can't have a conversation about what we want to improve in the public schools because the public school people kind of get in this defensive posture of nothing's wrong. And then the school choice component gets in this defensive posture of everything's wrong. And so, you can't swim through all that. You can't get through all that to much less define success, even get to what problems we're trying to solve with these policies, except for let the parents feel more empowered. I think that's why we settled on School Choice, which it seems like a very positive framework for people. It sounds nice, doesn't it? And so I think that seems to be part of it. Forget success or even the mission. We can't even get our arms around some of the problems we're trying to solve.
Jon Valant [00:24:02] So I think some of those outcomes you're talking about, they're coming from what we call the Nations Report card, which is this big national test that we take periodically. And the patterns you described are real. So we did see some improvements in academic performance through the 90s and early 2000. And it has kind of tapered off and then really fallen since Covid in the last few years. And part of the challenge on the response side is when you look at those really big picture trends. So we say, hey, wait a minute, schools not doing much. They're not improving much over these last few years. Well, anyone can look at that and point to anything and claim that that's the reason why it's not working. So there's a whole lot of bad research and bad analysis that they'll say, well, test scores aren't improving; therefore, the problem is that it could be class sizes are too big, or it could be that we don't have enough school choice, or it could be whatever else. It's an environment that invites people to make bad decisions with not good information about what we ought to be doing.
Sarah [00:25:00] With so many constituencies. Heck, you got like eight different constituencies you could point to.
Jon Valant [00:25:04] Yeah.
Beth [00:25:04] Can we put some weight around those factors? How valid is what parents want when we think about our schools?
Jon Valant [00:25:11] Parents love for and concern about their kids is probably the most powerful force that we have in education. And the hard part is harnessing that and moving it in a positive direction. And what a lot of school choice policies are trying to do at their very best is they're saying, well, parents understand their kids better than any government possibly could. They know what their kids need. They know what their kids like. And if they can kind of go and choose from whatever school is out there that might fit them the best, well, maybe you start to get these really good matches between what parents want and what it is that kids are getting. And maybe as you start to do that more and more and it builds up, you get a better education system that's just producing better outcomes because we have this really nice fit between what kids want and what parents want.
[00:25:58] That's kind of the theory. And that parental love is a real force that can be a really positive force in education. The devil is in the details when it comes to that kind of thing. And some of it is as I think any parent would attest, it's really hard to look at a bunch of schools and figure out which school would serve your kid the best. I know with my own kids it's hard enough to know what's going on in their school right now day to day, let alone try to understand what it would look like in a whole bunch of different schools and try to kind of project like how that how would look. So we have this challenge of if we're going to build our logic for how to improve schools on the idea that parents are going to make really informed decisions that are going to kind of drive through a sort of market logic, like the schools that are most popular thrive, and the schools that are least popular sort of wither away, well, you need people making really good, informed choices, and it's very hard to do that. So I would say on the school choice side, that's the challenge.
[00:26:59] The other part of that parents’ rights and what is it that parent want equation that has been in our politics for the last few years, I think, in a very unhealthy way, is that there is no single thing that parents want. Different parents want different things for their kids. And what we've seen in the rhetoric around parents’ rights in education is this one very particular view that is really about shielding kids from-- often it's other kids or it's kind of other groups or whatever it may be, but it's this view that really what we ought to be doing is protecting kids from, say, transgender students getting access to certain part of their schooling experiences, or it's protecting them from certain books or authors. And in my view, that is just not what most parents care about at the end of the day. So when we're talking about parents’ rights and what parents want, there's this added layer of complexity that you just can't define that in any one sentence or any one movement. So it's harder than that and it's more complicated than that.
Sarah [00:28:03] Well, and let's just say the quiet part out loud. Sometimes it's not about a love for your kids, sometimes it's about fear. Sometimes it's about fear and scarcity. It's not about love or knowing what's best for your kids. I don't always know what's best for my kids. I sure as heck don't know the best way to teach them algebra because I don't know anything about algebra. And it would be a terrible, terrible situation if I was in charge of teaching it to them. So I think that gets mixed up in it. I don't and have never liked this idea that parents are the ultimate experts in their children, because I think it can really become a place where we're speaking about fear. That's where you get some of what your colleague Richard Reeves has written about opportunity hoarding, where you're getting in there and you're acting out of a sense of I want what's best for my kid. And I think that's what disturbs me more most about the direction this is going.
[00:28:51] In our in our state of Kentucky, there's a new amendment that seems to be-- I know you've written a great deal about Arizona's proposal, the new frontier of this school choice debate. Charter schools, to me, even as I-- listen, I don't have to prove my bona fides around public education because I have several generations of teachers in my family, and I'm a product of public education. But the charter school discussion was always a little less threatening to me because I think innovations in education are needed and they're interesting. This to me, this new movement of just money, I just want my money to spend the way I want on my kids, is I'm going to be blunt; I think it's kind of gross. I don't think that's what public education is about. I think it's an institution, not a consumable. What is feeding this new drive to just I want my tax dollars; I want to spend on my kids; this very consumer model of public education or education, I guess, as the case may be?
Jon Valant [00:29:48] Yeah. So I think it's worth taking a step back in our politics, because the politics around these programs have changed over the last couple of decades. And really for a long time, like for decades, there was some room for kind of bipartisan work on school choice programs. And you mentioned charter schools; that's where a lot of it went. And the reason for that was you had different views of why we should have school choice policies. So on the right, you would often hear people talk in terms of markets. That if you sort of let schools do whatever they want and you let parents pick whichever school they want, you're going to get kind of this market push toward a better supply of schools as those really successful schools thrive. On the left, there was some skepticism of that, of that it would be markets; that schools kind of work like a refrigerator market or a television market. There was skepticism of that, but there was a view that for families that don't have the ability to live in a place that has schools they want, or to sort of opt out of their school and pay for private school tuition, that maybe we should actually create some opportunities to choose that are free, kind of within the structure of the public education system.
[00:30:56] So for a long time, for a couple of decades, we had this sort of agreement where we would have school choice policy, but it happened within that public education structure. It was charter schools or it was citywide public schools, where maybe there was a school with a fine arts focus that any family could pick for their kid if that's what you wanted, and it was sort of part of the public school process. Well, what happened in our politics as we grew more divided politically, is Democrats started getting a little more wary of charter schools, and parts of that Democratic coalition kind of started to fall out when it came to charters. And they started to say, well, I don't know if we want to do this. And on the Republican side, Republicans said, well, all along what we really wanted was private school choice more than charter schools in the first place. That was kind of our compromise. So they moved in the direction of vouchers like what you're seeing in Kentucky.
[00:31:46] And the direction that that has turned over these last few years is a certain type of voucher program that is different and far more extreme than anything that we've had before, because what it does is it doesn't restrict access to that voucher money to certain families, like families below a certain income threshold, or maybe families whose kids were attending a public school that wasn't performing well, or kids with disabilities or whatever it may be. There are universally available vouchers. And so really what it does, is it sort of turns the whole endeavor of educating kids over to this private market. And it very much does become a consumer good in the way you're talking about, which is very different from the history of how we've seen schools and the purpose of education. And also is just taking us into some really unknown territory when it comes to what will the effects of this be on students and on society and on sort of our cohesiveness as a people? There's a whole lot that we don't know because it's such a new and extreme move.
Beth [00:32:46] Can we take some of this apart just to be sure that we're all sort of on the same page and speaking the same language? So do you mind to just sort of define charter schools as they exist today, and then contrast that with the way these voucher programs-- and I'm also interested in like scholarship tax credits and educational savings account. Like the other directions that this could go. If you would help us just kind of do a little glossary moment, that would be super helpful I think.
Jon Valant [00:33:13] Yeah. Great question because this is super confusing stuff. So the traditional model where we have kind of traditional public district schools, a family live within a residential zone and you're assigned to your neighborhood public school. So that's kind of our baseline model that everything is kind of compared against. What a charter school is, it's a publicly funded school that is subject to a lot of rules and regulations that, for example, prevent it from discriminating against certain kids in admission and that require charter schools to perform well on state tests, to keep their charter and to sort of stay operating. But charter schools, unlike those traditional public schools, for a charter school, you choose into it. You're not assigned to a charter school because you live near it. It would be a school that you opt into, an opt out of that school, typically that you're locally assigned to. So that's sort of in the public school sphere.
[00:34:07] Then there are a bunch of different types of private school choice programs. And in a lot of ways they're kind of distinctions without a difference. Like there are different ways of doing private school vouchers where the money just flows in slightly different ways, often for legal reasons to try to get around (like in Kentucky) different legal prohibitions. But basically, with a private school voucher in its kind of purest form, money is coming from the government directly to the family and then the family uses that government money, however it wants, to go and pay for private school tuition. And then there may be rules that allow it to pay for could be computers, it could be textbooks, it could be transportation, it could be a lot of other things. The education savings accounts, which is kind of the current form that these are taking, they work very similarly to vouchers. But a government will put money into these accounts for families, and then families can use that money on pre-approved expenses. Most of that tends to be for private school tuition or kind of supporting materials that are related to private school tuition.
[00:35:08] And then you mentioned this other type of program called tax credit scholarship programs. That is very much a workaround. So essentially, the way that tech scholarship programs work is, as a taxpayer, you can make a donation to an organization that would then hold and disburse the scholarship money to other families. And when you make that donation, you could take off in a one to one, a 100% tax break for the money that you're donating, so you don't actually feel it. It's not a real donation, but it's a way for that money to kind of pass through in ways that are legal in states that have different rules about how it works. But the kind of bottom line is when it comes to all of the private school choice programs, they're all more or less doing the same thing in different ways, which is they're taking government money that we might have otherwise expected to go to public schools and public education systems. And they're funneling that money to families that families would use for some set of pre-approved expenses, which again, is typically tuition, but also can be things like if you want to put a swing set in your backyard for your gym class, you know what you're calling gym class, or lots of other things. So it's government money that's going to families to pay for private schooling and supporting materials.
Sarah [00:36:21] Jon, I know that this is not the level of analysis you were used to at the Brookings Institute, but that is so dumb. I don't even understand how this is legal. As if the only people paying taxes for the public education system is people with kids in the public education. Help me. How is this even legal? How far are we from somebody's grandparents being like, "Well, I want my tax dollars back for the public education system too, so I can send it to my grandchildren's private school." This is so, so, stupid. I'm sorry. I think it's really dumb.
Jon Valant [00:36:55] Yeah, so I have to agree to that.
Sarah [00:36:59] Yay! Okay. Y'all can hire me at the Brookings [inaudible].
Jon Valant [00:37:02] That's right. So the legal questions are there. I think the even bigger questions are questions of our principals when it comes to this kind of thing. So having a strong system of public education has always been a point of pride in this country. And we have never done it perfectly. And a lot of times we haven't really done it well. But we were early adopters of the universal public education system that made schools broadly available so that kids could sign up. And in doing that, we never saw education is being purely about preparing kids for college and career success in that kind of individualistic way. It has always been a foundational piece in building a cohesive society and building a democracy that works, and in kind of getting to know people who are different from us. And what a lot of these current types of school choice programs do is they very much treat education as commodity where you're going and you're getting what you get for your kids.
[00:38:02] And when we were talking about the kind of challenge of handing this over to parents-- and it's hard for parents to shop and to know what it is that they want for their kids. There's the other challenge related to that, which is that what parents want for their own kids might not be what we want collectively for them. So it may be that you have parents who all go and trying to get their kid into the top college. But part of what we need, (and I think our politics shows this) is we need people who can get along with one another and can hear people who disagree with them and can sort of just engage in pleasant and constructive ways with one another. And it is easier to get that when we have more public control over what happens in our school system than it is when we just trust it to markets.
Sarah [00:38:48] And are we happy with how this went with retirement? Everybody think that went great when we just gave people money for their 401 Ks, and now we have like a massive proportion of this generation that doesn't have any retirement savings. We just want to keep trying this and see if it'll work out differently another time? It's mind blowing. It's truly mind blowing to me.
Jon Valant [00:39:06] Yeah. So 401Ks we're now hitting that time when we're starting to see large numbers of people hit that age, and we're going to sort of see whether or not it worked.
Sarah [00:39:14] Jon, it didn't work. It didn't work.
Jon Valant [00:39:17] Right. And when it comes to these programs, these universal private school choice programs, we're way before that point. So we have no idea what the impacts of this are going to be. And what I think is particularly silly about the race to start these programs, is there are a few states that dove in. They are all in. So if you look in Arizona, for example, they're all in on this. And if you're Kentucky or if you're one of these other states that's thinking about these programs, what's the harm at least in waiting for a few years to see what happens, because there's a real chance that those policies are essentially going to kneecap public education systems without having much, if any good, come from them. And if the worst that happens is you start a few years after these states that are really being experimental and I think incredibly risky in the policies that they're adopting, we're nowhere near knowing that sort of 401K picture for how this turns out. It could look much worse decades from now.
Beth [00:40:18] I can be guilty of this consumer mindset about schools too. I have sat in school board meetings and been really annoyed when someone who doesn't have kids in the public school system makes a public rant about what is going on or isn't going on at school that should be. So I'm trying to kind of work on myself. I love how our Constitution in Kentucky refers to the common schools. I think that's beautiful. I wish we use that language more often around here. We're a commonwealth. We have our common schools. So I've been trying to kind of press on myself, where have I thought of my voice being more important than someone else in the communities about our common schools? Thinking about that specific to Kentucky. And I think other states trying this probably have some similar situations. We have very few major cities where you actually could choose among a market of schools.
[00:41:08] Most Kentuckians have very limited options for where their kids are going to go to school, putting all the money aside. I understand that the part of Kentucky that I live in, the school choice issue is almost 100% about Catholic schools. But elsewhere in the state, there are rural legislators who support this. And I have to think it is the homeschooling component. You mentioned public dollars for the swing set in your gym during homeschool, and I've seen literature from other states about supporting field trips for homeschooling families and supplies for homeschooling families. I wonder what you think the genesis of this emphasis on homeschooling is? Does this predate Covid or is this really a Covid outgrowth?
Jon Valant [00:41:55] So I do think that's possible. I think some of the interest is about homeschooling and we don't have great data on homeschooling. Homeschooling has always been a bit of a mystery when it comes to homeschoolers, partly because there is so little transparency and so little accountability for how homeschooling dollars are spent. We just don't know what it looks like for most families, which is a challenge for these programs. And you raised what I think is another kind of really interesting corner of this discussion, which is what's going on in rural areas right now. So as you were suggesting, in rural areas, they rely in most places really heavily on those public schools and those public school systems, and they often rely very strongly on state funding for those public schools because it might be hard to raise a lot of money for property taxes from local sources in areas that just don't have a lot of money.
[00:42:47] And so, when you're talking about these big, expensive universal voucher programs that are giving money to families from the state and giving money to families to attend private schools if they want to; well, if you're in those rural areas, you probably don't have a whole lot of private schools nearby. And if families do leave for private schools or if they do start homeschooling in large number, it's going to be a real hit for the public education systems in a way that you worry about. And what we've seen across the country that's sort of an interesting political side to this, is that in one state after the other like red states that have Republican of control governorships and state legislatures, there is a lot of pushback from rural Republicans who were very reluctant to get on board with this kind of thing.
[00:43:36] And it's come up. I mean, Texas is in the news right now. In Texas, there was a group of state legislators from rural areas who really pushed back hard, and many of them were kind of primaried out partly because the governor got involved. So that that dynamic is very much there. And the worry that I think is really well grounded is that as you put these systems in place, essentially what they're going to do is they're going to use those rural communities and other communities to subsidize private education for wealthier families that live in the suburbs and live in the cities.
Beth [00:44:10] Yeah, the math doesn't math to me, because the idea that we would ever take that per student formula, which is also very opaque, especially here in Kentucky, and it would be enough money for a family that is already struggling with poverty to be able to make a choice to homeschool or send their student to private school, that's outrageous. That just doesn't work. I feel like the missing link in a lot of the discussion about this is like it's not that much money per student. The public schools will tell us that. It's already not enough for the public schools, with all the experience that they've built up in how to do this.
Jon Valant [00:44:47] Yeah. And so what we're starting to see in some states, because again more states are getting on board with this, we're starting to see a little bit of research. But what ends up happening, most of the families that are getting these vouchers were already in private schools. So they were already willing and able to pay private school tuition to send their kids to those schools. And so what that means is, if you're a private school and all of a sudden now there's public money that's flowing to these families, you can increase tuition and the families they're going to be able to pay because they could pay before and now they're getting this money that's going to sort of reduce the cost. And so, what we've seen in Iowa, for example, is that private schools started increasing tuition. And so, if part of the rationale for these policies is that they're supposed to create new opportunities for families that didn't have those opportunities because they couldn't afford private school, well, that's not going to happen if you start to see tuition increases, especially at the most desirable schools, because those families are still going to get locked out.
[00:45:45] And the real long term risk in all of this-- and we're too early to see it here. But in other parts of the world like in Chile. So Chile sort of went toward a universal school voucher program. And what they saw when they did it, is this terrible degree of stratification in their education systems. Where it was families with wealth went in very large number and into private schools, and it was families that didn't have a whole lot of wealth ended up in public schools. And you saw this really growing gap in student performance. And eventually Chile backed off of it. So they put in a whole bunch of more regulations about how you cap those costs and make sure everyone has access, how you make sure the quality is good in schools, how you prevent schools from discriminating against certain kids. And they've started to see some improvement in outcomes as they've done that. But there is a very real scenario in which these vouchers come, school doesn't actually become any more affordable for middle class, working class families. And essentially, we just see that same kind of stratification here that they've seen elsewhere.
Sarah [00:46:48] Well, I hope in red states, at the very least, if you all are going to charge forward with this, then I want more transparency around homeschooling. If you're going to take tax dollars, then I want to know. I want test results. I want standards. And are we going to have private schools that can't discriminate anymore if they are getting tax dollars? I mean, this just is such a ball of wax for them to jump into with these private schools. I don't think truly and honestly a lot of people understand sort of the regulations that public schools have to follow that private schools don't. I think they just hear school and they think they're following the same standards, and they're not. They're just not. And it's barely enough money for the public school to meet those standards now. You spread it out among homeschoolers and private schoolers, there's just not going to be a lot. And they're not following the same standards.
Jon Valant [00:47:38] And I think people hear words like rules and regulations and their dirty words and they think, well, that's what's going to make schools not work. But what that often is in reality, is that's what prevents schools from discriminating against kids on the basis of religion and class and disability and sex. And we need those rules and those regulations in place, because when we're talking about parents’ rights, that's the kind of thing that parents really care about. If you're talking about losing access to a school, if you're talking about sending your kid to a school where you have no idea if the school is actually any good-- and there's really no way to know because there are no performance measures in place, there's no accountability of any form for doing well-- that's the stuff that I think parents genuinely should be worried about. And I think most of them are. And that lack of regulation, that lack of transparency. Those are real issues for homeschooling, for sure, but also for private schools in these programs because they are just subject to a whole lot less than public schools and even than charter schools in these states.
Beth [00:48:42] Jon, Sarah started by talking about how there are real challenges in public education. There are reasons that some families are unhappy with public schools. The place that I find the most sympathy with aspects of the school choice movement, is around disabilities. And that's a tough topic, because a lot of private schools are less accessible than public schools because they don't have to follow those rules and regulations as you were just talking about. But there are instances where the public school system truly cannot meet the needs of a child. So what should we be doing? How can we get at some of those concerns in a way that's healthier?
Jon Valant [00:49:17] Let me say that I am not an opponent of school choice. I actually think that any strong education system is attentive to the fact that you need to make sure that every family has an option that they really like. And we have never been in a place where that was offered by every single neighborhood, public school, everywhere in the country. So I am not coming at this from the perspective of all school choice is evil. I'm not necessarily opposed to charter schools. I'm not opposed to a whole lot of different types of choice within the public school system. My worry is much more on the side of private school choice and in particular these universal private school choice programs. When it comes to how we make sure that we're serving students of all backgrounds and of all needs, that is our challenge and that forever will be our challenge. And a lot of that is making sure that we have policies in place and we have resources in place to care for those kids.
[00:50:11] And so students with disabilities in particular, you worry about in school choice settings because often those students are more expensive to educate than the money that flows to the schools to educate those students. And so that's when we're talking about it could be charter school, it could be other types of school choice programs; and so you end up in a place where schools don't actually have incentive to take those kids oftentimes. And you really worry about that because that's where students can fall through the cracks. And we've seen lawsuits in places where that has happened. And so what we need to do is we need to make sure that those resources and those structures are in place in our traditional public school system, and we need that system to be strong to make sure that there is a place that offers a high quality education to everyone regardless of their background, regardless of their needs.
[00:50:59] And then I am not opposed to the idea that we should also layer on top of that some options for families to choose if they do have a particular interest or a particular need that maybe we can't get everywhere. If you have a brilliant artist and there is that one high school in your school district that is a brilliant fine art school, that's great. Send the kid to that school. And that's a form of school choice that I think is totally constructive and totally healthy and should be part of what we do. That is very different from reconfiguring our entire education system to be one where we're just sort of relying on this market logic, where we know that there are a whole bunch of gaps and a whole bunch of ways that students can fall through the cracks, including many of the groups that you're talking about.
Sarah [00:51:45] Well, I feel more clear. I also feel more angry, but that's not your fault.
Jon Valant [00:51:51] Yeah.
Sarah [00:51:51] Thank you so much for coming here and helping us sort of walk through the different degrees of this policy, helping us think about what they're trying to roll out in our own state of Kentucky and for all your work. We really appreciate it.
Jon Valant [00:52:03] My pleasure. And happy Back-To-School season for everyone. And I will say, to end on a positive note, I do think for as rough as these last few years have been for schools from Covid to some of the culture war stuff we've had going on, I do actually think that we're getting to a better place soon. I think we're on a good path. I think we're going to get there, but there are challenges still now for sure.
Sarah [00:52:25] That's a beautiful note to end on. Thank you for that.
[00:52:28] Music Interlude.
Beth [00:52:38] Thank you so much to Jon Valant for joining us. Sarah, we always end our show with an exhale talking about what's in our minds Outside of Politics. And you have been patiently waiting for several weeks now to discuss the songs of summer.
Sarah [00:52:51] I think we should just sing. Let's just sing and dance. Let's just blare them in this segment-- I hope we don't get sued-- and just dance along to Sabrina and Chapel and Charlie XCX. Let's just do that. I think that's what we should do.
Beth [00:53:06] What's your favorite? I know it's a hard question.
Sarah [00:53:13] I started listening first to please. Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter. That's the one that I like. That I kind of, like, just wrung it out. You know what I mean? Like, just listen to it on repeat because I love to hear her say, "Heartbreak is one thing my anger is another."
[00:53:20] [Music] Please Please Please by Sabrina me.
Sarah [00:53:44] And then I was listening to Espresso a lot because everybody was listening to Espresso a lot.
[00:53:52] [Music] Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter.
Sarah [00:54:03] Listen, mad shout out to my cousin Taylor, who had sent me Chappell Roan like in April. I don't know. I'd have to go look through my... She was on it. She was in front of that. And I listened to it and it didn't hook me. But then I listened to it again and she really got me with, Red Wine Supernova. That's the one that I was like, okay, I'm hooked.
[00:54:24] [Music] Red Wine Supernova by Chappell Roan.
Sarah [00:54:42] And then she got me with Good Luck, Babe, because people were using it and those ballerina farm reels. And I really emotionally connected with the song through that trend.
[00:54:51] Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan.
Sarah [00:55:00] And now I'm just, like, in it with her. I'm listening to all of it. I am really disappointed, really, baroque. No Chappell Roan on your summer playlist? Dude, that's not cool because we all know you're listening. What about you?
Beth [00:55:16] Well, I think Please, Please, Please is hilarious. I just think it is lyrically so entertaining.
Sarah [00:55:22] It's so funny. The ceiling fan gets me every time.
Beth [00:55:27] I mean, I laughed during the song. It's really, really funny. I like Espresso, too. Especially like, "I'm working late because I'm a singer." It kind of reminds me of some Alanis Morissette intonation; like she has songs where she really hits that R like that, and I just think it's a really fun update. And we had a little family opening ceremony, Olympics party, and Ellen took a white sleeveless tee shirt and decorated it, and wrote, I'm working late because I'm a swimmer. And we laughed about that a lot. So I think those are really good. I have to say, though, I think Hot to Go is so fun. It's so catchy. It just lives in my brain. It reminds me of our younger days hot girl summer. It kind of sounds like Britney Spears, like just that fun, upbeat, gets in your head and will not leave kind of bop. And I think it's great.
[00:56:17] [Music] Hot to Go! by Chappell Roan.
Sarah [00:56:29] I just like to spell in a song. I like to spell in a song.
Beth [00:56:33] Who doesn't? We are still spelling bananas decades later because that was great. That was super fun.
Sarah [00:56:37] It's fun to spell. You kind of feel smart and I can't even explain it.
[00:56:43] [Music] Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani.
Sarah [00:56:48] I love Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish. I think that song is so good. Her performance of it at the closing ceremony, incredible. I just think it's that good mix. The same I think of Please, Please, Please. Like, it's clever and it's light and it's poppy, but you're like, I'm feeling things. I feel some things right now. You're making me feel things.
[00:57:16] [Music] Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish
Sarah [00:57:24] Billie Eilish always makes me feel things. I still can't listen that damn Barbie song without crying. It's just they're all so good. So do you use DJ X on Spotify [crosstalk]?
Beth [00:57:34] No. I do not.
Sarah [00:57:35] You should.
Beth [00:57:36] I just use Ellen Silvers as the DJ.
Sarah [00:57:38] Listen, it's a good time. It's a good time because DJ X he likes to put those together. He understands what I want. He's like, okay, you want to listen to Please, Please, Please. And then you want to listen and shop around. And then you want to listen to Billie and then you want to listen to Fortnight. And I'm like, yes, that is correct DJ X. But then he gets kind of stuck. And so on our road trips, the summer around Japan as a family, we started continuing our trip through the Rolling Stones Top 500 albums, and that trains your algorithm in a really fun and interesting way as well.
Beth [00:58:06] I bet it does.
Sarah [00:58:07] Yeah, and he'll also do holiday themes like one time on Saint Patrick's Day, he's like, I got some Irish music for you. And I was like, DJ X, you know I love a holiday thing. My kids hate DJ X? I love him so much. But he puts all those together and such a beautiful, beautiful little way. I love it so much.
Beth [00:58:23] You know what else will mess with your algorithm? One of my favorite things to do for people's birthday is to make a birthday playlist of the number one song every year of their lives. And ChatGPT has made it so easy now because I just ask it for the list and then I go put it in Spotify. But it does confuse the algorithm. Now, I know pop girl summer, this is a little off, but I also have to say for a second how much I enjoy 's music. I think his lyrics are so interesting. His voice is so beautiful.
Sarah [00:58:49] I don't know Benson Boone.
Beth [00:58:50] Well, he opened for Taylor Swift somewhere on the European tour and was doing backflips and stuff and people were very excited. But Jane really got me into his music. He has a song, Beautiful Things, and I know that I am not known for tearing up. It gets me every time. Every time. It just pulls at me in a different way too. I think about different parts of my life and just get all overcome by Beautiful Things. So you got to check it out.
[00:59:18] [Music] Beautiful Things by Benson Boone.
Sarah [00:59:34] And I'm still really into no icon. Like I saw him at the music festival. I love him. I've gone from just loving stick season like everybody else to loving every song on that album. There's a whole hilarious picture of him and Chappell Roan that are like these two look like they just went hiking and work at blockbuster or something like that. Their esthetic is hilarious and I really just like how everyone is so into celebrating her success because she really went from like having 20 people in the audience to those videos from Lollapalooza were [Inaudible]. There were so many people there. So, so many people there singing every single word of her song. I can't imagine what the summer has been like for her.
Beth [01:00:17] I hope all these women who are blowing up in a brand new way are just surrounded by loving aunties who are just helping them, keep it all in perspective and keeping out the toxicity and allowing in the good vibes. I wish the best for all of these people who are bringing us together through their music.
Sarah [01:00:37] Well, I just feel like the internet has kind of taken that on. They're like we're not going to tear down any more. We don't do that. So come for her and find out what happens. And you're going to get it from me. That just seems to be the like the protectionary situation with all these pop princesses. And I love it because I don't want to treat anybody like we treated Britney Spears ever again.
Beth [01:00:56] Music and sports, these are the great hopes for American society right now and I am just thrilled to keep listening to new music. Well, thank you all so much for being here today. Thank you to Jon Valant. Thank you to all of the governors and policymakers out there doing good work to support families and kids. Thank you to those of you who have taken advantage of our Cameo sale. If you have not yet and you would like Sarah and I to record a personalized Back-To-School greeting or birthday greeting or celebration of whatever else is going on in your lives, please check that out. It's so much fun for us and we get such great feedback after we make those videos. We'll be back with you on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.
[01:01:35] Music Interlude.
Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.
Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.
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Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family. Ashley Rene. Michelle Palacios.
Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.