Digital Social Hour
Why U.S. Education Needs a Massive Overhaul Now | Corey DeAngelis DSH #1298
05 Apr 2025
Chapter 1: How is school choice reshaping U.S. education?
The definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results. But now, because the unions mobilized parents to basically create their own union, one for the kids, they're holding politicians accountable at the ballot box. And now politicians are voting for school choice like we've never seen before.
All right, guys, we got Corey here today. We're going to talk about the education system. Thanks for coming on, man. Hey, thanks so much for having me. A lot's about to change, right?
Well, a lot is changing already. I mean, we're winning so much, I'm almost getting tired of winning. I mean, the unions really overplayed their hand during the COVID era. They fought to keep the schools closed. That showed parents what was happening in the classroom. And conservatives in particular were pissed off about the critical race theory in the schools.
the gender ideology, far left indoctrination that mobilized parents like we've never seen before. And they started to push for school choice. And we've had 13 states now go all in on school choice, letting the money follow the child to the school that works the best for them, whether that's the public school, private school, charter school, or a home-based education option.
Most recently, Tennessee became the 13th state to go all in. It's basically the idea of the money that's meant for educating your child that's funded by the taxpayer dollars. In the current system, the status quo makes you take that money to your assigned school based on your address. It creates a lot of monopoly power. They have no incentive to spend money wisely.
They get a lot of money and they put it towards administrative bloat, doesn't go to the kids. But now that money can follow the student, creates more competition, and the public schools get better as a result. That's interesting. I grew up in Jersey. How are the schools over there?
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Chapter 2: What are the financial implications of public school funding?
Pretty horrible. And they spend a lot of money. I think they spend between $30,000 and $40,000 per student in Jersey. I know in New York City, they're at $40,000 a kid per year. I didn't know that. And if you look nationwide, I mean, it's $20,000 per kid in the US. In the government-run school system, we spend more than any other country on the planet.
That amount is about 52% higher than average private school tuition in this country. So the Catholic schools, the private schools, they're doing a better job at a fraction of the cost. I mean, you look at the latest nation's report card scores that just came out on math and reading.
They found decades of learning loss for the public schools, but for the Catholic schools, they have a big enough sample to be able to show us what's going on in that sector, not for private schools overall, but for the Catholic schools, they show no statistically significant losses whatsoever. relative to 2019 during... Because they kept their schools open during the COVID years.
The teachers' unions, they knew they could leverage those closures for even more money. They held children's education hostage. You had places like in Chicago, their union was tweeting... I'm not making this up. They deleted the tweet, but it said... The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.
They threw every buzzword at the wall to see what would stick because they knew if they could keep those schools closed longer, what were they going to do? They're going to say, well, we'll open if you just give us more money than we already have. They already have about $30,000 per kid in Chicago. And so... Over time as well, this money has just increased, increased, increased.
It wasn't just a COVID thing. Since 1970, we have data on this nationwide. Our per student funding in the U.S. has increased by about 164% after adjusting for inflation. Have our outcomes gotten 164% better? Obviously, they've gotten worse and we're throwing more money at the problem. It's the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results.
But now, because the unions mobilized parents to basically create their own union, one for the kids, They're holding politicians accountable at the ballot box. And now politicians are voting for school choice like we've never seen before, because now you have a new coalition pushing for this policy. It used to just be for kids who were in objectively failing schools based on test scores.
Now families are understanding that their kids in some cases, even if they're in an A-rated school, they're being brainwashed with views that are not aligned with their family's values. They're being told to hate their country.
And I thought that this, at the beginning, I thought maybe this is just a rare occurrence because we see all these viral videos of lips of TikTok and stuff where public school teachers are saying just extreme things, going too far on the left, attacking President Trump. They have Trump derangement syndrome. There's actually been a nationwide survey that came out last month
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