Episode 167: Educating with Purpose: A Leadership Perspective on School Reform

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Today Counts Show Episode 167

Preview

Jim Piper Jr: So say that again, just so the listeners hear in terms of their student achievement. Yeah, say that again. We’re number–

Dr. Brian Baddic: So the country, our country is number one per pupil. We’re number one in the world, but we’re like in the 40th, middle of 44, 45, could be better. I mean, at one point we were higher than that, but we lowered a little bit in terms of–

Jim Piper Jr: Is t possible that we’re losing because we’re–

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Introduction

Jim Piper Jr: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Today Count show. I’m glad that you are with us. If this is your first time, welcome. What is the Today Count show? Well, this is a podcast and we take on the subjects broadly speaking of leadership of life, and we want to get better at it. So we’re not afraid of taking care of issues. We don’t claim that we know everything. So it is a journey. And it is exciting for us. And so glad you’re here.

So anyway, uh today, I have with me and I’ve had with me before. So this is kind of like part two, Dr. Kristin Meyer and Dr. Brian Baddic. And they have been wrestling with me about this whole education system in the United States. If you haven’t listened to the first episode, I would encourage you to do that to catch up. But you know, we’ve talked about special education. And maybe perhaps we’re not doing justice to that and maybe why we are or why we’re not. There’s of course are different views on that.

We’ve only touched a little bit on private schools, charter schools, public schools. We might have even mentioned that nasty word of vouchers or other people who like that word of vouchers. uh We have name drop maybe Jordan Peterson who has a lot to say and his view. But these two people here that I have on the show with me today, they’re just both insightful. They’re not somebody that’s sitting somewhere else. Looking at the system, they’re involved in the system in different ways. They have their own stories. I’m telling you, if you didn’t listen to the first podcast, you probably should go back so that you can get some of the personal stories that come with it.

So you know, we don’t want to just belly ache. We want to be people that come up with solutions. So anyway, welcome you guys. I’m glad you’re back with me.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: So happy to be here, thank you.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Hi Jim, good to see you again. It’s a pleasure to be back. Kristin, it’s good to see you again.

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, yeah. So you know, I definitely came to the last episode with some biases. And some of my biases had to do with money, how money is being distributed, maybe even where it comes from. From a leadership coaches perspective maybe seen fat, maybe not seen fat. You guys kind of argued with me about that or not argued with me, but we collaborated about, yes, maybe there is some fat in the system. But then again, we’re making progress.

We got a lot done, but this is now the next time. Maybe next time what we would do is we say if you guys were going to give a blueprint as to where we should go from here, what would that blueprint be to make education as a whole uh better? Now, before we dive into that, Brian, you did some research kind of about the history of education globally, and even in the US, what did you learn from that? What was most interesting that might be helpful and helping us all catch up and be on the same page?

Historical Context of Education

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yeah, thanks Jim. I think it’s important when we’re talking about education, I think we have to understand and know where we’re coming from, so we can know where we’re going. From the information that I did some research on and just my 32 years in education through all my undergrad and my graduate and my doctor work, education is constantly evolving, it seems. It has its different seasons. When you go back all the way back almost to the beginning of time, ancient times and education, I mean, the education at that time in the beginning was really focused on just being civil. Just having the civilians being able to be able to be producers. That goes all the way back to ancient Egypt time.

Just working on practical skills for specific roles, scribes, priests, and just looking at the history and the purpose of what their culture was all about, and to where we are all the way through when we hit the US education system. Education was based solely, and it was focused more on what? It was faith-based religion and just teaching about God’s Word at that point.

Then as the centuries move on, I looked at and there’s such a sequence. It just seems it moves forward, then it goes back, it moves forward a little bit more, then it goes back. 45 years ago, we established the Department of Education in 1979 and 1980 with the initiative from Doctor– Excuse me, it was President Carter at the time. Now 45 years later, we’re getting rid of it. I mean, the administration right now is we want to banish it. We want to turn things back over to the states.

But you know what? Early on in the system of education, when you look at it, it all began from Egypt and just the early ancient times, medieval, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, it all was at the community, all at the state level. It was already there. But what it really is that the purpose of the Department of Education when President Carter came in is to ensure that there is access to education for all. The big thing is that there’s funding for education across the board.

And we know that is not the case today in education, especially in our public education across the country, because there’s so many different takes now. You talk about the voucher system, we talk about the spring of the charter school and what’s really pulling all those funds away from our public system right now. Keep in mind that in America, public school itself funded for the most part, meaning a lot of your money for education at the public level is based on your tax base. Things like that is coming from within the community, and it’s less now because–

The cost of education is going up, but there’s a decrease in the funding across the country right now. So it just seems like we’re on that pendulum. It swings back and forth. We move forward. We have a timeline and then we’re going right back. We’re on that backswing back again right now.

Jim Piper Jr: So, okay.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: I’m dying to jump in, Jim.

Religion and the Origins of Education

Jim Piper Jr: I know you are but let me go first because I’m older and I and I forget stuff. The comments I’m going to make do not come from an educated perspective. They come from just having my ear to the ground. Let’s say which I think I do pretty well. Some say that some say that if at least when it comes to the states, if education has its beginning, has its support, support system from the religious sector, if I heard you right, if that if that was kind of the origins of it, in your in your guys’ opinion, why is that such a dividing issue today in our in our country? That’s one question. Let me get the second one out as well.

I’ve also heard the accusation and with a different kind of bitterness towards the educational system. And I think this would be pinned at approximately the Industrial Revolution, where school was simply meant to give the human resource for all the manufacturing that we were doing. Almost like pre slavery prep for that kind of work. When you back up before that, and you start talking about the Egyptians, you start talking about societal development, and you start talking about even things that we have to work together on to be better as a people group, whatever wherever we’re talking about, that all sounds kind of encouraging and natural in the development of communities, human communities.

But you got these other two things, at least in America, before we even get to the subjects that we talked about last time, this issue of the Industrial Revolution, simply using kids to prepare them for these kinds of jobs. And then the other point being if it started with religion, even the reading and writing and all of that, why is there such a chasm now between what seems to be between public education and religion?

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Did not see it going that way.

Dr. Brian Baddic: I’ll just give you a quick thought about it, Jim. It’s really good, how did we get where we are right now?

Jim Piper Jr: Remember, this is my ear to the ground. I don’t know if this is legit. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.

Dr. Brian Baddic: I believe, my experience 32 years, 26 as an administrator, I think we have completely moved out of the direction of what the purpose of public education is today. That’s what I feel. I think we’re going down a different rabbit hole right now, it seems, and it seems that we’re less outcome based and we’re more focused on, I’m gonna call it result based, which is going to be like tests testing.

Jim Piper Jr: Oh, yeah. For those listening this podcast, if you didn’t, again, you got to go back to that first podcast, because we did talk a lot about testing being the out and we’re going where did that come from? Then I think Dr. Meyer, Kristin made an accusation of some sort. And if I did, then I’m just gonna say she did. But that’s very much financially driven. I think that’s what I heard. Kristin, you want to say something, you need to say something.

School Choice and Personal Experiences

Dr. Kristin Meyer: I did. I wanted to touch on a lot, kind of what Brian said, and in going to this religion and school-based thing. I love the Jordan Peterson episode that we all listen to about public education. It was very eye-opening for me. I come from the public school world as a public school teacher. I was an approved private school principal and I was a union member. For anybody outside of anywhere, Pennsylvania is a very heavy union state. When–

Jim Piper Jr: Across the board, right?

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Across the board, yes. So I went into education from corporate, then became union, and now I’m private again. So I’ve kind of experienced the whole thing, but I have school choice for my daughter because I am Christian and I believe in a Christian education.

In reflection of my career, I feel that for my family, it was the right decision to have a Christian education for my daughter and school choice. I think now being out of public education to where I am and as a role, as an advocate, we fight for school choice for our children with disabilities. So when I have a child who has a disability that the public school is attempting to support but cannot, then I am arguing for school choice to get that child the best school for their disability.

The religion piece has always been a hot topic. I think religion is becoming a hot topic in society again, as we can see with the Halo app and Mark Wahlberg and actors coming forward and sharing their Christianity that I think people might start saying we want more of a religious involvement in schools again, depending on how this administration goes with allowing those choices. But I think those topics are going to be touched on absolutely.

With regard to the Department of Education and control at the state level, what Brian said is accurate to a degree, but school districts have choice. They’re controlling their curriculum. The government does not control what we in Pennsylvania are teaching in Philadelphia school. Philadelphia school district is voting on their curriculum and making that decision. So states have control over schools. But the funding, the departments, which is what Brian was talking about, the Department of Education provides equality to our kiddos that need it.

And I don’t think throwing more money at education is gonna fix the problem by any means. I think funding, giving the money that we are dutifully owed and paying public systems the money that have not been provided to them would at least get us a little bit back on track.

Jim Piper Jr: Did I hear you right, Kristin, where you said that through School of Choice, you were able to move your daughter, I think you said, from a public system to a private Christian school? Did I hear that right?

Dr. Kristin Meyer: I choose to send my daughter. I choose. I have my own free school choice because I have the ability, which–

Jim Piper Jr: So there’s not there’s not this utopia in Philadelphia school of choice.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: There’s not a utopia in my world. I wish there was that utopia. Being so on the spectrum of where I’ve been and really indoctrinated into union camps and union information, but then really hearing about the discrepancies and living it, not just in the special ed world, but really understanding what’s happening from every point of view now, I really think the system needs these opportunities because the money should follow the child essentially. Yes, the people at risk, the most at risk need the opportunity to say, “We want a different change. We want something.”

Identifying and Solving Problems in Education

Jim Piper Jr:  So like in every business, you identify a target market, and you develop your product and your service to reach the needs of that product or that target market. In that realm, I understand the difficulty of education. I understand why funding would be extremely difficult. And then maybe from a business model, impossible to meet the needs of every individual.

But reason why we got together and, and you and I met on a riverboat, Kristin in France, where when you told me what you did, it obviously put my antennas up because the special needs thing, I’ve always tended to be somebody who like most of us, I think, right? I mean, if our team is not in the game, we tend to root for the underdog, right? I mean, it’s just kind of how we are because I think all of us feel like underdogs at some point in time in our life.

So the special needs students and of course, you educated us pretty well on that last time that you know, my view of special needs, and your understanding application of special needs. First of all, those are two different things. So you caught me up there. Even more so from a business perspective, I’m going, “How do we solve this problem?” If I could pivot to that for a little bit. And I’m going to put it back in Brian’s lap. I’m going to love to hear maybe Kristin plays the color commentator and Brian does the play by play. I am just throwing this on you guys at the last second. I’m getting kind of a mixed message, you guys, because–

Dr. Kristin Meyer: And you know what, Jim, you’re going to because Brian and I are living, we’re flying the plane while it’s being built right now. We are in a really difficult situation and our message is clear that our kids need to be the focus. However, where he and I have been going in just this past nine months with our own experiences within our home districts, let alone the state and what’s happening with the Department of Ed, yeah, we have to be changing perspective based off the research that we’re getting too.

Dr. Brian Baddic: And just a reminder, Jim, I mean, we talked in the last podcast about what my experience is in education. I left public education right after the eighth grade. I’m the youngest of four boys in my family. My three older brothers graduated. They completed 12 years of public ed. I made a decision just again, as we talk about choice. I said to my family, my parents, I want to go to my high school, four years in a private parochial Catholic high school. That was my choice to do that.

And I had a great experience. I had a great education. But for me, it helped me with civic engagement. It helped me with personal development and cultural transitions and moral and character development. I don’t know if I would have got a lot of that in a public school. But that’s what my desire was. I think that it’s important.

The unions and the associations across this country in public education, Jim, are extremely, extremely strong. And they have a voice. What they’re saying is, “We don’t want school choice. These are the things, this is the agenda that we want today in public ed.” This is what’s being communicated to our legislation to our, all the way through from the state up to the federal level of associations are extremely strong.

Listen, we can get into the whole detail of why schools closed during the COVID back in 2020, because it’s the associations that leverage and they pressured, shut it down. And what was the impact? We have now a generation and I’m just getting off track a little bit, but we have a generation of kids right now, students, we won’t know until, what? A few more years yet what the impact of that leverage was.

You know, public education for me, I believe as I work in public ed for 32 years, I think the mixed message is going to be Kristin, she’s utilizing school choice personally as a family. I did it individually when I was growing up, but we both work in public education. And so for the both of us, especially for me, there’s that, I’m kind of on the fence. I know what I got from my choice, but I see the problems in public ed that I don’t know if I would send my kids today on that path.

Jim Piper Jr: Well, that’s why I appreciate both of you being on my show. Because it’s just like, when I pastored churches, I made sure that all of our teachers were recognized and prayed over and recognizing the difficulty of what they face every day and the opportunity for it as well. Versus sometimes a simple opting out. I’m not here to criticize those of us who’ve opted out as less than or better than those who say, “I want to make a difference and go into the public school system.”

Dr. Kristin Meyer: It’s very interesting because we, Brian and I, are judged if we chose to send our children to anything other than public school. And that is, my decision is a faith-based decision, but I have to scream that from the rooftops.

Jim Piper Jr: Well, yeah, if you’re selling Fords, but you drive a Toyota to work, that’s kind of uh funny.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Exactly, exactly. Right. The system is scary. In my advocacy work in the past two years, I have seen such a unique perspective from going from an administrator to now looking and auditing schools and seeing how the schools are so stuck in history. The older administrators, the older teachers, the old ways of the world, it’s just not keeping up. The professional development for teachers to be able to support the intense level of kids that they’re receiving just isn’t there. So the teachers aren’t being equipped to support the ever-growing populations.

And then we have these additional schools, charters, privates, and everything that are popping up that are in the home neighborhoods that can provide opportunities to raise the entire neighborhood up if the family had the means and opportunity to take and do that. Because if you really think about it, and in Philadelphia where we are, in Philadelphia, our city is historically still in the, we have our Polish neighborhoods, we have our Ukrainian neighborhoods, we have the Irish neighborhoods. Like we are very much in green and culture still, in our ethnic neighborhoods and the parishes were closing down and the synagogues.

So if we can put the money into the opportunities for circling into the church thing again, we still say what parish you are from depending on where you are. So if we were able to allow the opportunities to come back to families in these more urban or even really suburban farm areas where the parishes, religious centers, community centers were able to provide those educational opportunities and make it a competitive one, then that would bring not just the kids, it would bring the teachers too.

Jim Piper Jr: Okay, I want to acknowledge something and then I have a suggestion. I want to acknowledge the first grenade I think that was thrown into the episode today that Brian threw out, which to me just resonated. It was like, “Okay, now I know how to talk with you guys.” I go, “Okay.” And he said it from his perspective, that the education system has lost its purpose.

Why that’s such a big deal to me is that even if so and so believes that the purpose is this and another person believes that the purpose of this is, I think that the minimum truth is that we are not aligned in what the purpose is across–

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Every school district has its own mission statement.

Jim Piper Jr: Right, right. So where there is no purpose, clear purpose, where there is no clear purpose for us all to serve, then you have chaos. It’s interesting, because entrepreneurialism in America, of course, is very much celebrated and rightly so. There does come a point when you’re trying to do both. You’re trying to create a mode, a system, a process that is what the world today calls best practices, while at the same time allowing entrepreneurialism to have its place.

And of course, that’s probably a good thing. It’s probably a messy thing. With that being said, with that grenade, we got to jump on that grenade, I think. And so let me let me do this. When I get into dilemmas with executives, what I always encourage them to do is I always draw out this triangle. And the bottom of the triangle, imagine the foundation of the triangle. I call that the place where we need to start and it’s a discussion. It’s a presentation. It’s an acknowledgement of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The reason why we do that is because whenever a leader starts talking about the vision without acknowledging the present, people don’t believe it and they can’t connect with it. There’s no sense of alignment. So we did some of that last time, but maybe Brian, if I could ask you to say and then Kristin can add to it on a quick version, what’s the good, the bad and the ugly that you would say the current condition of American education today?

And once we do once we do that, though we can’t solve this in one episode, then we jump to the top of the triangle. And the top of the triangle basically answers the question, “So what?” Now that we’ve mentioned the good, the bad and the ugly, however one thinks and we all tend to think a little bit differently, whether we’re thinking out 10 years or 50 years, that’s kind of what the top of the triangles about. This is where we want to go. And maybe we don’t maybe we can guess at a timeline, but that’s less important than you know, the North Star. It’s a North Star, want to head towards that.

Then the middle of the triangle is ah when this comes out of engineering, where give me three steps, give me three main initiatives, give me give me three somethings, whatever you want to call those somethings, three big rocks to focus on that moves us from our current good, bad and ugly to the North Star? And then what are the three things that we could be working on in that way? How does that sound is something that we could take into the conversation. So I see you both nodding your head.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yes.

Jim Piper Jr: So I’ll shut up. Brian, you start. What’s the good, bad and the ugly? Kristin, you add color to it. And then I’ll then ask you our question. Okay, now where do we go from here?

Moving Away from Data as the Sole Barometer of Success

Dr. Brian Baddic: Well, from a historical context, the history of education in America, it reflects a shift from going from focus on religious literacy to a broader focus on civic engagement. And then it moves to economic development. So hopefully that softens the blow of the grenade. You know, again, but the federal government involvement in public education, the role is always about funding. It’s going to be about policy initiatives. And it’s also looking at is education, the primary responsibility of the state. Less of the federal government.

So again, just a little bit of context there so we understand where we were talking about the historical. What we have right now and I say about what is the federal role in that? That’s where 79, 1980 rolls in with President Carter bringing in the Department of Education. So that’s the foundation of the, I don’t know if that’s the foundation of our triangle.

Jim Piper Jr: What I like about that is that ah what I’m hearing is I’m hearing some practical fundamentals of why and some idealistic reasons why. So both practical, useful, and idealistic in the sense that why wouldn’t we want to invest in our own people in our own nation, both from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective? That squashes the argument like that some radicals will even say, “Why don’t we just all do our own thing?” That to me sounds like absolute chaos. So anyway, keep going.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yeah, so I think that the future of what education, in my opinion, and where we have to go is looking at what is the outcome, outcome-based types of education, rather than looking at the data as the barometer of the success of our education system. Keep in mind, our country, the US, is number one in the world per-pupil expenditure, but we’re like, 40, 45 right now in terms of the outcome of that expenditure, which is completely off scale.

Jim Piper Jr: It doesn’t make sense.

Dr. Brian Baddic: No, it’s completely offset. When you look at other countries that have very little per pupil, but they’re at the top of the list.

Jim Piper Jr: So say that again just so the listeners hear that. Say that again, just, “We’re number–”

Dr. Brian Baddic: Our country is number one per pupil. We’re number one in the world, but we’re like in the 40th, of 44, 45, could be better. I mean, at one point we were higher than that, but we lowered a little bit in terms of student outcomes, student success, student–

Jim Piper Jr: Is it possible that we’re losing because we’re measuring different or we have value on different things? Or is it that we’re flat getting our butts kicked?

Dr. Kristin Meyer: We’re getting our butts kicked.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Math and science.

Doctor Kristin Meyer: Math, science and reading. And if we took the time to address the deficits and honestly addressing the deficits and allowing schools to fail children, we would be in a better situation. It was a running joke at one point in my career that everybody passed. Everybody passes, everybody passed. We would say that because the districts are so concerned about their product outcome, graduation rates, matriculation, who’s being promoted as opposed to holding the child where they should be held, holding the line, we would be in a better scenario.

So many students, I have had so many families from when I was a teacher to an administrator to now where they say, “I don’t want my child to be promoted. They are not physically emotionally ready. They’re not even reading at grade level.” But because they have a disability and they have a document that protects them, we’re gonna promote them. We’re gonna modify down because of the birth date and because of the matriculation that we’re trying to meet requirements about.

So if we went back to the ’80s’ educational model and said, “Hey, Brian, congratulations, you’re not passing first grade.” And Brian’s parents say, “Okay, thank you.” They held him back, he got caught up. I think if we allow teachers the autonomy to teach again, took away a lot of this testing and we literally spent the next two years just working on remediation for all of our populations, so many kiddos would be in a better situation.

If the world was willing to shut down for COVID, I think we should be willing to say, “Hey, let’s take another year, give everybody a year. Let’s meet them where they are and give them remediation.” It shouldn’t be hiring somebody like me to get a district to give a family extra money for tutoring for something that could have been avoided because yes, teacher unions really had a lot of impact on COVID and coming back to school.

Dr. Brian Baddic: So we lost the artifact in the art of teaching is what you’re saying, Kristin.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: 100%. The only reason I love teaching was because I could be who I wanted to be. But I also taught in a classroom that had no curriculum. So I was gifted that opportunity as opposed to my math colleagues that were on such a deadline to teach math concepts that my students suffered. And they suffered the anxiety and pressure that they couldn’t keep up with the expectation of a deadline for a test that the teacher had to prepare them for.

Horace Mann and the Foundation of Public Education

Brian D. Baddic: So I’m gonna continue to play, Jim, if it’s okay. I’m gonna continue to play the historian in today’s podcast. I wanna go back to the 1830s. Horace Mann, Horace Mann. We have heard that name, we still hear it today. He was a Massachusetts legislator and he talked about, champion the idea of a free public education. And he talked about universal educational system across the country, not just in the state of Massachusetts back in the time, but across the country.

There’s three points that he talked about back in the 1830s, and that was going to be public schools, access for everyone. Everyone has to be educated, richer or poor. But keep in mind, too, even birth in the 1830s, education was not for all students. It was just for those that had money that were rich. But then it came along since then and someone said, “Hey, we have to educate everyone. We have to educate Native Americans. We have to educate the black African-American slaves.” I mean, that’s leading up to the 1830s.

The other point that he talked about back then was teacher training, extremely important. And the third point that he focused on was gonna be the standardized curriculum that everyone should be focused on and implementing across the board. The impact of that is kind of brings us to where we are today and the type of education system we have. So Horace Mann was like that foundation grandfather of the system that we have.

But again, I’m gonna talk about, the pendulum is swinging back. Are we still looking at those three points of public school for everyone or school for everyone? And if not, should we have charter? Should we have school choice so we have the voucher system? There’s a lot of debate about that. Teacher trainings. Are we doing enough to train teachers today to deal with, which is the other part of our conversation we had the last time, and that is like the mental health?

The numbers are through the roof right now with teenagers today. Anxiety, depression, suicide, all those mental health, behavioral disorders. And then the third part is the curriculum. Is it standardized? We talked again, you mentioned, Kristin, about every district has a mission and a vision. Every district is different in some sort of way when you look at it and they pride themselves on that. But is being independent, is that is creating the outcasts of what we have in education today that we’re not standardized at all across the state, even the state of Pennsylvania, where we live right now.

Jim, Texas is different than Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is different than Maryland. Maryland is different than California and so on and so forth. But it goes back to that swing again of what are we doing? What’s going to happen? when the bottom falls out, when there’s no more federal department of education?

Funding Issues and District Control

Dr. Kristin Meyer: And we’re here. It’s a reality. And that is the reality. And because there’s so many inconsistencies just from district to district, an interpretation of educational law is interpretation on bias and application on allowability within a district. It is very frustrating as an educator to have to go in and say, why are we fighting over something so simple when we should be supporting the child? And education has lost its child focus.

Dr. Brian Baddic: If I could interrupt you quick on that thought, and here’s the thought to think about. 1790, the state of Pennsylvania, okay? The state constitution in 1790 in Pennsylvania called for education of not just rich children, but poor children. But if you were a poor family and you were a poor student, financial background, your family, you were not expected to pay for anything if it was taxes or whatever. You were to send your children and you were not going to be charged for that. But if you were a rich family in 1799, according to the Pennsylvania State Constitution, you were expected to pay for education.

Now, put that in context today. Here we are 2025. We have the same type of student with financial background than we did back in 1790 when that rolled out in the Pennsylvania State Constitution. Okay? What am I trying to get at? Where school systems are self-funded, you can’t budget and rely on what you’re getting from the state and federal government because you don’t know what you’re gonna get from year to year. Okay? How are we educating students by being self-funded if you’re rich or poor?

Well, I can tell you what’s going on right now, as Kristin can allude and talk more about districts are getting more money based on their special education populations as reimbursement. We’re seeing a reimbursement now in the state of Pennsylvania year for cyber charter education districts. are seeing more this year than they have ever before of reimbursement of the money that they spent on charter.

Okay, those kids, didn’t choose to be, they don’t want to be in their public school. They want to go someplace else. Okay, that’s a problem. It’s a problem that we’re increasing the special education funding, but then it dips down, it drops. We have more increase of student need. And we have a higher population of student identified today in Pennsylvania as special needs, but we’re seeing a spike up and down, up and down. We have peaks and valleys.

Jim, I don’t think it’s any different down in Texas than it is here in Pennsylvania. We’re seeing the same thing with gifted education. Gifted education, we’re seeing an increase in students identified. But the funding is not even here in Pennsylvania. We don’t even fund gifted education in the state of Pennsylvania and any public school system.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: And in the mix of all of this, you have everybody, all the other kids that are also getting lost in this. So it’s not even the urban versus suburban, the rich versus the poor. If you had a great public school in a really nice middle-class world of life and it’s funded and everything, we’re still losing the kids that need help because there’s too many kids, not enough time, not enough teachers, not enough understanding of what our kiddos really need. And I think pumping and pumping for the test and the stress is not necessary.

Good, Bad, and Ugly of Education

Jim Piper Jr: So here’s what I’ve heard so far under the title Good, Bad and Ugly. I’m going to stretch some on the good because I haven’t heard a lot of good.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: There’s great teachers. There are amazing teachers that are so educated and they have so many credentials and degrees and continuing education. Our teachers are amazing.

Jim Piper Jr: So I would say that on good and again, this is a little soft and then I’ll get harder but there seems to be a good number of people involved in the education system that have good intentions. I think that there’s some holy discontent. I think our country is saying something’s not something’s not right. And I don’t see that as bad. I see that as good. I see that as, okay, we’re agitated. And in fact, we’re so agitated that we’re having a hard time articulating what we’re agitated about. A lot of times it gets brought down to my micro situation. And not a lot of big picture thinking which is needed as well.

Kristin, I think you’re amazing how you can go from ground level to 30,000 feet. Brian seems to look at things from 30,000 feet and then have it trickled down. Let me ask you this question. Yes, we have a lot of good, good teachers. That’s to your point of, well, we have great teachers, to my point of, we have a lot of people with good intentions. But some of the bad is they’re not being equipped today the way they needed to be.

We kind of did that to ourselves in some ways, because again, if we go back to our stories, all three of us told stories last time, more personal. One of my stories, though, was my daughter, who basically was told she can’t teach. She has to just literally– She asked me,  how do you teach when there’s no room to see if the kids are thinking? To ask them questions about the curriculum? You know, here’s the book. Here’s the test. That’s it.

I mean, you can’t do anything else. You’re just stuck in that she’s kind of in some ways a mini me. So that just doesn’t work. I want to engage with what’s going on. And granted, you could probably chase too many rabbits, you could be a crazy professor and never get the kids to the trough that you’re trying to get them to. But that wasn’t the case here. It was just so, so rigid. And it was all about Brian’s point, the test. It’s all about the test. It was the test.

There’s something mixed up in the funding. That sounds like it might even not be bad. That might even be ugly. I would do want to ask you guys a question about the funding to educate us a little bit more because Brian, you’ve said that each district is self funded. I think I need more understanding of what you mean by that. And then maybe if you could go to the– I don’t know if you want to go from the ground up or from the top down,  where does this money come from exactly? Who decides it? From what level to what level what level?

Another question I like you to ask, we’re still in the good, bad and ugly discussion is, so what is your view about Trump getting rid of the Department of Education? Do you like that? Do you not like that? Does that create more chaos? Does it remove a king’s agenda that needs to be removed, and therefore it’s good? I don’t know. I’m just not equipped to have an opinion on it. And so in this case, I’d love to hear your logic on, your view on that. And then what else have we missed on good, bad and ugly?

Dr. Brian Baddic: Good, bad, ugly. I think we have to at some point, I mean, we’re raising some pretty tough questions here. I think the good, bad, ugly is going to continue. We’re not going to resolve everything today about our public school system today. But I think in a podcast like this and Jim, I mean, that’s why I feel I just feel honored to be here to be able to talk about it.

I don’t concern myself to be an expert. A lot of my conversations, my share route is based on my research and my experiences of 32 years. I think if you bring anyone that’s an administrator in a public forum like this, I mean, they’re gonna sound off and let you know that there’s problems in the system right now. I’m just bold and just give the platform to talk about it. Because I think we have to have dialogue. We have to have a discussion.

I believe in public education, we need more professionals like leaders to step up and to talk about what they see and what they’re experiencing across the system right now. Again, when I talk about self-funded, what is always at the forefront of a nine member board here in Pennsylvania is going to be budget debt services and bringing those numbers down and getting rid of that so you don’t have to raise your taxes.

Self-funded is about raising your taxes. Your tax base is going to be how we’re districts throughout the state, example, Pennsylvania. We don’t get a whole lot. You’re not always guaranteed to get federal and state funding. You get a projection of something and it’s based on a lot of different formulas and factors. Which to be honest with you, no one can figure out half the time.

Like I can’t tell you how you solve the formula of how you get reimbursed for your district level transportation. No one can figure that and understand that it’s so complicated. The systems are so complicated, how to come up with those numbers. So my funding in public ed as an administrator, a school district, school board, I might get one reimbursement distribution this year, but it might be completely different the following year based on formula and ridership. I’m just using that as an example. It’s so complicated.

The funding system in our country, for public education in my experience from my work that I’ve done is it’s complicated and no one really understands it and there’s no guarantee of anything. Okay?

Jim Piper Jr: That’s the problem.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: It’s a huge problem. I don’t think dismantling the Department of Education is the answer. I think overhauling and cleaning it up needs to happen. And I say that because if you try and take, and we all know I love my special ed. So if we take the special ed population and we put them under Health and Human Services, they don’t know what the funding, health, and human services part of education is. So one doesn’t talk to the other.

It’s a joke in education. When you’re a teacher and your friend or colleague calls out sick, you are then asked to cover their class in high school. I taught high school and when the science teacher was out, Dr. Meyer showed up as a science teacher. Do I know science? No, I didn’t study science other than in college, but I’m a teacher so I obviously can teach the science, right?

So we’re gonna say, “Hey, Health and Human Services Department you haven’t dealt with special ed in 25-30 years. Come on over, take control. You know what you’re doing Absolutely.” No, that’s just nuts. That doesn’t make sense. We need the Department of Education just like you need the Department of Transportation. You need the Department of Food and Safety.

You need to have a hierarchy at the government level that allows some checks and balances and helps us get the funding, get the money we need. But yes, back at the state level, we need more systematic unity. So in Pennsylvania, we all, schools, should be saying, “Here is our collective mission. Here is what we are working on together. Hey, district next door, you’re using this math, we’re using this math.” So it’s transferable skills. I think if we equalize in that way at the state level, if every public school said, we’re gonna do this together, we would be in a much better situation.

In Jordan Peterson’s podcast, he talks about those who choose to pay for private education, they pay twice. You pay once your public school education. and you pay for your private school choice. That is a huge burden for families. Right now, the information Brian and I know, we’re not gonna get to the outcome that we would like in the next five years. So if there’s more option in the short term while they rebuild a broken system, there will be better outcomes.

Jim Piper Jr: What do you think Trump’s logic is? To get rid of the tip of the spear?

Self-Funding and the Role of the Department of Education

Dr. Kristin Meyer: From my perspective, I feel that we, the Department of Education, are the easiest target because we’re the lowest hanging fruit. It is a system that everybody feels is an issue, everybody sees as an issue, and so that is the one he’s going to run over towards while he shakes the other trees and makes even more of a ruckus. But because so many of us, our parents pay taxes, we’re focused on education.

He’s doing other stuff and ringing the education bell to keep the eye on the prize over here but schools close in five weeks. Budgets still aren’t figured out and we’re still trying to fix the problem. He’s not going fix anything. Right now, he got rid of people who might not have been doing their jobs. He may have gotten rid of people who knew a lot of information and were absolutely wonderful and I hope they get their jobs back. But I really think he’s trying to just come after us as educators because he and his party are really looking at it from a business perspective and not the human perspective entirely.

I was meeting with lobbyists the other week and I was saying to them, “Get me in front of some of these guys because they don’t understand what public education is.” God bless the lobbyists and the people who are paid to do these jobs, but they’re not calling Brian. They’re not calling me and they’re not calling the people who are actually boots on the ground. With all due respect to Jordan Peterson and his phenomenal research, he didn’t walk in my shoes, never been bit, never been concussed. I appreciate your research. I do, but I don’t think you actually understand either what the true significance of issue we are at with our general population, not just special ed.

Jim Piper Jr: Brian, respond to that and also include comments about mental health. Let’s go a little deeper on that.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yeah, so I just want to just quickly hit on the Jordan Peterson. I mean, Jordan Peterson, he’s all over media. He’s doing a lot of interviews. Keep in mind that I mean, Jordan Peterson from my again, looking at the historical point of everything, and he was not educated, from my understanding, in an American system. He was educated in the British system.

Jim Piper Jr: That’s correct.

Dr. Brian Baddic: In England, and he did not have and from what I heard from my research, really good experience at it.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: You know what, Brian, I’m gonna apologize. It wasn’t Jordan who said that, it was Dr. DeAngelis who made that comment about schools and things. So his research is what I meant to reference.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yeah, so I think someone like a Jordan Peterson, who is all over media and kibosh and everything about our American education system should be taken with a grain of salt, period. I don’t believe that dismantling the Department of Education is a way to go. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don’t think it’s a good decision. Because keep in mind, again, going back historically the first Department of Education, 1867.

That was President Andrew Johnson created the United States Department of Education. But then in 1868, shut it down and put it on another lower level where it just became like an affiliate for all the states, it kind of lost a little bit of swagger there, but then, actually 1980, May of 1980, 45 years this month, President Carter, 79 and 80 brought it back. Here’s the thing, 45 years from 1980 to 2025. The question is, what has the Department of Education done or has hasn’t done and why does that justify to go and shut it down and put the burden back onto the states?

You know, here’s the thing too. What are the two main, I would say, controversial topics with the Trump administration right now? The number one, it seems, during the election season was abortion. So he turned that around and put the onus back onto the states to let the states make the decision for women’s health. Get the federal government out of it. The second thing is it’s always gonna be education. Education comes up all the time during the political season. Here we go.

So what does he now wanna do that, well, I thought it was a really good recommendation to put abortion back on the states. I’m gonna put education back on the states too. Okay, that’s fine. But then what’s the direction of that? Because there’s a lot of turbulent turmoil with the interpretation of that. I don’t think that’s good. There has to be a little bit of why are we doing this? Like, why do we have a Department of Education today? What have they done over the course of the last 45 years? Here’s the big question. What are they plan to do for the next 45 years and to infinity in our education system? There’s more questions right now than there are answers.

Jim Piper Jr: Yeah, and speak to this. Let’s don’t brush the mental health thing. No one’s trying to but let’s don’t forget. While you’re on a roll Brian, talk to me about the mental health thing. I’m gonna share my thoughts on Trump as well. Which I don’t think are too far from you but I have a what if. Because I think this mental health thing, we’ve got really good books that are coming out now that are talking about some of the things that are contributing to it. It’s no longer a joke about getting your kids off those phones or whatever. It’s not just that that’s one angle, but that certainly seems to be the big one. What do we want to say about the mental health issue and dovetailing it in with education?

Dr. Brian Baddic: Kristin, you want to jump? Then I’ll–

Dr. Kristin Meyer: You know what, I do.

Dr. Brian Baddic: You’re it.

Jim Piper Jr: Shocking.

Mental Health Crisis in Education

Dr. Kristin Meyer: It’s heartbreaking. It is extremely heartbreaking. I started my teaching career in 2009. I was an emotional support teacher. My population was aggressive, angry teens, like what you see in the movies, smoking cigarettes just angry at the world, fight the system. Like, I love it with some learning disabilities and kids weren’t really being diagnosed as emotionally disturbed. Mental health was very in the new.

Fast forward, I mean, my emotional support program went from an angry kid to a severely anxious, depressed, suicidal child. I mean, the community never changed around us. I worked in a phenomenal community, a middle-class, blue collar, Christian, awesome, believed in public education community. Kids walked to school. The community never changed.

What’s happening in the environment? The overprescriptions of Oxy during that time was a huge thing. I lost so many kids to addiction because of the overprescriptions. Wisdom teeth were coming out. Oxy was being handed out like cotton or candy. There was such a drug issue. Then the drug issue kind of fiddled out for our area and then it was the uptick in the mental health. The gender identification piece has become a huge mental health component where I had children that were identifying and transitioning back and forth very fluidly as they were trying to explore who they were and in a safe environment.

But now in our world, everything is so closely monitored that if a child hiccups the wrong way, a parent is freaking out that something’s wrong in the schools at fall. So it’s a collective of what we need to be talking about. We said it in the last time in our conversation, the moral compass, I feel of our world is starting to kind of come back a little, but I think that is also part of what the problem has.

So in the scheme of mental health, how our world has allowed technology to overtake our kids’ brains, Brian, I think you’ve read this book with me, The Anxious Child. It’s a whole generation of children.

Jim Piper Jr: Yes, that’s the one I was thinking about.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: I tell clients, certain clients, I say, “Please don’t read it because you will be scared to death about what is happening because your child is so anxious. So this is how I’m going to coach you and tell you it’s going to be okay. Don’t read the book yet.” If you’re a parent, read the book, but it does create a fear if you don’t understand the topics that they’re talking about.

I think as a society, we have pushed consumerism and technology so much down the throats of our kiddos that the innocence of imagination is also part of a huge educational environment and family piece of life. So we need to bring back family and move away from technology as the parent. Because I, as having an eight-year-old, I don’t let her have technology. If you ask all the tech guys who created Facebook, TikTok, everything, none of their children have technology because of the addiction. Addiction is a true issue in our society. I think that goes right to that mental health piece.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yeah, Jim, you know that the numbers that I got from the national statistics on mental health today going back to like 2018 all the way up to ’23, I mean are just staggering. It’s just through the roof. What’s happening with our young children today especially in public education. The common mental health issues today are going to be anxiety, depression. We’re looking at the press of individuals that are not getting the access to support and the clinicians that they need right now.

As a result of that, it just seems like it’s just compounding itself into more even to the point oh of behavioral disorders and then we’re talking about, then we go to the next level and it’s going to be suicide ideations and suicide. How are we addressing that? What’s the root cause of that? Well, folks like Jordan Peterson and the author of The Anxious Generation talking about technology, talking about getting back to the traditional–

Again, I’m a Jordan Peterson fan. I listen to his stuff. I’m not saying anything that’s negative about him, but he’s got some interesting views that I would consider as maybe we have to consider this as a way to fix some of the problems and concerns we have in public ed, and especially as it relates to the mental health. Technology is not censored. I mean, there’s no parent involvement. You could turn it off on your child’s phone, but you can’t control the content of that.

From my experiences in dealing with mental health and developing programs and public school systems, what’s the root cause? There’s just seem to be more of the technology that’s creating and replacing. You know, we give kids a lot of stuff. Okay? We do. Rather than giving them our guidance. We don’t give enough guidance to kids and to be resilient and make decisions. Kids are being raised off of technology. It’s really impactful.

We talk about AI being here right now and public education is not prepared for that. It’s here. It’s not like it’s coming, it’s here. Right behind that is super AI. That’s what’s coming and we’re not even prepared for the AI that we’re experiencing right now in public school systems.

Jim Piper Jr: It’s like it goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel where we don’t we don’t realize what we can do and worse than that, we don’t know what to do with what we can do and that that creates– Let me let me let me chime in a little bit. Some people that are close to me, as I’ve gotten older, think that maybe I’m a guy who lives in the gray. I don’t know that that’s true. Because I would hope that I’ve become more and more self-aware as I age.

Certainly, it’s truer than most. When I was younger, it was not true. I was pretty black and white about things, and lot of it based upon ignorance and a lack of experience. I wonder, it’s not a statement. I’m wondering, I’m trying to give the president the benefit of the doubt. In leadership philosophy, there is a term called, there’s two terms for how we tend to contribute. One is a responder, and the other is a disruptor. We don’t need to ponder what President Trump is.

When you go back to his TV show, which is extremely provocative, and then you look at how does a country who experienced ah what we’ve experienced a couple of presidencies ago And then all the accusations against Trump, maybe some true, maybe some faults, maybe some in the middle, I mean, will we ever know? Right? Will we ever know? Because it’s, I think anybody who’s objective knows that there’s certainly stuff but to the degree of who knows, right? Who knows?

But he is a disruptor. Why did our country bring him out of the prison, so to speak? You know, Joseph was brought out of prison, because God’s hand was on him gave him the ability to interpret dreams, which of course was very handy for Pharaoh. I don’t think Joseph was anything close to President Trump, I think they had different temperaments, and whatnot, but he made his own mistakes and God, God brought him.

I also think of Solomon who had the two women both claiming that the baby was theirs and and of course, was very disruptive, which was not his temperament. Solomon was not a disruptor. He was a dealmaker. He put together incredible shipping contracts with other countries and territories. So he was just a business brilliant individual. Maybe not the most personally disciplined, but nonetheless, super high IQ when it came to things like that.

Trump and Disruption in Education

I sometimes wonder if his temperament and his style, he’s brought down his style. I think we’ve all noticed that, right? Because I think even Trump supporters would say I wish he would stop calling people names. I know I know I voted for Trump the first time. I was always embarrassed in the sense that I’m identifying with him, but I’ve never been a much of a name caller. It just to me was a bully thing, I didn’t like it. And I think somebody finally got to him to where he’s been working on that.

But I sometimes wonder if his tactic is I think Brian said it pretty well, brought that back to the state brought that back to the state. Okay, I didn’t think about that. I didn’t think about that. That’s a good point. My other thought is that he doesn’t like getting into the weeds. A lot of people think he knows more than he knows. He’s no dummy. But he’s very 30,000 feet. He’s very empowering. But as his TV show would show you, you either perform or you don’t perform and he agitates. So he’s looking for somebody who can come up with a solution. It’s a theory that that–

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Yeah, but is that so wrong at this point and where we are?

Jim Piper Jr: I think basically the country is, even if it’s 51 to 49 or 50.5 to 49.5, whatever it is. The point is, the way our system works, we have empowered him to– It’s almost like we’ve grabbed him by the collar and said, “Somebody do something,” which I think is interesting, because I think that’s his style. I think his style is to grab you by the collar and say do something.

Dr. Brian Baddic: He’s a disruptor, Jim, and he’s disrupting the country, the world right now. Amazing.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: I have to say, Jim, it’s funny. When Brian and I go to some of these conferences for education, we are unique in our perspectives for sure, because depending on where you are in education, you do end up losing your child focus. I feel that what Trump is doing is making everybody so uncomfortable that when we go to these things, everyone’s like, “What’s he gonna do?” And we’re trying to figure it out.

Well, from my perspective, honestly, my world has not stopped turning. Nothing’s changed. Nothing has changed. We’re still doing our jobs. He hasn’t really said nothing outside of the discussions and outside of the 1,300 people that were laid off, which was, it’s a terrible thing. Nobody should lose their job just because, right? But what he’s doing is rattling all these cages and nobody has an answer and people are frozen in time and they’re not doing the, “Well, we can’t decide because we don’t know.”

Well, I’m sorry, the world is still turning. Make a decision. You still have the money in your budget. Make the decision. So I think what he’s doing is really rattling enough to see who will fall off and walk away and find a new career or find something else to do. I don’t think that’s terrible. I like being a disruptor, obviously. So I’m not uncomfortable by what he’s doing. I like these conversations that are happening. It makes me nervous a little bit, but at the end of the day, there’s so many things that need to happen before what this, that could even happen.

Jim Piper Jr: I played golf with a Secret Service agent who had two tours with presidents. He couldn’t talk about that stuff. But I did finally have enough boldness to say, “So are you blue or red?” You know, just kind of wondering. And he said once you’ve been in my place, it’s very difficult to be blue or red, because nobody realized how big this machine is. This machine is so big that we almost have a flippant, it almost doesn’t matter. We don’t want to believe that, but you do kind of wonder about that.

So I do think that even our conversation gives people permission to have conversations. So here’s what I want to do next. I know we got to bring this to a conclusion and I think we can. Here’s my pitch. We can call it a pitch because we’re a team now. We got to figure this out. So this may not be our last episode. All right.

Dr. Brian Baddic: We’re gonna keep the band together, Jim, right?

Dr. Kristin Meyer: I’m fine with it, Jim. It’s fun. It’s awesome conversation.

Jim Piper Jr: Well, yeah, because you know, if you think about it, what Brian said, all right, so he pushed it back to the states, but you and I know that if we’re going to continue to be the United States, that that’s not going to work. Because all we’re really doing right now is we’re creating red states and blue states. And then inside blue states, there’s red pockets and inside red states, there’s blue pockets. You know, it’s not going to work out.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: You know what, Jim, it can. I say this because I grew up in Pennsylvania. I went to school in the heart of South Carolina and I really learned about Southern history. But I learned that the state of South Carolina had such great pride and their people were such great people that it didn’t matter that I have a Northern education and they had a Southern education and who actually won. That’s for a different discussion.

But the point is they have the control and this was 20 plus years ago. They had full control. Their communities were flourishing. Our communities were flourishing. To say that racism was non-existent would be a lie. But I will tell you it was so much more color fluidy acceptance of humanity that we should go back to allowing the state’s control because it also offered cultural relevance to human beings and where they’re from and how they identify and the historical context.

Rediscovering the Purpose of Education and Next Steps

Jim Piper Jr: Well, if we go with your theory and experience, it would also, this is a controversial statement itself because we because it came out in our first episode is that it does create more competition. Competition isn’t bad. Alright, so let me throw this out. So if we go to the top of the triangle, and I’m just going to be, I’m just gonna lead hard on this one. I think Brian nailed it in my own opinion.

Top of the division would be something like we’ve got to rediscover our purpose. Now that’s that’s sound simple. I know it’s not. Because it can’t just be from the top down, there has to be some collaboration that involves the top the middle and the bottom. And that’s gonna take a lot of work to do that. It’s got to be stated in a more complicated or not complicated, in a more exhaustive way.

But if there was a purpose, a clear purpose, whether that can be stated in one sentence, that’s always my preference. It might be a paragraph, but if it’s if it’s a sentence. Then the exhaustion can come from the different interpretations of what that might mean and making sure that it tries to encompass everything that it can encompass without becoming a strategic plan, because those two things are different.

Then let me say this to you. So this is how we close the podcast. I’m only going to give you three you guys, you guys are your own committee, because I’m not qualified. Now, I know this is somewhat unfair, because we don’t know what the purpose is. But I think we do. I think we know what the purpose is. So you just go with what you think the purpose should be. What are the three initiatives or steps that we should take?

It doesn’t have to be holistic. It doesn’t have to be as I’ve already overused the word, but it doesn’t have to be exhaustive. But whether you take a five-year approach or 10-year approach or 50-year approach, are they initiatives? Are they areas? Are they steps? But you only get three What do we do now? The purpose has been reestablished. We’ve got 60% alignment, which in America, that’s a landslide and now we’re moving forward. What are the three things that we’re focusing on?

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Honestly, again, for my mission with special education, I believe in inclusion to a full extent. However, I feel that at this point in time, we need more funding separated out and free school choice for children with disabilities to have access and more opportunities for schools to be created to support this population. As much as I want diversification and children to be all together, I do think we need to start creating opportunities and avenues for each identifiable trajectory of life for our kids.

So when we assess all children in their primary years, they are provided the opportunity to follow an educational pathway that meets their needs. Just like for a child with a disability where we craft a document that outlines their educational trajectory based off of their ability and need, we do that for every child.

Jim Piper Jr: So one so one can one item that you’re throwing in the pot to be a candidate for one of the three is again, I’m going to come from more of a business perspective. It’s really crafting an understanding of who our customer is, who we’re trying to serve from the perspective that rat in 2025 and what may be coming in the future.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Well, you going back to being today’s podcast historian, you know, Jim, we should not and we can’t erase the history, the historical point of, let’s say education, public education from way back then to where we are right now. We have to learn from the past, consider the present, and we need to understand and know where we want to go with the future of public education in this great country, this great nation of ours.

I don’t believe that we have. We’re struggling. We’re looking for quick, easy solutions. There’s quick solutions. There’s easy solutions. But there’s no quick, easy solution that’s going to fix the problem today in public education. The focus on exactly what that is the whole purpose and responsibility that Kristin has as an advocate and for me as a public school educator and leader. We need more conversations as we’re having it now. And I’m hoping that somehow this just becomes like a grassroot movement here that we can get more folks that are involved in public education and start speaking their mind a little bit more.

Here’s the thing, I’m a Trump supporter. I voted for the guy last time and this time. In public education, if you mention that, you’re banished, you’re blackballed. Also, as I said before in our first podcast together, I identify as a Christian in the workplace. Again, I bring that up, I’m going to be blackballed. When I look at Kristin today and she has the spring colors on and I’m specifically noticing that she has the crucifix on her neck today. Just a reminder, within the last three years that any public school educator administrator is now permitted to wear and be adorned by any religious item. You just brought that back. So we have a lot–

Jim Piper Jr: Common sense.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Go ahead, Jim.

Jim Piper Jr: Common sense.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Yeah, we have a long way to go. But I think my point is going to be, the three points is going to be know where we came from, where are we currently right now, and where do we want to go? And then how do we get there? What’s it going to take? President Trump is a disruptor. I get it, and it’s good and bad, and it has good and bad intention. But we, you, Kristin and myself, we have to be disruptors in a way to information via a platform and get some conversations going.

I’m hoping that there’s public educators out there that are listening, that are involved in your podcasts and they have to start going to their bases, their base and start being disruptors too. If not, what is it going to be like? We’re number one here, but we’re 40th plus here with our public schools. We have an epidemic, a pandemic going on with not just student mental health, but with parents and with those that work in the field today.

I could tell you that two out of those three, is no help for them, meaning the families, the parents, and the educators that are in the system right now. We’re not meeting the needs in terms of support mental health, in terms of that aspect. We do for students. So I’m looking at those three points.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Piggy backing on that. Look at it, if a school was a hospital and all of the patients are always sick and the medical staff is always working and everybody’s still always getting sick, well, what do we do with the hospital? We bring in new administration. We figure out why is this happening?

So I think what President Trump is doing is giving us the opportunity to take advantage of what COVID created. That gave us insight into what education looks like. And now more people have eyes and those who have been really just working are now having to explain how things work and justify why we get new curriculum every two years for this amount of money because of, as we continually talk about in these, the monopolies of the businesses that push education.

Brian D. Baddic: And just like what Jordan Peterson said, I agree with them. We are in charge of our own destiny. We’re in charge of our own destiny. And that is as a state, it’s as a country, but we have to come together to realize or know what is the why behind what is our destiny? Ask the question, what is your why? Why do we have public education? Why do we want to make all these radical changes? What really is our final outcome with educating our young adult Americans today in our country? What’s the why behind our public ed? And how do we fix the problems?

Let’s fix the problems of the problems occur. That is in public education, not at the ballot box and maybe not in the lunchroom or in wherever, at the cooler. We have to fix the problem right now. Because in 45 years, I go back to, what has the Department of Education done? I mean, again, I’m not taking a shot or throwing it under, but tell us, show us besides the funding and creating standardized tests and the equity and equality.

Jim Piper Jr: Well, if the two of you can’t answer that question, that tells me all I need to know. So in summary, covering the good, the bad and the ugly, maybe not exhaustively, but pretty heavily, realizing that we’ve lost our way. And so finding our way back on our way forward, we could say the vision is to rediscover our purpose. And then you know, the things that you’ve mentioned that might be the starting places is remember who our customers are. That would also include teachers, not just students, because you both have mentioned the training there involves so many things, like the mental health and, as we said, reading, writing, science, these kinds of things.

I think that’s really why is Brian sharing also this kind of Renaissance where there’s so much richness. When you sent me the document summarizing your research about education in general from pretty much the beginning, as I was just scrolling through it, I’m going, “I’m dumber than a brick. This is amazing. This history here and should really appreciate this history there.” That always helps. I mean, do even kids know what the stars on the on the flag? I have one hanging on my wall over here. Do they even know what the stripes mean? Brian, you kind of let you know, explain those three processes.

The other thing that I think would be a result of and maybe doesn’t really fit in the first three steps. But if we did all these things well, and then we would take what resources we have, and put them to the concentrated use of this clear mission, and these initiatives, and we may not have enough, but we might, because we really haven’t gone through this process of really turning over every rock, and finding out what is this going to? What is that going to? What could it be repurposed for?

You know, repurposing has become a big deal in home decor and construction and all of that. Maybe there needs to be some repurposing and a lot of our systems and what we do, whether we’re talking about the church, we’re talking about the education system, we’re talking about whatever. I have been encouraged by your input today and how both of you in earning your stripes not just through earning your doctorates. But the I mean, you’re both in it. And I honor you both very much. And yeah, I can’t see this being our last.

What we’re going to be doing behind the scenes now is we’re going to be saying, “All right, where do we need to market this conversation to and get it to and then see what kind of life it takes on.” And hopefully we’ll continue to open the discussion up further because I mean, there’s still so much that we can talk about. And that’s what I’m learning. I’m going, “Whew, I’m exhausted. I need to go to Hawaii for a week just to recover.”

Dr. Brian Baddic: You know, Jim, it’s like the Yellowstone series. We can’t just do it in one episode in one season here. We’re going to have to–

Jim Piper Jr: That is so true. That is so true. If you guys are game, this will be part of our contribution to what’s going on. Bless you guys. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you for the sacrifice that you are making to get on with your thoughts, your hearts, your willingness to tell the truth from what you see and your experience and what you’ve learned. Appreciate it.

Dr. Brian Baddic: Thank you, Jim. God bless you, too. Kristin, God bless you. Take care. We’ll catch up.

Dr. Kristin Meyer: Thanks, everyone.

Outro

Winston Harris: Thank you for joining us here at The Today Count Show. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen to or watch, so you don’t miss any content. Stay tuned for more coming soon.
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