Susan Pendergrass (00:11)
This is really a treat this morning. We're going to talk to somebody. So certain extent about all the stuff that's been going on since the 1st of January in and around DC. But I just want to sort of start the set the stage. I think I think you've been on the podcast before checkers that right? And so we're going to be talking to checker Finn of the Fordham Institute of the Hoover Institute of all the different places. and and I just want to sort of.

Let listeners know how much expertise you bring to this because you have worked for presidents. You have been at the Department of Education. You've worked for senators. You've run education policy organizations. You've been a professor of education policy. are you've been at the Department of Education. You're coming at education policy from such a place of expertise. And right now I feel like there's a lot of misinformation and panic happening. And I'm hearing from folks like Title One's being cut.

Department of Education's being closed, the school lunch program's being eliminated, Head Start's being eliminated, and now we can't have Black History Month or Ruby Bridges Day or Celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year. And you had a great article recently in the Fordham Institute, Gadfly, is that right? And it sounded very sane and reasonable. So what I wanna do is just kind of turn this over to you and I just wanna...

Checker Finn (01:29)
That's right.

Susan Pendergrass (01:37)
ask you how are you feeling about everything that's going on at the federal level in public education?

Checker Finn (01:42)
Whoa, well, first of all, thank you for the generous introduction. And in 80 years, you punch your ticket at a lot of different stops on the bus. And so yeah, I've done those things. And I'm still doing some of them and still liking it still finding it important to do. I mean, the big context is that last week we got even more evidence than we had before that American kids don't know very much.

that their reading and math scores are really weak, that the low achievers are getting lower, the high achievers are sort of holding steady at too low a level, and that we've got an educational sort of catastrophe, I don't think it's too strong a word, in this country that isn't all that different from when we were told we were a nation at risk back in 1983.

And we haven't solved the problem and it got worse under COVID and we haven't solved that problem either. We haven't even come back to the low level we were at before COVID. so for me, that's the important context is there's an education problem that needs to be solved. And, the good news sort of is that the federal government doesn't have all that much to do with it. This is mostly a state and local and school and teacher and parent thing.

The federal share of the K-12 school dollar is about 10 cents. It goes up and down between about nine and 11, depending on appropriations, but it's never the dominant share. The dominant share is always state and local. So what goes on in Washington, I sometimes say the feds are responsible for 10 % of the money and 20 % of the regulations because they do...

have a lot of strings attached to the 10%. And there are other things that the feds do like civil rights enforcement, which are not specifically tied to money. And then there are other things they do like research and statistics where the money isn't the point, because they're not very expensive, but the federal role is significant. So it gets complicated. But nevertheless, mostly solving the education problem that we're in as a country,

is a state and local responsibility. Having said that, it helps quite a lot when the leaders in Washington at least point us in a good direction, use the bully pulpit correctly, underscore the problems, open our eyes to opportunities. They do play a role that is maybe larger than the money and regulations role.

In that regard, we've been in trouble for a while. We have four consecutive presidents, two Bush's, one Obama, one Clinton, for whom education reform was a big deal and who talked about the problem and about possible solutions to it all the time. After four of those presidents, we've had now two in a row going on three that as far as I know have never uttered the phrase educational achievement.

out of the mouth of either Trump or Biden. So this part's bipartisan. The neglect of this problem is bipartisan. So we don't have leadership on this problem coming out of Washington. And we didn't have it in the previous Trump or Biden administrations either. So start there. On top of that, the new Trump administration is making big waves and big noise.

I in education as it is in just about everything and that's causing paranoia such as you were describing I and it's causing rumors and it's causing disruptions and it's not helping I it's definitely not helping okay that's that's I can go into more detail but that's

Susan Pendergrass (05:43)
I mean, like what I really like about what you wrote recently is that there's an attempt to both minimize the federal role in education and weaponize the federal role in education. And it's kind of hard to do both at the same time. And it's the weaponization part that catches my eye because having also worked at the Department of Education, I don't really think the federal government can do a lot of the things that are in some of those executive orders in terms of you have to teach this and you can't teach this. And I've never...

been aware, and you know more than I do, of them withholding Title I funds for any violation of anything, including no child left behind, any of it. So this threat, we're going to withhold Title I money if you do this or don't do that. I mean, is that really a real threat?

Checker Finn (06:27)
Well, we may see. mean, the schizophrenia as to whether we're minimizing or maximizing the federal role is for real. The Trump team is split on this. There are people on the Trump team that want to get the federal government out of education. And there are people on the Trump team that want the federal government to tell schools what to teach. And they haven't decided themselves, honestly. I mean, there's a very strong rumor around that

if and when Linda McMahon gets confirmed to Secretary of Ed, that her very first instructions from the White House are going to be to come up with a plan to abolish your department. So we'll have an executive order that says abolish your department on the heels of an executive order that says weaponize your department. I mean, honestly, no wonder people are confused.

Susan Pendergrass (07:20)
I mean the federal government cannot and as you point out rightly so cannot have exerted influence over what is taught in a classroom.

Checker Finn (07:30)
If the law is followed, presumably it will eventually be followed or else amended. mean, Congress can amend it. But for as long as I've been old, there's been a law that says the federal government cannot exert any control over what's taught in schools. And it's really on the statute books has been forever. so yeah, I'm not sure the White House people even know about that law, honest to God.

There's a lot of laws. Congress could amend the law and if we have a dutiful Congress that bends to the will of the Trump White House, maybe they would amend that law to remove the prohibition that says federal government should have nothing to do with what's taught in schools. But as long as that law is there, I guess we assume it will eventually get enforced and that weaponization efforts would probably be kicked out by a court somewhere.

Like a couple of things have already been kicked out by courts that Trump has already done, like the freeze on spending. The overall multi-department freeze on spending. The fact that they think they should be telling schools what to teach and what not to teach is worrying to start with. Why do they think that's their job? Why do they think that's their job? I mean, I understand that a lot of things

that are taught in schools I'm not very happy with either. And a lot of things that don't get taught in school I'm not very happy, don't get taught in school I'm not very happy about either. But the president of United States could give a speech. mean, Bill Clinton used to do that saying, here's what I think you should teach in school. Okay. Bill Bennett, when I worked at the department of education published books saying, here's the curriculum I wish you would use. Those are good books. They were good advice. They were good stuff.

But no effort was made to make anybody do it.

Susan Pendergrass (09:29)
Right. What about OK, so you alluded to this, but last week we found out that like a troubling percentage of our fourth graders cannot read, essentially. I want to say about 40 percent are below the basic level. The basic level is nothing to write home about. And they didn't get there. Can't read the vocabulary.

Checker Finn (09:50)
Below basic is close to saying illiterate.

Susan Pendergrass (09:54)
Yeah, and if they're not reading in fourth grade, their prospects are dim. What could they be doing? What could the Department of Education, how could they be influencing that situation?

Checker Finn (10:06)
Well, the one thing we know the most about in all of American education is how to teach little kids to read. It's called reading science. We've it's it's been pretty widely understood for about 40 years. There's a lot of research undergirding it. We're not nearly as well off, I should say, in math or science or any other subject, but in reading, great majority of kids can be taught to read by teachers that follow reading science, which includes phonics, but it doesn't stop there.

And yet we know that a lot of teachers don't know how to do that. We know that a lot of schools are not doing that. We know that a lot of curricula that are in use in schools in the early grades don't do that. The federal government with bully pulpit, with money, possibly with withholding threats, but

more likely accountability when we make the states test their kids starting in third grade, how those reading scores looking and if they're not satisfactory in third grade, what should you, the state, be doing to the schools where they're not satisfactory? Right. I it's more than that because the teacher training is involved, but the federal government has some influence on that too. The federal government approves the groups that accredit

the teacher education programs. Okay, those are college stuff, but you shouldn't get your program accredited for teaching elementary teachers if it doesn't include reading science. Now is that weaponization? Maybe. Let's call it small arms, not AK-47s. It'd be worth doing.

Susan Pendergrass (11:57)
Yeah. And what about this prospect of the Department of Education being disbanded? Does that impact that? mean, you probably remember when it was created, right? do. It hasn't been around forever. You worked under Bill Bennett. So do you think that that's a negative or a positive?

Checker Finn (12:16)
It's mostly a red herring. And the reason is that before there was a Department of Education, there was something called the Department of Health, Education and Welfare known as HEW. When they created the Department of Education, they mostly took the programs that had been the E in HEW and moved them into a new department with the E. if they took away the E from the door,

The programs would still be there unless Congress abolishes the programs, Title I, Special Ed, a whole variety of specific programs, dozens of them actually, each of which has its own legislative basis and its own appropriation. You can take the letterhead off the door, so it no longer says Department of Ed, but unless you either stop funding those programs or rewrite the law so that they don't exist any longer,

The programs are still there. They'll have to go somewhere else in the government. They might go back into HEW. So a lot of the talk about abolishing the department is symbolic. It's not completely symbolic. If you did away with the department, you would no longer have a secretary of education. So that bully pulpit would go away. All right. That might make a difference. Not that the last secretary of education ever used it for anything.

Susan Pendergrass (13:40)
Well, many people can't name the last Secretary of Education. I mean, people are concerned about the upcoming Secretary of Education. I'm like, can you name Secretary Cordoba? I mean, a lot of people can't point to one thing that he did or didn't do. But it concerns me because in addition to the latest round of scores for children, we know from international assessments that our adults aren't really literate or numerate anymore. There's an adult test, PIAAC. The results are not good.

And we know that the United States as a country is losing ground to the rest of the world in terms of our academic skills, our literacy and numeracy skills. And anyone who's gone to a store and needed to get changed will know that standards have gone down. There's fewer skills out there in our recent high school and college graduates. And I feel like we're arguing over these sort of separate issues.

When the fact of the matter is the house is kind of on fire and we're sort of talking about the landscaping out here. And I think it's drawing attention away from the fact that we have a declining enrollment in this country, which means we, I think we just had our biggest high school graduating class and they did worse. So we're going to have fewer capable workers going forward and we're not, we're not really focused on that. And that's, guess what concerns me and all this back and forth about who can teach what is like.

We need to be teaching reading and math. That's what we need to be doing.

Checker Finn (15:08)
agree, civics and history and science and a few other basic things. Everything you've just said is absolutely correct. We've known about this problem for a long time. The international data do exactly what you said. They demonstrate that in international comparisons, we're not looking very good either. A lot of countries are getting better. And we are typically flat or down on those tests, which means you're losing your competitive edge.

At the same time, we're arguing about whether our immigration laws should allow highly educated, highly talented people to enter the United States to take jobs. And if you aren't producing skilled workforce and you're not letting other people come and become part of your skilled workforce, what happens to your economy in the long run? It's not pretty.

Susan Pendergrass (15:59)
Yeah. So if you were Secretary of Education, what would you do?

Checker Finn (16:05)
Um, I would, well, I, I, carefully use the bully pulpit to help Americans, educators and lay people and politicians alike understand the problem first and build some fire under the need to solve the problem. And then I would probably pull the governors together together again, like George HW Bush did in Charlottesville about 35 years ago.

Susan Pendergrass (16:05)
Science of Reading.

Checker Finn (16:33)
and say, can we work together on solving this problem? Because we can't do it entirely from Washington. And the governors right now, a few of them are motivated education reformers, but not nearly enough right now. So I try to leverage, and the business community, which used to take very seriously the education problem, I mean, there used to be really valuable convenings by the large business organizations.

and some important CEOs, the longtime head of IBM would pull executives and governors and presidents together to brainstorm together. That hasn't happened in a long time. I mean, what is Mark Zuckerberg doing instead of convening, inviting people to a lovely place to brainstorm about this problem? What is Bill Gates doing? Well, he's doing a little more, but not much more. They could do this.

Elon Musk, instead of dismantling things, could use some of his money to convene people. Yeah. So I do those things. And then I'd look at the regs and the rules that go with the spending programs and say, are there ways we could tweak these to put, for example, science of reading and greater emphasis in teacher training in the ways in which the feds do underwrite curriculum and indirectly in a lot of places.

And then the accountability thing I mentioned earlier, there is already a requirement, federal law says states must test their kids in reading and math every year in grades three through eight. And they're supposed to do something about the schools where those scores suck. Well, what are they doing about it? Should we investigate what's happening to elementary schools where the third and fourth graders can't read?

There things you could do to solve the real problem. But if you're going to distract people over who goes to which bathrooms, they're not going to get readings straight either.

Susan Pendergrass (18:44)
Yeah, well, and as you know, and you pointed out, we are moving towards a system where more people across more of the economic spectrum are allowed to choose where their kids go to school rather than be assigned, which I think is a very big positive. Getting to pick where your kid goes to school no longer depends on having be middle class or higher. In Title I, Part A, funding streams, I've written about it. think they're

a disaster personally. I think there are Byzantine formulas that no one gets and they don't often help poor kids. Well, we haven't reduced achievement gaps. IDEA too. I mean, I think if more of that money were attached to a child with a particular set of conditions, I know that that's a big lift. Title I has been in place for 60 years, but it wouldn't be a terrible idea for the federal government to start reconsidering some of those really tricky formulas.

Checker Finn (19:38)
Well, the two biggest programs with the most money in them, which you just mentioned, Title I and the special ed assistance, are incompatible with school choice. States can create their own charter school and voucher type programs and education savings account. And the state money can go with the kids. And sometimes the local money can go with the kids. The federal money almost never can go with the kids.

So it gets in the way actually of an effective school choice program. So yeah, that would require a heavy lift, indeed, a major overhaul of long established formula driven programs. And there'd be pushback, of course, from the school establishment that's accustomed to getting those money by formula. But it ought to go out by kid rather than by formula. And it doesn't. So yeah, that would be totally worth doing.

it would be a much bigger boost to school choice in America than an executive order saying, please do more school choice, which is what came out the other day.

Susan Pendergrass (20:43)
Yes, I agree. I agree. That's another to me thing that they can't really do a lot about. They're asking state legislators to please do it, but there's not a lot you can do at the federal level, maybe a tax credit. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the next decade or so in public education?

Checker Finn (21:03)
Well, I can't say I'm optimistic given either the current state of affairs nor the lack of leadership to solve the major problems. And if we're in a low point and we don't have anybody pulling us toward a higher point, then it's hard to be optimistic, honestly. The choice marketplace is thriving in much of the country, not all of it. The choice, and that's good.

And it lubricates the system. It gives parents more control. That's good, but it's not sufficient to ensure that the kids are learning. there are a bunch of places where that isn't happening, usually places in total thrall to the teachers unions that are pushing back both against school choice and also against higher standards and accountability for results. They're doing away with state testing programs in important states because the teachers union doesn't like the accountability.

So, the whole country, you cannot say that the whole country is benefiting from these choice options today. And that's a problem, but it's good as far as it goes where it's going and it's spreading. I'm all for that. But the decline in standards, the decline in results-based accountability for schools and kids and teachers is not gonna make me optimistic and...

Schizophrenia at the White House is not gonna help.

Susan Pendergrass (22:34)
Well, I work in Missouri and we have 520 school districts and 514 are fully accredited. So we have an accountability system that is in the system. Everyone got an A and there's no appetite for changing it. There's no appetite for letter grades or an accountability system where maybe there's a curve, nothing. St. Louis Public Schools currently is in a free fall with financial shenanigans.

dismal test scores, declining enrollment, it's fully accredited as a district, which baffles me. But I think the appetite for the strong accountability systems, least the ones I, in many cases has gone down, which I think is unfortunate. But I also have been around this space for a long time. And the one thing that makes me somewhat optimistic or not pessimistic is that I've seen these come and go. I mean, I've seen whole language came and went, right? And, and,

No Child Left Behind, I was around for that, and the Common Core of Data, which didn't end the world. And these things come and go, and there'll be something on the heels of it. And I don't think the Department of Education is probably going to be disbanded, but if it is, like you said, the programs will remain. I don't, you know, I think, but seeing all of these administrations come and go gives me hope that this is going to be okay too. But it's more upheaval than what I've been accustomed to.

Checker Finn (24:02)
Well, too shall pass someday, but we've got kids going to school who aren't learning. We've also got kids not going to school. haven't even, you and I haven't even talked about

Susan Pendergrass (24:12)
That's

right, the chronic absenteeism.

Checker Finn (24:14)
And kids who don't go to school, which is a lot of kids now, aren't going to learn very much. So that's yet another sort of challenge to the current system that nobody, again, at the leadership level is doing anything at all about.

Susan Pendergrass (24:31)
That's right. Disconnected youth. I don't think we've even begun to feel the weight of that problem. I guess the one good news is that people in the research community will be able to work forever now. Most of new problems, but I appreciate you coming and giving your perspective. I always think it's fascinating. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens in the future. I think there's a lot of good opportunities and lot of good things going on in the state legislatures.

I would love if you would come back and talk to me again about it. Checker, I always appreciate the conversation.

Checker Finn (25:07)
Nice to see you, Susan, and it's a pleasure to be with you. yes, let's resume one day and see if we can cheer each other up a little more then.

Susan Pendergrass (25:15)
think so. Okay, good. Thank you.

Checker Finn (25:17)
All the best. Bye bye.