Militarism, Baudrillard, Video Game Design, and the College Board

Speaker 1 Hello, and welcome to episode 98 of our podcast at Human Restoration Project. My name is Chris McNutt, and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio. And I'm joined by Nick Covington, a social studies instructor from Iowa. Before we get started, I want to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Sally Orm, Dan Kearney, and Efraim Hussein. Thank you for your ongoing support. You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. In this podcast, we decided to experiment a bit with our programming. To be honest, right now, there's a ton of burnout in the education world from the pandemic to ongoing struggles of teacher power and support and the culture war once again resurfacing in the classroom. As educators by day and and nonprofit workers by night, we totally get that struggle. Therefore, we are putting a slight pause on our typical interview format to try out something new. That frees us up from the workload of scheduling, researching, and working with guests, and it opens up the door for us to produce more casual content. If you like the guest stuff, don't worry. We'll come back to that in early December. But if you like the new stuff, please let us know. Before I dive into the format for this, Nick, any thoughts for what we're about to do?

Speaker 2 No. I'm I'm excited for this because it's just it's kind of a take on what we're already doing. We're always reading. We're always looking for new things. This just kinda gives us a new clever, creative, fun way to be able to talk about that in a really informal way. So I'm hoping listeners, you know, if you if you like this, let us know on the Twitter account. And we'll talk too about I think we want to have the last segment of this, if this is ongoing, be more of a question and answer section too. Mhmm. So if you want to send us just anything that you want Chris and I to talk about, ed pedagogy, ed policy, or completely unrelated things, we'll kind of take those requests at the end as well. But I'm excited to do this, Chris.

Speaker 1 There it is. And we have this amazing soundboard. Oh, That's that's pretty good. Alright. So in the that was the transition sound. In this podcast, we're gonna go through four things. First, we're just gonna give an update on what we're doing in HRP, a brief update. Two, Nick and I have brought some articles that we're currently reading that we thought were interesting, that we're gonna talk about. Next, we're gonna talk about what we're doing in our classroom, some interesting things. Then finally, a pop quiz to see who exits this podcast alive or something like that. I don't know. I couldn't know what to write there, but I wrote something.

Speaker 2 Let's first start start, by talking about an update. What's going on at HRP, Nick? Man, what isn't going on? It's been a pretty awesome couple of days, to be honest with you. Friday morning, I had a I had a meeting with a group out of Krakow, Poland called the holistic think tank. And, yeah, we're kind of looking forward to seeing how our work can complement each other and, and, yeah, kinda build a partnership going forward. There's not a there's not a whole lot of other information we have on that right now other than that contact has kinda been made. I have some really, what, serendipitous contacts to Poland. I studied there, for a semester way back in 2008, and I've kept in touch with, with a professor at the Jagdalonian University there ever since. I mean, we we've talked about life events and everything else for the last ten years post graduation. And it turns out she actually knows one of the lead researchers at the holistic think tank. So she was the first person that I reached out to. We got a meeting set up, and we were able to talk on Friday. So just one of those crazy things that was over a decade in the making, but could be really exciting for us. Yeah. And as a reminder, if you know any grant opportunities, HRP is a nonprofit. We're always looking for folks that could help us out. That is one of our primary goals this year.

Speaker 1 And if you're wondering like, hey, HRP, what are you doing after the learning loss handbook? To be revealed very soon. We're putting together a bunch of folks, a bunch of different ideas together. It hasn't been board approved yet, so I don't wanna share it. But there is a big major announcement on the horizon. So look out for that. There is work being done. Somebody somebody on the bus. Some could take the soundboard away. No no one's gonna these are all gonna get cut. That sounds horrible. They're they're terrible. I can't find a good a good one. Like, they're all, like, zero star here.

Speaker 2 You're reading a magazine, you come across a full page nude photo of it. Alright. Let's do that. Let's turn Blade Runner. I know. Alright. Well, anyways, so let's do some little brief update.

Speaker 1 That's just a little brief update about what's going on at HRP. Yeah.

Speaker 2 More to be said. So let's move into section two, Nick. Article share outs. What's something you're reading? What interests you? Yeah. Okay. So this one, I don't want this to be like a downer, but it is it's like super serious. It'll be a definite tonal change, but it's actually Joel Westheimer's pledging allegiance to politics of patriotism in America's schools. And what's really nice about that is it's kind of an anthology. It just has over a dozen kind of small chapters, each one from a different author. But almost anybody, if you've been involved in education or you teach the social studies or anything like that, you'll you'll recognize some of the names. I mean, the foreword is by Howard Zinn. It has excerpts from Studs Terkel in there. It has a chapter from James w Lowen. It's got Deborah Meyer. Gloria Ladson Billings is in there. Diana Hess. I mean, I I could literally just read the the read off the back, and you would know a dozen of the people that are in there. So what I think has been really interesting about this read is how it kind of maps onto our current conversations about this issue of patriotism, except this book was written in 2007. So I'm kind of transported back to, you know, my own experiences then of of post 09/11 in high school, you know, the ramp up in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, my experience in in college as well when when this book would have come out in 2007. And so it's just been a really interesting read kind of from that historiographical lens about what does it say about the context in which it was written, less so about the the content that everybody's writing about, but how they're hammering those same points about how the Patriot Act, say, required schools to be the host for military recruiters in schools. And I I guess I hadn't realized that. I'll I'll pull up a couple of sections here and just quote them if that's cool. Sure. Yeah. Just because it it maps so perfectly onto the conversations we're having now. But the conversations in 2020 and 2021 have been about these divisive concepts, so called critical race theory. Don't even get me started on that. But then every every sort of culture war conflict that you were leading in with, that's mapped onto this. But then I think, okay. What were those culture war conflicts twenty years ago? I mean, we just, this year, last month, celebrated celebrated, commemorated the twentieth anniversary of nine eleven. We ended a twenty year war in Afghanistan, the longest in American history. And so it's just, you know, what's that saying? History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. And I'm picking up a lot of the rhyming scheme in this book. But you hear about teachers who are getting it under the under the gun, getting fired, getting in trouble for teaching certain essays. You know, that that dude that taught Ta Nehisi Coates and and was fired for maybe maybe putting up some resistance to changing that as in his curriculum. But but but hear this from from Joel Westheimer. He says, in New Mexico, five teachers were recently suspended or disciplined for promoting discussion among students about the Iraq war and for expressing among a range of views anti war sentiments. One teacher refused to remove art posters created by students that reflected their views on the war and was suspended without pay. Alan Cooper, a teacher from Albuquerque, was suspended for refusing to remove student design posters that his principal labeled not sufficiently pro war. Two other teachers, Rio Rio Grande High School's Carmelita Roybal and Albuquerque High School's Ken Tavish, posted signs about the war, at least one of which opposed military action, and a teacher at Highland Hills School was placed on administrative leave because she refused to remove a flyer from her wall advertising a peace rally. Roybal and Tabish were suspended, and all of the teachers in these cases were docked two to four days pay by the Albuquerque public schools. Yet each of these schools posts military recruitment posters and photographs of soldiers in Iraq. So, again, like, you you hear that rhyming scheme about the debates that we're having, I mean, in Iowa today about, the pledge of allegiance now that it's required in schools by state law, about the so called divisive topics bills. And around the country, what we just heard out of Southlake about the the administrator who was encouraging them to teach both sides of the Holocaust. Yeah. And and right? So you're thinking these were these were educators in New Mexico nearly twenty years ago who were experiencing those exact same things. So I don't I don't know. What are you thinking about that? It's

Speaker 1 just fascinating because especially in the education world, how often these exact same debates come up. Like, we pick up a lot of books. I was reading Gloria Ladson Billings' work from, like, the nineties and eighties. Mhmm. And it's not the same thing, but she's talking about homework policy, standardized testing, about democratic classrooms. And you could just take the exact same quotes and put them into an article today, and it would sound no different. Another really good example, the Neil Postman book, Charles Blogginer, the teaching as a subversive activity. Great. Was that, like, nineteen sixties? Fifty years ago. Yeah. It's the same exact stuff that comes up every single day. And the culture war is probably not going away

Speaker 2 anytime soon. It's just so interesting to see how it has been mapped onto these different things. Right? You think about, like, the context of the Bush administration in the country as it was in that post 09/11 period. And then flash forward to you know, I I think now is just a completely, again, not completely different, but the context is just so much more chaotic because at least with the Bush administration, there was sort of that unified theme. Right? And and that that unification unification of at least one part of the country around that idea of of war and patriotism and what that looked like. Now today, you know, it's completely subverted by conspiracy theorists. And there's another there's another bit of this too. Deborah Meyer's piece in here, obviously, is is is pretty great. I found myself underlining hers kind of more often than not just because of the of the implications, I think, for talking about it in the classroom. And she has an she has a bit on here that that reads, in the name of the war on terror or the war in Iraq, we have experienced the narrowing of our national understanding of patriotism. Is this version of education easier to sell at a time when school practices that draw from military models seem particularly relevant and easier to understand? And she says, probably, the glamour of soldiery is creeping back into our culture, especially for young men, increasingly for young women, and above all, those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, and it's bound to impact schooling. And she goes on to say, a little bit later in that section, because even as democracy is not inborn or natural, it is not unnatural either. It must be learned. So too, the forms of patriotism that are compatible with it must be learned as well. And, like, those are just things that have resonated with me as as I have been reading through the book in the last week and and seeing seeing as I have, you know, the return kind of of the of this casual militarism into the culture. You know, you see, what, Black Rifle coffee kind of things. You see a lot of, like like, the Punisher logos on the back of trucks. And and some of that stuff is just, like, creeping into the mainstream culture and and has really taken, I think, taken for granted then what it means to be a patriot or to practice patriotism. And I think too about my own experiences last year when when the biggest part of the culture war issue started for me is when I was asking my kids this question of what does it mean to be an American? And we were exploring that through a variety of lenses that included white nationalism. And that was back in March of this year and launched, you know, six months of of strife and everything else too. So I don't know. It's just swirling around in my head about, again, the the kinds of things that that look similar, that really have never went away, thinking about the ways in which they have changed and how we can we can better, I don't know, do a better job in classrooms

Speaker 1 of having those conversations with kids and and where they're happening. The militarism piece is especially interesting for the students we have in our classrooms today because although America has essentially always been involved in foreign countries, pretty much since imperialism, These particular students have never been alive in a period that hasn't been the war on terror. So that book is written kind of as a counter narrative to that war on terror, but now it's a presumption. The students that have grown up just know that as their reality.

Speaker 2 So they are probably connotating that militarism And there there has to be how it is. You know, this was written in 2007. Here we are thirteen years later and this thing is wrapping up. Here's Deborah Meyer reflecting on, you know, the consequences or the potential consequences then. But here we are now, and we have to think. Right? What are the consequences of twenty years of war on, you know, our mindset as far as education and what it means to be educated and preparedness and the cost of higher education and what it means for kids who do go on to get involved in the military, perhaps to pay for college, perhaps for other things too. And and I just don't think that that's that's not a conversation that we have anymore. Right? It was really salient fifteen years ago, probably when this book was written. But now it's just, again, like like so many things, it's just become part of the air that we breathe in schools, just becomes part of our habits and routines to have military recruiters in the in our buildings and to kind of take war for granted. Yeah. And and there has to be consequences.

Speaker 1 Yeah. One more thing on that that mean, it's been a conversation we've been having it for so long. But with the increasing costs of college, how readily we accept the narrative and preach the narrative that, oh, military is an option where you don't have pay for school. Right. That's the incentive to go fighting in the military. I mean, what you're saying is that because our education system has failed us, you should go risk your life potentially. You may die and fight in an occupation of a foreign country in order to go around that barrier. It's just it's it's a very problematic way that we look at the the future of education and what our young learners value, especially when we connect it to Yeah. Financial gain. I'm glad you brought this up because it it connects a lot with the first article I wanted to share, which is actually a book. So I recently wrote, I guess, part three of this unpacking neoliberal schooling thing I've been doing, where I've just been kind of, like, looking at the connections between, capitalist forces, marketing of educational resources, and folks who are just trying to make a buck off of public ed. It's it's kind of a a fringe topic. But I I came across this author, his name is Nicholas Stock. And he wrote an article that connected Mark Fisher, who wrote capitalist realism and education theory. I'm not gonna dive into that right now because it'll take too long. But he pointed me over to a book called Jean Baudrillard and radical education theory turning right to go left, which is by Kip Klein and Christopher Holland. So Bodgerard is the guy most people know as the basis of the matrix. He wrote all about simulation theory and about hyperreality and, like, the blending of technology and the world around us. But the book dives into the fact that, one, if you've seen the matrix, the depiction of the matrix is not really what Baudrillard's concept is, but also how could educators use what he actually was saying in their practice. And now I'm a I'm a attempt to explain this. Please stop me if this does not make sense because it's this is the reason why I haven't done a book review in a while because I did this, and it drained everything from my brain. This book was only, like, 60 pages long, and it is, like, deciphering paragraph by paragraph by what's what exactly are you talking about? It makes sense to me now. So Bodriard has four orders of, like, the the simulation theory. First, there is where representation of the real is obvious. This is first order where you know something is not real. You just engage in it. For example, if you go to a theater performance, you know you're at a theater performance. The second order is where reality starts to blur. So maybe you're watching, like, the latest Marvel movie and you can't tell what is CG and what is, like, actually act. And then, like, when you see what it actually is, it's, all green screens. That's second order. So, like, you know it isn't real, but it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't. Then the important part is the third order. So the third order is what Baudrillard calls hyperreality. The best way to explain this is the authors talk about Disneyland's Main Street. So everyone knows, like, you go, like, down the street and it's like hometown America, and it's like this idealized, like, perfect storefront, like, cool restaurants, etcetera. And when we visit Disneyland and we tour Main Street, we engage with that as a real space even though we know it's not real. But what makes it hyper real is that Main Streets now across The United States have gentrified their own main streets and replicated Disney's main street. So Oh, okay. Disney has informed and changed our reality through a simulated experience. Now what we're idealizing, the thing that we think is really cool and this thing that we think way way should be is based off of a historical knowledge. It's an idealized corporate interpretation of what it used to be. That's hyperreality, where it's like the simulation has replaced what exactly reality is. Wow. And then fourth order would be, this is the newest one. It's like the Disney verse. So it's where you start taking all of these different things that inform how we live our entire lives. I think about, like, Disney princesses. So it's no longer that Disney creates the space that we visit and bring back with us, but that everything around us actually is our reality. It's described as life imitating art. So in the same way that, like, maybe politicians talk about the market. Well, what is the market? But yet it has so much power over our daily conversations. So this fourth order is where we're so surrounded by these ideas and it's so taking control of us that that's just the way it is. We're not imitating a specific simulation we visited. We are itself the simulation.

Speaker 2 Like, everything has informed each other. Does that make sense? I think it does. And honestly, I I don't know if if that was intentional to, like, make a connection to that patriotism book or whatever. But, like, I'm thinking about that that third order, especially when you were talking about the the hyper reality Right. And the ways that we change reality to maybe be more like the the fiction or, I guess, or the simulation. How how much is our current our current culture wars sort of the reflection of that that seemingly desire to have our reality match with what Internet conspiracy theorists, right, are are living? I don't I don't know if that's necessarily the intention, but, right, it's it really comes down to a different interpretation of of reality. Not just necessarily terms like what it means to be a a patriot, but, right, in in these COVID days, whether or not you believe that the virus is real, that it's worth taking mitigation to protect yourself from it, or, you know, whether you think the president's legitimate. I mean, I don't know I don't know how deep that rabbit hole goes, but it seems like there's an increasing that hyperreality is increasingly in conflict with the reality. And perhaps that's, like, at the center of where our political, whatever divisions are. Is that fair to say? Like I think so. Some people some people have persisted in the hyper real and other people are looking at reality in its own terms. So what's interesting is is that I think

Speaker 1 I'm pretty confident that Badriar would say that everyone already lives in hyperreality. Okay. So it's not that there is a group of folks who live in the hyperreal and a group of folks who don't. Almost like that group that you're talking about. These folks who no longer believe in science, that no longer, like, go along with these things, they actually have moved into fourth order. Like, it no longer matters what's real and what's not real. Hyper real is more like, I recognize this thing is happening, but I'm okay with it. Okay. I wanted to bring about this article and it connects to your, your patriotism stuff. Badriard's, like, final thing that he was talking about was this concept called fatal strategies. So this is before this was, a mainstream conversation. He spoke about this idea called post truth. Basically, the truth does not matter. And he brought up this idea that we research and we research and we research, for example, on climate science, and we show it in different ways. We present all these different models of it. The problem isn't that the research doesn't exist or we don't have access to the information because we have more access now than we ever did to information. He argues that the problem is the truth doesn't matter at all. So people that have bought into that hyperreality and people that have moved into that fourth order, it doesn't matter for them before. It's just a larger growth of post truth. Basically, more you make the argument that this is the way things are and present that research, the more people dive into that simulation, the more they dive into their reality. And he basically talks about how, like, how exactly do you counteract that? Like, how do you do something where you don't fight fire with fire? And he calls this concept fatal fatal strategies. So listen to this quote, and see if you could make sense of it. So he says, to the more true than true, we will oppose the more false than false. We will not oppose the beauty and the ugly. We will seek what is more ugly than the ugly, the monstrous. We will not oppose the visible to the hidden. We will seek what is more hidden than hidden, the secret. Does that make sense? Do you understand what he's getting at there?

Speaker 2 If you if you repeat that to yourself in the mirror, do you get pulled out of the matrix? Is that how

Speaker 1 you'll wake up with Morpheus on the on the Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah. Is that what happens? So so here's a better way to explain it. So even though Yeah. The argument by the authors that the matrix is a terrible representation, I do think that there's a part of the matrix that makes sense. So this will only make sense to matrix fans, so bear with me. But there's a scene in the second matrix about the architect. Right? You know the architect? The dude. So it's it's iconic scene. He's sitting in the chair. There's all these images of Neo, the main character behind him. And the premise is that Neo is supposed to be the savior of the matrix. This computer program that's been designed to keep, humans subjugated. And the architect tells Neo basically, well, you're actually part of the code. Like, you are intentionally programmed to act as the savior narrative to keep humans under control. It's a control for the control. And he offers Neo two choices, either to basically, like, let everyone die or to preserve the matrix. And the the spoiler alert. The the decision that Neo makes is not to take either path. He does both. That is the argument that Badriar makes surrounding fatal strategies. That Okay. The goal of combating post truth is not to present truth. The goal of combating post truth is to present a different option, like an entirely different reality. It doesn't turn in any direction. It, like, turns up. Like, it it's completely different. It makes me think, bell hooks, actually, and she talks about with her pedagogy of hope. She says, when we only name the problem, when we stay stay compliant without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. And this way, critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture. So where I'm getting out of this, and I don't wanna spend too long on this article, is that it it's all about kind of embracing the chaos of progressive education where because Badriar also loves chaos theory. But it's all, like, you just do the thing. Like, stop trying to do research about it. Stop trying to combat these folks that that no longer believe in it. You just do weird stuff. If you think it's gonna work or even if you don't think it's gonna work, it doesn't matter. You're breaking out of that rat race of, like, can I do this? Can I do that? Should I research this? What things could support it? Could I defend myself doing it? You just shift it to just being, hey, I'm gonna have this radical idea and I'm just gonna do it. That's breaking out of the cycle. You're presenting an entirely different narrative instead of trying to fight back at all.

Speaker 2 It's really interesting stuff. You gotta queue the the rage against machine song that plays at the end of the of the first one. You're right. You're right. It's That's gonna be our transition to to get to the next to the next piece.

Speaker 3 I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Speaker 2 That's such a good movie. I love the I

Speaker 1 saw that movie twice in theaters. I it's so I'm so excited for the next one. I even like the second and third one. I love The Matrix. So let's then shift into talking about our classrooms. What's going on in our classroom space? I can start this one if you want. Yeah. Do it. I wanna talk about what we're doing with PBL. So we're fortunate. In the last couple of years, we've shifted to be a cohorted space. So I have a PBL period during the day, which does not necessarily have to connect to any standards whatsoever. The goal is is that we make the project first and then connect it to everyone's standards, whoever can get involved with it. So we still do PBL in class, but that's besides the point. Then during the PBL period, one of the options the students had that I am in charge of is creating a video game. Years back, five or six years ago, I did the same project, but it was, a little bit more tailored. We did like this thing with veterans and actually talking about the same of the things we were just talking about earlier, like patriotism and what it means to be a veteran, that kind of thing. This time through, we're focused more on game theory and what does it mean to create a good game. So it's less topic based and more psychology based. And we've been using Will Wright's master class. But Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, has this amazing master class on the on the master class website where he talks about game theory. Kids are watching that. They're making their own art assets. They're making their own sound design. We're using RPG Maker, which is a good introduction too. And the English teacher is helping out with the writing elements. I'm obviously doing the designing things. I don't know. It's cool. The kids are super excited about it. We've we had a long break because of parent teacher conferences, and I got these discord messages from kids asking me about like, hey, what's my username and password into the account so I can work on this at home? They are very excited to work on. It's always cool when you can break kids up into small groups where they can just do something that's completely around their interest. I have about 25 kids in there and they are all obsessed with video games. That is so awesome. Dude, and we've we've always talked too about

Speaker 2 about writing that article about, you know, how how does good video game design mimic good, like, instructional design? Because if you think about the the best, they don't even have to be open world games. But, like, we've always talked about Breath of the Wild or maybe Mario Odyssey. You know, the games that just understand game design really well. That that kind of structure and the way that it sort of it trains the player in in kind of the the skills and the attributes and kind of the way that that world works without running through a tutorial. Right? It it teaches you how to play the game through playing the game that not only set sets up, like, an incentive structure for for the player to then want to be able to use those skills in new and challenging ways and really, like, push the limits of that world, but then discover what else that world has to offer. And it it was it was kind of video games that that that had me thinking a lot about questioning my classroom practices back when I was kind of making the transition from, you know, what I what I I was a good educator when I first started too, I I believe. Right. It's just I I hadn't quite made the the pedagogical leap maybe to some of the progressive the progressive side. But it was because I would see the way that students would be involved in games, whether whether it's like athletics or video games or anything else like that. And then just see, you know, why why are they intrinsically motivated to want to do something that that that looks asinine, right, that looks ridiculous from the outside, that gets no conceivable reward, you know, because the line is always kids only do stuff if they get a grade or, you know, they won't do it if there's not any points attached. Then I then you'd see him put hours into into things that have no real connection to the to the outside world. But if you just wanna know, like, what's what's the next thing? How can I do this thing faster? How can I just get out get this get a little bit more points depending on what whatever the game is? How can I beat that next level? And it's it's kind of about creating that that structure that lets it do that. And I think there there's a lot of progressive pedagogies and kind of structures and and research theories that help support that now. But back then, it's just like, hey. What makes games great? How can I make my classroom more like that? Yeah. So you're you're having kids just make that stuff. That's a really good point. And next week we're talking about gameplay loops.

Speaker 1 And depending on the challenge of your game, how do you keep a player playing if your game is challenging? Like, how do you make the lose state exciting? Because there's nothing worse than when you're playing a game and it's too hard and then you just quit and give up, which I think Right. Has a lot of pedagogical connections because in the best games, if it is incredibly challenging, like if it's designed to be that way, to get back into it is usually super fast. And I I think about that in a classroom sense. Well, if you have a very challenging lesson or a very challenging unit, how do you have students get back into that lesson if they don't know what's going on? What is your your failure state to ensure that they're not lost? Because if it sucks to get back into it, they're just gonna stop playing.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And and if you make the consequences too high, then you're not gonna wanna continue because you would have lost whatever progress that you had just made. Think of the mechanics from old school games. Some that that really get criticized like Resident Evil. Mhmm. The first Resident Evil games. You'd have to collect those those ink ribbons. Yep. And then wherever you you found it, you had to find a typewriter, and you had to make sure that you would save your ink ribbons because it could be the case that you could run out of saves and then be stuck in a position where you just have to, you know, basically start your game over. In a lot of old school games, that would be the case where you could get into a place where you could either just be stuck interminably dying over and over again or have no way out of the thing. And then then what? That just discourages you for playing the game. So I think game designers have come a long way too in realizing that the the things that used to punish the player for for making mistakes, now, right, rewarding them for exploration and to pushing those limits and making sure that they can get back on their feet with as sort of little setback as possible and to be in the best position just to pick up the controller and and wanna keep going. And that's not to say, right, not to be exploitative kind of of of maybe maybe gameplay loops is different from maybe dopamine hooks Mhmm. Where we think of the most addictive parts of mobile gaming. It's kind of the most damaging bits of that. It that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about things that can get you back into the learning faster. So how do how can we make our classroom structures look more like the best kind of video game design? Right? How can we give kids the ability to be in the driver's seat of their of the decision making process and kind of set what we might call kind of low floor, high ceiling play experiences within our classroom walls. Right? How do how do kids know that when they can save their progress or what happens if they if they fail? And and how can we just increase the the amount of feedback that that kids get that's useful for them to improve on the next thing right away Right. Instead of having to wait the next day or a week or a month to get that paperback or whatever. So I don't know. That's always a good conversation. One more thing about games, which is these three different types of win or lose states.

Speaker 1 Early, like, retro games were designed not to be beaten. Like, that was the whole reason why the lose state was so extreme. So when we're designing our class, have to consider, is the class designed in a way, perhaps unintentionally, that students are almost kind of ostracized for doing poorly? So if you don't do well, is your class designed in a way that's almost intentional that they are not going to do well and be able to catch back up? Like, if there aren't those those those things there to make that possible, then it's sort of the design of the class, because that's just what's gonna happen. There's no way to get back on. In terms of the Wednesday thing, though, to to tease apart the exploitative version versus the good version. Right. Like, great games will do storylines. So, like, the the narrative of the lesson discovering the next thing, or maybe it's like a a point system that is no pressure. Like, most great point systems are not like you have to get a certain number of points or else you don't get to move on. The points are there to challenge yourself to do something different than everybody else. It's just for fun. It's just a it's a low stress thing. Maybe it's a great game where it's just fun to play it. You don't care if you win or lose. It's just like, oh, this is cool. I enjoy this. And failure is not seen as a bad thing. It's just like part of the part of the thing. And then kind of separating that from the dopamine enhancer, well, what's the end goal of those games? It's to make a lot of money. So if our goal is this extrinsic thing, getting someone to have their peas and carrots, which in our case is making as much money as possible, then I'm going to exploit that system so that it fits around what I want to earn at the end. So if we're teasing apart gamification, a lot of gamification strategies for classrooms sadly are very corporate in nature. They're all about like, well, how do we get kids to get good grades? So the design of the class is more, well, how do we get them to do all this dumb stuff? Well, we're gonna gamify it and they have the highest scores possible on the test. Versus gamification, that's just how do we explore how do we design a learning experience that's fun and has good, like, coming back states and kids enjoy the narrative of it, and they're doing it because they think it's cool and it's exciting. Yeah. And that that latter state that you mentioned there too, maybe the more exploitative

Speaker 2 gamified version of that completely ignores too the the willingness of students to enter into those spaces. Right. You know, like like, is it a game that kids would pick up voluntarily, or is it just there kind of as an incentive structure? Think of it in terms of classroom, an incentive structure to get kids to comply. Right. You know, is it just another extrinsic kind of behaviorist tool to manipulate kids, or does it help put them in the driver's seat of, you know, telling their learning narrative? You know? Are they able to make choices about what they're doing next based on the feedback that they get? Are they able to apply what they're learning in, you know, new and novel ways that are interesting to them? You know? Or, again, is it just about, to your point, you know, get it getting them to do as much stuff as fast as possible so that way they can get a good rate on the test and move on? Yeah. That's that's more of the mobile game. You know, that's the cookie clicker candy crush version. Mike the micro transaction version of of gamified classrooms instead of There's our next book. The breath of the wild. Yeah.

Speaker 1 There it is. Anyways, moving over to what's going on in your class, Nick?

Speaker 2 Oh, man. Nothing nearly as cool as yours. I'm kind of in a lull right now. I did all my cool stuff just within the last couple of weeks. Right before the the holiday, right, the indigenous people's holiday as announced by the Biden administration, we actually did spend a week answering the question in class, should we continue to celebrate Columbus Day or does the holiday need to change? And I think it's a it's a great way not just to seat and contextualize some of the content in my European history class about, right, that age of exploration and conquest and and all of that stuff too, but also to reflect on reflect on how we commemorate people, events, time periods in public spaces. So so we looked at a lot of current events. I didn't know if if you were aware of this, but in Mexico City, they actually voted to take down a statue of Columbus fairly recently. And then just in the last week, they replaced it with a statue of an indigenous girl or an indigenous woman. I'm not quite sure of the age, but it's a it's a really striking thing, right, not just having Columbus replaced here with an indigenous person to kind of change that narrative, but, again, to, like, put a female presence where once, you know, it was a very male dominated space. And and just looking at how we commemorate those things. So we did a lot of learning around that. We did we took a vote on, like, yes, we should continue. No. We should change it at the beginning of the week. Then at the end of the week, we voted again after, you know, doing all the learning and context building. And we had a we had a really cool kind of I don't it it's almost like a discussion board, except I did it on Jamboard because I didn't wanna use you know, I don't I don't I didn't have, like, a Reddit subreddit or Discord or anything else like that. So we kinda had a silent debate on the Jamboard, which that which which was very productive. Kids asked a lot of great critical questions. They really did a good job engaging with each other. And at the end of the debate, more often than not in each class, the side of change got more points at the end than it had at the beginning. And kind of the consensus was, in some way, shape, or form to recognize an indigenous people's day as we do in Iowa by proclamation of our governor in 2018 or to expand the notion of Columbus Day into into be a more inclusive holiday for, say, explorers or discovery. So that way you could incorporate, you know, you can incorporate the twentieth century, you know, space race, people who people who have been lost or explorers who have been involved in that. It's a little bit more international because, obviously, you know, space kind of is beyond any particular nationalistic context or at least probably it should be. Mhmm. But also, right, you you can you can throw in explorers in that time period from other from other nations as well. Like, mean, to get in there and hear kids just going over their their their their notes that they've taken using textbook resources, you know, googling like what is a galley, you know, like, what's a galley? And they'll be like typing up. They're like, oh, I don't think it's a galley because of this. So I'm done just giving a test and having kids sit in silence waiting for me to grade it. Right. I mean, we turn that into an an experience, a conversation, and I don't know I don't know how the hell to grade it. I don't know how to grade anything in an AP class anymore, but but we're learning and I think that's it. It'll be evident to anybody who comes into that space, you know, that we're that that kids are learning. We're talking about the content. I don't know what else you want from them. You know? Yeah. Speaking of fatal strategies,

Speaker 1 one side might argue that we need to have a lot of root memorization. Here's what you need to do and now take a test over it. One side might argue, hey. We need to focus on critical thinking skills. They make this cool, like, rubric, and then, like, you get good points and you get bad points and you work to improve it. Maybe the fatal strategy is, well, why make anything great at all? Or why even have a performance at the end? Why not just do practice? Why have a test? Just if you're even if you're gonna have a test, why make it greater? Just learn through it. It's just another assignment. Treat a quiz like, I don't know, watching a movie and answering questions about it. It's just another thing that you could do.

Speaker 2 If kids wanna do it, you can do it. That's it. Yep. Yep. And and I think, you know, it's it's it's a great way then to just build not just build up competence, but like the the kind of of collaborative learning community that you want kids to have because it just builds our collective capacity to do better together. Because the kid who doesn't know it on the test and then just sits there, right, and just they're they're not experiencing growth and learning and understanding. They know that they are not gonna do well, and then they just have to sit there and wait for the grade. And what? It just confirms what they it confirms what they knew themselves about their lack of understanding in that moment. And what a waste of what a waste of time that is, you know, of the test. I'm so over the test. For sure. Let's get kids talking. Let's get them using their resources. Let's get them working together.

Speaker 1 That's called spaceship whoosh by. Anyways, that Now, okay. There's no sound in space. There's no spaceship whoosh by. We're going by sci fi rules, so it doesn't matter. Anyways, that builds us into the quiz. Uh-oh. So we were talking about, well, how do we design a I don't know how much of this clip I can use. Yeah. So the theme of our quiz today, and you can play along at home. The theme is college board is a nonprofit, and it's all related to nonprofits and education and and making money and weird stuff surrounding that. So each of us have prepared three questions. We have decided that the loser gets kicked out of the airlock, and that's how it ends. Kinda dark, but science fiction. Yeah. Is there a better way to introduce that? I think that sounds good. Comp sounds good. So we'll we'll take turns and we'll keep track. You can ask your question first, Nick. So as I

Speaker 2 I recently had a conversation with Michael Crawford and Jane Shore, and I warned them that I'm addicted to context, and this is no different. So, while I believe and I don't know the content of this of Chris' questions. Well, I believe he's gonna talk about the College Board as their nonprofit organization. I could be wrong. I chose to go a different route, and I selected I built my series of questions about a nonprofit educational organization you may have heard of called Teach For America. So if you don't know who they are, right, they were founded in 1990 by Wendy Kopp. She developed the idea in her senior thesis at Princeton in 1989. I had no idea Teach for America was that old, honestly. I had never heard about it until the early two thousand teens. So its original mission was to, and I'm quoting from their website here, generate a longer term leadership prep pipeline that advances the education movement, providing a source of talent for policy, advocacy, and politics, as well as quality schools and new entrepreneurial ventures. And TFA claims on their website as well that they have 58 over 58,000 alumni in over 50 regions around the country, more than 14,000 alumni teachers, over a thousand school leaders, 600 school system leaders, 1,100 policy and advocacy leaders, more than 280 elected leaders, and 238 social entrepreneurs. And my my first encounter with them honestly was, during the Obama era because I graduated into the great recession. And where I was living in Lincoln, Nebraska at the time actually had a hiring freeze during that time. So they were not even hiring any new teachers even though I was certified and newly out of college. So I actually got in touch with Teach For America and had a couple of phone interviews and conversations. And the the conversation was about me working in the Kansas City area since that was kind of the closest to me then. And the only reason that that that went through is because my wife, or then my girlfriend, but, it was now my wife. That's a happy ending. But, she was gainfully employed and did not feel like giving up her job and moving to Kansas City. So so, I instead found other unemployment or did find unemployment, but I found employment as well. So so, yeah, we'll talk about the criticisms and things here, Chris. But these are set up as fact or fiction questions. You need to figure out if this the statement that I'm going to read to you is is fact or fiction. Okay. Okay. Ready for question one? Yes. Alright. When public school districts hire teachers from Teach For America, they pay a greater upfront cost than if they hire traditional entry level false. I know that's a false. Okay. That's fiction. That that that is that is a fact. That's a fact. That is actually a fact. Would they pay more?

Speaker 1 I did not know that. I thought for sure they paid less. Because you do need to be certified?

Speaker 2 You do not have to be certified. Okay. The the goal is that by the time that you finish your two year contract, then you will be certified. That is interesting. So so I actually got this, a little bit of this from a 2015 article from the American Prospect called the true cost of Teach for America's impact to urban schools. This is this is it. So they said when public school districts hire teachers from Teach For America, they pay a greater upfront cost than if they hire traditional entry level teachers. This is because TFA charges finders fees for every core member they supply. This is a trick question. Wait. Wait. But does the teacher make more money? Like their salary? The teacher doesn't. The district I thought that's what we were asking.

Speaker 1 So The district

Speaker 2 up for our cost. Alright. I think that's a trick question. No. So hear me out here. In addition to the salary and benefits the school districts pay the teacher, districts also must pay the net TFA typically between 2,000 and $5,000 per core member per year. So those finder finder's fees are there. So for example, if one city has 200 core members and the finder's fee is $4,200 for each teacher, then that costs a district an additional 1,700,000 in fees to teach for America. Yeah. And what's really interesting is I was reading another article about this, and they were talking about a TFA alum who actually, you know, was was loved the program, stayed in education, went to become a charter school leader later on. But then when he became an admin for the charter school, network in Los Angeles that he was working for, and we'll we'll talk about those charters. Right. But he then he realized he wasn't interested in hiring teach for America core members because they didn't have the context. They didn't know, you know, the the area. They were less experienced. And he said, I'll take that money and put that towards hiring teachers from the community that have more experience or then, take the resources and put that into professional development for training current staff. What an idea. So

Speaker 1 okay. So Wait. Nice. You're Really quick. I think I think that it's interesting to note based about that is that I I I think it's worth mentioning the difference between an individual versus a systemic problem. Because there are a lot of people that go through the TFA program that are great people that are trying to make a difference. The issue is is how the large nonprofit scare quotes is using that as an exploitative measure to generate income quickly and easily. You'll probably get into who they're funded by in one of your later questions. But but I I think it's worth noting that, like, individuals acting within a system to try to do the best they can is not the same thing as a systemic problem that exists. In the exact same way that, like, I think McDonald's has incredibly unethical policies towards its workers, but I had a McDonald's coffee this morning. It doesn't make me a terrible person per se because it's the it's the the coffee shop that's available in my town. I guess I can buy and make my own coffee, but not all of us are perfect. So that's that's just how it is.

Speaker 2 That's the that's the old that's the meme that's like, oh, you're you're critical of society and yet you participate in it. Yes. I'm curious. Yeah. We we all have to participate in those structures even as we're fighting to change them. So my next question is about TFA retention Okay. And funding. So we'll get there. So listen carefully here. So let's look at the five year teacher retention rate. Right. You know? So, like, kinda situate whatever you have for that in your mind. Yep. So the five year teacher retention rate, so that's to say TFA teachers who keep teaching after five years, even if they're not in their initial placement school. Okay. Okay? The five year teacher retention rate for TFA teachers is higher than compared to all new urban teachers. Fact or fiction?

Speaker 1 I so in the back of my mind, I know I've read stories about like, horror stories about TFA where, like, they're under supported. They don't have the right resources. They're typically placed in schools that are underserved, and they don't get paid. Even though your previous question was a trick question, they do not get paid as much just like Teach For America makes more money. And I know they don't make a lot of money. I would imagine that their retention rate's lower.

Speaker 2 Okay. So then my statement would be fiction?

Speaker 1 Yes. Fiction. Okay.

Speaker 2 Alright. You are correct. That is fiction. So, nice. So you're you're you're one for two here, fifty fifty. Now, I did just post, some tweets this morning because I was doing a little bit more research on this. TFA is very open on their own website about saying, like, you're not a Teach For America employee. You're gonna get paid whatever salary and benefits teachers in those areas make or teachers at the charter school that we place you at make, you know, 33 to $58,000 or whatever the case is. Charter schools typically pay pay less than their own than the the public schools do. But let's talk about this. So the the the the truth behind this statement is that only about 25% of Teach For America teachers remain in teaching after five years compared to about 50% of all new urban teachers. So that rate is brutally high regardless. Alright? But it's about only half as much for Teach For America. But it's even worse by the fact that TFA gets paid for their contracts with districts who then, once those teachers leave, have to pay to hire and retain once the Teach For America teachers leave. So basically yeah. And when they leave, they go on to other things. So I've got some more data for you. So here's a 2008 Harvard study, says that only 35, 30 about 35% stay in teaching for more than four years. So that's to say after that, they go into other fields or they go in onto policy and advocacy and lobbying or, whatever the case might be. So, yeah. So TFA's numbers are actually pretty good within the first couple of years. Mhmm. So about sixty percent of TFA teachers stay for a third year after their two year tour is up. Mhmm. Which is which is I I think that's pretty good. Yep. And about eighty five percent of TFA recruits who keep teaching, they actually transfer out of their original placement school. So while they go in and they teach in, you know, underserved communities that for lower pay. Once those two year contracts are up, they they jump into, you know, probably wealthier, more more suburban districts or things like that. So Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Yep. Last one. Is it possible this story is true? Fact or fiction, Chris? Okay. TFA reported nearly $500,000,000 in net assets in 2020. I feel like it's more.

Speaker 1 Fiction.

Speaker 2 Okay. Nope. That one is a fact. That's a pry that's a hit?

Speaker 1 That's it. I feel like they could do better. How much does the executive director make?

Speaker 2 About $500,000. Okay. That's what I figured. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. Yep. So I was just looking at their fight their It never happened. Yeah. I was looking at their nine nineties this morning. So according to their 2020 financial statement, TFA reported net assets of about $456,000,000. So, you know, what that means, the nonprofit world. Yeah. Yeah. So, basically, you to that revenue. Well, yeah. So that's if they sold off everything, right, that's like equity in a for profit company. Right? So, so, yeah, the the reported total revenue was about $273,000,000,000 between 2019 and 2020. Yeah. Now the the bomb I'm gonna drop on this year too is that, in fact, the Walton family is the largest single donor to teach for America. Now if you're not familiar with the Walton family, if you've ever shopped at Walmart Yeah. Like we all have Yeah. Right? That money has gone to the Walton family. Well, you know, a portion of that money has gone to the Walton family who founded Walmart. Right. Now what's interesting is they announced in 2013, they were donating $20,000,000 to Teach For America. What they didn't release with with that grant proposal there was that they were actually going to end up paying $4,000 for teachers placed in traditional public schools, but $6,000 for every teacher placed in a charter school Oh. Directed at nine cities where charter schools were were sprouting up, including New Orleans, Memphis, Tennessee, and Los Angeles. So, you know, famously, the the Walmart employees are among the highest, the the largest recipients of, you know, foods food benefits, SNAP benefits, Medicaid benefits because they are famously underpaid by the company that employs them. And Walmart is very also infamously union busting as well. So not a surprise that they would fund charter schools that that that I found out this morning have a 7% unionization rate. So about 7% of charter schools unionized. So there is a direct Walmart to the Walton family, to the Teach For America, to the Charter School Network pipeline right there for you, Chris. And all tax free, nonetheless. Oh, and all tax free. Yeah. They probably get a wonderful deduction for Yeah. Donating that $20,000. $20,000,000. Right? So so, yeah, you were one for three. I know I that's that seems like a number to beat. I think we're gonna end up blowing you out the airlock. Oh, we'll see. We'll see how difficult these questions are. So I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 1 Have a little bit less context than yours. I'm addicted to Originally, this was, hey, Chris. We should do a lightning round at the end. Your eye definitions of lightning round are are very different. Your lightning is, like, more of a slow roar. It's ball lightning. It just okay. So, I'm gonna attempt to add more context on the fly, which I have not written out. So this might come across as very sporadic. My theme is not as clear. Mine are kind of random. Two of them do relate. I'll I have the same fact or fiction thing. So here's the context. We're gonna start way back with Horace Mann. You know Horace Mann. The guy that he kinda has like a mythos surrounding him. He's known primarily as being the guy who went to Prussia and was logging how how organized the schools were. It came back to The United States. Critics would say that he is the founder of kind of the standardization movement. However, if you read his work, it's more centered on the the growth of just the public education. It's just the idea, like, we should have a free public education everywhere, and he was looking at from the lens of, well, how is that feasible? So I think it's fair. I think the criticism can be fair, the exact same time, it's kind of a product of the era. It was just like a a planning thing. He was not interested in necessarily the the long term pedagogical outcomes of standardizing everything. Sure. Anyways, the organization ACT, in 2019 generated $300,000,000 a year. On that leadership team, you'd actually find a really interesting position that's not listed on its website. They have all of their leadership team listed. But here's the fact or fiction. You'd also find the position of the Horace Mann Research Chair, which in 2019 was paid $429,000.

Speaker 2 I I I totally believe that. That's fact. That is fact.

Speaker 1 Okay. So so if you, were to, do some research on this, if you were to go back into the, the nine zero nine form, for the nonprofit, you will find nine ninety. The nine ninety form. Right. You will find a gentleman and his name is, Wayne Chimera, which sounds like a fantasy villain name. He also previously, speaking of college board, he was one of the head directors of the college board at one point. His claim to fame is, you'll find well, I can only find about two articles he's actually done. Two articles that prove that standardized testing is equitable. He previously was the senior researcher for ACT. He basically writes these really long drawn out articles. Actually, ACT is equitable because it gives marginalized students the tools to escape poverty. Even though there is a plethora of evidence that says other I mean, it is a pretty well known fact that SAT and ACT tests mirror income brackets. So this whole concept is ridiculous. In 2019, I believe it's 2018 and 2019, he served on this. I I don't I don't know if this is a corruption thing. It's really weird. I used the way back machine, and I tried to find this position because I couldn't find it existing. It doesn't exist now, and it didn't exist apparently in 2019, but he was getting paid for it. Almost $500,000 to serve as the unknown Horace Mann research chair. There is a senior research chair position. So there's already a head of research. This is an additional position called the Horace Mann chair. Interesting. So you're you're already here. That one was so ridiculous. There was no way that was not true. So it's just also very funny, like, Horace Mann research chair, really, ACT? Like, that's that's the name that you're gonna evoke for your standardized testing company. What's that about? I don't know. Question two. Oh, wait. Here. I'll do a

Speaker 2 Yes. It is. You're right.

Speaker 1 Okay. There's that. Here's question two. Okay. In a lawsuit settled in 2021, the University of California can no longer factor in ACT and SAT scores in their admissions. There was a case, a group of high school students successfully sued the university because of their test optional policy. So UC went to be test optional, which means that you can either submit scores or not submit scores. And that's good on paper, but the problem is is that if you don't submit scores, you are not on an even playing field with those that submit good scores. So you're you're better than those that do bad scores, but you're worse than those that submit good scores. And there was a group of high schoolers. One of them was like a a great athlete, had a perfect GPA, who was a volunteer, who was like an entrepreneur, like all these like, everything that you would wanna see typically in a a college, bound student. And they were denied because they are not good at taking standardized tests and their school just it wasn't a big focus for them. So they sued the University of California. And as of May 2021, UC is not allowed to factor in at all. So as in test optional is actually not allowed. Is that fact or fiction?

Speaker 2 Okay. So the question is whether yeah. Whether they're test it's not test optional. It's test Blind. Ban. Yeah. It's just completely Oh, test blind. Okay. That's the

Speaker 1 As as a result of students suing and winning.

Speaker 2 Oh, man. I wanna say I I wanna say they're still test optional. The test blind thing Mhmm. Because I think they just most recently went test optional. The test blind seems like a maybe a bridge too far which may maybe makes me think of that as fiction.

Speaker 1 So this is actually fact. What? A group of students really did band together, hire a lawyer. So here is a direct quote from one of the attorneys for the students. The stubborn insistence over generations upon usage of the ACT and SAT, despite indisputable evidence these exams only measured family wealth, cost hundreds of thousands of talented students of color a fair opportunity to what was that? Matriculate? Matriculate. Graduate. Oh, I never used that word. Matriculate in their state system of higher education. Here's the catch though, because there's always a catch. There's always a way to get around it. So as of 2022, 2023, it is test blind, but only for California students. So if you apply from a different state, it does matter still. And Interesting. By 2025, UC is developing their own standardized tests that students will take in lieu of the ACT and SAT scores. As a way to get around this this case, they basically said, hey, we're just gonna make our own test that's better than the other tests. There's no information on this. I looked it up. No one said anything. Even this article says, like, no one knows exactly what this test is. They just said, hey, by 2025, this will be fixed because we're just gonna make our own test. They've got a couple years to figure it out, you know. It's just it's very interesting to me that, like, if you wanna talk about student voice, student activism,

Speaker 2 like, this group of kids, like, actually did it. Like, it's a real thing that happened. It's a piece of good news in the educational world. Okay. So it's like, let's imagine a world where they're gonna have their own test. I like that option for states more than I do like having the ACT as sort of like a national it trickles down into what we're teaching in all of in classrooms too, so kids can be successful on whatever standardized tests. I mean, I like the states maybe having more control over what that looks like as far as that goes compared to, you know, a national testing company like the College Board having just that much more influence and control over that admissions process.

Speaker 1 Because that that could be different for students in New York and California and Iowa and Ohio. My fear would be though, if I were the billion dollar scare quotes nonprofit college board, that I would just develop a state test in every state. Like, it would have to be Oh. Like, you would need, like, an oversight committee. Like, there would need to be a lot of things that I'm not confident would actually occur. Yeah. I don't know. I'm kind of of the mind that there shouldn't be the test at all. Because then, like, what happens if you have a student who is already overworked and stressed that has to take a different test for every state that they have to apply to? Oh, okay. Because, like, to me, that's like we have a lot of kids that go out of state. Does that mean that they had to have, like, Kentucky specific knowledge to go to school and get something? Like, it's just, like, really weird. Yeah. That's tear okay. Scratch my idea. That's a terrible To me, it should be shifting to a system that doesn't value test data at all. Like, if you can prove, like, through a portfolio perhaps that you have done all these awesome things and someone has taught to review that, think like mastery transcript. Right. That to me just works a lot better. Because if these students can successfully band together and use an attorney and do all this work, they are Right. More than ready to be college bound. I mean, It's fascinating. That that question, I had heard about this lawsuit, but I hadn't followed up with the con with the with how it ended. Yeah. So I was like, oh, I remember this, but I don't I did I didn't catch the the tail end. So I mean Yeah. Senior so the person that was kinda like in charge of this, I guess, like the high school senior that's in question had a 3.56 GPA, three associate's degrees from Los Angeles Southwest College, plethora of leadership positions and community service activities. But, he always bombed SAT practice test because he had no money for breakfast. He was distracted by hunger. His mother, only earned $23,000 a year. They couldn't afford test prep courses or tutoring or anything. So this in spite of all of these amazing achievements, because the SAT wasn't a thing that could happen, they just automatically failed. And what's what's so if you wanna juxtapose that back to question number one, you have this Horace Mann research head publishing articles for making 430,000 a year saying that, oh, no. It's not discriminatory at all. It's actually a way to escape poverty. Really what it does is it acts as a barrier for those that don't have access to this because you can do awesome things in school or awesome things in general in your life, even outside of school that could prepare you for college. This article is really good. It even talks about, like, going back to, like, Carl Brigham, like, old school guy, like, where he talks about, quote unquote the prowess of the Nordic race group. Oh, God. Like the eugenic stuff. Yeah. Standardized testing is a farce.

Speaker 2 No. And I think I know I know there's still one more question for me to redeem myself and to to beat you on this. But but what I think is so interesting is, right, the the things that you described about this particular student, like the the work ethic and their ability to be successful on a college campus is self evident from that description alone. What what what kind of information does a test score add that isn't already evident in the fact that the student, right, has three associate's degrees? So, like, put in the time and effort to, right, master a set of skills around I don't know what those are in, but around the subjects that they wanna go into. Right. And then having those leadership roles, I mean, are the kinds of kids if I was know, if if we were gonna hire them to do work for us, that's what we would look at. We wouldn't look even probably at a GPA or or an assessment score. So why do we think that college is is somehow different than that either? Like, employee would you hire based on an assessment score compared to the resume of experiences that they're going to have? And when I talk to my kids about that question, it's what I ask them. I say, If you had to give resume or if you had to talk about your experiences at Ankeny High School and you couldn't use an assessment score or a GPA, how would you do that? What would you be able to emphasize? What would you say, be able to say that you've accomplished in your time here? And a lot of them say, I couldn't do that, mister Covington. I say, that is a problem. So, yeah. It's it's about kind of shifting that language, isn't it? Exactly.

Speaker 1 Alright. That builds us into our final question. We're either Redemption. Either of us are going to be released and we stay there until next time or I'm about to die. We'll find out. So final question here. Alright. So fact or fiction? All of the following are true facts about the KIPP, otherwise known as knowledge is power program, public Yes. Charter school network, which I say in giant air quotes, a nonprofit organization. Alright. So you before I even dive into this question, you and I probably everyone listening is probably familiar that KIPP has had some serious corruption scandals. And it's not that public schools have not. There are certainly a lot of examples of public schools also having corruption scandals. KIPP seems to be very prone to it, and perhaps that deals maybe with some of their funding sources and ethics surrounding education in general. Okay. So the the fact or fiction is all of these are true. Alright. Okay. So there's five things. One, in one tax filing year, they spent over $1,000,000 at Walt Disney World Swan and Resort. Two, they've redacted its amount it raises via US government officials, of which one of their biggest investors was found out to be from the Robertson Foundation. That's led by a gentleman named Julian Robertson, who made his initial fortune by shorting subprime securities and credit default swaps. Oh my god. Three, they give more than $1,000,000 a year to a stats company that analyzes, the work that they do and how successful they are named Mathematica. Four, the stats generated by that aforementioned company Mathematica are heavily redacted and not shared publicly. And finally, Mathematica was founded by Princeton University professors in 1969 and has engaged in a variety of different topics, but they're most well known for being the leading developer of the state lottery system.

Speaker 2 Oh. Yeah. Great. Okay. So when you got to the Mathematica thing, I started to chuckle because I was like, that sounds too silly to be like the real one. Right? Like in the realm of foolishly named education Right. Things, you know. I was like, that's gotta be the Chris McNaught one. But the Disney one, I'm also suspicious of. But I also have the feeling that perhaps the absurdity of all of these is the is the point. Mhmm. And so I want to say get it queued up here. Okay. I want I want to say that this all of those are true facts. Final answer. It's fact.

Speaker 1 You it is. It is. Alright. All of those things are actually true. This one I actually started laughing when I got to the Mathematica thing because that sounds so absurd. So Mathematica, progress together, which is their subheader. Mathematica built on its initial study of KIPP middle schools with a five year project designed to address the question of whether KIPP can maintain its effectiveness as the network grows. And they have, like, these evidence and insights from the project and, like, you could scroll through them. However, they've been asked at various points to share all the findings of their studies and it's redacted. So like you might question, well, wait, I thought this was a public school. Like public schools had to publish all their data. Unless it deals with like FERPA stuff, the actual data like your test scores, your report card information, all of that is complete public knowledge. You can look up everyone's employee status and how much they get paid because they're public. That's the whole point. It's also the point of nonprofits too. Nonprofits have to share like, you could look up and see that HRP makes no money. That's that's available online. You're completely able to do that. Somehow I bet Chris would send it to you if you emailed him about Sure. Yeah. If you want our $90.09 or nine ninety form, we'll send it to you. It's a postcard because it can fit on one line. That's real. But basically, Mathematica seemingly, this is Chris op head op ed hat, has been contracted at $1,000,000 a year to paint success stories for the KIPP network because journalists and researchers have looked at KIPP and founded some really disturbing stats surrounding there's so many like, there's there's been so many different, like, abuse scandals. Like, the the place is really messed up. Like, there are a lot of serious problems with the KIPP network. Yeah. But the the mind blowing thing to me, one, the whole Robertson Foundation thing, it was their primary funder, I believe, in 2016. I need to double check that. But in one year, this dude, Julian Robertson, like, I don't even know who that is. Apparently, he founded Tiger Management, I think it's what it's called. I never heard of the guy. Like all of his money comes from shorting subprime subprime securities,

Speaker 2 like the the loan crisis, like the housing crisis. Right. So so he's one of the guys who crashed the account. Yes. I the aforementioned the great recession that I almost had to go work for teach for America for. It's almost like full circle. It's a big club and we're not in it. Like, all these things seem seemingly related somehow. Yeah. They do spend a ton of money at Walt Disney. That was a a thing. Yeah. None of this is to say, because it kinda seems like we're picking on picking on charters, that that public schools are not without their own faults or that there aren't good charter schools out there. It's just, man, the the the ecosystem for those schools and for those networks is so unaccountable very often, so so shady and shadowed. Yeah. But also, you know, we can also be critical of their of their goals and their means of acquiring them of not of acquiring them, of pursuing their educational goals as well. Because if their goal say is test performance or or or college and career readiness or whatever they they purport to do better than the public schools, those pedagogies often tend to be, you know, fairly fairly carceral, fairly rote. And so it's it's really not surprising to me that their college admission rates are are fairly low because in such a highly structured environment, not just our kids gonna be less likely to get into college, but we've talked so often at at nausea about the the things that cause kids to drop out of college more often than not is not like your academic background knowledge. I mean, yeah, if you don't know how to read, you're gonna have a real tough time in college. Right. But on the flip side of that, it costs a lot of money. You might be able to afford it for a semester or a year or two, but when you start to add up those costs, they they build fairly quickly. If you have any circumstance in your life that's gonna prevent you from attending attending contend contend contiguously contiguously for, say, four or five years. That's gonna make it even more tricky for you to jump back into your studies. So, yeah, I I mean, those those schools are are they're not set up as, like, money laundering factories, but there is, like, this hidden network of of dark it's almost like dark money in politics. Right. Right? It's what it is. I mean, it's based on the same thing. It is Yeah. That is that is unaccountable. Yeah. The the Waltons, the Robertsons, or whatever, they get to donate vast amounts of money to charter school networks, or to places like Teach For America that then, go to the charter school networks. But then the people on the ground teaching in those schools, right, they make less money than people in public schools do. They have less workplace democracy. They're often in worse positions. And then since that work's not sustainable often, they leave and they go they go they go elsewhere, you know. So it's not surprising that that teachers leave TFA and go on to go into other industries or that teachers don't stick around at charter schools very often. Now, obviously, there's exceptions, but, yeah, they're not they're not tools that are designed to be successful in the long term. They're responsible to a whole different set of incentives because they know that they might not exist in a year or two unless they can juke the stats. So now we get to blow you out of the airlock. Now now we get to blow me out of the airlock. This will get Cue airlock sounds. Cue air there it is. No. There

Speaker 1 it is. That was not very convincing. Well, it'll be convincing once I edit it. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna make that work. You're gonna fix it in post. Yeah. It's gonna be fixed in post. Gonna sound way better. So I guess, you know, if people have made it this far

Speaker 2 Why? If this is something if this is something that that has appealed to you, when we were thinking about this, it really is like, you know, we're all in the doldrums of, deep October, kind of heading into a fall and and winter. The season's changing. The the the workload is piling up. So we thought we would just take I didn't expect it to be this long, but we just thought we would take an hour or so and just, you know, just have a loosely formatted conversation that maybe connects to some things that you might be doing or get you interested in in in doing some some learning on your own, start you down some some interesting paths in in the work that you're doing. So it's just an extension of, like I said, the stuff that we already do on a weekly basis anyway. We're reading, we're talking, we're sharing articles, and and reading books too. So this is a little bit of of a community connection into that, a relaxed fit HRP. So we want to for next time, if there is a next time, first and foremost. But if you want us to do this again, like, let us know, or feel free to email or or tweet at us at humerus pro, you know, if this if this was garbage. And you're just like, don't ever do this again. We will take that with you know, we will accept that fully. But if you wanna hear it again, let us know. And also send us questions that you would like to hear us talk about or topics that you think, you know, if we did five minutes of research or or maybe fifty minutes, we could have some kind of grasp on to give you some response to or point you in in the direction of something too. So I don't know. Send us send us some emails or send us some tweets at humerus pro. You know, you can follow me at Covington a h s, and you can follow Chris at or wait. At Covington E D U is where I am. Wow. I flashed back to 2019. And or or Chris McNutt @McNuttedu. So we've we've really made that pretty easy in the last couple of years. But other than that, you know, thanks for sticking around this long. And, I guess I just have to run the organization now that we blew Chris out of the out of the airlock. So we'll have to see next week what happens. But that was a lot of fun, Chris. That I think I think I had a good time.

Speaker 1 Wake up.

Speaker 2 Oh, man. That's I I'm I am 1000% certain that that same Matrix clip and that rageous machine music is probably in some conspiracy theorist like QAnon podcast, you know, like that's their intro. Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 Thank you again for listening to Human Restoration Projects podcast. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education. You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.