Josh Rosales Speaks Out
Josh Rosales tackles topics ranging from politics and social justice to culture, economics, and everything in between. Instead of shying away from away from controversial subjects, he encourages open dialogue and meaningful discourse.
What sets this podcast apart is its commitment to highlighting the voices of the community. The host invites a diverse array of guests, including activists, community leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, and everyday citizens, ensuring that multiple viewpoints are represented and respected. Through these conversations, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the issues at hand and are encouraged to take action within their own communities.
Josh Rosales Speaks Out
Unlocking Opportunities: The Transformative Power of School Choice and Educational Freedom
When you're boxed into a corner by circumstances, sometimes the only way out is through a door you didn't even know existed. Walter Blanks Jr., the passionate voice behind the American Federation for Children, offers us an exclusive look into how school choice can be that very door for many children. This episode is a deep dive into the empowering world of educational freedom, where parents take the reins to ensure their kids receive the best K-12 education. Join us as we break down the misconceptions clouding school choice and charter schools, especially in places like Tennessee, and explore initiatives like Black Minds Matter that strive to provide parents with more educational avenues.
How's it going? Everybody Josh Rosales here with the Josh Rosales Speaks Out podcast, Really excited to have y'all. I want to thank our sponsor, first of all HeyRoofman. com, for all your growth. Beneath of minor repairs to a whole growth replacement, HeyRoofman. com has your cover from A to Z. Call for your free estimate at 615-945-1492. That's 615-945-1492. Or go to HeyRoofman. com for your free estimate.
Josh:Today our guest is Walter Blanks Jr. Walter Blanks Jr is the spokesperson for American Federation for Children. I got it right. Yeah, there you go. And so the mission for American Federation for Children i seeks to empower families, especially low income families, with the freedom to choose the best K through 12 education for their children. Number one: advocate for change at the state and national levels regarding school choice issues most important to today's parents. Number two: empower families with freedom to choose the best K through 12 education for their children. Number three: connect families to resources to make the best education decision for their children. Number four: identify and develop tomorrow's leaders in the school choice movement. And, as you can guess everyone, today's topic is going to be school choice, and no better guest to have on the Josh Rosales Speakout podcast than the spokesman for American Federation for Children, Walter Blanks Jr. Welcome.
Walter:Thank you so much for having me. I'm really really excited to be here, as usual.
Josh:No, I'm very excited to have you. You know, school choice right now, especially in Tennessee and across the United States, is a really hot topic. I mean, there's those that are for it, those that are against it, and I think in the middle is a big majority, that have a misconception or don't have enough information and maybe they're making assumptions on something that are not even factually based. And so today I am really excited to have you on, Walter, because I want to dig into school choice and some vouchers here. For those that are, you know, wanting additional information, there's a ton of information online, especially with the state of Tennessee website, in regards to school choice. I think, when I was looking online, there's currently 100 charter schools in Tennessee right now and, from what I understand, give or take a lot of them are in Shelby County, davidson County, hamilton County. But with all that in mind, let's get into this.
Walter:Thank you so much for having me. I love being a part of these conversations, especially in the state of Tennessee. You and I sat through the Governor´s State of the State last night. I was at the Capitol today and out of everything that the governor said last night, school choice was the one that got the most response, both good and bad, and so it's definitely an issue that is being discussed and talked about here in the state and really across the country. But you talk about charters and you look at the idea of charter schools and how charter schools came to be what they are today. It really came down to minority, primarily black families who weren't being served within the public education system and wanted another option. something else.
Walter:And so, before we go any deeper, just let me say this to clear up some of the misconceptions. Charter schools are public schools. Period, point blank. They are public schools with a little bit more independence and autonomy from school leaders who wanted to change the way that their children were being educated and children in the area were being educated. So I would be remiss if I didn't give a quick shout out to my colleague, Denisha Merriweather, who started an initiative over the past few years and it's grown really called Black Minds Matter to discuss a lot of the issues and inequities within the public education system for black students. But she's also created a directory of, I forget where it is now, there are probably 300 plus networks of black owned schools where black people come together who have started schools across the country who are doing really, really great things, and just to provide another alternative, another option for parents who feel that their kid is not being served in the public education system.
Walter:And when we talk about vouchers, charter schools, tax credits, all of those things, that's what it is at the core of it, of school choices. The public school is great. That's awesome. Stay in it, you don't have to go anywhere. But if you're a parent who says you know what, whether it's curriculum, academics or even safety, right, these schools have started where they have been a viable alternative for families across the country.
Josh:And that's kind of what I. I mean, that's kind of what I think you know it's choice, right. So if you choose in the United States of America whether we want to have insurance or not, I mean, probably more expensive than than education is healthcare. And if we were only regulated to go to a doctor that was in our zip code and we weren't able to go to a doctor outside of our zip code or we weren't given the choice to pick and choose what we want? And within America we have the choice, you know, do I only have to go to a car dealership that's in my zip code or can I go to, let's say, to Georgia to go purchase a vehicle? It should be my choice, and I think that's what makes America. You know, America is that we have the freedom to choose. You know less government, let parents choose, and so if we can choose education for our kids, I don't think any parents have an issue with choosing education for their kids. Like here in Rutherford County we got great schools, I would say for the most part, Rutherford County has great schools, and so what I would tell parents is if you want to keep your kids in public school, keep them in public schools. Our daughter is five years old now and she's going to be going into public school in August and we choose to have or go to a public school, elementary school, Brown's Chapel, which is an incredible elementary school public school. However, if my neighbor wants to send his kids to a charter school or to a magnet school or home school, they should be given that opportunity to do what they feel is best for their kids because, at the end of the day, government is not the best, the best ones to raise our kids. They're not the best ones to advise. You know we need smaller government, not bigger government. And when parents have the ability to choose for themselves where their kids can go to school and if it works for one kid to be put on a different trajectory to be successful, then it's all worth it. And, like you said, we were at the Governor's Stage of the State last night and to see families that have been positively impacted by the voucher system.
Josh:I look right now at the state of Tennessee's website and I'm seeing here in Metro Nashville, 48% of kids, this is race and ethnicity of students by percent of kids, are African-American. In Memphis, Shelby County, it's 75.94% of the kids that are enrolled are African-American. And you go into Knox County and Knox County is 71%. 71% are African-American. You go into Hamilton County 49.57% are African-American, and Asian-Americans or Indian-Americans are here, and we don't talk about that. But the two demographics that everybody really focuses on are black and brown, and you know why is that? I think it's parents are just so used to just allowing the government to tell us what to do, where to go, what to say. It's just everything. They have no idea what's going on right now with the state, or any idea about the school choice or the education savings accounts, and so there's just so much misconception out there.
Walter:Yeah, yeah, and I will , add on to that you talked about demographics. More often than not, in Tennessee and across the country, really, we see, those are the schools that are performing the worst. And I think we have to go back, really, to the 1930s and look at what was going on during that time with Redline, right, when the government was giving out loans to people to buy properties, they drew up district lines and some were desirable, somewhat desirable, and some of the district lines , or the districts were, considered hazardous, hazardous, right, and those districts were primarily black and brown families, and redlining has been outlawed in the country. But when you put the school district maps and lay them over top of those old maps from the 30s, they are very, very similar to this day, and so it's been since the 30s, right? So you're talking a very long time, almost 30 years of, or 100 years of this and nothing has changed, right? Families have been left out in the cold, politicians have come in and say, oh, we're going to fix the schools, or you know, there was an old child left behind, or race to the top, all of these things to really pick it up. And it goes back to what you said.
Walter:The government cannot effectively educate every single student in the country, but for quite some time it's been somewhat decent, right, for families who said, oh yeah, I went to public school 40 years ago and it was great. Yeah, that was 40 years ago. Our entire world has changed, right? Is anyone rocking a cell phone from 40 years ago? I don't even know if cell phones were around during that time, or you know. Whatever the case may be. And so the issue is that our education system no longer reflects our society, and we have a system, with the public education system, that is very, very rigid and refuses to change and cater to the needs of the students, and so charter schools have come along, homeschooling options have come along, micro schools have come along, where they believe that they can do a lot better in educating children, and more often than not, for a very significant, cheaper cost, and so, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter, like you said.
Walter:Well, some schools are great. Yeah, great for who? Right and what are we measuring that greatness off of? It can't be the same metric for every single person, right? A school could be performing great, a school could be performing great and great outcomes. But a kid is getting bullied every single day, right? In my opinion, that's enough to pull them out from that school.
Walter:And parents pick schools for different reasons. And so when we have these conversations, we can't just assume that every single parent wants the same thing out of their child education, because that's just not the case. And so if you're in government, a policymaker, why would you even try to carry the burden of educating every single kid when once again, you can have small government and say, okay, parents, families, here's X amount of dollars, go educate your kids, right, Like that is just a winning issue. And, like you said, we do that in every other facet of our society. Like now I'm in the process of buying a new car and right now it's looking like I'm gonna have to go to Texas to go and get it, because nothing around me in my surrounding cities have what I'm looking for. And so imagine if you know they said okay, you could only shop at this grocery store based off of where you live, right, or you could only drive this vehicle based off of where you live.
Walter:We would throw all the tantrums in the world. You thought the Boston Tea Party was bad. This would be significantly worse because parents want options. And then you have students who have come through various school choice programs in the past 30, 35 years who are like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Especially in a state like Tennessee, like for me. I'm used to having choice right. I'm used to having options, so I refuse to be stuck in one public school that I'm zoned to, based off of where me and my wife live, simply because that's the house that we can afford to buy right. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's an antiquated system and I don't believe the school choice is a silver bullet that will fix every single issue. But I definitely think it's a great starting point for us to start at.
Josh:I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more If you would share with those that are listening but your story, because you came and spoke to our Latinos for Tennessee group a couple of Saturdays ago and your story really resonated with a lot of our members that were there, and so if you could share that again, that would be awesome.
Walter:Yeah, yeah. So I grew up in the inner city of Columbus, Ohio, where I was surrounded by poverty, crime and low expectations. If anyone knows the Columbus area lived with my grandma for quite some time, but she lived right near the fairgrounds which, like I said, if you're familiar, you know very well that's the ghetto right. That is as ghetto as it gets. And so we tried different types of schooling homeschooling, charter schools, community schools and nothing just really seemed to work. Nothing worked for me. I was a social butterfly. I was diagnosed with ADHD and you know just all these kind of issues that kids nowadays are actually frankly dealing with, a far, far more worse than some of the things that I've encountered. But I was severely bullied in school, multiple grades behind, and my mom was just fed up. She was just tired of it, my dad was tired of it, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was one day when I was in the principal's office with a bloody nose and a ripped shirt and the principal told my mom if you just give us five years, we'll have middle school turned around and high school turned around and they will be better places for Walter. He can thrive, he can succeed all of these things and my mom said in five years Walter will either be in jail or in a body bag, and we don't have time for either of those things, because that was the reality in my community. And so I got a call from an organization called Bail, which is the Black Alliance for Educational Options. They're no longer around, but they called my mom and said, hey, walter might be eligible for the scholarship to go to private school. And she ignored the call quite a few times because it was just like private school is completely out of the question. I'm number two of six kids and we could barely keep food on the table, and so found out about it, quickly enrolled me into a small private Christian school where my educational journey just took off.
Walter:I remember being excited about learning, excited about going to school, and I played sports, I played instruments, I was in plays, I did literally every single thing that I could while growing a rich community.
Walter:People that were rooting for me, wanted me to succeed, and it was just like going to my home, my home away from home. And even now, every time I go back to Ohio, I always visit the school and the administrators and hear about all the great things that the school is doing, and so I would want to graduate high school college, which statistically was not the expectation of my community at all. But I began to realize that I had a very unique perspective in this space, and it's coming from someone who wasn't in a political family, didn't know any of the nuances or how polarizing this issue was and this would have been in the early 2000s. I realized that I wasn't someone who just believed in school choice, thought it was great policy or made sense. I lived it. I went through the program from sixth grade all the way through twelfth grade, and it changed my life and it saved my life, and so, after graduating, went on to work with the American Federation for Children full time in Washington DC and traveling.
Walter:Yeah. So I had been advocating for school choice at the state level for quite some time and just doing a lot of events and testifying. Yeah, yeah, I wasn't being paid. I was still in high school. I just wanted every kid to have the same opportunity that I had. So at that point in time, I didn't even know that that was an actual profession. Like people actually got paid to lobby, people got paid to be advocates and all these things.
Walter:And so the rooms got bigger, the people in the rooms got more important and when I was in college, I got this random email from an incredible woman named Jenna Gregg, who works at AFC to this day, and she said hey, Walter, your story has taken the national stage. We would love to have you come to this event that we're doing, which is their annual summit, and we'll fly you out, we'll pay for your costs and all that stuff. And I'm in college, like totally oblivious to the real world, like this is a scam, they're going to get all my information or I'm going to get kidnapped or something crazy. But that simply wasn't the case and ended up sitting at a table with Secretary DeVos and her husband and a few philanthropists who have really been key in supporting a school choice across the country in a lot of different ways. And so I was just stunned right, I'm barely 20-year-old kid sitting at a table with billionaire right Just an incredibly surreal experience and started doing more work with AFC. And whenever AFC would reach out within minutes, my response was always yes. It was hey, walter, can you come to DC for this or can you come and do that? It was always always yes. And so I bugged them for probably about three years straight with emails and things like how do I get more involved? How do I do more of this stuff? And it was so, so cool.
Walter:And so one time I was in college, I was working at Aldi and I get a text message from our CEO. Now Tommy Schulte said hey, the secretary's invited you to introduce her when she unveils her federal plan for school choice. And it was the next day. This was like an eight o'clock in the evening. I was like, yes, I had shifts, I needed to be at. The next day, I was like I don't care, I'm flying to DC and I'm doing this thing. And so I just stayed in contact with people at AFC and always asking and learning and just wanting to be involved more, until the point where they decided to offer me a job, which was a huge leap of faith because I knew nothing. I couldn't tell you the difference between a public school and a charter school. I knew absolutely nothing about school choice policy. But they took a chance on me and the first few months being in DC was really brutal slapped faster pace than Ohio and I had to learn very, very quickly. And so, yeah, that was in 2019.
Walter:I joined full time and I've been connected to AFC throughout the past few years five years, four years and just really loving it, getting to meet incredible people, build great relationships with awesome people.
Walter:Tim Scott is a really close friend of mine and a mentor and someone that I look up to and admire. And just being in the fight right being in the fight, being engaged it's the most important thing, especially in the black community. So many parents just aren't aware or just don't know about these options or how to make sure that their voice is heard, and you really don't know until you're in it and being able to go back to the communities that I've come from or similar communities and say this is a good option for you and you should be on the front lines, just like I am, and so I've been very proud of the success that AFC has had in the past decade supporting school choice and at the state level across the country. A lot of states have school choice lying off the shelves in state houses across the country, really even before the pandemic. But the pandemic just exponentially accelerated that pace and that progress to the point where now it's trickling down into families and households across the country.
Josh:And before I get into that, I just want to thank our sponsor, HeyRoofmancom. For all your roofing needs for minor repair, tfor full roof replacements, HeyRoofman. com has you covered. Call today for your free estimate 615-945-1492. That's 615-945-1492. Or go to HeyRoofman. c HeyRouffMancom, they will take care of all your needs. So okay, so some people are against charter schools and vouchers, and then some people are for charter schools but are against vouchers because of the amount of money that is supposedly taken away from them in school districts. And what is the truth and what is the lie behind that?
Josh:Yeah so in my opinion, you know because. I graduated homeschool, from lLving Heritage Academy, kind of the same thing. I was in public school, elementary, middle school, middle school. My dad retired. We moved to California because I was meddling a lot in gangs. Now I was born and raised military.
Josh:It was got so bad that my mom she went to California with a church choir and we were part of a mega church in Louisiana and they went out to California to sing one weekend and came back and she was like we're moving to California and we're moving in two weeks. Now I was like, yeah, right, my mom says something, it's gonna happen In two weeks. We packed up, we moved to California. They had a mega church, about 5,000 people, had a private school, a Christian college, a radio station. Their youth group was probably about 300, 400 people, but still there in Christian school. You know, I got suspended for fighting and it wasn't until my mom pulled me out of private school and homeschooled me and then I had a relationship with Jesus Christ at a youth camp and my life had never been the same. And you know, I think it's if parents want to homeschool, they're gonna spend. They're gonna spend money to homeschool, or if they're gonna send their kids across town to a private school.
Josh:I don't know all the intricacies of the charter school and the vouchers and if money is taken away from the public school system for charters and for vouchers, but at the end of the day, if we can really look at the public school system and see if there's areas of opportunity there, is there a lot of fat that could be cut away. Is there things that you know? Some states is like 60% of the United States probably in whole, and then some of these counties and cities, like over 50% of the revenue that is generated, over 60% probably goes to education. How do we have 50 and 60 and maybe even 70% of the revenue goes to education? For what? A lot of it is for building new schools. Payroll, of course, is the highest, which you know.
Josh:I love our teachers, I support our teachers, but in a nation where we can choose, a nation of choice, we get to choose everything every day. For me, if I'm paying my taxes, then I should be able to have a voice and have a choice of where I send my kids to school. You know, number one I think state colleges should be free anyways. I mean we don't pay for elementary, middle and high school, so all state colleges should be free. And then if I wanna send my kids to another school and the state is going to pay me to do that, then who really cares? Just for me? I don't care about all the details and intricacies of all that. If the state is gonna pay me, if a private school is gonna cost $10,000 a year and the state's gonna give me $7,000, or whatever they give me and then I'm gonna pay the difference, or if I can find a school that's going to cost what the state is going to give me, then that's my choice.
Josh:Whatś the difference between that and socialized healthcare. It's like I just don't understand man.
Walter:Yeah, so there's a lot to unpack there, but I think the two largest misconceptions that we hear is, that the public schools are chronically underfunded, and school choice takes money away from public school?
Walter:Yeah, so I'm gonna hit both of those points. So, when it comes to the public schools being underfunded, it's just simply not true. Since, I believe since the 70s or 80s, Tennessee specifically, since we're both in the state, per pupil education spending has gone up 180% after adjusting for inflation. We spend I believe the last report that I saw from the Department of Education in 2023, maybe 2022, right around 10 billion in K through 12 education in the state, and I guess my question is, as a taxpayer, right? It's how much does it cost to effectively educate children? You see, in some states where the per people spending is 20, 25, 30,000 per student per year and the results are worse than Tennessee's are right. And so education spending, it's not the amount, it's how it's being allocated. Right, in some states across the country, the superintendent of a particular district may make more money a year than the governor does, right, regardless of performance and all those kinds of things, and so they're not underfunded. It's how those dollars are being allocated, where most of it is administrative blow, and you might have and this is hyperbole and exaggeration, so don't quote me on this there may be a principal somewhere, a superintendent, who might have two assistants who are making $80, $90, $100,000 a year, right? What would it be to, like you said, cut off some of that fat and actually make some of those dollars trickle to the classroom? I think that's something that's super important.
Walter:The second myth is that school choice takes money from public schools. Once again, it's not true, because those dollars are already allocated to educate children. It's not to fund a jobs program, it's not to fund a building. Yeah, some of those dollars are used in that, but that's not its main function. It is specifically to educate children. So if you go to a mechanic and there's some holes in this, mind you but this is an example if you go to a mechanic and he fixes your car three times and you keep having the same problem, so you got to keep going into a fix, keep going into a fix. So you're like I'm done, I'm going to go to another mechanic who can fix it. And how ridiculous would it be for that mechanic that you left to say, oh well, that other mechanic is diverting dollars from my business, from my company, right? It's like, well, if you did your job the first time, there wouldn't have been a problem.
Walter:And so when you look at how public schools are funded. They're funded in three buckets federal, state and local. All these programs across the country are at the state levels funding. So in the state of Tennessee with the ESA, it uses state dollars, state funding. So even if that kid leaves the public school district, that family is still paying for the public school through other mechanisms. Property taxes is another mechanism. So on a per pupil basis, when a student leaves that public school, per pupil actually makes more money because they keep a portion, they don't take the full federal and local dollars and they don't have to educate that child. So if the kid's not there, you don't have to allocate resources to educate him because that student isn't there to begin with. Yeah, so that's a lot of the misnomers that we're discussing and people will say things like well, yeah, the kid leaves, so things change, but no one has the problem when a family moves out of the district and go somewhere else, they don't say that that's pulling away from the public school district.
Walter:And the issue with school choice has become so politicized and so polarizing that children once again are left out of the conversation. People go to the school choice. We heard it last night. They say our public schools are greater. We don't want this blah, blah blah.
Walter:It's like, okay, I don't see state Democrats really talking about this. I don't see the jail he really talking about this. No one is talking about the actual academic results that the public schools are producing. That may make a parent want to leave to begin with and, of course, like we said before, academic results is only one reason that a parent may pull their child. But in Nashville, he said, 48% of students are black or something like that. 30%, right around 30% of students in Metro Nashville public schools are proficient in reading and math. 10 billion, $10 billion annually, and that's the result that we're producing. When you look into it a little bit deeper, the statewide average including Nashville, but also the rest of the state average per pupil is actually less than what Nashville's getting and the students are performing a little bit better not significantly better, but still performing a little bit better. They're roughly around 40% in proficiency rate.
Walter:And so no one's talking about this at all. people say, well, this is gonna happen, or this is gonna happen, or this is what's going to be a result of this, but no one is asking the question as well why would a parent wanna leave in the first place? Why don't we start there and improve it so that, even if the governor passes a very bold universal ESA program, if the public schools are great, no one's gonna leave? No one's gonna wanna leave? And so that's the perspective that I often bring to these conversations where people who are opposing it. It's like, okay, sure, that's what you believe, great.
Walter:But what do you tell that mom in Memphis, right? What do you tell that mom in Nashville who has sent her kids to failing schools, who has been in failing schools herself and has no other option? One of the things that we hear is, oh, if you want private school, pay for it. It's like, sure, if you can afford it. But what do you do? You're a family that's living paycheck to paycheck, working multiple jobs, and can barely keep food on a table, like my family. That's not an option, and so allowing parents to be in the driver's seat of their state dollars is really the best thing that we can do for education In the meantime why we work to improve other systems.
Josh:And I totally agree because you know, here I was looking at something in WKRA and says National Tennessee National Commissioner of Children and Youth, release of 2023, county profiles on child wellbeing and Davis County right near the bottom compared to other states. And you know, it's just like you said there's so much money that is gone to waste and has to allow and understand why certain public have to be politicized and a lot of toxicity going into that. When it's just kind of like, hey, let's choose. You know there was somebody that told me something and well, I don't know exactly how he put it, but it goes something like these are unelected people trying to tell the state what to do with the money unelected people and it's not their money, it's the state's money. The state can choose to do with that money whatever they want.
Josh:And so I'm just kind of like, let's give it a shot. You know, let's give it a shot. Allow your children to have that chance and have that choice to be better. You know, some counties in Tennessee and across the United States a lot of counties have great public schools and we're not saying that it's all one thing or nothing. Let's say if you got great public schools, stay, keep your kids in there. But if you're in Metro Nashville and schools are ranked towards the bottom Nationally, then why not allow families to say, hey, let me choose a private school or charter school or magnet school to send my kids to? And of course, a lot of parents I don't know if they're just uninformed and the reason why they're not informed is because they don't take the time to go on to this right here and look it up.
Josh:Look up the information on Google on the charter schools or programs and how do I qualify and what's the process. And it's there for you, especially in Davidson County. I mean, I hardly hear anything about the voucher program in Davidson County. In Davidson County, it's there, and so I wish that parents would first of all inform themselves and really look this up for themselves because it's hard right.
Walter:I'm in this space 24 seven. I eat, sleep and breathe, school choice, and there are tons of things that I miss on a daily basis. It is like a lot and I believe that's where people like you and I Latinos for Tennessee Beacon Center, the American Federation for Children, can bridge that gap and provide resources, like AFC has done a lot of infographics or marketing things in Spanish to give out to the Hispanic community here in the state. And it also takes once again us carrying a lot of that weight because, like I said, it is it's hard right. You're a parent, you know what it's like, but you and I are in this world all of the time. For a family that's just trying to make it, that's really, really difficult. And even looking at the Tennessee pilot program result what? 20, 2100, I think students that were using it here in Nashville Well, I'm in Franklin right now, but it's in Nashville. A lot more families are eligible for it.
Walter:But it's that information barrier that we have to continue to stay on point with messaging, with additional resources. I mean sometimes I'm wondering okay, should I just post up on a corner somewhere in Nashville and get a booth together and bring, you know 500 applications. Sometimes we often get stuck in the politics of it all right, being at the Capitol, having our events and our bourbon and scars and all that kind of stuff which is fun. But more often than not I'm starting to realize that, okay, we have to go to where the people are. It's not enough just to pass meaningful legislation. We have to be able to take that legislation into communities and into households and let them know. And honestly, that is such a much more difficult job to do. But I believe that's how you get the most support, because then, once programs get threatened, you have an army right. You have a database of black moms, brown moms, white moms, like any family that is using the program to say, no, I want this for my child and you will not take it away. And so the messaging game is hard. It's difficult to get buy-in from people, but once they start to see the effects of it, it's great.
Walter:And then there's also the issue of the political umbrella that it sits under. When you have the teachers' union spending, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in political stuff. Primarily, 99% of their contributions go to Democrats, all of the political things that have seeped into this particular issue. The system or the status quo is gonna do everything that it can to remain the same right, to keep the power and the dollars and the resources under their control. But COVID showed us that the unions overplayed their hand giving guidance to the CDC whether to keep schools open or closed.
Walter:During the pandemic, we found blue states that kept schools closed longer had the higher impacts of learning laws. It was all political, right. You have members of the teachers' unions protesting and striking in Chicago, not going to school teaching kids, but then are going to the Dominican Republic. So all of a sudden you know COVID doesn't affect you in the Dominican Republic, right? And so, thinking about all these things, it's important for us not to get caught in the weeds and some of that stuff and keep it central to. There are parents and families and children that could benefit from this, and who are we to deny them that choice?
Josh:That is so true. And, of course, any parent, any individual, can go to FederationforChildrenorg. Right, Federationforchildrenorg and AFC is on Instagram, Facebook, social media, and so I want to, before we end, I want to give a special thank you to our sponsor, HeyFoofmancom. For all your roofing needs, for minor repairs to full roof replacements. HeyRoofmancom has you covered. Call today for a free estimate at 615-945-1492. That's 615-945-1492. Or go to HeyRoofman,com for all your roofing needs. Walter, this is a topic that's so controversial, but it makes sense for everything, is it? Just take the time, do your research and then come to your own conclusion. Don't allow your decisions to be based off of what you hear in the media, what you read on social media, and so any parting words for those that are listening today.
Walter:Yeah, just know that there is a army of school choice supporters in the state of Tennessee, including both of us, the governors behind it Senate majority leaders, house majority leaders are full force, and so if there's any questions, concerns, please reach out to me. Give me a follow on X because, josh, I know your podcast is going to blow up and so I need all the Twitter followers. I can get our X followers, but if you need additional resources, find me on social media, dm me. My handle is, all the same, walt Blanks Jr, and would love to point you in the right direction.
Josh:Sounds good. Are you going to?
Walter:be there tomorrow night. Of course you know I am, I'm already planning on it. I was so excited.
Josh:I'm so excited, tomorrow night getting back to basics, and it's about messaging. Everything is about messaging right. Everything, even outside the political spectrum, corporate America everything is about messaging. That's why people spend billions of dollars in just marketing, because they understand that messaging is important. So thank you so much, walter, for taking the time to be on the podcast. I really appreciate it and know that public schools are good, private schools are good, charter schools are good. All types of schools are good. It's what's best for the child and, like you said, a lot of times we leave our kids out of it. Ellie's getting ready to go to elementary school, but I wonder what's best for her and for us. We've got great public schools and great elementary schools here in our public school system, but for other parents that's not the case, and so take some time, do some research and come to your own conclusion. Thank you all so much. Have a wonderful day and make sure you catch our next podcast coming up and we'll talk to you all soon.
