The Daily Signal - #363: Reforming Our Educational System

Episode Date: December 18, 2018

Education in America has radically changed just in the 50 years, and with it has changed the way students learn about our past. Our colleague Rachel del Guidice sits down with Rick Graber of the Bradley Foundation, who’s working to reform higher education and K-12 education in America. Plus: It’s almost Christmas, and it’s cold outside -- but is that song, “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” acceptable in 2018? We also cover these stories:--The Senate released two reports Monday on Russian propaganda activity in the lead-up to the 2016 election.--Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee who was up for reelection in 2020, is retiring after he completes this term.--Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York stated Monday, “Let’s legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all."The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, December 18th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Education in America has radically changed just in the last 50 years and with it has changed the way students learn about our past. Today, our colleague and reporter, Rachel Del Judas, sits down with Rick Graber of the Bradley Foundation who's working to reform higher education and K-12 education in America. Plus, it's almost Christmas and it's cold outside, unless you live in Florida or some places

like that. But is that song, Baby, it's Cold Outside, acceptable in the year 2018. We'll discuss. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Well, with a government shut down looming, members of Congress remain at a standoff. The reason?

Well, much of it boils down to the border wall. President Trump drew a line in the sand last week in a public meeting with Democratic leaders, saying he would veto a funding bill that doesn't include funds for the border wall. On Monday, he tweeted, quote, Anytime you hear a Democrat saying that you can have good border security without a wall,

write them off as just another politician following the party line, end quote. But the president faces another problem other than the Democrats. Since the election, a number of lame duck Republicans, those who lost or are retiring, haven't been showing up for votes. That puts Republican leaders in a bind and creates more uncertainty leading up to December 21st when the government is set to run out of funding. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, New York indicated the left isn't happy about a Friday court ruling from a district judge in the

Fifth Circuit that found Obamacare is now unconstitutional and doesn't intend to go with it. Okay, well, first, Chuck, it's an awful ruling. It goes, of course, it undoes preexisting conditions. It jeopardizes the tens of millions who are getting good health care in the exchange. But it goes way beyond that. It would knock out funding for treatment of opioids. It would raise drug prices and close the donut hole so seniors would pay more for drug prices. It would eliminate a lot of maternal care, all kinds of women's health.

It's an awful, awful ruling. We're going to fight this tooth and nail. And the first thing we're going to do when we get back there in the Senate is urge, put a vote on the floor, urging an intervention in the case. The judge, a lot of this depends on congressional intent. And if a majority of the House and a majority of the Senate, that this case should be overturned, it'll have a tremendous effect on the appeal. So our first stop is the courts. We believe this should be overturned.

It's an awful, awful decision. That's Schumer on Meet the Press Sunday. And to be clear, he wasn't talking to himself. He was talking to Chuck Todd. But the case, which pivoted about whether the individual mandate now being zero dollars, in other words, eliminated, meant Obamacare was no longer a tax as expected to continue winding its way through the courts. Well, the Senate released two reports on Monday on Russian propaganda activity in the lead-up to the

2016 election. And a major finding is that Russia heavily promoted President Trump on social media, with one report calling it a sweeping and sustained social influence operation. That report also said Russia tried to hack online voting systems and stole emails from the Clinton campaign, which led to a controlled leak via WikiLeaks. the other Senate report said that Russian bots heavily targeted a number of minority groups, including African Americans, pushing them to boycott the election and creating dozens of websites appearing to be of African American origin. On YouTube, Russian operatives gave most coverage to the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality, creating channels called Don't Shoot and Black to Live.

There's so much more in these reports to talk about, but one final interesting note is that the liberal pages that were created by these Russian operatives criticized Hillary Clinton heavily and instead promoted Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein in the election. Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and who was going to be up for re-election in 2020, is announcing that he will be retiring after he completes this term. And a statement, Alexander said, the people of Tennessee have been very generous, electing me to serve more combined years as governor and senator than anyone else from our state. I am deeply grateful, but now it is time for someone else to have that privilege.

Alexander, who is 78, is a three-term senator. Well, President Trump is urging the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates. On Monday, he tweeted, quote, It is incredible that with a very strong dollar in virtually no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning in China way down. The Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. Take the victory, end quote.

The president's tweet comes as the stock market is hitting a major snag. In fact, it's the worst start to December for the stock market since 1980. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates yet again in the coming days. Well, you may not be able to smoke a cigarette in New York without attracting a thousand or so dirty looks, But the state is now gearing up to make smoking pot perfectly legal. In a speech Monday, Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo stated, let's legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all. End quote.

Currently, recreational marijuana is legal in 10 states and, of course, the District of Columbia. Well, last week, the tragic story emerged of the death of a young 7-year-old girl who had climbed the border fence with her parents and been detained by Border Patrol. It was a heart-wrenching story, and the initial media coverage implicitly suggested that the Border Patrol had more than a little to do with her death, and from there, the story went viral. Well, now the truth is coming out. The father of the young girl has confirmed that she actually hadn't drinking or eaten anything for days before arriving on U.S. soil, and that Border Patrol officers actually tried to save her life, though in vain. She was manually revived twice, and then transported by air to the hospital where she passed. away. Well, despite those facts, major Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer and Alexandra Ocasio

Cortez used the girl's death against the administration, calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen to be, quote, held accountable. Well, it's a tragic story, but, as always, the truth is crucial. Right. Absolutely. It's important to know what the facts are before you start opining about an issue, but hey, don't let me stop you media. Next up, we'll have our colleague Rachel's interview about education reform. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. Each Tuesday in the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information

on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. It's my honor to welcome Rick Graber, president of the Bradley Foundation to the Daily Signal podcast. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you. So for those who aren't familiar with the Bradley Foundation, can you just give us a bird's eye view of what you guys do? Well, we're a private foundation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, named after two brothers lined in Harry Bradley, who were successful industrialists in the mid-1900s who built a great company in Milwaukee, and then that company ultimately sold, and the cash from that sale ended up as part of the

Bradley Foundation. And our mission is really to fulfill their legacy, to follow their dreams of what they thought was good for America. And that means things like being loyal to our Constitution, our system of federalism and separation of powers and individual liberties. It means supporting organizations that believe in free markets, allowing entrepreneurs to thrive in a governmental system that doesn't inhibit what they're trying to do. All this works if you have a thriving civil society.

So we work a lot on civil society issues, the issues that really the glue that has held this country together, families, churches, neighborhoods, private organizations. And this all works only if you've got informed citizens. So that really gets at our work in education reform, K-12 reform, higher education reform. You mentioned education reform. Can you talk a little bit about that, what you do, K-12 as well as higher education, the need you see there, and then what you guys do to fill that need? Well, a lot of our work in K-12 reform has really taken place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And it really is true that the Bradley Foundation was one of the early leaders in school

choice. To the point where today in Milwaukee, 55% of our kids attend the public schools, traditional public schools, meaning 45% are in different kinds of schools. So empowering people to make choices we think is really important. We've got a problem in this country, particularly in urban education, but rural education as well. And it seems to us that if parents are given the ability to choose the place where they think their child can best be educated, that's a good thing. It also creates competition. It's about markets. So it really does fit well with what the Bradley brothers would have wanted.

So right now you're in Washington, D.C. this week hosting the first ever Bradley Forum. First ever. First ever, which is congrats. That's fabulous. What inspired you to host this forum and what are a few of the main takeaways and highlights that you've seen in it? Well, it gets at our informed citizens' mission of educating people, talking to people. We brought together a number of people that we work with that represent organizations that we support. And we'd had a great conversation on the Hill and this

morning with state legislators on economic reform, on education reform, on the opportunities that exist in this next Congress with a divided government. So it really is all about getting at that mission of educating people, making sure they're informed and keeping America as strong as it can possibly be. So given your work in education and with students, what is the state in general, would you say, of the conservative movement, as well as higher education and how do you see that relationship? Let's drill down into that little bit more.

How do you see that relationship is working together and the needs there? Well, let's start with higher education. We've got a lot of goals there. It gets at a number of things. It gets at individual liberties and people feeling comfortable with expressing opinions and hearing. different opinions. There's no balance in higher education these days whatsoever. So it's a tough climb for people on the conservative side of things, but we work very closely with a lot of

universities around the country funding centers that present alternative ideas. We work very closely with conservative professors who are charged with training the professors of tomorrow. So we're trying to do our part to begin to change the dialogue and make universities truly what they should be, a place of open ideas and different opinions and a place where students can really begin to understand themselves. Your question about where is the conservative movement? I tend to be an optimist. There's lots of discussions on that, as you would expect in a democracy. It's not always neat and clean. And people have different perspectives.

We define our conservatism in the way that I just outlined with our constitutional order and informed citizens and civil society and free markets, which is a broad spectrum. But a debate is healthy. And I think we're seeing some of that in this country right now. We've just got to keep dialogue going, build that stronger civil society. And as I said, I tend to be an optimist. That's great. And your point on not having that debate, I just recently spoke with the student from UC Berkeley. And she was telling me the very same thing.

She faced a lot of pushback from students at her school because she chose not to vote on some transgender resolution. She just said, all abstain. And they wouldn't print an op-ed of hers that she wrote explaining her vote. She faced a lot of pushback. And she said the same thing you told me that, you know, we're supposed to be, we're in these, you know, higher education institutions. We're supposed to be having these discussions. and then a lot of times they're just squelched and we're not able to have these discussions and to build a civil society.

So she told me the same thing that you said. I think it's right. And I think there are a lot of professors, conservative professors, that face very tough situations on campus where they're ostracized, it's more difficult to get tenure and so forth. That's not right. That's not right. And I think most Americans should be able to agree that having that opportunity to hear different ideas is a good thing rather than a bad.

So in May, you hosted the Bradley Prizes that on a lot of. or individuals who have worked to promote the principles and institutions of American exceptionalism. Who did you honor this year? And what are some of the highlights from that event that you guys had? Oh, it's a great event every year where, as you say, we recognize three or four outstanding conservatives for the work that they've done. This last year, we did it at the National Building Museum here in Washington, which is a spectacular

venue. Our award winners this year were Jason Riley, who you've seen right for the, right for the Wall Street Journal, part of the Manhattan Institute, Alan Gelzo, who's actually a great example of a professor that has faced lots of challenges. He's probably the preeminent Civil War historian in the United States. He works at Gettysburg College, and he's just a fascinating man. You ought to pick up some of his works if you get a chance. And we also recognize Charles Kessler, from Claremont in California, also a great conservative. We go through a process that we've already begun for next year,

where we solicit nominations from around the country. We have a great selection committee that undertakes the difficult task of winnowing that down to three or four people. And then we have a great event. We have a great celebratory event here in Washington, D.C. each year. So looking at your own life and the amazing people you've got to work with, like you just mentioned, And what inspired you to first get involved in the conservative movement? Good question. You know, I think it probably started with my parents.

My mother and father are true blood conservatives, and I think they kind of instilled that in us. You know, I ran for office for the state legislature. I've been involved in party politics in the state of Wisconsin for a long time. You know, the longer you get into a career, the more you think about some of these critical issues. and I had the opportunity to join the Bradley Foundation Board and another conservative foundation in Wisconsin called the Kern Family Foundation Board. And it really does help crystallize your ideas.

And what a wonderful opportunity that all of us have at Bradley to be stewards of a significant endowment and to be able to spend that money in ways that hopefully benefit the causes that we think are so very important. Lastly, how would you encourage young people and even others, maybe stay-at-home moms, who want to get involved in the conservative movement, but they're not quite sure where to start.

Your point is get involved, find a way to get involved, and it can be done in any number of ways. It can be the political way, volunteering on a campaign. But if you look at virtually any websites, including the Bradley website, take a look at the things that we're working on and look at other organizations. The Bradley Foundation's very transplantation,

very transparent. We fund hundreds of organizations each year. Look at their websites. Find something that you're passionate about. And then go for it. People are busy. People are raising kids. People are going to school. They're doing their homework. It's tough to find that time, but it's really rewarding. And boy, does it make a difference. It makes a difference in this country. As I said at the outset, there's a special glue, and I've lived outside this country, so I've experienced. There's a special glue in the United States that gets at private voluntary organizations, people volunteering their time, which you just don't see in other countries around the world. Do some volunteering because it really will make a difference.

Well, Rick, thank you for the difference you're making at the Bradley Foundation. Thank you for all you do to unite and just promote conservative American ideals. And thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast today. Great to be with you. And thanks to Heritage for all that Heritage does each and every day. If you enjoy listening to the Daily Signal podcast, would you consider a year-end gift to support our work? Your gift enables us to keep doing groundbreaking reporting and the best conservative policy analysis on today's most critical issues. Just go to dailysignal.com slash donate to make your tax-deductible gift today.

Thanks for listening. We appreciate your support. I really can't stay. But maybe it's cold outside. I've got to go away. But baby it's cold outside. That's the Seth MacFarlane and Sarah Borella's run edition of Baby It's Cold Outside. A radio station in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, W.A.K.Y. Defended playing the song by playing Baby It's Cold Outside for a full two hours on Sunday.

What's the issue? Well, some say the lyrics of the song are problematic in the Me Too era, discussing how the woman sings say what's in the strength. and I ought to say no, no, no. One Cleveland radio station has banned the song, but not everyone's on board. When a San Francisco station discussed no longer playing the song, it got so much pro feedback.

It put the song back on the airwaves. Among the song's defenders include CBS this morning host, Gail King, who said, quote, I'm a big supporter and proponent of the Me Too movement, but I just don't think we have to nitpick every single little thing. It's a Christmas song that was written years ago, and you have to look at the intent of the song. And when you look at the intent of the song, to me, it's a very flirtatious back and forth between the two of them, end quote. So, Daniel, what do you think? Should this song be allowed on the airways?

You know, honestly, yes, obviously it should be allowed because government shouldn't place them. A lot of it's a bad word. Is it okay that our culture embraces baby it's cold out there? That's such a complicated question. Okay. So I never actually thought about the song in these terms until now. Wait, what? This has been a debate for like six years. No, I mean, anyway.

I mean since I started working in this area. It was just a Christmas song that was kind of great music, great band. I love everything about it. But then thinking about what, you know, I do not, on the one hand, I don't agree with what some people are saying like this is obviously insinuating something like date rape. You know, I don't think that's legitimate. I don't think that's what's happening. But I do, I will say, and feel free to contradict me here, I think the guy is not actually,

you know, he's not being a gentleman in the song, I will say, assuming that he's hosting her and that she's a visitor at his house, like she should, she should be free to leave. But at the same time, I think it's clear that she wants to be persuaded to stay because she She's lingering and she's like divided. She's kind of duplicitous, right? She's saying, you know, I really ought to go. I really need to leave. And yet she's not leaving.

Well, I think duplicitous is a bit of a strong term for it. I think, you know, she's divided. And I think, yeah, I mean, I don't know. Not like in a sinister way, but just in like a romantic way. Yeah. But I think, yeah, I don't think it's, it does seem like crazy to me to say that date rape or something like that. And I mean, I think in terms of pressuring, and this is something, you know, we talk a lot about,

you know, gender identity and stuff on this show and traditional gender norms. And I do think some of this stuff is overstated on the right. But, you know, in general, in romantic relationships, guys tend to be the pursuer, girls tend to be the pursued. It's a song that just reflects that reality. It does. Although I will say, as our producer Thalia pointed out to us, as we were preparing, one of the early versions of this song, the roles were switched and the woman was singing

trying to get the man to stay, which I thought was really interesting, especially for the 40s, like when this song came out, that would have been an interesting reversal of roles. I would say I think it's an equal bout of flirtation on both sides. And I'm interested to hear people discuss that version just because they don't talk about what it looks like when the rolls are reversed. Now is the man in trouble? Like, does he need quote-unquote saving now in this Me Too movement? Or is it just when the women's trying to be coerced by the man?

Could you actually play a few bars of that version, Leah? Because I know when you played it for us earlier, I was actually struck. I've just never heard it with the sex roles reversed. And it was actually very interesting just hearing that. Really can't stay. The baby is cold outside. I've got to go away. A baby is cold outside.

This evening has been hoping that you drop it. very night. Okay, I'll say, I don't think this would ever happen, honestly. Unless the guy really decides he doesn't like the girl, and then he's got to get. Maybe he was in a rush. Maybe he needed to be somewhere. Maybe, yeah, it could have been. Important.

You don't know the circumstance. Yeah, business meeting at night. Who knows? All things being equal, though. His mom really was like, you need to show up for dinner occasionally. And that was from the film Neptune's Diner, which I think it won the Oscar for, that. So Neptune's daughter.

Neptune's daughter. And it's performed by Betty Garrett and Red Skeleton, for those who are interested. So maybe that's like the feminist anthem version. Like with all the debates going, like who should pay for dates, etc., etc. Like this could be the one that the ones who are like, oh, you know, if a woman should pay for dates, she can play this version. Fair enough. So I guess we basically said all the song should be fine. The woke version should be played on airways.

And the guy is maybe not a gentleman in your view. Yeah. That's my view. All right. But I'll still listen to the song because it's classic. We're going to leave it there for today. But thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud. And please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and the Learampersad. Visit daily signal.com.