The Daily Signal - It’s Time School Boards Be Held Accountable for Actions, Parent Says

Episode Date: February 16, 2021

All parents want their children to receive a good education and in Fort Worth, Texas, John Pritchett is working hard to ensure that desire becomes a reality.  Pritchett has helped organize the Focus on Students PAC, a group of parents who are working to bring more accountability to their local school board. Pritchett joins the podcast to discuss the PAC’s work to ensure school board members are qualified to hold office, and to push back against the far left policies the school board is promoting.  We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a school curriculum called “Why America is Free,” which promotes American values and historical truth. 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, February 16. I'm Robert Louis. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, Rob talks with John Pritchett. He helped organize the Focus on Students Pack in Fort Worth, Texas, a group of parents who are attempting to bring more accountability to their local school district by demanding a better education for their children. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a school curriculum called why America is free, which promotes American values and historical truth. Before we get today's show, we want to tell you about the most popular resource on the Heritage Foundation website, the guide to the Constitution. More than 100 scholars have contributed to create a unique line-by-line analysis of our

U.S. Constitution. The guide is intended to provide you with a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution as envisioned by the framers and is implied in contemporary law. never been a more important time to have an understanding of our founding document. So if you want to learn more about the Constitution, go ahead and visit heritage.org slash constitution or simply search for Heritage Guide to the Constitution. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We are joined in the Daily Signal podcast today by John Pritchett. He's a longtime political consultant in Texas and a parent who co-founded a group called Focus on Students Pack. It is demanding more accountability for the Fort Worth Independent School District, particularly at School Board.

John, thanks so much for joining us today. Good morning. It's good to be with you. Well, you are somebody who I think has captured in the work that you're doing, frustration that all of us parents, myself included, have found ourselves in, particularly in this time of COVID with our public schools. Take us back to why you decided to create this pack and what the mission of it really is. Yes. You bet. And thank you for the opportunity. So focus on students pack was founded just last fall with roots going back to the summer during the crisis of COVID when the whole world was concerned about what to do next and making the right decisions. And through all those good

conversations, what became more and more apparent to the people of Fort Worth was that our Fort Worth ISD School Board, at least certain members of it were incredibly not ready to make these decisions. They either used their own agendas to push their own political ideologies or they were just incapable of handling the stress. And it delayed the opening of schools. There was miscommunication between them and the superintendent who they actually oversee. He said he was ready. They wanted to stop. And then they involved the county government through the county health office to close all schools in Tarrant County, which brought in every private school parent, every charter school parent, guardian, grandmother, aunt, whoever had suddenly stuck with these wonderful children.

And so the frustration boiled over, but what I found after 25 years of politics is there's a way to actually hold these people accountable. We just need to focus some attention on our school board at the voter level. And so I started talking with people who have a long track record of trying to get more people to pay attention to the school board in Fort Worth. And founding this long-term pack was a array of excitement for everybody. It's not just a one-off effort of trying to get one incompetent or just old-fashioned financially corrupt person off the school board. It's going to be a long effort to sustain and keep qualified members on the board. John, Fort Worth Independent School District is one of the biggest school districts in the state of Texas. Why is it so?

that you find yourself in a situation where the school board members really aren't necessarily prepared for the circumstances that they find themselves in. I mean, they have a major budget. They're obviously affecting the lives of what, over 80,000 students. How do you plan to go about holding them accountable? And what can you tell us a little bit about the board and its current composition? You bet. And so the Fort Worth ISD School Board has nine members, all elected from single member districts. They oversee it. district of last year pre-COVID we had 84,000 students. This year were about 74, 75,000 due to transfers and then just lost enrollment that people don't know where other students went.

But they're elected by the general public in off-year cycle elections. And so typically May, odd-year elections. And so five members are up this May. They're typically elected anywhere from 841 votes. That's not total votes won by. That's not the margin. That's what they get. The winner got 841 votes or a big one might get 2,000 votes. And the challenge we're facing is how do we get people who are very active in general elections in November and Democrat and Republican primary elections in March preceding November elections? But how do we draw more of those people to these local elections? to hold these folks accountable who oversee a budget of, you know, a billion dollars plus a year. Since not many people pay attention, the few who do are the ones that get to decide, and they attract, whether it's prestige or just, you know, people would rather be a member of Congress than a school board member. We attract people who, though they may have great intentions,

either bring an ideology or an agenda that has no place. in a school district or they're just well-intentioned, but not ready to oversee a school district this size. And, John, let's talk about that ideology and agenda for a moment because we have seen in school districts across the country, a move to do things like critical race theory and bring in ideas that don't necessarily jive with what the local community really wants and being taught in school. Bring us up to speed on what it's like there in Fort Worth. Are you experiencing any of those same types of situations that we've seen nationwide? And why do you think that that might be the case?

You bet. And what we have here is the same thing happening nationally. It's not an accident. It's a national effort by people pushing these agendas. And it's a valid need to continue to help people find ways of loving one another, right? We are people and humans and we need to find out. vocabulary and the right ways of helping one another. But critical race theory is definitely not the way. But certain members of the school board push it. In fact, they don't just push it. They frame it as,

that is the lens through which they see all things. It is their life focus. And so they bring on volunteer committee members who injected into everything from just the standard discussions of, you know, was Abraham Lincoln evil or not, to can you see. speak, can you teach standard English or is that colonizing people who otherwise should be able to use their own grammar of choice? It's gone to, it'd be funny if it weren't so serious. It's gotten out of the academia of college campuses and now it's in ISDs and corporate boardrooms and HR departments. You see it everywhere as well, I'm sure. We certainly do. And our colleague Jared Stettman at The Daily Signal has done a great job of documenting this.

in many of the places. But this is happening at the same time that so many students in the school district are falling behind in reading and math. I was really struck by just a one-page information flyer, and I'm wondering if you can walk through some of the data because you have a large number of students who really aren't getting the education that they need.

Right. And so most people will quickly say, well, John, shoot, you know, it's a big ISD. Every ISD has troubles. And while there's truth in that statement, just across the big ISDs in Texas, take the top 20. Fourth ISD is about fifth in size after Houston and Dallas and San Antonio and some others. The Texas Education Agency is a state agency which oversees curriculum and instruction in Texas and guides all these independent school districts of how best to meet their goals. And so they give letter grades to each ISD in the state.

the top 20 ISDs by student population size, Fort Worth, is the worst alone. It's the only one to earn a C. Every other school district, including Houston and Dallas and San Antonio, which are all bigger, earned Bs or higher. And the margin wasn't a C plus to a B minus. It was by 10 points. They're earning B pluses and we're a good solid C. And so we ask ourselves, what is it about Fort Worth that's unique? And what we find is accountability.

The school board is not holding the superintendent accountable. And the superintendent is free to pursue other agendas or fly around the country giving speeches while he is president of the National Association of Superintendents or whatever. I'm not here to beat up on him. I'm here to talk about the school board. which should be holding him accountable. But the fruit of this lack of performance, 70% of the students in our big high schools, the big neighborhood pyramid high schools,

can't read at grade level. That is across the district. 64% can't do math at grade level. Across all schools, K through 12, 54% of the schools are in a D or an F in student achievement from the TEA. And so it's not that there's that one, low-performing school on that other side of town, that gosh only if we had a really great

principal go in there and change it like a movie from the 80s could fix it. That's not the case. Every campus in town, whether it's the very popular one by TCU to all the others, they're all suffering. And parents that have disengaged and moved to private schools or chartered schools or just moved outside of the district into suburban school districts have just disengaged. But what's impacting is on the human level, the students who are still here, and on the macro level, it's our city. Fort Worth is the, I think we're the 13th largest city in the country now. We're about to pass a million people. But in the 80s, we had numerous publicly traded Fortune 500 companies, Pier 1, Radio Shack, Lockhe,

American Airlines, Bell helicopter. We make big electronics, big steel and fast jets. Many of those have dwindled. Who's gone shopping at Pier 1 lately? Or Radio Shack? Nobody. And we've lost our corporate headquarters. And there's a big effort from City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce to attract companies and jobs to Fort Worth.

But companies like Boeing that were thinking of moving their headquarters here about 10 years ago said no. and the city fathers said, well, what was your biggest reason? They said, we don't want to send our employees to your schools. And so it's a human failure of we're not educating 84,000 kids a year. And it's a city failure because the 13th, soon to be 12th largest city in the country isn't attracting jobs and building an economy that's sustainable. Well, John, I can certainly understand your frustration.

Let me ask a couple of follow-up questions. That was really, in a way, depressing data that you share. Seven in ten students, you know, failing, unable to read at grade level, more than six and ten, unable to do so at math at grade level. You know, the Heritage Foundation and the Daily Signal have long been supporters of school choice. And you've indicated that some students have just left the district entirely and moved to private schools or other places where they can probably get a better education. Well, let me ask you, why have you decided to take the path of focusing on the school board and trying to bring more accountability? Obviously, you could just walk away and say,

oh, you know, forget about it, but you want to fix the problem. So what is it that specifically you think the school board could be doing to improve some of the academic performance? You bet. A couple of years ago, I was involved in the founding of a private school here in town called, it's a Christo Ray school. I won't get into that. It's a great mission. And, And success there and success at charter schools and success at smaller ISDs and other systems derives from culture. You can't have just the accidental academic environment. It has to be intentional. And so while the school board members can't go into a classroom and change the pedagogy of how do you teach a first grader to read, right?

what they can do is establish a culture of accountability, of expectations, of transparency, of professional ethics that they inculcate themselves, but then they also enforce upon the superintendent who then enforces it on the principles and on down the line. But without that intentional culture of excellence, you won't get it. You'll get pop-ups of a great principal here or there or a great teacher here or there. and we're not here to beat up on teachers or principals. They're frontline workers, but they need better direction, better vision from their leaders. And that starts at the top, which is the school board.

And so that's why we're focusing on them. I'm a fifth generation, Fort Worthy, and moved all over the country in my 20s and 30s, but came back here to raise a family, and it's a great place to be. But I want my kids to grow up in a city that's going to have professional employers. I was talking to the managing partner of a leading law firm here about a month ago. And people ask her, why are you engaging in education?

She said, I run a professional services company. If I don't have clients, I don't have a professional services company. I can't offer them legal advice. And so that's from the stake of people with no kids to the stake of people with kids. Everyone has a stake in this because it's about growing community and growing hearts and minds. And if we don't do it, if we do walk away, it's just shades of Detroit. It's that serious. It is certainly concerning.

And my second follow-up was, as you go around talking to people in the community about the work that you're doing through this organization and bringing them up to speed on some of the data that you shared with us, what is the reaction you're getting from other parents and other people in the community, even business leaders, as they perhaps react to this information that you're sharing. sharing. Initially, it's shock. Most of them know me and know I'm a political guy. And so they say, thank you, John, and they take the one-pageer and they populated to their friends and ask, you know, is this guy a political guy pushing an agenda or is this for real? And they all come back to me a day or two later and they say they had no idea. They knew the national narrative that public schools have challenges, but they didn't know the degree that Fort Worth is facing. And they're shocked. Well, in terms of what people can do, I'm wondering if I do want to give you a moment to talk about your specific PAC, but as people maybe nationwide, daily signal listeners who come from communities all over this great country, what advice do you have, having been involved in this effort for them? If they're frustrated with their local school board, what can they do to make a difference?

You bet. And nationally, it's that it's a paradigm shift in thinking of national elections are incredibly important and they get all of our attention and bandwidth. But the people who have the most impact on our day-to-day lives for the local elected officials, from setting the tax rate to educating our kids and defining the future of our communities. And so engaging people to focus on school board, to focus on these local elections, and support them with your campaign dollars because it's an invertive curve. I was reading about an effort that spent $90 million to fight one presidential candidate recently, and that's big and sexy, but it went nowhere. In fact, it all lined a bunch of consultants' pockets.

But where the biggest impact is needed in these local elections, it just doesn't draw much attention, doesn't draw much money. And so support them with your money, study the PACs, study the issues, and if you need help starting it, give me a call, and I'd be happy to talk with you. And how can people get involved with focus on students' PAC, whether they're listening from Fort Worth or some other place in Texas or around the country?

You bet. We have three parallel tracks. One is all the inside propeller head, you know, digital media junk that not many people can do. The other two are recruiting qualified. people who know how to read a P&L, right, who know how to hold someone accountable and oversee a billion dollar budget. We need people who are serious but positive

to run for these offices. And then everyone else, we need you to write a check, go online, and support it with your dollars. Well, John, thank you so much for being involved, active. I think it's so important as somebody who grew up attending a public school whose mother was, as a public school librarian was involved in the student newspaper,

trying to hold accountable our school board when I was a student. I think that this is so critical, it's so important. I think it's really admirable that instead of turning your attention to other issues, focusing on what's closest to the community, which is often the school board, is really a noble effort. So thank you for the work that you're doing. Well, you are welcome, and it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on today and help me share the message that focus

students is doing. Absolutely. Thank you, John. You bet. Conservative women. Conservative feminists. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen, and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories in interviews that are a particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each week we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first? In response to Ben Shapiro's

commentary piece, the inequality of equity, Mark Cartier writes, I was glad to read the article about equality and equity, yet troubled that there is a need for it. I, I was raised to believe all men are created equal. That does not and never has meant that where we each exist in time will be equal. Some individuals have more talent, enterprise, or plain luck and gain more, often an incredible amount more. That is liberty, freedom to choose, earn, and save. We can all choose, earn, and save. That's a good explanation, Virginia.

And Denise Sanford writes, Dear Daily Signal, I read the Daily Signal, I read the Daily Signal's Morning Bell, Each day, it's informative on what's happening in our country and why, but I end almost every article with the question, what can I do about this threat, fear, or problem? It all seems hopeless sometimes. Education is certainly key, but I would like to see some practical steps that your readers can do. Well, thank you so much for that letter, Denise. We have found that many of our readers asked that same question, and that is why the Heritage Foundation last year created the Citizens Guide to Fight for America. Guide provides you with helpful tools to show you just how you can get involved in your own community

and be a voice for Liberty. So just check it out at heritage.org slash citizens guide to learn more and sign up. And your letter can be featured on next week's show. So go ahead and send us an email at Letters at DailySignal.com. And your letter might be featured right here on this show. We're all guilty of it. Spending too much time watching silly videos on the internet. But it's 2021. Maybe it's time for a change. At the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel, you'll find videos that both entertain and educate, including virtual events featuring the biggest names in American politics, original explainers and documentaries, and heritage experts diving deep on topics like election integrity, China, and other threats to our democracy. All brought to by the nation's

most broadly supported public policy research institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe and share. Virginia, you have a good news story to share with us today. Over to you. Thanks so much, Rob. American history is increasingly becoming a controversial topic in our schools. The 1619 project and other progressive curriculums are using history to further a political agenda. And many teachers and parents are going to be a political agenda. And many teachers and parents are are looking for ways that they can teach young people the true history of the nation. Donna Passmore co-founded the nonprofit values through history in 1994 to give teachers and parents the tools to teach young people about the Revolutionary War and America's founding. I recently spoke with Donna and she told me a little bit about why she co-founded the organization and also why the group's mission is more important right now than ever before.

what we discovered was that nationwide, for the most part, schools teach early American history in the founding period in fifth or fourth and then again in seventh or eighth. And they don't really go back to this early period of the founding in a historical sense. Again, because in high school, most schools do it just a real quick wrap up of everything before reconstruction and then bring the study forward. So we were told there was nothing that could be done about it, and that was sort of our green light, because we had seen the effect of this even on our own children. And, you know, the idea that they were learning what we had learned, or in the depth that we had learned it,

was completely blown out of the water. So we set out at that point to see what could be done to address the situation, and that led very quickly to designing a curriculum that could work within the confines of the time allowed by states, in the time sequences allowed by states, and what would be most effective. And across the board, teachers were telling us that, you know, when they come into high school, they really don't remember anything that they'd learned about this before and don't have a great deal of interest. And in the younger grades, the middle school, they're saying precisely the same thing, that their children were coming into their classroom without real knowledge or great interest.

And so each step of the way, they're casting it back saying the children are not retaining the way we're teaching. And so we then looked to the upper elementary as a perfect period to set a course of study into place that could fit into the time that's allowed, but teach it so much more effectively that the children would not forget and would engage and would see their ownership, as well as get the basic big ideas of our government and how to be a good citizen. And that's what we set out to do. And it's important now because we've now had generations, in fact, who've had relatively little, training in this in a way that they take it to heart. And, you know, the nation has a great deal of divisiveness that is overcome when people see what we share is bigger than what we don't.

The organization has created a curriculum called Why America is Free to serve as a practical tool to teach the next generation America's founding values. As Donna told me, the curriculum is for upper elementary students. to learn not only about American history, but also how those lessons of history apply to their lives today. From the very first day, the children get into this, and they don't start it until they've already been through the precursor units that are typical at that age, where you start off with the Native Americans and then explorers,

and then colonialism and then slavery. And then finally you get to the point where the nation was on the cusp of calling for independence. And when they get to that point, the children find out that this is a period that is so important in not just the history of our nation, but the world, that we're going in deep. And to go in deep, you have to understand a great deal. We're going to, and then the children find out then a number of themes, but among them is that to understand a period, you must know it's world, the context. And they are going to learn so much that in excellence, that in excellence, number of weeks, and in most schools it's about five weeks later, they're going to be able to live a day and a night evening

as Americans in the midst of the American Revolution working toward the independence of this nation. Well, if you tell a fourth or fifth grader, that's a 10 or 11 year old typically, that they're going to have role play and all the grownups are going to be involved in it too, and they're going to know so much they're going to be able to do it well. That's an incredible hook, basically. The children are in. They want this information. So they get into it early on. They do a great deal of role play.

They create alter egos for themselves. They get into living as much as possible what they are learning. And one of the big pieces of this that I, it's very important for people to know, this is not a partisan issue at all. This is essential. I mean, even Washington knew it. The educating of our children to become good citizens is essential. And it's for all Americans.

Here at The Daily Signal, we know that this is a really challenging time for many parents and teachers as you navigate the far left agenda that's being promoted in so many schools. So it's wonderful to see an organization that is telling the complete story of America's founding. You can learn more and find out how you can begin using the curriculum by visiting values through history.org. Virginia, thanks so much for sharing that story as a parent myself. I can tell you, we need all the help that we can get sometimes. So that's great to hear. Absolutely. We are going to leave it there for today.

You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rurcashay Audio Network. All of our shows are available at daily signal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcast, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear,

please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to other listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by

more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Rob Blewey and Virginia Allen. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.