The Ricochet Podcast - A Great Education and... Extracurricular Activities

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

It seems Democrats are confident that racial preferences are the only way for Black Americans to succeed. Our all-American guest Ian Rowe disagrees. Why's he so sure? Because he's sees acheivement everyday in his charter schools in the Bronx. He covers why the left's prescriptions to equality is wrongheaded and harmful, along with why his are working. Rob, James and Steve (filling in for the hookey-playing Peter Robinson) get into all sorts of trouble when the educator's away... literal high crimes, misdeanors and other bad behavior.

That little theater is kind of sweet. It's like they do little plays. They're not little. I mean, they're actually regular full-size people doing full-size plays, but it's a little theater. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

Read my lips. No new answers. It's the Ricochet podcast with Peter Robinson. Oh, nope. Sorry, it's not Stephen Hayward sitting in for Peter. Rob Long in New York. I'm James Lilacs. And we talked to Ian Rowe about affirmative action, the Supreme Court and what to do about our schools. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I was found by my observation in a much more secure place. And now the investigation has progressed, and so they're saying the West Executive entrance, it is also next to West Executive Drive. That's where, for example, the vice president's vehicle is parked. No.

Welcome, everybody. Welcome to July. Welcome to Ricochet Podcast number 649. I'm James Lilacs in Minneapolis. Rob Long is in Gotham, we presume. Stephen Hayward is sitting in for Peter Robinson. And Stephen, where are you? I know that's of vital importance for everybody to have the theater of the mind of this show.

You are where? I am at my usual location on the central coast of California. And wondering why Peter Robinson hasn't figured out that they have telegraph service in Wyoming now. Yes, we should be doing this show by telegraph with Peter. It would be great, although we'd have to tell him to stop every sentence or so. That would be kind of fun, a guy in a motorcycle just whizzing up to Peter's door every minute and a half with the next question. Well, gentlemen, it's been a big week. Fourth's over, but the fourth delivered something of a bombshell, a firework, I'm sorry, with this decision about the government and social media.

Now, we all know what it is, right? They have this injunction that says that they can't put pressure, lean on the social media companies to combat disinformation. And much of the disinformation that they were worried about, of course, turns out to be information. Actual truth. Actual truth. My question is, because I brought this up to somebody who's a lawyer and who was completely uninterested in what actually had been, what the result of this was. Our good friend of the show, Dr. Jay, was one of the right was one of the guys. And we know what happened to him with the shadow banning and the rest of it.

But the person to whom I was speaking saying, well, what did the government do exactly? And I was saying, well, you know, they coordinated, they strongly suggested, he said, but did they force them to do any of these things? And you can say, well, you know, they don't have to force you necessarily. They can just sort of strongly suggest and that's enough. Or is it? I mean, is the fact that the government and the social media companies were colluding and the social media companies were doing the bidding of the government, is that in itself something that the court should look at if there is no specific uh leaning on them and making them do things i'm just throwing this out devil's advocate right you guys are smarter so go ahead take it well i you know i think you got to

crack down on really hard you got to hit him really hard over the head you got to like punish people you got to fire people you got to wrap some wrap some people in tars and feathers and send them out into the town square for two to know. And the second thing is, is that because we have now entered this bizarre part of the culture where people believe that they know exactly how you're going to react. That was the heart of the COVID problem, was that the government, all of the government, from the very top in the Oval Office, all the way through Fauci and Birx all the way into a lot of the states and the public health administration bureaucracy, they thought, well, we can't tell you anything. We can't tell you the truth because you'll draw the wrong conclusions. And so this wasn't an attempt to, in their minds, this was not an attempt to control us the way we think of people controlling like animal farm right they're trying to help us

they wanted to make it better for us they were trying to make it us safer and they thought we were too stupid to know how to do that ourselves the tyranny right right and that is what that is why you really need to crack down hard on these people not just because they were wrong, but because their impulse was wrong. And, you know, the truth is that, you know, we've had two or three giant, or maybe more, giant policy disasters in the past 20 years, right? Probably more, right? We had a war with Iraq. It was a foolish war. We had a financial collapse collapse which was really created by the same kind of arrogance and then we had covet and i don't see anybody being taken out in the town square and fired like i didn't see i remember arguing somebody some financier in 2008 about you

know the bailouts what do you want to do You want to see people selling apples on the street? He's like, yes, exactly. I want to see Ace Greenberg, head of AIG, and a bunch of other people selling apples on the street. I want them broke. What do you want to see? You want to see the full-scale, complete, top-to-bottom scouring of the FDA and and our our and our uh our system of funding laboratories yes yes that's exactly what i want i want i don't want anybody to go to jail they didn't do anything illegal but they were incompetent and they should be fired and what do i what do i want do i want

to uh what's your name biden's first uh press secretary's name and do i want her to be publicly shamed and vilified yes that's exactly what i I want. I want an example to be made of people who made errors of this kind. Well, Stephen, back to my question. Do you think that there was anything... Oh, there was a question? I mean, I agree with Rob. I agree completely. And I, too, would love to see these things happening, although probably the fruit monopoly in New York is as such as it would be difficult for these people to find produce. So maybe letters or something that was against the law was what the government did against and again i'm devil's advocating here i'm not saying what they did was right but was it against the law did they

do anything did they twist arms they force people or was this sort of uh i mean twitter and facebook were leaning into this in a lot of ways because they like rob said shared the desire to do to do us to do well for us a tyranny for our own benefit. Yeah, look, James, the federal government, actually state and local government do this too. They have long ago mastered the standard line of the organized crime syndicates. They say, nice little company you have here, shame if anything happened to it. And that's what went on here. I've read the entire opinion. It's 155 pages double-spaced, and it's a district court opinion. So remember that at that level of the legal process, the court is establishing facts.

So over 100 pages of this is a narrative of what happened and who said what. And it's absolutely devastating. And although there was no direct orders given, or maybe one or two, I'll give you one sentence in the opinion in a minute. There was lots of what the judge characterized as blatant coercion, suggestions, threats, and intimidation about, gee, we might have to revisit Section 230, which gives the social media companies immunity. And so, you know, it's on page 97, if anyone wants to look. Here's one quote from a white house to one of the social media companies cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately. Please remove this account immediately.

That doesn't sound like a suggestion or recommendation. Please. Could you review this? That sounds like a command. And so the legal point, when you finally get to the end of the opinion turns on the government could only be justified in behaving this way if there was a demonstrable injury to the american public but in fact these people were telling the truth right and and and so there there's the injunction against further uh communication i i agree with you i i agree this was this was wrong and i think the account that they were trying to get down was

what was a parody account of joe Joe Biden's granddaughter or something like that. One of them, right. But again, I know I'm going to be taking the wrong way. I'm not defending this in any way. It was possible for Twitter to say, here's a bag of sand and a hammer. This is not what we do. Exactly. They didn't, but it was possible for them to say so. So at no point in this whole, I mean, yes, you're precisely right when you say it's the old Luigi Vercotti and Monty Python saying, nice army base you got here. Michael

Palin, my favorite. But they didn't walk in and pull plugs. They didn't walk in and tickety-tickety-tick hack. They didn't have to. But I'm just answering the question that my friend had about, you know, why does this matter? You know, what did they what actually did they do? I don't know. Now, do we do we want the government to be able to go to Twitter and Facebook and say, hey, look, we got an ISIS cell here. We want some access. We want you to throw. I mean, do we want that to. Well, the opinion specifically exempted legitimate national security concerns, and mainly it was foreign threats and foreign misinformation, disinformation, and so forth. So there is an exception carved out for national security. Right.

But I think the point you make, James, is worth reiterating. They were pushing on an open door. I mean, one mild concern you could have is, well, if the government gets out all the wokies at Twitter and YouTube, I mean, again, we're missing Peter today, but we saw his uncommon knowledge get censored from YouTube. Although the government did that, I think YouTube may have taken it upon themselves. By the way, I'll mention one

little small victory in all this. Gosh, a year and a half ago, John, you and I had Richard Epstein come to give a talk at Berkeley Law. He got off on the wrong foot on COVID at the beginning and backtracked. But he gave his very strong attack on masking and all the other mistakes we made. And we always post these guest lectures on YouTube. They took it down.

And to their credit, the general counsel's office at UC Berkeley contacted YouTube and said, we're going to sue you because we're a public university. You are censoring a government uh institution and they put it back up um but of course berkeley at uc university of california has to have to bring that kind of pressure uh on on youtube thank god can i take another like a hundred thousand foot view and even higher than the fifty thousand foot you is that we have entered a time in in i think culture where everyone on both sides is terrified of telling their devoted audience the truth like you saw that in the fox news emails oh my god we can't tell our audience the truth that trump lost we have to lie to them and let them

down easy and you see that in all these emails with uh with twitter and facebook and all those places like well we can't tell people what's really going on did a fauci actually says it in his in his memoirs we could i couldn't tell you the truth about masks because you wouldn't be able to handle it and there's this this attitude and you can see it you can see it in in politics you can see it in me in these media consultants, this attitude that we have mastered public opinion management. Oh, we've mastered it. And it is the one thing that these people are terrible at, and they insist that they're good at it. The truth is that, and the sad part of this has happened in Silicon Valley, because the beginning of Silicon Valley, the beginning of

all these social media networks, the idea was freedom. Freedom. Crowd, the wisdom of crowds, that a free exchange, that good stuff will rise to the top, all that was a complete, I mean, it was an article of faith for people who started Twitter and Facebook and all those things with the freedom. And it, I mean, what is it, 10 years? In 10 years, they have also convinced themselves that they are capable of shaping and honing and managing public opinion. And that is just dumb.

Not only is it wrong and illegal and it shouldn't happen and immoral and not befitting sovereign citizens of a great republic. Not only is it insulting to those citizens, but it's also stupid. You can't do it. You cannot manage. No one is smart enough. Believe me, if people knew how to shape public

opinion, first of all, I would be a lot richer, because every single one of my TV shows would have been a giant hit, but all of Hollywood would be much better. It's the thing that you can't do, and these arrogant, arrogant bureaucratic fools believe that they can. And I, you know, it really is, I mean, I keep, I mean, I'm not arguing for some kind of divine intervention here, but I keep thinking that the universe or God or whoever you believe in has been trying to send us a signal for 20 years, which is stop trying to grow a brain. Stop trying to think you can figure everything out. Stop trying to control everybody.

And we just are not listening. What is the point of going to all these elite institutions and getting a good degree and going into government if you can't improve the world? Because the whole model is based on the idea that a technocratic enlightened elite will be able to guide and shape society to our benefit. Now, in the early days of the internet, you go back to, you know, you're talking about Twitter, Rob,

you go back to the very beginning, go back way to when they plugged the first thing in and the prevailing idea was that the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. That this whole big, vast distributed network of information would inevitably self-correct. And it did. It did. We were able to get things out and we were able to get different narratives out and we were able to stay free, which is kind of great. And I like that. But now you're right. We have the people who want to shape and manage, but we have a good sign as chaotic as Elon Musk's stewardship of Twitter may be to some people. Frankly, I can't tell a width of difference between what it was. He broke it. That's what he did.

The ads are worse. And some stuff is interesting. And it's still far better than any of the alternatives because it's a vivacious, kaleidoscopic conversation. We had this week the launch of Threads, which was the meta version of this. So now we have about 19 Twitter clones out there that you can spend your time on Truth Social. Either of you guys been there? No. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I've been there, and it's, yeah. Okay. And I've been on Th And it's, yeah. Okay. And I've been on Threads. And Threads is absolutely nothing. And it seems to be filled with Zuckerberg simps, which is really bizarre. I cannot imagine wanting to be an orbiter for this barely humanoid creature. And it's very boring. There's nothing going on there. Twitter remains this place where it's boisterous and it is still

what we need to get this stuff out. So I'm hopeful at the end of this, between this injunction and between the continued calamitous slapping, throwing pots and pans and hammers mess that

Twitter is, that we still are able to get our message out past these technocratic minders but if we do we have to freedom the problem with freedom is it's messy and ugly right so all the people arguing that twitter is you know free they also have to contend with the fact that twitter is at present a pornography delivery device it is so a porn site. So you say. Some of that never pops up in my feed. That's because you're not looking for it. But if you look for it, it's there.

And the user age for Twitter is 13. So you either decide that Twitter needs to crack down on that as if it could, it's a giant fire hose, or you need to say, I have to be more careful about what I put inside my window to look at, or I have to be careful about what my kids are looking at. But there is no way to thread the needle for freedom and free exchange of views without any kind of interference by government, which will eventually become coercion. It always does. um personal vigilance like personal and the irony for me is like the perfect example of this of why i will always vote for personal vigilance and people is that during covid it

was the people predominantly who were right they their intuition was correct, and their administrative betters from the White House on down were wrong. And I mean, I'm not making an ad here for Ron DeSantis, but if you like, you could say Brian Kemp of Georgia. Both of those governors chose a different path, and they were both correct. Well, if I could wave a wand to make the future better, it would be this. All the smartphones that we have would not be able to be used by somebody without a retinal scan. The retinal scan would be tied to your birth certificate. And until you reach the age of 18, you would not be allowed to own a smartphone and you'd be banned from social media entirely. It would do us all a world of good. But Rob's right. I mean, the government is still, if you want a good, good, clean internet, you're going to need the government.

Unfortunately, as we've learned, well, you know, do you want the government looking at where you went? It's hard to keep track of the extent to which the government is sticking its nose in the business of big tech, right? You've seen it in the news. You hear it in your Twitter feed. You hear the complaints. The problem with big tech is not only do they attempt to censor you, but they also track what you do online. We know that. When you're searching for what you're searching for, the videos you watch, everything you click on,

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baccalaureate high schools in the Bronx. He's the co-founder of the National Summer School Initiative and a senior fellow at AIE and the author of Agency. Welcome to the show. Hello. How are you? Good. How are you? Good, I hear conversations about pornography on the internet. Did I join those conversations? You should have joined earlier. I hate to tell you that my beloved internet is filled to the brim with smut. Ian, you shared some sobering statistics. People are worried about the fallout from the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action,

race-based affirmative action. And here's what you tweeted. Quote, if you are concerned that the decision to end race-based affirmative action will result in less black students in college, consider this. In 2015, 18% of fourth grade black kids read at or above proficient defined by the National Assessment for Educational Programs, aka the Nation's Report Card, in 2019, only 15% of that same cohort, now in eighth grade, read at or above proficient levels. Now, in 2023, it's very likely that less than 20% of that cohort of black high school seniors is reading at proficient levels. Truth is, we have to confront is that stronger families and more school choice have to be part of the story so that our kids can compete on equal footing far before college applications are on the table

so is that going to happen um i'm sorry to be the sobering one with actual data i know that you know losing you know losing a gasket because race-based affirmative action is no longer and for good reason it's unconstitutional but we cannot afford to get distracted you know one other piece of information one other data point is that the college board that administers the sat exam each year publishes what the scores are across racial lines and for typically elite schools tier colleges, you've got a score between the 1400 and 1600 range to be really considered for admission. Well, of the about approximately 170,000 Black students that took the SAT in the year 2021, only 1% performed between the 1400 and 1600 range.

That's part of the reality. That's part of the data that we have to confront. You know, I run schools, I run public charter schools in the heart of the South Bronx, because i want my students to know do hard things these are almost all low-income kids almost black you know all black and hispanic students i want them to know that they can lead a self-determined life and that they can overcome barriers that are going to be inevitable but at the end of our education we need to know or they need to know that they've earned it, that they can actually legitimately compete on an equal playing field. And the distraction, or maybe the benefit, actually, of the decision affirmative action, it will put now in stark reality what is actually happening within our K-12 system. It's Rob Long. Thanks for joining us i i want to talk about the vertex

partnership academies in a minute but something struck me about the coverage of the supreme court decision which is that one of the things that people kept saying with a kind of a you know subdued sneer is you know that clarence th, he's one of the chief beneficiaries of affirmative action. And isn't that part of the problem, is that whenever they want, they can just point to you and say, well, you didn't really qualify. Isn't that the heart of the problem with the way the left treats affirmative action? Oh, yeah. I mean, I posted an additional tweet a couple days ago. Now it's been viewed, I think, nearly 1.2 million times that said, you know, in the future, maybe the benefit of this Supreme Court decision that black kids accepted to elite colleges will say thank you for actually making

a decision that removes the perception that I was gained this position solely based on my skin color. It is interesting to note that former first lady Michelle Obama, in response to the Supreme Court decision, posted this about her own experience at Princeton University. This is what Michelle Obama said, quote, I sometimes wondered if people thought that I got there, Princeton, because of affirmative action. It was a shadow that students like me could not shake, whether those doubts came from the outside or inside our own minds, end quote. That is part of the grinding self-doubt that many Black and other minority students who are talented always carried with them, and carry with them because of the

implementation of affirmative action and the perception that you're only there because of your skin color. But before we get past this, because we talked about this a little last week, but you weren't here for that. I was struck by the two kind of tentpoles of the decision were the opinion written by katanji brown jackson and the kid and the opinion written by clarence thomas like they live in two different worlds they because i think they do right i think they clarence thomas rural georgia single parent family raised by his grandparents didn't i don't think he had indoor plumbing until he was at a certain age no disrespect to katanji brown two-parent family, father was a lawyer, mother was a public school administrator. Entirely different background.

I mean, not even close. I mean, in a way, I sort of – and I think Michelle Obama had kind of a similar upbringing. And I understand their argument, which is like, well, you know, a white kid with that background, it's all – is it all likelihood that the white kid working hard would also get to those colleges? It doesn't seem like that was the race-deciding factor here. But what do you say to people who argue, okay, well, we have to have some kind of affirmative action but it should be based on um well i've long argued that adversity was the word right well not adversity because because they're actually now as a medical school i believe that it's it's creating a diversity score and so now there's going to be a be you know the grievance olympics no i'm sorry i said adversity i think that was the term they used no no no no no no there actually is a there actually is a methodology around adversity which which i have

have issues with for several reasons no i have long argued that if you have to have affirmative action it should be based on economic class and race because i think most americans would agree if you're from a low-income background and you've achieved academically if there is to be a leg up within the admissions process to elite schools then i think most people would agree economics should be the um barometer and um you know and if you actually look at the data from the Harvard case, nearly 70% of the Black students that have been admitted under the Affirmative Action Program were upper middle class kids. Right. You know, oftentimes immigrants from West action, it has not been benefiting the people that I believe that most of us think should be benefiting from some kind of preference treatment.

And that should be kids from low-income backgrounds. Okay, so that leads me to my next question, and I know Steve wants to jump in. So here's my – just one before we go to the actual schools. Your argument seems to me to be we are focused on entirely the wrong thing. We're trying to fix the problem way too late. And the problem starts at K through 12, K through 6, K through 3, whatever it is. Even earlier, if you talk about family structure, but yes.

Okay, yeah. Why do we spend no time talking about that i'm trying okay no affirmative race-based affirmative action is what i call a back end band-aid you know the reason i run schools is that I want our students to know that they don't have to be dependent upon some kind of preferential treatment based on an immutable characteristic, in this case, race. We have to have an educational system that is truly providing equality of opportunity in terms of good educational choices within your neighborhood, regardless of income level, regardless of race, regardless of zip code. That's where our attention needs to be focused. And again, maybe one benefit from the Supreme Court decision, it puts that into stark reality.

Yeah, Ian, it's Steve Hayward out in California, where, among other things, I like to say I'm an inmate at UC Berkeley. And, you know, the comment Rob brought up about people think Prince Thomas benefited from affirmative action, I believe he graduated sixth in his class of 500 students at Holy Cross. And yet we make this assumption about him, or his critics make that assumption about him. Just a quick story to cheer you up a little bit, but it shows the problem. One of the five best students I ever had was a black girl who got the only perfect 100% score on any of my exams. 99% on the LSAT came to me asking for a recommendation for law

school, which I was delighted to do. I asked her, where do you think of applying? And a straight A student, of course, needless to say. And she names a bunch of second tier law schools, good places, but I said, with your scores and grades and obvious abilities, you should be applying at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, et cetera. She was a soft-spoken young lady, and she said, well, yeah, but I feel like I might only get in as an affirmative action admittance. It broke my heart, right? And of course, you know, what could I say except, oh, you must not think that. I have seen your work.

You can go toe-to-toe with the best of them. And by the way, the happy ending of the story is she did end up going an ivy league school on a full-ride scholarship and did very very well yeah but that is the this is the message that gets sent by the way this has become so over okay uh one of the things that chief justice robert said uh in his majority opinion was you know harvard could alleviate this difficulty they're having by simply getting larger they've've got all this money. The population of the country has expanded by, what, 100 million people since Bakke, and Harvard has not really changed its student body size, or Yale, or any of the others, and he said Harvard declines to do so. The other thing they might do, in addition, if they don't want to, for whatever reason, the other thing

they could do is they could emulate what Hillsdale College has done, and emulate you. In other words, they could create competition for Vertex Partnership Academies. Hillsdale has their charter schools all over the country. Correct. How about the Ivy Leagues do the Ivy League academies around the country to try and recruit minorities, qualify them for elite schools or any schools for that matter, and they could raise a ton of money from the alumni to do that, and they declined to do that also. Not to mention they could use their endowment. So the reason I like the direction of that idea is that it's now getting to the heart of the issue, which is how do we improve the preparation of all students?

According to the National Assessment for Educational Progress, less than 40% of all American kids are reading a grade level. So this is not only an issue with Black students. So a few days ago, Roland Fryer, a great economist, actually had this idea. He proposed that all of the top tier schools, the IVs, the UNCs of the world, should use the power of their endowments and or raise additional money to launch upwards of 100 public charter schools in their localities. They could launch high schools and middle schools, potentially serving cumulatively 50,000 kids, low-income kids from their localities to build a pipeline of talent, either for their own colleges or universities, or heaven forbid, they create a public good by just creating more talented kids. To me, that is a solid idea that is responsive to the data that I shared at the beginning of this

call, because that's where our attention should be, not the virtue signaling in this back-end band-aid, not checking the box because accepted a Black Nigerian student who's had a phenomenal education, and now you say, well, we're doing right by Black kids in this country. That's the hollow, hypocritical, cynical virtue signaling that hurts the larger effort to create upward mobility for all students. So, Ian, we have only mentioned your school initiative, the Vertex Partnership Academies. Tell us a little bit more about this, because I know nothing about it, actually. And what's your strategy? What are your keys to success? How does it work?

What should be the takeaways for us? Yeah, thank you for asking. So, for a decade, I ran public charter schools in the South Bronx and Lower East Side of Manhattan. These were elementary and middle school, so they only went through eighth grade. And, you know, we did a lot of phenomenal work. But at the end of eighth grade, the question is, where do the kids go next? And in places like District 12 in the Bronx, where we just launched Vertex Partnership Academies as a high school, only 7% of kids that start ninth grade four years later graduate from high school ready for college. So think about that. That means 93% of kids start ninth grade and either drop out or they actually do earn their high school diploma, but still cannot do reading nor math without remediation if they were to go to college. And so that's the context that exists in the

Bronx, in Brooklyn, in Chicago, in parts of Los Angeles, all over the country. Even if you have the benefit of a strong elementary and middle school education, there just aren't enough high quality high school options. So we endeavor to launch a new kind of high school. It's virtues based. So it's organized around the cardinal virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. At the end of your sophomore year of high school, you'll actually have a choice of pathways that you can choose a pathway that will lead you into a high-performing university or college, or you can choose what we call the careers pathway, which means that you have the opportunity to still take academically rigorous

classes, and though time would be made that you could do an apprenticeship in your junior and senior year of high school. So imagine if you had the opportunity to apprentice at a New York City-based hospital where you could learn how to become a phlebotomist taking blood or work in a computer science arena working at Amazon. So we're building those relationships now where a high school student could earn an industry credential with labor market value, meaning at the end of four years of high school, they could get a job in a particular arena. Again, the other thing that this Supreme Court decision hopefully highlights is that maybe a college degree shouldn't be the only option considered at the end of four years of high school. So there's a lot of opportunity, hopefully, that this decision will shed light on. We've chosen to

build an institution that we hope can grow into a model for what the rest of the country can achieve. Mr. Rowe, it's a great guest who anticipates my next question and answers it and then sort of leaves me flapping my gums wondering what to say. You're absolutely right. It's the question of whether or not everybody needs to go to college. In a perfect world, they spend their elementary years getting the basics, in the middle years being introduced to more substantial topics, and then high school solidifies it all, caps it off, and they're ready for the world.

But we always assume that college is the next obvious step and that anything below that is somehow demeaning or giving up on that when actually, you're right. Phlebotomy, computer science, electrician, plumbing, these are virtuous professions that are absolutely necessary. Do we have a cultural bias, though, that needs to be shaved away and massaged and diluted that unless you're going to college, you're really not successful, that we've given up on this generation of people because we're not sending them to college? I would almost look at declining college enrollments among certain groups as signs that they've got it. They understand that this is just a lot of money for a credential that doesn't mean you're a smarter person.

You're able to do these things. So how do we sort of work on that cultural shift without sounding like a bunch of, you know, Luddite Philistines who don't care about book learning? No, no, it's a very good point, even within our high school. So we just launched in 2022 with with freshmen. So ninth grade in this upcoming year will be in ninth and tenth grade. So at the end of next year is when students will be choosing their pathway, either the diploma pathway or the careers pathway. And we're going to do a lot of work to ensure that all the students know that the choice that they're making is of equal stature. There is no stepchild relationship inside careers. It's still a rigorous academic path,

but it's at the end of four years, you'll have, you'll be equipped with credentials that could be very, very valuable. One thing that's interesting is that there's a good amount of data. MDRC, a great research firm, did a study that shows that particularly for low-income boys, those that leave high school into meaningful work over the course of those next few years, much lower interaction with the criminal justice system, much lower levels of non-marital births, higher rates of actually, if they go to college, higher rates of college completion. So there's actually some value, even if your goal ultimately is to get kids into college. Working for a few years, coming out of high school with a meaningful industry credential,

you can have your cake and eat it too. And so we very much believe that high school, because this is not part of the general education reform discussion, but we think high school needs to become the place where we now have multiple pathways, where college for all is not the default um pathway yeah i don't know if you're familiar with a guy again rob henderson who's been writing about that he grew up in um california in sort of the central valley i think it was a foster kid or adopted something trouble trouble high school um somebody said why don't you join the air force so he said i better do that it's either that or jail and uh and then he eventually after the air force think of 24 he became a freshman at yale and he writes really brilliantly about how how different his experience was as a 24 year old obviously that's pretty old to go to be an undergraduate but he he's he's convinced he got more out of it because he had more questions and he had more experience

and he more discipline and he got his money's worth out of that education where I think a lot of 18 or 19 year olds just don't get their money's worth. Yeah and just as it relates to boys in particular there's a lot of you know emerging evidence that young men are having a different different challenges in the maturation process. And there's something to be said about high school being a place for more hands-on learning, job engagement, and in an apprenticeship, you've got to show up. You have to make eye contact. You have to do things that enhance responsibility and accountability. And so as we think about that aspect, too,

I just think there are many advantages. And again, all of this is starting with the affirmative action court decision. My hope is that we don't obsess over, again, the back-end band-aid and think about what are the ways we need to acculturate all of our kids in the pathways that lead to a life of flourishing and you're in the middle of that right now so i have two questions for you a question and then i have a request which you may not be able to answer but here's my question how much bs do you have put up with as a percentage during the day or during the week from the people in the education establishment or whatever you want to call it who are i mean the polite way to put it is unsupportive but i think probably the more

honest way to put it would like would just like you to go away to shut up and go away yeah yeah there there are a few people who would like me not to put forth the argument right right but you know what um i have a i i have a uh here's the thing when when you hear data for example where only seven kids in this district in the bronx graduate from high school ready for college some people look at that and say see see, that's the proof of structural racism, structural barriers, and it's an oppressive system. And end of story.

And so that's why we need things like reparations or we need increased funding or we need government intervention. And so I see that same disparity and share the concern that we should not live in America where the district in one of the poorest sections of our country, where only 7% of kids are graduating from high school ready for college. So I try to find a common cause. We both deeply care about that disparity. It's just that my prescription is different. Well, then let's have more school choice. Let's have stronger families. Let's have ways in which young people can choose better educational environments so that they're not having to depend on this back-end band affirmative action or any other of these interventions, which are, by the way,

proven over time not to be the vehicle to achieve the wide-scale upward mobility that we all want. So for all those people who don't like the arguments that I advanced, look, I'm with you on the issues, but let's talk about the solutions because aren't working. So how long have you been running the schools? So since 2010, I've been running public charter schools. Okay. So that is down to 2023. That's K through 12. You've, you've seen a, you've seen K go to through 12. Oh yeah. No, I mean, we have kids. When I took over the network of schools I led in 2010, that included kids who were already in sixth grade.

So I've seen our students now graduate from college, schools like Yale and Tufts and Howard, and very inspiring. So here's what I'm going to ask you. What's in the past month, say, I'm just going to pick month. What's been the most inspiring thing that you've heard from a former student or from a parent or from somebody in your community that makes you remind you that you're on the right track? Wow. Well, let me see a few different things. Told you it was going to be a little bit. Yeah, we just finished the first year at Vertex Partnership Academies. It was our inaugural class of ninth grade students.

And we recently took a trip to Washington. We took a group of our students to Washington. Actually, we took another group of our students to Annapolis, to the U.S. Naval Academy. And in this case, it was almost all girls. And they had an opportunity to interact with the astronauts. It was a convocation for the new incoming class of astronauts for NASA. And the students talked about the fact that they had never, ever envisioned a possibility like that for themselves. And yet, they just said, wow, now that i've seen it i'm like wow i i met an astronaut and this person who they were able to talk to about what their life

was like when they were 14 years old shared stories of the doubts that they had the challenges that they had and so for these students, these Vertex Partnership Academy students, when they talked about that, now it's almost, it's like the success has been demystified for them. It's like a veil had been taken off. So that's certainly one of the most, I mean, share other stories too but that's not that's just one but i kind of want to hear i mean for two reasons one because i feel like i i always get more inspired when i hear somebody doing great stuff and then there's a story behind it but two because it's the fourth of july and this is a great patriotic story about how we can renew and refresh and and and by the way just for what it's worth when we design vertex we were

thinking about these two pathways of of um university pathway or career pathway as a result of the trip to naval academy and some work i had done with west point years ago we're going to have a third pathway and it's going to be military we We're going to want to, and again, of equal stature. At the end of high school, we want our students to know that, by the way, you can get a world-class tuition-free education at institutions like West Point, like the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. And we should be encouraging our kids to think about that as a way to serve their country with honor and dignity and respect. That's what we want to do. Serving their country, honor, dignity, respect. These are words like a cross to a vampire for some people. Oh, my gosh.

Ian Rowe, thank you for joining us today. Anybody want to learn a little bit more about this? Of course, why don't you go to Amazon and pick up his book, Agency. Agency, that's the word. Just Google Agency, and R-O-W-E, and you will find it. You will read it, and you'll learn. And, sir, thank you for coming, and best of luck. All right.

That was great. Thanks, guys. Thanks, learn. And sir, thank you for coming and best of luck. All right. That was great. Thanks, guys. Thank you. And it is inspirational. I like the idea that, you know, you don't have to go to college. And I say that as somebody who was more, who was, of course, absolutely intent that my daughter has to go to college. Right.

And a tremendous expense and all the rest of it. I'm glad she did. She's gainfully employed. And if she wasn't, oh, Lord. The only thing is, is that she lives in an expensive part of the country. And a tremendous expense and all the rest of it. I'm glad she did. She's gainfully employed. And if she wasn't, oh, Lord. The only thing is, is that she lives in an expensive part of the country. Really expensive. And it's got roommates and the rest of it.

And one dinky little air conditioner that tries to move the porpoise East Coast air around. The good thing is, though, and it's a really good thing, is that she's got the bowling branch sheets. It's summertime and it's hot. And you think, I mean, can you imagine if you're just some poor college student can't afford anything better? Or you've got your first job and you're still using the flannel sheet, the flannel sheets that you had in the wintertime? No, no, no, no, no. So that's why you need, well, high quality things. And again, when you're starting out, you need a high quality air conditioner to live. You need a high quality bed to keep you restful. You need high quality items like a coffee maker so that you stay perky

at your job. And as I mentioned, of course, high quality sheets. It's almost an investment, really. Start investing in your best sleep with Bowling Branch. They make only the sheets that get softer with every wash. The only ones on the planet, I think, that do that. They feel buttery and breathable right out of the box on night one. And they keep getting softer and softer for years to come. And I said, yes, years, because they're going to last that long for you. They have for me. Bowling Branch Signature Hemmed Sheets are a bestseller for a good reason.

They're made with only the highest quality, 100% organic cotton threads on the planet. And they're the only sheets that, as I said, get softer with every wash. And as I say, every time I do this, they're all impromptu and I don't cut these in advance. And I can speak with absolute truth and assurance that my sheets are incrementally softer than they were the last time that I had them. You can't say that about any others. And believe me, I don't think the other guys even try because they've just ceded that whole part of the market to B&B. Bowling Branch sheets are loved by millions of sleepers. And as we know, four, count them, four U.S. presidents. And it used to be

three. Remember that? Yeah. We've been doing this so long, it's now four. Best of all, though, 30-night worry-free guarantee offered to you by Bowling Branch with free shipping and free returns on all orders. And I think, you know, well, orders in the U.S., I think I say this because they know that nobody who sleeps on these sheets one night is ever going to send them back. Sleep better at night with Bowling Branch sheets. Shop their annual summer event now to get 20% off your order for a limited time only use the promo code ricochet at bolandbranch.com that's bolandbranch b-o-l-l-a-n-d branch.com promo code ricochet exclusions do apply so see that site for details and we thank boland branch for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast well winston meets up good like a meetup should as the old jingle went you know when i when i was a kid

my my my uh my uncle smoked winston's he was a winston man and i had had an aunt somewhere smoked salem's when i first realized there was actually a town named winston salem i could not i i couldn't figure that out it was like lark marlborough or something like that or you know parliament of kent but i guess that's where the names came from and you don't have to smoke to live there and you certainly don't have to smoke to go to the meetup but here's rob long to tell you all about it yeah i'm sure i remember like my i think my grandfather smoked winston's and i'm my grandmother smoked something and i can't remember was it gonna silver winston winston was a good cigarette it was a silver

pack i remember we we had to go and I had to find them all the time. Find my cigarettes. She'd sit there in the morning and eat her breakfast and make me breakfast when I was staying with them. And she'd smoke a cigarette and she'd do the New York Times crossword puzzle, which is kind of like what I do now every day. But I still have a cigarette. All right. So speaking of that was my own memory. I'm in the memory banks here. So sorry about that. is kind of like what i do now every day but i just don't have a cigarette um all right so speaking that was my own memory uh i'm in the memory banks here so sorry about that uh speaking of meetups the great thing about being a member of ricochet aside from being part of the club online and being

able to join conversations and start your own and just sort of generally you know shoot the breeze with like-minded people even if it's not about politics almost especially if it's not about politics i think ricochet said it's best. We also do meetups. We like to get together. And there are some meetups coming up, and we would like you to join us. If you're a member, please show up. If you're not a member, please join. Winston-Salem next weekend, July 14th through 16th.

Portland, Oregon, July 18th. So that's also next week. The German Fest meetup in Milwaukee at the end of July, July 28th to July 30th. And in Cookville, Tennessee, Labor Day weekend. That's, I think, September 1st through 4th. All the details of these meetups are on the site, ricochet.com. Please go and check them out. If you want to attend a meetup and for some reason these meetups don't work for you, the summer meetups, here's what you do.

You just put up a post in the member feed and say, hey, how about a meetup here at this time? And people will show up because Ricochet members show up. That's the part of the fun of being in the club. I'm going to try to arrange something in New York in the autumn. I don't know quite yet when, but we'll have to do another New York meetup in the autumn. The last New York meetup was so much fun. So that's all the pitch I'm going to give you.

If you don't think after we listened to Ian to speak or last week we have the best guests, we have the best conversations on the web. If you don't think that this is for you, I don't know what to say, except you're wrong and join us anyway because we need the money. But please, whatever you do, come to Ricochet, check us out and see if it's for you. And please join because we would love to have you. Rand, I'm wondering what the silver pack was. I know. I don't remember any silver cigarette packs. It was silver.

Was it silver? I was thinking of silver thins as possibly what it was. But the silver thins, well, she wasn't a methyl smoker. So it could have been silver thins. Was this the late 60s, early 70 well it's the 70s it's not yeah yeah i would say that yeah okay could have been that could have been benson and hedges but um study event the study the study of cigarette packs is a fascinating thing for me i the graphic design the history of it oh yeah the way that lucky went to war lucky's gone gone to war, which I just find fascinating. The idea, you know, the idea that cigarette packs would rebrand themselves for the conflict, which, you know, is a way of telling you how all in that thing was.

Well, gentlemen, before we go, is there something that has happened in the last week that you absolutely have to get off your chest to talk about? If not, of course, I can prompt you. But I can't imagine that Stephen has let this week go by without something nettling you getting under your epidermis any gripe you want to you want to vent before we go well the the whole packet of cocaine found in the white house is really astounding now it's getting more and more attention yeah where was it found now i would today i think it's moved to the attic uh bathrooms oh i think the last version i've heard but you're right it seems to change by the moment is it was found in the cubbies where you leave your cell phones and personal items if you're going to the situation room which is a you know a no cell phone zone uh and the white house messes by there i've been there once 20 some years ago when bush was president

and it's not an area open to the public it It does get a fair bit of traffic. But the odd thing to me is this. I remember back in the Reagan years, and Rob may remember this, Reagan was so concerned about leaks that I think it was when McFarland was his national security advisor, they were going to do polygraph tests to find out who was leaking. That ended, I think drug tests too. It was drug tests and polygraphs on leaks. And I think it was George Shultz put an end to it when he went into Reagan and said, the day you require a drug test for me or any cabinet members is the day I resign. And then Reagan backed down. And also, so the point is, is that they're saying, gosh, we may never know whose it is or how it got there. If I'm running a White House that had to be evacuated because of this, because of the old white powder problems from 20 years 20 years ago i want to know who did it because there might be a real problem there the fact that

they're the the immediate line is gosh we can't figure this out you know our the fbi has been able to pinpoint people who are in the capital on january 6th from grainy footage and you know this and that and we can't figure out how this got in the white house uh this is everybody logs into that part of the white house they put your name down and it's ridiculous it is also it's hunters that's my point right yeah that's right right i mean um i think the best thing to be in the white house right now is a coke addict as long as hunters around because you can probably get away with murder nobody do whatever you want you know you could shoot up heroin there and be like i've got to be hunter yeah um what's what's interesting to me of course is that the white house i don't know

right now what it is the past month or two or six months uh maybe it's changed but certainly the first year the biden administration maybe in the first year and a half there were extensive covid protocols like the extensive ones i mean they started obviously under under um trump but i mean they continued under biden where you couldn't go into the overlaps you couldn't go in the west wing without um being tested that day that that minute like there were there people would go i would have a meeting with the president they would go and sit in a room and get a covid test and then wait and then go in so there there is definitely a testing regime, and they were perfectly willing to have an administrative stake, sort of like lock down that house, both the residential part and the

office part. So it isn't as if, I mean, it isn't a loosey-goosey place, right? So their inability to identify the owner of this cocaine is an inability by choice, put it that way. In the same way, their inability to sort of fully prosecute influence peddling in this administration is an inability by choice. Wasn't somebody suggesting at one point, well, it is located close to where the vice president's car is parked. Oh, yes. They're going to try to pin some stuff on her, man. Somebody said, somebody gamed this out on Twitter and said, okay, well, what they're trying to do here is to pin it onto Kamala Harris. And then after it's been blamed on her, she resigns. Gavin Newsom is appointed as vice president. Joe Biden resigns for health reasons or dementia. Gavin Newsom is the new president and runs as an incumbent and has all of the incumbent virtues and powers and strengths. And I'm thinking, well, that's absolutely journal right there. That is exactly how he's, he's like, I have to say, but so he brought Gavin Newsom. Like,

um, I think Gavin Newsom is, I don't know how to put this. Cause I don't think he's smart, but I think he's smart. I think what he's doing right now is really, really smart. He is not running,

but he's running. And he's just kind of doing this thing where you go, I'm available. I'm available. Hey, I'm look at me. I'm available. He's staying in shape. You know, he's running. And he's just kind of doing this thing where you go, I'm available. I'm available. Hey, look at me. I'm available. He's staying in shape. He's like the boyfriend in waiting. He's like, I'm not going to let myself go. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to stay in part of the fray. I'm going to campaign against as if I'm campaigning. And I'm going to campaign relentlessly against the republicans which i think is a very very smart move so i'm i'm just surprised that the guy who's so dumb

and is like is so unable to run california and is so wrong about everything um is so smart about this but although i guess that defines a lot of politicians the word that defines him is inevitable yes well i'm serious last inevitable candidate we had she didn't do so good well the other thing the other word that applies to him is vain rob i mean i agree with you about he's being very shrewd in a certain way but he's also very vain but i am i am absolutely i have no knowledge of this from any sources and i haven't really tried to find any but i'm convinced that he has a campaign in waiting ready to spin up to full speed in 24 hours notice.

Yep. So, you know, if Biden takes a tumble down the steps of Air Force One, it could happen any moment now, right? I think that would finish him. Or I think it is not impossible that, what is it, July? Come around October, November, if Biden is still looking, what am I saying, Biden looking shaky. He's not going to get any better. If he's looking even worse, I think there's a 50-50 chance Newsom decides to run anyway. No, I think you're right.

I think it's like the Spielberg version of War of the Worlds. There's a bunch of lightning boats and cylinders and tripods start to rise from the ground in every part of the country. More in sorrow than in anger, right? He'll run more in sorrow than in anger. Exactly. be he'll run more in sorrow than anger right exactly we thank this great american for his service but we're taking the car keys away from grandpa picking the fallen mantle up and uh and kamala harris i'm sorry it's a pity that you won't be able to join me in the in the new effort but uh something will be they don't like each other i mean you ask anybody around the bay there were bay area rivals for a long time so there's no love lost there well i i would love to see desantis versus

florida versus uh newsom because florida versus california each with their own disney world place is is a great lesson for us it's a it's a stark it's illustrative it's revelatory i want to have that i really do but i also want to do the thing here that we do sometimes, Stephen, when Peter isn't here, and, was having an affair with a woman who was at that point working at a fancy fish restaurant in the financial district. And she was a hostess there. And the manager complained to the owner of the restaurant saying, look, people are just coming in right now and just sitting in the bar because they want to check her out. They've heard the rumor. They want to see her. And the owner of the restaurant's solution was, okay, fine, move her to Tuesdays and Wednesdays because those are slow nights for us.

So if people are going to come in this restaurant and sit at the bar and drink, I'd rather have them come on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, which are slow nights. Let's pick up our Tuesday, Wednesday. And it totally worked. It totally, totally worked. So there is one economic effect of the Gavin Newsom administration that actually benefited working people all over everywhere, and that was his choice of girlfriend. So that's the story. I'm sticking with it. Well, keep that in your pocket so you can bring down the administration at the appropriate time yeah right thank our guest of course he can go by his book

agency we'd like to thank boland branch we'd like to thank express vpn for joining us and for sponsoring us we'd like to thank you if you're a ricochet member and if you're not would it kill you would it just kill you to pony up a little bit and find yourself on the side of the smartest and the sharpest and the best civil center-right conversation you're going to find on the internet? Yeah, you can go to Ricochet. You can read the whole thing. You can get the podcast, but the member side is, you know, it's where the fun happens, the hugging, the fighting, the shouting. It's family. We're all family. Anyway, it's been fun. Stephen, thank you. Always a pleasure. It certainly is. And by the way, if you like Stephen,

that's the reason to give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. I didn't mention that, and I should, and I must. And if you like Rob, same thing. If you like me, you know, whatever reason, give us each 1.75 stars, and somehow that'll add up to five. Thanks. We'll see you next week.

Maybe, Stephen. See you next week. Maybe, Rob. I hope we'll see everyone, though, in the comments at Ricochet 4.0. Next week. Happy 4th. Happy 4th? Yeah.

It's a little late, but, you know, still, I'd say the whole week is the 4th of July. It's Independence Day week, I believe. Ricochet. Join the conversation.