28 - FEAR CHARTER SCHOOLS AND DRUNK FLORIDA ALLIGATORS

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Fear Not, the podcast that tells us why we're afraid of all the wrong things and oblivious to what can actually kill us. Trending fears this week. Fear the charter school battle coming to a political campaign near you. War demand arrested for getting a gator drunk. That and so much more coming up on Fear Not. Today is going to be a good day. Don't care what anybody else say. Oh, I don't need a bojink cookie to tell me the way I'm feeling going to be a good day. A good day. Welcome back to Fear Not, it's episode 27. I'm Barry Glasner. My funny half, Alonso Bowden, is traveling for a few weeks. He's on the road performing. And our crack producer, Adam, is back again. Hey, Adam. Hey, very happy to be here. So welcome back. This is another many episode to tie our listeners over till the holidays. So we're using this holiday period to revisit some of my fears of the week and to update you with the latest info. Barry, let me give you the latest info on Alonso schedule. The sixth through the 8th of December, he's going to be at the comedy store in La Jolla. He's going to be in Hermosa Beach, California at the comedy and magic club from December 10th to the 12th. Comedy and magic, Barry, that's your thing right there. It is, it is. And check him out on NPR's news quiz, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." And of course, you can just follow Alonso on Twitter, @alonsobowden. He's got everything there. He's got links to his website. He's got links to his tour information, follow him. And Adam, I've got another one too for Alonso, which I think is really, really cool. He's going to be doing the first ever show for "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," the stand-up tour. Marker Calendar, it's going to be February 28th, 2020. And he's going to be joining his "Wait, Wait, Panelists" at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas. And make sure to follow Barry on social media, @BarryGlassner. And please keep sharing the podcast with your friends. It'll help make them safe and happy during the holiday season. We're on Twitter @fearnotofficial. You can also email us if you're not official at gmail.com. And while you're there, subscribe to our podcast. You'll get alerted every time we post a new episode. Let's get this thing started. [MUSIC PLAYING] We originally reported on charter schools in episode six back in July. It was my fear of the week. And Alonso and I actually had some disagreement about this one. So I'm really sorry that he can't be here today to take the other side. But we'll try to present both sides, OK? Here's part of our original reporting from July. This is a subject Alonso that's been on my radar for a long time. And you know what it is? It's the move to charter schools. About 2/3 of students in charter schools are students of color, which obviously is a reason why black and Hispanic voters say that they support charter schools. Well, I support the idea of charter schools. There are a lot of terrible public schools. If you have charter schools, if you have a school run by a private organization that can do it better, and you give that organization the money, and that school is open to all the kids, then that's a great thing. Also, when it comes to specialized education, I think charter schools are a good idea as long as they work. Now, why don't you like them? When that's the case, they're good things. But here's why we're talking about this. Back in 1994, the Charter School Fund was added to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Since then, the feds have handed over about $4 billion to states for charter schools. And this study says that the Department of Education has spent $1 billion on charter school waste and fraud. And here are just a few of the takeaways from that report. Many charter schools receive funding and either never open, or they close within a year or two. In California alone, which is the largest stay with the most charter schools, between 2004 and 2014, 306 schools closed or never open. And the total cost of that was $180 million. I don't blame charter schools for that. I blame administrators. I blame the crooks in the government. This sounds like a lot of backdoor deals made where somebody knows somebody and they say, hey, I'm going to open a charter school. I need money. And then his friend's department gives him the money. And it's not really an overstatement to say that the system is set up to encourage this, to encourage fraud. Here's an example. Not for profit charter schools are allowed to pay rent on buildings that are owned by the very individuals who run and control the schools, with little or no oversight on how the rent rates are determined. Charter school organizers are also allowed to hire their own friends and family to work at the schools. What could go wrong? And here's something I think should concern every one of our listeners, even those who solidly support the idea of charter schools. There's evidence that as more taxpayer money has gone to charter schools, there's been a decrease in the quality of the schools as measured by state testing. And what's even worse than all of that, many of the issues that this report's raised have been flagged in the past. They've been flagged by the DOA's own office of the Inspector General. The amount of fraud and waste that this study found is ridiculous. It turns out we were ahead of the curve on this story, Adam. The report that we cited that exposed that fraud and charter schools-- well, that's created a political football on the issue and the presidential election-- that's partly because of all that waste that we just heard about. But it's also because of the limited educational improvements that charter schools seem to provide, and the negative effect that they're having on public schools. Now, this is after two decades of support for charter schools from both political parties. Bill Clinton, both President's Bush and Barack Obama, they all backed the charter school movement, and of course, so does Trump. Republican governors and Democratic mayors joined forces to give charters a foothold in key cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans. They essentially agreed that market-driven reforms, competition and choice were key to transforming an education system that in too many places is failing children of color. Chicago had almost 100, and New Orleans pretty much turned over its school district to charter operators in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. That was back in 2005. And then Obama picked Arnie Duncan. Arnie Duncan had run the Chicago's public schools. He selected him to head the US Department of Education, and this was an appointment that signaled pretty clearly that the new president was on board with the charter school movement. The growth of charter schools under Bush and Obama was exponential. More than 3 million children, about 6% of all public school children, now attend the charter school. That's a large number. And Washington DC, for example, almost half of the public school students are in charters. One third of children in Newark, New Jersey attend a charter. That's up from 10% a decade ago. In New York City, one in 10 students. That comes out to roughly 90,000 children are charter school pupils four times as many as 10 years ago. The current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a staunch supporter of the pro charter school movement. She continues to sell charter schools as the answer for public education across the board. Her position is the more we privatize education, the more accountability parents have in their kids' education. Within the Democratic Party, charter schools have become a hot potato. So much so, in fact, that when Michael Bloomberg started talking about entering the race back in November, the New York Times immediately reported that-- and this is a quote-- his championing of charter schools has the potential to alienate pillars of the Democratic Party's political base. End of quote. And on the other end of the political spectrum within the Democratic Party, you have some candidates, specifically Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, as you might expect. They've publicly called for freezing spending on charter schools and possibly cutting all funding for charter schools. Here's what Warren said on the campaign trail back in May. And that what Betsy DeVos has done to our public education really undermines the best opportunities for our kids. I think our public tax dollars should stay in our public schools. [INAUDIBLE] Yeah. In case you couldn't make out the end of that clip, the reporter asks, so no to for-profit charter schools and Warren answers, yeah. And just to be clear, there are nonprofit charter schools. She's specifically talking about four-profit schools here. Then in late October, Elizabeth Warren released her plan for K through 12 education. And it calls for all of this, a freeze on federal funds for new charters, an end to federal investment and charter school expansion, banning for-profit charter schools, ensuring existing charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability requirements as traditional public school districts. And then she's also calling for ensuring that only school districts can authorize the opening of new charter schools. Not surprisingly, Warren's announcements set off alarm bells into charter school world, especially from charter organizations that receive hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the government. In a fundraising email for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, there was this, Dear Friends, today, presidential candidate and senator Elizabeth Warren called to info. federal funding for the expansion of charter schools. Senator Warren's plan to starve charter schools of funding would destroy the dreams of a quality education for the families who need it most. Please contribute to the charter schools action pack today. Meanwhile, for her part, Betsy DeVos is accelerating school privatization and the flow of public funds into private charter school hands. Since DeVos has been in charge, six of the 20 grants from a program called the state entities program, which totals $115 million, has gone into private agencies for charter schools not to state government agencies. These private agencies get to keep 10% of the grants for administering them. That's a lot of money that's not directly educating students. The federal charter school program is moving in a direction aligned with the philosophy of Trump and DeVos. Not surprising, they're in power. And we all know, of course, that that's a great thing because President Trump has an amazing record running for-profit schools like Trump University. - You're right, Adam. (laughing) - Yeah, but isn't this just politics as usual, Barry? Like conservatives like to privatize, liberals like the public options? - To some extent, yes, but there was a pivotal moment, Adam. That was when the teacher strikes around the country occurred in early 2018. And especially those in West Virginia and in California, because those focused specifically on charter schools. It was a focus of the strike straight out. West Virginia teachers walked out over privatization of schools in the form of vouchers and charters and here in California, both in LA and in Oakland, California. There were calls to stop the spread of charters. Those became a specific part of the negotiations. Listen to what Ingrid Velado said. She was one of the leaders of the teacher's union in LA during that strike. (air whooshing) Educators are rising up and saying, you know, we want to preserve public schools, we care about public schools. So we're part of this movement that is speaking out for public schools and willing to put our bodies on the line. Our superintendent is a Wall Street banker. He has had no educational experience. And he's coming up with a business model that has been done in other cities, such as New Orleans, such as New Jersey, Chicago, and so forth. So we see through what he wants to do. This is like a broke on purpose. You know, there's no money. We believe that what happens in LA and everybody says this as well affects the nation or the ones that can set the national referendum on public schools in the country. So as you can hear, she put public schools first, even ahead of salary issues, saving public schools was that important to the union. LA unified as the second largest school district in the US. An LA-based billionaire philanthropist Eli Brode has wielded a lot of influence over LA politics and the schools for a long time. He's a huge supporter of the charter school movement. After the 2017 campaign, which was the most expensive school board election in the nation's history, he helps secure a four to three pro charter majority on the board. And with his support, the board picked as its new school superintendent, a guy named Austin Butiner. He's an investment banker with no experience running a school district or even a school, but he has close connections to Eli Brode. Butiner is a charter school supporter very strongly. He served on the boards of several private charter school companies. And partly, it was Butiner's plan to reshape the public school system that galvanized the anti-charter forces. The thing Butiner didn't see was the overwhelming support of traditional public schools in Los Angeles. Competition produces winners and losers in public education. Our obligation is to all children. Do students in charter schools get better grades and test scores than kids in public schools? Good question. In fact, it's not all that clear that they do. For example, William Samson's book in 2016 titled Chicago Charter Schools, The Hife and the Reality. Looked at math and reading scores across the city and reported the traditional public schools out-perform charter schools in math, science, and composite testing. That's a test of overall knowledge. Samson has a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and he's an education policy professor at DePaul University in Chicago. He's well aware of why charter schools have had bipartisan support for 20 years. I think this is a perfect summary. This is a quote from him. Competition satisfies conservatives. Extra money satisfies liberals. But Samson also found in his research that charter schools had a lower percentage of special education students and an abundance of students who moved less often and had fewer absences. In other words, charter schools skim off students who stand a good chance of succeeding in any school environment, public charter or private. Samson's research backs up what critics have been saying about charter schools for years. And that is, charters push out students who don't meet performance standards, something that in fact, we know happened at one of the most celebrated charter school programs in the nation, the Harlem Children's Zone. Now of course, private schools have been doing this all long. They're careful about who they take to put it politely. But we're talking here about public schools and schools that take public funds. And that's where the pushback comes. What about New Orleans, though? I grew up in Texas and I saw firsthand the effects of Katrina. I had a bunch of-- when I was in high school, I had a bunch of friends come from New Orleans directly affected by that. But in my research, I saw articles where it was a success story with these charter schools coming in and replacing public schools. True enough, researchers have documented the test scores, high school graduation rates, even college outcomes. All of those improve for students who attended school in New Orleans post-Katrina. But when proponents of charter schools say that, they leave out a few key facts. Like the fact that those New Orleans schools received a lot more money, $1,400 a year per student. And even the researcher who conducted the study that charter school enthusiasts love to cite, even he said-- and this quote-- "the effects would almost certainly be smaller, but it's hard to tell by how much without the extra funding." Other things changed in New Orleans during the post-Katrina period also. Things that researchers shown have a positive effect on student performance and can help explain those outcomes. Most notably, the poverty rate dropped massively. I can't tell you exactly why that would be a whole research project, but it did. New Orleans ranked second among big US cities in concentrated poverty prior to the store. But by 2009, it ranked 40th, 38 places better. Still, there are plenty of examples of success at charter schools-- sure, they're anecdotal-- but there is some research behind this, and they shouldn't be ignored. For example, there's a recent study from the Stanford Center for Research on Education Outcomes that shows that charter schools, especially the large charter school networks, like Kip, Success, and Yes Prep, all reported small, but nonetheless significant gains in reading and math when they were compared to their traditional school peers. That same study, which examines slices of the charter school industry all across the country, shows that larger charter schools improved the outcomes for black students, especially when compared to those in neighboring traditional public schools, which goes back to the point that Alonso was making in our earlier episode. But it's important to note that those students still trail white students in traditional public schools in reading and math. And listen, I'm the first to say that you can definitely find plenty of charter schools that do a good job. Some that do an amazing job, you can even find some that focus on learning disabled and other special needs kids. And there's a general larger point here at them. Charters may have a direct benefit only on a relatively few children. Only to the one who gain access to them, and especially if you're talking about low income children, it's a small percentage. But the hope has always been from the advocates that this will force the rest of the system to adopt changes. I feel like it Alonso is here with me, Barry. You've successfully argued both sides of this issue. But to me, it doesn't seem like it pertains to me at all. Is this something that I should actually care about? What's the bottom line? Yeah, you should care about it. Everybody should-- The question is, let me put it very simply, should our tax dollars continue to fund what are in essence private schools? Well, tax dollars now you are talking about something that affects me. Yeah, exactly. And we have to answer that question in light of some facts. Here's some key ones. They've wasted over a billion dollars of taxpayer money that could be used to make our public schools better. Second, charter schools are skimming the higher performing students out of the public schools in many cases. That leaves inner city schools with kids who need more resources to succeed and whose scores are lower. So of course they look good. And what in some ways I think should matter most, all that money and effort that's gone to charter schools has produced marginal improvements in testing scores, which likely could have been achieved in public schools if they were given the same investment. And so the bottom line don't fear every charter school, but fear the charter school movement. Down and low. ♪ All right, I'm not ♪ ♪ We welcome you to the sunshine ♪ - It's time for fear Florida, Adam. - Let us have a. - Here's the headline. Florida man arrested for trying to get alligator drunk. - Okay, I can't really imagine where you're gonna go with this. I can kind of imagine how you'd get an alligator high. I mean, you could do that, but I'm really having a hard time picturing how do you get an alligator drunk? If you wanna try it, you get a Florida man to do it. - Definitely. - That's the way to do it there. - No question about that. - All right, so it's from the New York Post. It's a short one, but there's a lot of great details in here, Barry. A Florida man was reportedly arrested for trying to get an alligator drunk after his pal captured the reptile. According to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission report, a Hobie Sound Florida resident, Timothy Keppke, who's 27 years old, allegedly fed some beer to an alligator. Barry, I feel like we should be cracking open some beers for the story right here. (laughing) So the video comes out and Timothy is holding this about a foot long alligator with his hands around the alligator's throat. And in the first half of the video, he holds the alligator up to his bare arm and lets the alligator bite him right on the arm. - Brilliant. - And this is what he says to whoever's recording the video. (air whooshing) - I have some Florida man right there. - What the (beep) - Give you a (laughing) - I think I agree with the girlfriend. - Oh, for sure. I love that too that the moniker of Florida man is just like, he's literally doing it to be a Florida man. - He's owning it. - And now the beer comes in, Barry. Once you get bit by the alligator, you gotta give the alligator a reward, right? So he cracks open his cores light and he starts pouring it into the alligator's mouth and then he says this. (air whooshing) - Oh, he needed that. (air whooshing) - After biting a human, I'm not sure that this little alligator actually needs a beer, right? What I don't get is if it's going to be a beer, why is it a light beer? - Maybe some of the imported stuff that Millennials love. Like Alonzo loves the trash I was about. (laughing) So Barry, they claim that they release the alligator back into the wild. Authorities obtain the video. And though it's unclear how they got rid of the gator, the police confronted Keppke at his home where he copped to the crime. Keppke told police he had consumed a few beers that day, but claimed he wasn't intoxicated during the incident. In his girlfriend who you heard in that video, confirmed Keppke's account with the police, which evidently is illegal because both were arrested and charged with unlawfully taking an alligator. - What I learned from this is it's not good enough to bring your light beer for your alligator. You can't take your alligator on a date in Florida. You just can't take an alligator, that's not all right. (laughing) - You can't Barry, you've got to woo it. You've got to, you've got to present yourself well, getting your best Florida man outfit and go down and bring some flowers to the gator and schmooze the alligator. - Fear Florida. ♪ Today is gonna be a good day ♪ - That's it for this mini episode of Fear Not. If you like what you heard, hit the subscribe button. - And give us a five star review to help us rise on the charts. - And if you wanna see Alonzo live, check out his tour schedule on his website at AlonsoBoden.com, follow him on Twitter, @AlonsoBoden, and check him out many weeks on NPR's news quiz, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. - And make sure to follow Barry on social media, @BarryGlassner, and if you want a great read and amazing book, check out Barry's book, The Culture of Fear, Available at Amazon, and bookstores everywhere. - As always, if you hear news stories that make your hair stand on end or they sound like someone's trying to fill you with fear, please send them to us at fearnotofficial.com or tweet us @fearnautofficial, and we'll see if we can find the truth. - Goodbye. - Fear Not is a stone and company entertainment production, hosted by AlonsoBoden and Dr. Barry Glasner, executive produced by Scott A Stone, produced and edited by Adam Everest, written by Scott A Stone, Barry Glasner, and Adam Everest, AlonsoBoden, write stuff to, don't believe him. - Our sound engineer is Tim Moore, legal beagles, lobe and lobe. Crack accountants are 10 key accounting, special thanks to Gary Brown, Betsy Amster, and Adam's imaginary girlfriend.