Oct 16, 2023
Vivek Ramaswamy Attacks Public Schools, Teachers Unions
Ramaswamy railed against teachers unions.
- 3 minutes
Let's talk a little bit more about school
choice, so school choice vouchers, they
tend to be statewide programs that take
public funding away from public schools.
And redirects that money to private
institutions that do not have to abide by
[00:00:17]
similar standards, education standards
that public schools have to abide by.
And so how do you consider
the lack of standards and
how that might play a role in
a system in which voters would
[00:00:33]
not have the right to vote unless in your
dream scenario, they pass a civics test?
What if those public dollars are being
funneled to certain religious private
schools that do a poor job in educating
their students about American history,
[00:00:51]
civics basically what they need to know.
The education they need in order to pass
the civics test that you think people
need to pass in order to be able to vote?
>> Speaker 2: So as it relates to
standardized testing as one metric among
many, and other metrics also track it,
[00:01:06]
it's actually the reverse
that you see that's true.
Public schools are badly failing
across this country, and
if you look at the correlation between
the schools that spend the most
money per student Ana,
those are the schools that achieve
the poorest results 90% of
the time across this country.
[00:01:25]
So the irony is, if a parent is moving
a kid from a school that spends more money
per student to a school that
spends less money per student.
90% of the time they're moving to a school
that actually has higher achievement as it
relates to standardized tests and
other metrics.
So my view, I actually have
a somewhat radical idea on this,
[00:01:42]
let's say it's in New York City,
where I can give you the actual numbers.
It's $40,000 per student per year in
the failing public schools to good charter
schools or private schools, or even better
public schools that are spending $20,000
or $15,000 per student per year.
I think that that parent,
[00:01:58]
that kid should be able to take
half that difference with them.
If you put that in the kid's account,
invest it normally,
that kid graduates with a quarter
million dollar graduation gift,
it's not even close what accounts for
a better use of money.
Now, here's the problem, those schools
that are producing those poor results,
[00:02:17]
they have one constraint that
a lot of those private schools and
charter schools don't.
Those are teachers unions, and so I've had
actually both experiences in my own life.
I went to a not great public school
first through 8th grade, and
then my parents decided to work extra hard
and make some sacrifices to be able to
[00:02:33]
send me to a private school for
high school in Cincinnati.
Just look at the last several years in
the COVID pandemic, the Cincinnati public
schools were closed for a full year and
then almost a full next year.
This high school that I went to,
there were four total days that
were closed the entire time.
[00:02:50]
So it's not that COVID only
affects kids at public schools or
teachers at public schools.
To the contrary, these teachers
unions are failing our kids, failing
the very constituents, the very members
of the public they're supposedly serving.
So yes, I do think competition
there's no perfect solution, but
[00:03:06]
I think competition is the next
best solution to perfect.
And that, I think, is gonna hold the
public schools teachers feet to the fire,
get rid of those teachers unions.
And yes, we ought to compete such that
our educational system goes back to being
about the achievement of our students,
rather than employment opportunities for
[00:03:22]
these union members, and
that's just the hard truth
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