Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University, to discuss his recent book The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Trump’s agenda of military-backed mass deportations, the Gaetz report, Trump’s cabinet confirmations, the GOP’s bill to kill nonprofits, labor action among Michigan nurses, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, starvation and genocide in Gaza, and Rudy Giuliani’s financial woes, also watching Morning Joe and Mika Brzezinski fast-track their capitulation to the Trump regime. Professor Josh Cowen then joins, diving right into the concept of school choice and the purpose of the voucher system, outlining how vouchers seek to make public dollars for education available for private tuition, supposedly to allow parents their choice of educational pathway for their child, before tackling exactly why this system fails to meet that goal, with private schools’ vastly increased ability to discriminate against students (via admissions or otherwise) meaning it becomes more “school’s choice” than “parent’s choice,” while the flood of money into private education markets under voucher systems, alongside the lack of transparency required for these private institutions, spurs the development of “subprime” providers who take this money in return for a significantly worse education that our public schools. Expanding on this, Josh walks Sam through the evolution of this parental rights’/school choice movement, beginning with the perfect storm of Milton Freedman’s desire to completely undermine the public school system in the US and the anti-segregationist backlash to Brown v. the Board of Education, and continuing through the growing prevalence of Christian Nationalist attacks on public education that we see today, exploring how reactionary forces bolster the drive to kill public education. After touching on the major financial impact the voucher program has had on public education, with a negative impact on its return end, Cowen wraps up by looking to the future of government-run-and-funded education under a Trump presidency, including the likelihood that he will actually dismantle the Department of Education, and why, despite the GOP’s electoral success, the voucher agenda has seen overwhelming backlash from voters.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma unpack Trump’s potential attack on social security before diving deep into RFK’s ongoing acquiescence to the Trump regime to the point of… publicly ingesting seed oils?!?! They also touch on the developing capitulation of the Senate to let Trump bypass them with his cabinet appointments and parse through the direct relationship between news consumption and support for Harris as they unpack the utter messaging and campaign failures by the Democratic Party, with a highlight on the misleading interests of the consultant class on the Biden/Harris campaign agendas. They also watch Rep. Jayapal nail the election post-mortem, and have some fun reflecting on the evolution of one Jackson Hinkle with a caller, plus, your calls and IMs!

Follow Josh on Twitter here: https://x.com/joshcowenmsu

Check out Josh's book here: https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9781682539101/the-privateers/

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