The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Education In America (The Adam and Dr. Drew Show Classics)

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Adam and Drew are joined by author and educator Kelly Matthews for an in depth conversation on the state of education in America today.

This is Corolla Digital. Recorded live at Corolla One Studios with Adam Corolla and board certified physician and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to the Adam and Dr. Drew show. Yeah, get it on. Got to get it on. No choice but to get it on. Thank you for joining us. And as per usual, we thank you in advance for supporting the show. You can click through the Amazon link at www.AdamandDrDrewShow.com. We start the show, and then you just do,

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Quarter show. No big deal. Kelly Matthews is here, that'd be a good thing. Quarter of a show. No big deal. Kelly Matthews is here. She's got a book out. It's called Education Exposed. What Teachers Taught Me About America's Failing Education System. Good to see you, Kelly. Hello. Kelly, you gotta talk into that mic or people won't know you're here. Now, I know we had trouble during the mic check, but Kelly, step it up, baby. Okay. You're a baby teacher I'm here pretend you're standing in front of the class and they're 35 deep and they're a little disruptive and you got to get their attention

So tell us what's wrong with the system. I know what's wrong with this well, in fact we this should be a great opportunity for you because there's somebody that's a Product of the failing system right in front of you here. That's right. I know what the problem is. I know what the problem is with everything. But you can tell us what the problem with this system is. One of the issues with talking about problems in the education system is just where to start because there are so many. So I tried to sum it up. One of the biggest issues is that we confuse the system between two different purposes, learning and social change. And I think that the fact is we're trying to fund social change and promote social change.

Macro social change or the individual child social change? Like social change in general, using the schools. Like busing, like back in the day when they were trying to integrate schools. Yeah so you know race and gender politics. By the way social change always means macro. No no I thought no but listen I thought she meant maybe we're going to try to change the ideals of this child. Well we're going to change everyone who comes to our system so that it well we're going to train the social fabric in general. Right. Which, by the way, I don't know, social engineering? Didn't the Russians and the Chinese try that?

I guess what I think Kelly's saying, I hope what Kelly's saying is, is we've gone from you are going to learn how to spell and you're going to learn long division to you're going to learn about how society should be, which is the way I feel. I know what's going on with my kids. My kids, I said somebody was stupid the other day and they're like, Whoa, he said the S word. And I was like, no, there's another S word. And they're like, no, you can't say stupid. I said, Oh, be prepared. There's a lot of stupid people out there, maybe more stupid people. But by the way, why aren't we just talking about math and English? Why are we talking about the words that I choose and all the nomenclature, this stuff where you're not the days of, you know, best looking, best physique, most popular,

all that stuff is gone because all the social change we're trying to weave into this. Even most improved is gone. That's the one I miss the most. Yeah. Well, that was a sports thing, but that was a really important. That was always just under most, you know important athlete everybody improved every minutes by the MVP So the one you got you got a VP no, no, no That's all I got most improved. Mm-hmm. I did too. Did you yeah, that was a big deal, right? Yeah, we really might have motivated you to do to stretch to go beyond. Yeah I got most approved. I did too. Did you? That was a big deal, right? Yeah. That really motivated you to do, to stretch, to go beyond. Yeah. I agree.

So Kelly, what are you saying? Gary, put our info up on the board there for our PayPal stuff, if you would. So Kelly, I don't want to put any more words in your mouth. What do you say? The social change is beyond curricular. So not just what teachers are teaching. It's more the idea of we are feeding the poor through the schools. And we're trying to make people equal who are inherently not equal. So we're trying to use the schools as a way

to give certain people a leg up in society. And we focus all of our money and time and effort on those people at the low and then we're ignoring the people who can. So one of my major premises in the book is just the idea that nobody wants to admit it, but there are kids who just can't and what do we do with them? Well, society is lousy with cants. I mean, and that's okay because we need cants. Now, we don't need cants hammering welfare checks. We need cants emptying garbage cans and mopping floors

and working on construction sites and, you know, cleaning sidewalks with high-pressure water systems and things like that. Now, they can, and then they can make a living wage. They can. Then they can. That's the point, is that they can do certain things. They can't do other things that we insist they do.

Right. We are going for this thing where everyone gets the same level of education and the same level of income and the same level of everything. That doesn't work. It's socialism, maybe communism. It just doesn't work. It's mathematically impossible to have to do that in a micro or macro. You take a football team, there's going to be three or four guys that are crackerjacks

and then there's going to be guys that are going to be struggling to to make that team and the same in a school scholastically why don't we accept that well let me tell you something I think I think you used a word Kelly that I I bet a lot of people bristled and I'm gonna go back to it now it was the n-word off the air oh they cut that out that was off the air check I heard her say it off the air I said N-word please and then she said up top when you passed her in the hole. But we sort of agreed to keep that off the air. Okay, okay. There's another word she used that actually, because I'm kind of a Lincolnophile, I know

for sure he was addressing this issue way back in 1850. And that is the issue of equality. And we have confused equality of opportunity with equal in all respects. You're not equal to me in strength, probably. You're not equal to me in height or eye color. But I think you should have equality of opportunity with me. And we've just completely lost track

of those two different distinctions. I think your eyes are the same color, by the way. We are equal in that. I think you at least tied Drew an eye color. But yeah, I mean, all right. But that's the issue. We've decided everyone's equal in all respects, which we are not. Some can do certain things, some can't do other things. Well, I think we understand it as it pertains to anything physical. If you're born... Oh no, no, you don't understand. Some women are so strong, that's where they go with that. That's why you get shit for it.

If you're born with an ability or a disability, then you're going to have to work harder to overcome certain things. You know, I say to people all the time, my whole thing is the playing field will never be level. Now get the fuck to work. That's it's not it's it's it's it's literally impossible to for any society to create a level playing field because your dad was a doctor and my dad was a loafer so what are we gonna you're although you don't know how come the loafers don't wear loafers? Your dad kicked ass and he wore loafers. My dad wore sandals. He goes next step down. If you're a loafer, you have to wear below loafers.

You're going to have an opportunity that I'm not going to have, but that doesn't mean I don't get to make as much money as you as an adult. It just means I'm going to go a different route and I may have to work a little differently than you. All right. So Kelly, do you agree with all this? Oh, absolutely. I say that in my book about the equality versus equal opportunity. And

we seem to use those interchangeably in society and they are not the same thing at all. Yeah, Lincoln, many of his lectures prior, well, during the Lincoln-Douglas debate, he called it equality in all respects. He goes, that's not the case. That's just a fallacy. There's no such thing as equal in all respects. And now we should just go ahead and remove that one from the list of possibilities, because it's not something we can do. We can give everyone the same rights,

and then you can do with them what you may. Now the schools, and I don't think they're any different than any other facet of our society. Basically, there's a small percentage of our society that fucks things up for everyone else. It's not like 50% of the husbands physically abused their wife. It's not like 45%. It's mid-mid but it's dropping. It's not you know it's sort of social problems you know look we live in a fairly decent society. I figured out that if you know, look, we live in a fairly decent society.

I figured out that if you took your wallet, I've done the test. You take your wallet, you put your, put a little thing on it that said, if found, please call, which everyone should do. And I took out the ID, I took out the credit cards, I just put cash in it, I threw it around the city. And people called every time. The reason people called, or people think you wouldn't call, but they would call, is because the people that found the wallet were like us. There weren't criminals.

Criminals don't go, I'm gonna go out and look for wallets today, who's with me. They go out and commit crimes. Well, so the person that finds your wallet, wherever it may be, is not gonna be a criminal, or 99% chance it's not gonna be a criminal, thus you're to get a phone call. And I did every single time. And I didn't just go down to the palisades in Beverly Hills and do it. I did it all in neighborhoods. People are generally decent.

And then there's a very small percentage of people that we have to pour all our time and resources into because they're completely fucking up society. And unfortunately, now they're're breeding and they've got the politicians ears and the politicians have decided that folks like us who work hard and care about education and do our homework with our kids are somehow privileged they've they use words like the privileged in the powerful you're not powerful you're not privileged you work hard and you work hard for your family. And we need to start focusing,

as long as I'm privileged and I'm powerful when I'm not, but the people that are beneath me from a socioeconomic standpoint, look at me, privilege and power, then they're not gonna do their homework. That's my feeling, sorry. How say you, Kelly? then they're not going to do their homework. That's my feeling. Sorry. How say you, Kelly?

Well, one of the major issues that we have is that we make educational decisions based on feelings instead of what is practical. So I know you've considered yourself a pragmatist. I consider myself a pragmatist. That's where most of my educational beliefs come from. And so when we make decisions where we structure classes differently and what we do with teachers differently based on things like race in an effort to not be racist, we end up completely screwing over the system. So an example of this is we know for a fact in research that students learn better when they are just challenged outside their ability level. So they have their comfort level and you're supposed to go just a tiny step out of their comfort level for them to learn.

So ideally, a classroom should be set up with like ability levels. Because we know there are different ability levels. People don't like to say it, but it's true. You can't just hire anybody off the street to do a job. Isn't that starting to happen though with magnet schools and honors programs? It's just starting to happen at least. People are finally... as compared to 15 years ago, wouldn't you say it's moving at least in that direction? Well it kind of did hit a peak and then it came back down because what

happened was we have honors classes, we have advanced placement classes, those are supposed to be the... Those weren't even around 15, 20 years ago. Really? 15, 20, yes. One in 30, no. You know what math, in high school... What math you took?

Math. I took high school math in high school. Not algebra. Math. Like arithmetic. Arithmetic. I think that school math in high school. Not algebra. Math. Like arithmetic. Arithmetic. I think that's what they call it. Yeah, arithmetic. Adding against the fact of it. A lot of that. Yeah. In high school. That's right. Yeah, we have math fundamentals for the people we can't yet put in Algebra 1.

That was me. See, Adam would be a can. And they can be in math fundamentals for a couple of years. Adam's a can't guy. I was 18, but yes. How did that feel? Drew, can you stop really molesting your mic? No, I can't. Why do you have? Thirty, can you stop? No, I can't. 30 years of me, you're gonna ask me.

Why? Why? Just put the mic in front of your mouth. Because I've got H-O-C-D. I've anxiety disorder. I've F with stuff. Can I get you a tennis ball to hold and you could squeeze the tennis ball? No, I need something more than that. We need something more involved. Can we get you like a nerf microphone that's not hooked up to anything, like just a fake wire that just runs onto the ground? You know, that's probably, that kind of thing would probably work, like a faux something. Yeah.

I understand if you're like a 50s style crooner. What I find interesting is how many years have we been working together? You understand, I understand this is a problem, I get it, it's a thing. But tell yourself to stop doing it it's what I'm saying all right don't as soon as I distract and think about other things it'll start happening see that's the thing I've true focus you're not nearly which you mean to focus on the show or not doing this practice what you preach which you mean to practice what you preach I will focus on not doing it no and I'm not even passive aggressive

if you were talking to your kids about this you would say Don't do this. That means don't do it and if you couldn't stop I'd say we have a problem Let me show you something true. Sorry for this. Kelly. Let me show you something I was teaching my young son to box the other day. Okay now I'm gonna have to physically do this and then you're gonna have to describe what's going on. So Adams getting out of his chair. Getting your stance. He's getting widening his legs. Putting your hands up. Showing he's in a boxer's defensive position. Elbows down. And I said

fists up. Fists up around the face. And I said now throw that cross. And he threw it. And his hand went down to his hip. I'll stand orthodox. Okay so his defensive hand in the right, he's throwing his left cross, right high cross, right cross and the left hand comes down to the hip. Every time. He did about five times in a row. And then I said to him, Sonny, he's six. I said Sonny you're dropping your hand. You punched him. No, he tried it. No, I kicked him. He tried it. My knuckles are sore. He did about five times.

I told him five times in a row, I said, don't drop that hand. And he kept doing it. And then I said, you know what? Touch your cheek. Touch your cheek with your left hand and don't stop touching your cheek. And he just kept throwing it. He just kept throwing it. He just kept touching it.

That's why you're a genius. What are you going to do for me? I taught a six-year-old. So a so keep my hands crossed that would need to do I'm saying do what you have to do other than Sexually attack the microphone Chris Maxipat had a great idea. I'll sit here and touch my cheek All right touch the cheeks that I can see you're gonna have trouble your time pretty close to that my eyes too close Yeah, so Yeah, no, I took I took dumb dumb math because I was a bad student. And I knew I was a bad student. And I failed biology. And I took science, which was a sort of euphemism for

dummy biology. Right. And I had a teacher tell me when all my friends took Mr. Bernal's class or something, I said, hey, I want in on that me when all my friends took Mr. Bernal's class or something, I said, hey, I want in on that class because all my buddies are in on that class. And he gave me a, that's kind of a tough class. And I said, yeah. And they're like, he basically said, this guy requires you to do work and to study and that kind of stuff. And I don't know, that's gonna be up your alley.

Basically the equivalent of a guy at a hardware store going that's a little too much tool for you when he held up like a half-inch router. So I knew it. I was comfortable with it. Like I excelled in sports and I didn't excel in the classroom and I never excelled in the classroom. And then I got out, I got into cleaning up garbage on construction sites and eventually, but I knew what I could do and I knew what I couldn't do. I wasn't heading off to Princeton and I quickly figured out, oh, you better buy a truck, you better get some tools, you better work with someone and learn something. And partly it's because no one was helping you or you know giving you a net, right, you had to figure it out. Well I... It's kind of like

it's kind of like not teaching English to people that speak another language. Yeah, they force them to learn. They immerse themselves in the culture and they learn and they learn it and if they didn't learn it they'd be handicapped. They watch a lot of culture. Yeah, a lot of Perfect Strangers episodes and they figured out. But you know, my foreman said, get rid of your motorcycle, buy a truck, I'll give you another buck an hour. I said, okay, I'm getting a truck. I mean, I was making seven bucks an hour, I want to get to eight bucks an hour. And I was going to get a piece of crap pickup truck anyway, 900 bucks a liter, I'm driving a piece of crap pickup truck. But that's how it worked.

I knew I was a bad student. I knew who the good students were I tried to copy off them We all knew who were the good students and who were the bad students as a matter of fact We didn't even say good students and bad students. We said dumb and smart nerd and dumb. Yeah Just she's smart. Like if somebody got a's you go. Well, that's a smart person and got D's and F's, well, it's a dumb person. That's how we treated it. It's understood. Is there any concern, again, the book is Education Exposed, What Teachers Taught Me About America's Failing Education System. Is there any concern that people that are becoming teachers are products of this system so they don't know, some people, I'm not saying all, but may not understand really anything

different. Is there that kind of thing going on? That is a concern. Generally, I mean, on the whole, the people who become teachers were good students. So they had good, positive educational experiences. And so they want to go share those with other people. They have positive educational experiences in a bad system? The system is not bad everywhere.

That's a big deal. That's one of the things that was the impetus for me actually writing this book. Try to find out what's going on with the good ones? Right. Well, I this year switched from an inner city district to a suburban district right next door. And I went from complete failing system to 100 percent pass rates and teaching rich kids. And the differences that I've seen in those systems are shocking. And so your sort of subtitle is What Lawmakers Need to Do About It.

What do they need to do? Essentially they need to step off a little. And that's the thing is that- Step off, step away? Yeah, because one of the major issues is accountability. When students are not performing, we hold teachers accountable and we think that that's going to fix it.

But that doesn't fix it, because teachers ultimately do not have that level of control. They can teach and they can teach and they can teach, but ultimately the student is gonna have to do something. So we're not holding parents accountable, we're not holding students accountable, we're holding teachers accountable.

So how do we switch it? Well, number one, we stop having required graduation rates. Schools are measured by their graduation rates. And honestly, not everybody should graduate. Not everybody should have a diploma. Because if everybody did have a diploma, that's like saying even the most idiotic person on this planet can have a diploma. What does the diploma mean if the stupidest guy you know has one?

But I imagine that... Yeah, my buddy Ray has a diploma. Oh does the diploma mean if the stupidest guy you know has one? But I imagine that... Yeah, my buddy Ray has a diploma. Oh, that's scary. I imagine that... You have one too, right? Well... You finally returned that library book that held back your diploma, didn't you? I never received my diploma, but technically I earned a diploma. Okay.

That was the second to last day Spanish final. I can show you a poster if we can dig it up sponsored by Taco Bell, which it says, you know do the undoable and achieve the impossible That's like get a high school diploma, which I don't know when we lowered the fucking bar So so so so so low that it was now conduit that was buried in the ground but of course when you hand out everything like participation trophies to everyone, it then means nothing. And I'm happy to say that my son got a participation trophy for playing basketball a few weeks ago,

somehow left it behind at the Y and didn't even want to turn around and go look for it. Like, and that my first words were, what was that trophy? And as soon as I found out it was a participation trophy, I just kept, daddy kept driving. And my son said, keep moving. He didn't need a little loose sight piece of shit that just basically said he was born. Because that's what that is. Participation trophy is here's a trophy for being born. That's it. It doesn't mean shit to anyone. Most valuable

player, most improved player, we'll go back for that. But I'm imagining that the schools were failing already 10, 20, and 30 years ago, and all of these sort of attempts to create milestones were a good faith attempt to try to jack up systems that were already failing. You're just saying that those interventions didn't work. We've changed things, like I said, for social purposes. So before, there used to be things that sort of barred you from getting in the way of more capable peers. So for instance, when I reference those honors and AP classes. You had to have certain grades and teacher recommendations and state percentile ranks to get into those

classes. Then they said, well we want those classes to be more diverse. In order for them to be diverse, we have to get rid of those requirements. I mean, what does that communicate to people? If we want non-white people in these classes, we have to take away the requirements for them. Hey, it's Adam Kroll from the Adam Kroll Show. BetOnline is the world's most trusted betting platform and your number one source for online betting from the earliest odds to in-game live betting. BetOnline provides you with all the action and the ability to watch and bet on games as they happen with the largest selection of odds on everything

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BetOnline, the game starts here. Well, to me, I just look at the whatever 30 year experiment and realize you guys are all horrible failures. Like, you know, it's sort of like, it's like Los Angeles, you know, I look at the mayoral race that's coming up and it's like two stooges that were in the City Council for the last ten years, you know, just just Just mobbed up with the unions and like we really really think there's gonna be change here and I've talked to Gavin Newsom about it

He's like, well, the system's broken like I'm like, all right, fix it, Mr. Person who runs the system. You're in the middle of the goddamn system. Go ahead, stop telling me the system's broken. You created the system. And you're in the middle of the fucking system. That's a good place to start. Then we'll work up from there. I told Gavin Newsom I'm too smart.

But this notion of stay the course, are you nuts? It gets worse and worse every year. Look around and see what's happening. We all know what the answer is. You forget about color and culture completely. You just set a standard. You treat it like sports. Sports is the purest thing you'll ever find on the planet. You want to win, you want to win. And look, Boston, traditionally not a great town for folks that aren't white, let's say. But you know what?

They'll have five black guys starting for the Celtics and that town will be going nuts. Why? They wanna win. Do not care. Zero difference when want to win. Do not care. Zero difference when you want to win. And people put everything aside. They just want to win. So you go, look, I don't care if the Celtics are all albino or they're all black.

It doesn't matter. That town wants to win. Or it could be split up. 50-50. Although that'd take a half white black person in there We'll work it to make cuz they're five. Well, we'll work it in there But the little little mix race that just makes it a vinyl. Let's just go to win Yeah, just see whatever we and that's it and and let's not adjust the scoring too Well, this team has five white guys. so we need to adjust the scoring accordingly, or this team has five black guys, or Hispanic guys. Just put the standards out there. Then, when a group does not meet that standard, let's go look at why.

And for me, it all comes back to the parenting. Interested parents, parents that are involved, families that are intact, families that do homework. I mean, for a group, which I say all the time is insane. Your job as teachers and as educators, whether it's again, just the person in the classroom or the guy who runs the school unions, teachers unions, whatever, all the way up to Washington, ironically, you assholes won't look at statistics, you assholes won't look at statistics. You assholes won't look at figures. This is what you do. You understand? The guys who do everything

else in life, farmers, bridge builders, they look at statistics. You guys ignore statistics. There's a way that this could be fixed. They interpret them through a prism. Through a prism that wants to get them re-elected, not through a prism that's going to solve any of the problems. You need to talk to certain groups and certain communities and explain to them that families, intact, moms and dads, living together, focusing on education is what will solve this problem. Teachers, training, government funding for new, blah, blah, blah, all takes a distant, a distant second. I mean, a back seat, and when I'm talking about back seat, I'm talking hook and ladder.

These guys are in the back seat driving the back of the truck, and we're up in the cab. It's all parents, it's all education, it's all focus on education by the parents. Good school system is going to help but ultimately it's down to the parents. Nobody wants to discuss it. But you keep mentioning good school system and the issue with that is what I learned from moving from inner city to suburban from bad system to good system is that the teachers in the bad system work 10 times harder and are more capable as educators than the teachers in the good system.

Teachers in the good system don't actually teach. They do old school teaching because that's what they get to do. So they get up there, they might lecture, they might just have a worksheet, they talk at the kids, they say, do this, the kids do it, they do homework, and the teacher sits at their desk and grades paper. Why is that old school? Because that's how they used to do it because motivation used to be higher. We used to have expectations.

We had cutoffs. And so the, you know, the expectation was put on the student, you do what you have to do, what you mentioned in previous podcasts about what do you do? You listen, you take notes, you do your homework. Like that's what you do. But our kids don't do that. In my inner city school, I wasn't allowed to assign homework because the kids wouldn't do it. So you got into issues of the students failing because he has zeros on homework. Does that mean he hasn't mastered the standards? Well, I don't know because he hasn't turned anything in. But I'm not allowed to give him zeros for not doing homework. And there's nobody at home that is asking him about the homework and

Oftentimes, you know these people most people you work big to small and if if you have Five six seven eight people living in a two-bedroom and daddy ain't around and you're working three jobs Just to keep the power on, homework, that goes way down on the priority level. You're in survival mode. You're in survival mode, yeah. A lot of people and a lot of these folks we're talking about in the inner city, they're in

survival mode. Their kids are in survival mode, they're in survival mode. It's a little every man for themselves in survival mode. This is where the political issues rubber hit the road. Is that now? So now what? We blame them for not being able to do their homework? Well first thing you do is you say to them, we need more out of you. You are not giving us enough. But I'm just trying to survive.

I'm giving my pedal to the metal. I'll tell you what's going to be, here's how you can survive a lot more easily. Don't have seven kids and stay married. But I just need to feel good. I feel horrible. I feel awful. I feel awful I feel like that guy like you should feel you should feel like shit because you have a bunch of bunch of kids and daddy's not Around so let's focus on what it's gonna take What's gonna take and you see it? You see it people come to this country all the time either have an emphasis on education and family or you don't you know?

I always bring up the Jews everyone thinks I'm a Jew. That's the sad part. I mean, not sad in a bad way. I know that. Well, I don't. Who can you treat me? I don't. I have certain disdain for, you know, some of their cultural... Look, that's not change subject. Point is, I use them as an example of groups that focused on education.

They focus on family. they focused on community. If there was some kid that was having some problems or maybe if a family was broken up in that community then some other folks from the community would come in. But they focused on it, they used a little something called shame, which is if your kid was getting Cs and Ds or if your kid was going to the junior college Versus a Stanford or UCLA there's colleges. They just killed themselves. They're mini little college. We got the shame shame You know like those I should have to explain to you. You know, there's bite-sized Snickers bars. Yeah, it's like that but for college There's like a miniature college

They call it fun size, but it's. They try to call it community college but only on Halloween. Right. So they then get together, they focus on education, they focus on family, they focus on community and lo and behold they're doing pretty darn well for themselves. Did you ever read a book called Coming Apart? It just takes these little, I didn't read it very carefully, I just looked at it again on my phone. If I remember right, it was about taking these little communities and studying what happens when they come apart and when the class, the classes start to separate. And it sort of looks at this very carefully at all the different elements, not just the education.

You might, you might take a look at Coming Apart, it's called. Well, I'll tell you what doesn't fix things. What doesn't fix things is when there's a fight under some bleachers and it's a bunch of black kids duking it out with some other kids and then they get suspended and then Al Sharpton's gotta go march on the school that suspended the kids because they were black. Well, whoever was in the fight should get suspended.

If they're all black, they're all black. And if they're all white, they're all white. They should be suspended. And he went to go march on the school. Now, he should go march on the parents and want to know why the fuck your kids are scrapping underneath stands at a football game on a Friday night instead of either playing in the game

or up top cheering the game on. That's who he should be marching on. But he's marching on the school and that sends a message that says, parents, you're cool, you're victimized, victims. Kids, don't worry about it. And the problem is the administration. The problem is the system. Well, you're tacking the system. You should be attacking the behavior of the children and what led them to behave that way. Those are the things that need to be attacked. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are not in the business of attacking that

because that would put them out of the business they're in. They have a racket. The racket is they're the guy who walks around the park with the stick with the nail in it picking up garbage and they need to make sure there's a lot of litter on the ground. They ain't interested in people not littering. They're interested in their job security. I'm interested in people not littering. But it again does bring into focus that there is sort of let's call it a special interest and I don't mean that in the sense of a lobby group,

the sense that, you know, why people end up where they are is a special interest, and African Americans end up there because of a history, and these guys are stepping up because of that history. They're trying to make money off of that history. Well, whatever, it's just, you know, so it gets cut, right, it gets cut, it's not as simple. No, it is simple.

I'm frustrated here, so go ahead.'s not a simple. It is simple. I'm frustrated here. So go ahead. You see it simply. It is simple. We get what we expect, essentially. And so we've taken responsibility and we're enabling as a system to perpetuate that behavior. Listen, to me, it's remember Prop 186? Yes. We were the cruelest.

Do you know what that is? So in this state, it's, remember Prop 186? Yes. We were the cruelest, do you know what that is? So in this state required English as a, there was the people, I want all those people who were protesting rounded up and like shamed. Yes. It's like we were the cruelest, this was gonna destroy children. Nope, six months they all spoke English.

And guess what, those kids are gonna get jobs now because they're not encumbered by not speaking English. How come that's not sort of a model for the future? But in my state that failed. So we tried to go for English only. We had a bill. I try to keep it anonymous. Okay but it failed because the bill didn't go through? Right. So it went up for both. It succeeded here where it was really, I can't imagine a state with a more significant problem with that than California. We have huge immigrant populations in the inner city school. Florida or New York, doesn't look too positive.

No, you'd be surprised. Absolutely. It has to do with economy. Anywhere where it is easy for people to get jobs because there are jobs and where the cost of living is fairly low So huge immigrant populations. We have immigrant communities. So the school I taught at we had I mean Let's say about 40 percent African-american we had about 30 percent Kurdish population We had a good yeah 15 to 20% Egyptian Population I had students from countries. I had never heard of I mean, did you know there was an Eritrea? There's an Eritrea No, it's in Africa. That's right

No clue I just know it exists because we have cultural affairs and we embrace it and sure diversity and that's a good thing No, it's not no, it's what no, it's not you're an American where you come from sucks And the reason we know it sucks is because you're here. Yeah, but to Everybody clung to a culture for 3,000 years. That's part of what motivates. Right, okay. Let me say this. Let me address that, have you?

Pluto TV is the place for movie fans like me. And TV fans like me. They've got something for everyone. And it's totally free. You can binge laugh out loud sitcoms like Frasier. And re-watch cult classics like Higher Learning. Whether you're in the mood to solve a little crime before bedtime with NCIS or Tracker. Or curl up with a surefire hit like Forrest Gump.

Run, Forrest! Pluto TV has thousands of movies and shows all for free. Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. You're here first and foremost because wherever you come from sucks. At least it sucks less than we suck. However badly we suck, you guys suck a little bit more. I'm not saying we're great, just saying we're marginally better than you, that's why you're here. The multiculturalism that we do, and look, I don't care about the St. Patty's Day parade and I don't care about you know the gay parade and I don't care about the occasional parade

you're allowing that but we're now taking it to an extreme that if every sign isn't printed in your language then you're gonna sue the city of Los Angeles and now we're taking multiculturalism and we're turning it into parts of the San Fernando Valley have turned into Tijuana. They speak Spanish, everything's in Spanish, the food's in Spanish, the street vendors are out there selling their ghetto dogs wrapped in, you know, they're cooking, they're selling, there's a whole black market underground economy, it's just a cash-based economy, we're buying stuff wholesale down at the whatever mart and selling it on the

streets. We've taken this thing way too goddamn far. First culture everyone is, is American. That's it. Then feel free to celebrate whatever religion and that should come out in the form of soccer. You root on your team, but you're an American. Thank you. I mean, the people who were at the forefront of education way back, you know, 1800s, Ben Franklin especially, our founding fathers, one of their main ideas was that there should be an American culture.

There should be a distinct American culture and the schools are part of that socialization for expanding that American culture. There should be a distinct American culture and the schools are part of that socialization for expanding that American culture. So okay, so you're making the point that that's where that should, that's better for students, that's better for the country, and if people want to have their multiculturalism, that should be home and community. Yeah, I mean multiculturalism in general, yeah, that's great. But it's not the school's focus. We're not here. I mean, the school shouldn't be telling you what kind of meals your parents

– you know, my grandfather was Hungarian, so he cooked Hungarian food and he liked Hungarian food, but he was an American. He was proud to be an American. And he wouldn't go to – if he had gone to school, he wouldn't insist on some sort of Hungarian awareness week, and he wouldn't insist on where's the Hungarian flag? There's the American flag, there's the California state flag, where's the Hungarian flag? I'm insulted. And how come these textbooks aren't written in Hungarian? Well, it sounds insane to say that now, right? Well, of course it's insane. It's insane to say he couldn't cook goulash on the weekends. It's also insane to think that he should have insisted that the textbooks

be written in English and Hungarian. So school teaches you how to be an American. And the good news is we're better at this than a lot of you folks are from your former country. And again, simple math, that's why you're here. You didn't, you're here because we do things better. And becoming everything to everyone is not doing things better. You take a automobile and you go, I want it to handle, but it's gotta hold eight people, it's gotta get great mileage, it's gotta look great,

it's gotta, that sounds great, but you end up with a Dodge piece of shit. We're America. Let's just be American, and then you go home and eat your goulash. All right. Are we the Dodge piece of shit or...? We're turning into the Dodge piece of shit because we're trying to make everyone happy or better yet, not offend anybody. Layar we haven't even talked about yet is the liability issues when lawyers take aim at

teachers and administrators so they're afraid to do anything. Drew, give a little love to one of our sponsors and don't mail it in. This is one of our favorite sponsors, well we love all our sponsors, but this is GoToMeeting. You know these guys, this allows you to work with colleagues from different offices or traveling, get the team together. GoToMe meeting with HD Faces by Citrix. It's simple. It's a way to collaborate. You can actually share documents, spreadsheets, and have a video chat at the same time.

In other words, you can literally, on your computer screen, see the other person's work, whatever it might be, whether it's a graph or a spreadsheet, and you can add to it, and you can put your material up there, they can add to your stuff. So it's like, when you have a meeting, you use go to meeting, and then people could watch the top of your head while you answer text messages on your phone. If I were on it, yes. Or, right, if I were on it, you'd be looking at my hair. Right.

But there's actually no reason to be physically present anymore because it's the equivalent of leaning over each other's shoulders and looking at each other's documents, working on each other's documents, and seeing each other in real time. Start hosting face-to-face online meetings today with GoToMeeting free for 30 days. Visit gotomeeting.com, click the Try It Free button, and use the promo code ADAM. I should also tell you guys that we're going to be in the Vegas House of Blues. That's me and Dr. Drew. That is this Friday. I can't believe it's coming so fast. And Salt Lake City Kingsbury Hall coming up on Saturday talking about the

real problems of the world. Also Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center April 13th and that's when we're bussing out the Mangria White unbelievable stuff. I think I need to can I I, with each, so you get a free glass of? White. With each ticket? Yes. Can I also, like, can you give a card to a rehab program?

You can cancel it. Okay, I'll send a card to a rehab program. And with each Mangria shot, I'm gonna be, no, maybe just the 12 steps. Just a little card with the 12 steps on it. Can you get them all on one side? Yeah, I bet I can. I bet you can verify something like that.

Okay. So, Kelly, what do we do to cure this ill known as the school boards here in these great United States? Oh, well, there are a lot of different answers to that. First of all, like I mentioned before, accountability. We need to start holding other people responsible. We need to hold students responsible Ultimately, there needs to be competition. You've talked before about government and how the lack of competition just breeds

Mediocrity or even less than mediocrity and that's happening in the schools. There is no Competition like our students even the students who fail, are going to be okay. If you look at the countries we're being compared to, they have to work their asses off, essentially, to even go to high school. They have to pass tests to go to high school. And they can go to high school, pass those tests, actually get into high school, and then, you know, work into the ground as well, and then not get into college, because there's competition.

I think we made a huge mistake. First off, we decided that children were our future, when I know it's robots, number one. Number two, we did children are the future, and no child left behind. And the deal is, no child left behind is pretty goddamn tall order, because we're camping and we're going on a we're packing a boat up

And we're hitting the open sea and if you're not gonna pack your shit And you're not gonna take care of what you got to take care of I don't need you on this boat I will leave you behind and we have to have The mentality of if you're not gonna get involved and your parents aren't gonna get you involved it's like when they talk to these teachers and they talk to these principals and educators and they're like, your school has a horrible attendance record. What's going on? What's wrong with you? And I'm like, well, when a kid doesn't show up to a class, what is the teacher supposed to do? Get on a horse, get a net and go after them? Plan of the ape style? Like the kid's not there. What do you want the kid,

look if the parent could go knock on the kid's door, might get shot. I don't know. I'm asking you're the parent, your kid's not, your kid's sitting around playing video games all day, I don't know where you are, you need to make sure. I have kids, they go to school, that's on us. I don't sit around and go, why isn't the school coming by and wrangling our kids and getting them, Drew, you have three kids, you may come upon you and your family and your wife to make sure that the kids got to school every day. I wonder what that guy on the horse with the net was doing, but I didn't ever use it.

You never used that guy. No, I didn't need that guy. So the point is, is you want to know what the teachers are doing about the kids not showing up to class? Find out what the parents are doing. Let's sort of frame it this way in the closing minutes here. What the individual listeners to this podcast need to do. Now you've raised maybe some issues that they might agree with or disagree with. What does the individual need to do? Because ultimately that's where this is all gonna change, right, is if we adjust ourselves. And so what, you know, and let's mind you,

like what is the average listener of this podcast, probably what, a 40 year old male, average? Yeah. Okay, what do they need to do? They need to listen to me. Well, they know that. Okay. Ultimately, a lot of what needs to be done in education can't be done because

it doesn't sound good to admit these uncomfortable things about what's really going on. You know, when you're talking about socioeconomic status, etc. Let's say we have a bunch of Corolla fans who are like, yes, okay, what do I need to do? Right. So these people need to be vocal constituents. I mean, it needs to be made clear to these elected officials that this is what we want. We need more power to the actual parents. We need more choices in our schools. Like ultimately, if every school operated like a charter, that would be ideal. Get vocational education in there. Allow people to do apprenticeships. I mean, if you could have done what you did after

graduation or after high school, for high school credit, you would have been given, you know, a leg up in that sense. I would have started at age 19 instead of picking up garbage on a construction site and pulling ivy down off the side of the house in Silver Lake and essentially digging ditches and cleaning up garbage, I may have had a few years in and known some basic elements of framing and drywall and it could have started at a few more bucks an hour and started as an apprentice and whether it was plumbing, electrical, or framing I would have had a base of knowledge other than I know nothing so I'll clean up garbage and watch the guys who do work and eventually learn something like they've done for the last

several thousand years but obviously picking a guy out like me that was taking math in the 10th grade and not algebra and failing biology and saying you like working with your hands here's something that here's here's something you might you might enjoy and when you get out of high school, there's a $13 an hour job waiting for you instead of a $7 an hour job waiting for you. Yeah, I would have been all about that. But not just that. I mean, plumbing. Like plumbing. Plumbers make a lot of money. That doesn't require a degree.

Well, not only that, we need more plumbers than we need educators, I would argue. If you took the guys who did bridge building, road maintenance, the guys who serviced your cars, the guys who serviced the air conditioning, the guys who built the houses, built the factories and then worked in the factories, the people that do all this stuff, that's never going to go away. We don't need another Harvard faculty member. We are going to need plumbers and we're not going to be able to automate plumbing. You know, when the dog drops a tennis ball in the shitter, there's not going to be some sort of

computerized or you're not going to be able to call India and talk to a guy and get him to fix it. You need a dude to come out to your house in a van. That's never going to change. All right, Kelly Matthews, the book is Education Exposed and it's available on Amazon and you click through adamanddoctordrewshow.com and you put a little win in the sales of the pirate ship. Thank you very much Kelly for your candor and your attendance. Your perfect attendance on this show. The book is Education Exposed. I just said that. I'm sorry. You were answering it. Alright, Kelly Matthews, thank you very much. Dr. Drew, give it a four. Until next time,

this is Adam Crow for Kelly and Dr. Drew is sayingolla Digital. Pluto TV is the place for movie fans like me. And TV fans like me. They've got something for everyone. And it's totally free. You can binge laugh out loud sitcoms like Frasier. And re-watch cult classics like Higher Learning. Whether you're in the mood to solve a little crime before bedtime with NCIS or Tracker.

Or curl up with a surefire hit like Forrest Gump. Pluto TV has thousands of movies and shows all for free. Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.