Good morning and welcome to Broad + Liberty's Weekly Reads.

Stay up to date on all of this and more when you subscribe to our daily email list and get the best of Broad + Liberty delivered straight to your inbox. 

1. They’re still failing our kids — and taxpayers, too

By Guy Ciarrocchi
 

The NAEP 2024 national report card on schools is out. 

I wish I didn’t have to write this column. I wish that there was good news to report on public schools in Pennsylvania. But wishes aren’t reality. Tragically, the scores are that bad.

Here are the lowlights. Only 41 percent of fourth graders can do fourth grade math. Only 33 percent can read at a grade level. And, going from bad to worse, at eighth grade, only 31 percent can perform at grade level for math or reading. Grades fall the longer they’re in their district.

The majority of Pennsylvania public school students are not grade-proficient in either math or reading. This isn’t a “blip” in the chart: grades have more or less been stuck here for about 20 years — though the Covid lockdowns seem to have harmed our kids.

Why It Matters.  In most cases, the parents or guardians raising the children in those tragically failing schools know that the schools are academic train wrecks, but they cannot send their students anywhere else. Why? After paying their bills and their school taxes, they simply cannot afford even a nearby parochial elementary school — averaging “only” about $5,100 per student. Worse, in the case of Philadelphia, charter schools are not an option because the Philadelphia School District has capped enrollment at the existing schools and has not not approved a new charter school since 2018.

The sad state of affairs is that the district schools are failing these kids. The parents know that the schools are failing their children. The school boards and bureaucrats in Harrisburg — and at the US Department of Education — know the schools are failing these kids. And there are no alternatives for tens of thousands of students. Yet they keep sending them more and more of our money.

What has the education “swamp” offered as a solution? 

They demanded more money from local taxpayers, state taxpayers, and federal taxpayers. They grew the bureaucracy at rates faster than at almost any time in history — administration budgets grew even faster than teachers’ salaries.

Continue Reading

2. Is RFK — our next consumer movement maverick?

By Stephen F. Gambescia
 

The pushback against Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead and direct the U.S. Health and Human Services agency fails the heuristic test but makes sense when influencers prioritize political circumstances over the fundamental steps we should follow in making healthcare and public health policies: 1) making intellectually honest inquiries into the nature and extent of a health problem, and 2) supporting reasonable and defensible public policy alternatives.

Generally, based on his thoughts, words, deeds, and intentions, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., appears to be a good candidate to lead the DHHS. He is a nominee who resembles several giants of consumer activism who came before him and should have gained support from those who ostensibly work to improve the human condition.

Why It Matters. The challenge for Kennedy is that his motivation, passion, and call to action are summed up by “Make America Healthy Again,” which resonates too closely with MAGA, causing those who oppose anything related to President Donald Trump to recoil. 

Considering a brief review of the actions taken by well-known consumer advocates in the past who shared the same goal of improving the health of Americans, it is puzzling that Kennedy has been relegated to persona non grata for asking big questions to ensure public officials are doing enough “to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans.”

The consumer and health promotion mavericks of the past, advocating for a healthier America, had their detractors. These detractors would characterize the mavericks using a range of pejoratives, from them emboldening a “nanny state” to being ideologically biased, to making unfounded or even wacky claims. What each maverick had in common is asking big questions all to improve the health of the people. And those questions were of actions taken by powerful people in powerful organizations that had a lot to lose in such an inquiry.

Continue Reading

3. Lightning Round

• Stu Bykofsky: Welcome to the Cherelle Parker hiring hall for disgraced Dems

• Beth Ann Rosica: Despite federal order, Pennsylvania may continue to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports

• Delaware County prison sergeant resigns, blasts leadership in scathing email

• Ben Mannes: DOGE, USAID, and the money behind progressive prosecutors

• Paul Davis: ICE gives illegal immigrant criminals the boot

• Christine Flowers: Nuance on immigration falls by the wayside in current debate

• John Rossi: Eighty years of mayoral history

• Thom Nickels: The last Romanian princess

4. Podcast

5. What we're reading

The mainstream media is bending over backward to make the Trump administration look reasonable. On CBS’s Face the Nation last week, anchor Margaret Brennan indignantly told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the Holocaust was caused by an excess of free speech. Rubio patiently disabused her of this wildly ahistorical notion. As Paul du Quenoy noted for the Telegraph this week, it was just the latest example of how “America’s legacy media desperately grasps at straws to maintain its languishing credibility.” 

You might have thought that the second Trump administration would induce less unhinged derangement than the first. After all, we’ve all done this before just four years ago. But no, the mainstream press is going about with its hair on fire, just like it was 2017 again. And looking all the more foolish for it.