S11B1 – Big, Beautiful Monstrosity – and a Call to Action

S11B1 - Big, Beautiful Monstrosity and A Call To Action.

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Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White, dad from Denver. And this is Big, Beautiful Monstrosity and A Call To Action. Just me today. And it's actually my birthday. And I want to take a little moment of personal privilege to drop into your feeds. Uh, the president just signed the Big, Beautiful. Bill into law and, i'm mad.

Let's be clear. This is a monstrous piece of legislation. The more people learn about it, the more they hate it all across the political spectrum, there's been lots of reporting. You know, 16 million people will lose health insurance. The bill is massively expensive, will balloon the national debt, all to give tax breaks to the wealthy. And of course, the environmental fallout. Subsidies to fossil fuels that worsen emissions, accelerate global warming and raise energy costs on everyone, all while halting important investments in renewables. This bill hurts everyone, and of course is always the most vulnerable bear the heaviest burden.

I think what's received far less attention is the national voucher program built into this bill. A quiet but deadly blow to our public education system. We know how voucher programs play out, right? We've seen it in states across the country. They siphon public resources away from public schools so that the already privileged can spend less money on private school tuition, all while increasing segregation, which has been the point of vouchers nearly since they were conceived of.

Look, this bill isn't just bad policy. It is an existential threat to public schools, the very institution that while admittedly imperfect remains, I believe our best hope for a true multiracial democracy.

1974 in the _Milken v Bradley_ case, justice Thurgood Marshall in his descent wrote this famous line quote. Unless our children learn together, there's little hope that our people will learn to live together. Perhaps at no time since the Civil War has our ability to live together, felt more fragile.

Worsening economic inequality, increasing climate disasters, growing threats to healthcare access, all of these forces are driving us further apart. And while this bill was backed by people who show active disdain for the very idea of a true multiracial democracy, those people are out of step with the majority of people in this country.

And yet, despite its wild unpopularity, even with many of the legislators who voted for it, calling it a catastrophe, the bill passed and was signed by the president on the 4th of July, no less. It is now the law of the land.

And it's easy to feel overwhelmed. It's easy to turn towards apathy. That I think, is the goal. The political process that should have stopped this bill didn't work. The media ecosystem that should have made the stakes clear, both to voters and to elected officials failed.

So now what? Those of us who care about all people in this country who still believe in the possibility of a multiracial democracy, who find hope in the founding ideals of our nation, even as we acknowledge that we've never lived up to them, we're left to ask what should we do?

Well, to start, I think we have to continue to express our displeasure. We have to call our elected representatives. We have to let them know that this bill does not represent our values, and we have to make it clear that those who voted in favor of it are going to be held accountable.

We have to continue to show up at protests. We have to make sure that both our government and our fellow citizens are aware of our disgust. But in moments like this, all of that is necessary, but not sufficient.

When the institutions that form the foundation of our country are under attack, we have to reaffirm our support for them, not because they're living up to their promises, but because the only way they can is through our collective belief and investment.

Just this week, the federal government refused to release already appropriated funds to public schools across the country. The Department of Education is being dismantled. The institutions we rely on are rejecting honest history and refuse to confront our shared past.

In the wake of these relentless attacks on public schools, it might feel like pulling our kids out of a struggling system is the right thing to do. It's tempting to retreat to our corners and and focus only on our own kids. But the world that that kind of retreat will create is not one that will serve any kids well, not even our own.

So we have to ask ourselves, what can I do to this moment to reaffirm my commitment to integrated public schools? To start, we have to opt into the public education system. Then we have to choose a school where we're not contributing to segregation. Maybe we have to move our kids to a new school across town, being thoughtful about how we show up when we get there. We have to show up at our neighborhood school ready to help, ready to lend our voice, our time, our energy to the project of public education. We have to be loud in our support for public schools. We have to ask our elected officials what they're planning to do to support integrated public schools, and then we have to vote based on that.

Contributing to integrated public schools is a powerful act of resistance, and this moment calls us all to action.

The only version of this country that is worth passing down to our children is one where we can all live together, and that starts, when our kids can all learn together.

Many of us have a choice in where we send our kids to school, and we all have a choice in how we show up in those school communities. And that choice is a privilege. We can use it to desegregate our kids and integrate our families. We can opt in to public schools that push back against segregation. We can choose to allow our kids to learn together with kids from all different backgrounds so that they might find their shared humanity.

We can choose to give our kids the kind of education that actually prepares them to build the world we want them to live in.

And we can make these choices not out of pity, not out of a desire to save a school, but outta the conviction that our own kids are only better off when all kids are better off. And that learning together is the most important experience our education system can provide.

Val often says it, the only way we win is together. Policy may not be moving us towards that goal. Active disinvestment in our education system may be making it harder, but this is the moment we must show up. Not because our one choice will solve all the problems of our country, but because we can choose not to make things worse, we can choose solidarity. Real progress in this country has only ever come through organizing by the most impacted communities and multiracial solidarity and support.

The immediate future is darker because of this bill. There's no question. But there's still a brighter, more hopeful future within reach if we are willing to step in, if we are willing to invest in integrated public schools, if we are willing to believe in the power of a diverse group of people working together, celebrating one another's full humanity and building a world worthy of our children. One where we have learned to live together by learning together.