A Broken Potholes Battleground
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Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of studio today.

So I have dragged the intrepid, and she ain't happy about it. Jamie Kleschuk onto the mic. Yeah, she's shaking her head no. In most radio, that means the end of the interview, but here we are just getting started. She's going to have a long morning. Speaking of long mornings, in the studio, as our friend Larry Elder says of this program, we hosts of it are conservative. Our guests are not always conservative.

So before I fully introduce our first and only guest today, because this is your Broken Potholes Combat Hour, I would like to introduce Christina Eichelkraut. Christina is a member of the BALS School Board. Let's not pronounce it like it's spelled. She is also a member of the Camelback East Village Planning Committee. And I want to go back and tell a little story. And Jamie, I think you can pitch in on this story. Because I met Christina about five and change years ago now.

When she came loaded for bear, I was working in Councilman DeCiccio's office. We were fairly new in there. And I got a phone call from someone who raged against Councilman DeCiccio on the phone and demanded an appointment to come in and speak about issues around surrounding transportation and sidewalks, buses, bus stops, all sorts of amenities in our Orangedale neighborhood. So she showed up.

With more notebooks than any human should be able to carry. And a PowerPoint. And a PowerPoint. I got a PowerPoint. That is right. You did. Right. And I think we shocked her a little bit. I think I shocked you. No, I think it was mutual. I think there was a lot of shock. Because she expected to be totally ignored.

Did you not, Christina? And you didn't expect me to understand the fine machinations of federal funding options. Okay, yes, that is true. Uh-huh. You were well ahead of the curve. By the way, that makes her really annoying to deal with, folks. When you run into one of these citizens who knows every noosh of every federal program and how it affects your state and your city government, and you're working at a city council office, you are in for a nightmare. That nightmare has actually turned into a bit of a friendship, a friendship where we argue all the time.

So, Christina, when I say you're not conservative. Yes. Yes, folks. That is what we're talking about. How would you describe your politics?

Oh, wow. Well, let's see. I'm an Arizona's List endorsed school board member. I am also endorsed by SOS. So if you save our schools, the red for the hashtag red for our schools. Yes, Arizona. Absolutely. I do not make those decisions lightly. I don't ask for endorsements lightly. So, yep, definitely on board with all of those platform. OK. Yeah. So so might might best be called progressive.

I'm comfortable with progressive. I will say there are definitely aspects. I'm a policy wonk at the end of the day, right? Okay, this is absolutely true. Yeah, at the end of the day, I'm a policy wonk. I believe in practical application. And I do tend to be the, like, if we're going to go with a Hamilton musical, if we're going to get stereotyped, let's go. That's where we're going. Yeah, let's lean in, right? So if we're going to do a Hamilton musical analogy, I do tend to be the Aaron Burr in the room. I tend to be the one who's thinking about certain things like 10 steps forward and perhaps I'm not as optimistic.

See, I'm the guy in the peanut butter commercial trying to say Aaron Burr. But yeah, so I definitely, yes, I am absolutely not a conservative. That's valid. And I certainly tend to be socially liberal. Absolutely. I tend to believe in a degree to taxation with responsible allocation of those funds. Yes, folks, you will never hear anyone say things like this on this program again. No way.

So, yes. So she shows up for this meeting and lo and behold, there are not one, not two, but three actual City of Phoenix department heads. Yes.

This is true. Yeah. So that was my counter ambush. You pulled out all the stops. Well, I would like to point out that this happened after I Shawshank Redemption Sal DeCiccio's office. Now, you were new, so you didn't know this. But let's talk about how we got to this meeting, which is that for two and a half years solid, I literally sent an email requesting this meeting every other Wednesday. And then I called the office every Tuesday at 2 p.m.,

And finally, I told the poor hapless intern about the 9th or 10th or 15th that I spoke to that at this point I was being denied access to my elected representative and I had the phone records and emails to prove it. Which actually happened to be my first week in that office.

So let's let's and I had been blocked on Facebook and I had been blocked on Twitter. So let's be clear. I attempted to start this on a cordial note. I really did. So I wasn't going to take my one opportunity for an actual meeting I'd been fighting for for two years for basic infrastructure improvements that are well-funded.

And not, you know, leverage that. Although I will say I was really impressed and surprised. I was very happy to see the departments there who then proceeded to do a pat you on the head, little girl. Here's your petitions for sidewalks. And I don't think they understood who they were dealing with because I did, in fact, get those signatures. And I did turn them in. Thank you very much. No, and they did not. I did by that point. I remember.

I remember the moment somebody sitting across from me. I remember the moment where I mentioned that there are federal ADA funds for infrastructure improvements on a hyperlocal level. And I remember the moment that somebody stopped across from me. He stopped and opened up his portfolio and started making eye contact and taking notes. It was really nice. That was the previous street transportation director before the temporary street transportation director. I don't remember how many directors ago that was. They were not great. That was only three. Wasn't it Chris something or other? No.

I don't remember. It's been a while. I know the current guy's great. He's good. Yeah, no, Keeney Knutson, very good. The last like four before him. Not so much. Terrible. Yeah, I know. I'm trying to be very nice right now. Yeah. Because I've had the kind of morning where I could be really not nice. I'll say it for you. They sucked. Yeah, that was true.

No, that was true. Although I got a bone to pick, Keeney, if you're listening. And actually, I kind of do know that City Hall tunes into this program more than they probably should. Look, Keeney, Camelback, we got to talk, brother. You cannot tie the entire street up from one end to the other throughout our district down to one lane in chunks and then have all the cross streets also tied off. That's I'm just saying. OK, that aside, let's get to the issue at hand, because school boards are kind of a big thing right now, right?

And you are a progressive school board member in possibly the most progressive school district. Is that fair to say in our state? We got some conservatives in there. I've knocked on enough doors to know that, but I'll give you that. I mean, you're bored. It is for the most part. I would call Christina a progressive. I would call it liberal. Yeah. Something. Well, yeah. It's a little past liberal, but OK. I would call it liberal. OK. OK.

Are you the most – does that make you the most conservative member of that school board? Wow. There's a question. Yeah. I'm about to get her in trouble because she's actually running for reelection and this tape is not going to help. Well, I'm running for election. I was appointed and I think that's important to make a distinguish there. I'm not going to take credit for an election I didn't win. So –

Again, I have voted on the basis of policy, and I do tend to not submit to hashtags or political zeitgeist or things like that. My responsibility, I've always believed, is to the five schools within my district, and it is to that constituency. And those are the teachers and the parents and the staff that I listen to. Those are the people in my community. They're my neighbors. And there have absolutely been several votes now where that –

Where me representing them to what I believe is the best of my ability and representing them truthfully has not necessarily aligned with some of the more progressive ideals that are on a national level. And some of those I would call crazy. I think we've called them crazy on this program before.

So I can understand and appreciate that, folks. And I do have to say, before I get Christina thrown out of this office by her fellow progressive travelers, look, I actually ended up getting her appointed to the Camelback East Village Planning Committee, where she has done a fantastic job. Yes. No, that's actually true. You're laughing, but it's true. Jay and the leadership of that board have been there for a long time.

Everyone says you have brought a fresh perspective, that you take it seriously. Oh, you mean the perspective of people who actually are using public transit and need affordable housing? Yes, so refreshing. Imagine that actually having a representation in government. Well, in Camelback East, that is not. The ability to advocate for that. My gosh. I know. You know what? So here's the thing about that, too.

You want to talk about sneaky moves. I really, truly believe that was one of my better sneakier moves at the city of Phoenix in time. I was completely puzzled by the whole thing. Because I actually used the mayor's appointment to put you on that board.

I didn't even ask for that. I was merely pointing out that Orangedale as a pocket and south of Thomas had literally no representation on that board. It is a 21-member board in one of the largest villages in Phoenix. That is true. That's unconscionable. And if any area needs advocacy, it's that one. I sent you an email explaining that. I was not asking for an appointment. I know, but— And here I am today, much to my puzzlement. Sam loves to volunteer you for things. If you raise an issue, he's like, great, you're going to solve it. That's right.

Yes. If you bring me a problem, I'm happy to point you at fixing it for me. You forgot one of my most important things, though. I am also still head of the Orangetail Neighborhood Association. That is true, too. Which is absolutely. That is why we met. Which is where I live also. So, yes. No, absolutely true. And here's the thing. If we remember, that was one of the great moves because we had a woman on that board who was annoying the crud out of the rest of that board. And frankly, just by being a pain in the booty.

And so when you're saying I'm not that person. No, actually, not at all. Not at all. No. So I got it. I get it. This was one of my better moves. Right. Greg Stanton leaves to run for Congress. We are in the middle of a run for mayor. We have an interim mayor, Thelda Williams, who's a Republican from a different part of town.

And I just sidled up to Thelden and was like, you know, if you could just happen to use your appointment powers and replace. And that's how Christina ended up on Camelback East. There are so many things wrong with this. I think it all worked out beautifully. Yes, I agree.

Well, I mean, I'm there, so. No, and you're not annoying the heck out of everybody and you're doing a good job. And we have only a minute and a half before we're going to our first break, but we are keeping Christina for the entire hour because we check out a studio. I get to wallow in local politics, which is my absolute favorite thing to do on any given day.

But we're going to be talking about some controversial issues that are coming up with our schools. We're going to be talking about school funding. That's a big thing on the table right now. We're going to be talking about school leadership. We're going to talk about how people think their school board, what people think their school board does versus actually what it does. Let's please talk about that. Yeah, because that's two totally different things. I think that is an incredibly valuable conversation.

So maybe we should actually start there when we come back from break is have you tell us what school boards do? Because I actually have some polling about what school boards do. And, yeah, parents and folks in the community, I don't think really understand a lot of that role. I would agree with that. All right. We only have a few seconds here. Folks, next week, Broken Potholes is becoming Broken Battlegrounds. We will be opening up our show in Florida. If you're in the Tampa area, you get to start to tune in live on the air Saturday, 10 a.m.,

Folks, coming right back with Christina Eichelkraut. The battle is about to begin. Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren is out of the studio today. In studio and on the mic with us I have Jamie Kleshek. She is chagrined as she can be to be forced to wear the earphones and be in front of the mic. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can tell she's excited. But with us in studio, someone I am excited about because we are about to launch into a fantastic argument.

Christina Eichelkraut, progressive school board member for the Ball School Board District. And one of the things, we actually just got some polling from parents in Scottsdale, your neighboring school district, about what they think school board does. Now, what do you think the top item on what they think school board does is? Christina. Christina.

I don't know anymore. Set curriculum. Okay, that is actually the number one answer that we were given. I'm sure it is.

See, this is about to get fun, folks. There's no personal experience leading to that, is there? This is about to get fun. So way down at the bottom of that list, though, was hire the superintendent. Yes. Which actually is kind of the number one duty of the school board. So tell us what school boards actually do. Well, like you said, so the superintendent, to be clear, is the only direct hire of a school board. And I think that's important to understand. Now, the school board will...

approve employee vouchers and resignation letters. Those are usually on the consent agenda, but they are not actually involved in the direct hiring process. So I want to stop there for one second and go back because the number two answer we got on that poll was support the superintendent.

The superintendent, I will say, OK, so yes, technically, if you want to be that guy, technically the superintendent works for the school board. As a reporter, I was a community journalist for nine years. I've covered about seven school districts, both rural and urban, in four states. I have been to more school board meetings than probably most people, not including the ones I attend as an actual board member and the ones I attended as just a community member.

So the majority of boards do fall into a pattern where the superintendent is kind of leading the way and then the board supports the superintendent. But at the end of the day, and I tend to be the board member who points this out,

The superintendent is working for the school board. Yeah. At the end of the day, your job is actually to make sure that the superintendent is doing their job and to hold them accountable, right? Yeah. So I think if you wanted to do rough equivalency, it's almost as though the superintendent would be the, quote, unquote, executive branch, and he's there to execute policies that the board helps shape and implement, obviously in compliance with state law. That is an excellent explanation, and you understand why I like to have these geeky arguments with Christina. Yeah.

Okay. So that is the number one duty. Some things are going on right now.

We're talking about curriculum. There's a big discussion about curriculum going on throughout this country. Yep. There is a big discussion about funding going on throughout this country. And in the state of Arizona. Yes, there is. Yes. In fact, we have legislation. Let's talk about that, shall we? Yeah, let's do that. Yes, please. Let's dive right in. Let's. So Arizona schools are up against our constitutional state constitution limit on how much of the state revenue they can spend.

And they are well on their way to going over that limit during this budget year. And the legislature is not authorizing them to do it. Now, they actually have these monies. These monies have been appropriated. They're sitting in school bank accounts. On the other hand, schools were all walked through ahead of the school year what those limits would be. Yes, Christina. Yes.

And so here's the back story, folks. Behind this is there's something called Prop 208, which was paid for entirely by State of Washington Teachers Union. We'll get into that in a moment, which passed.

and has since been absolutely eviscerated by the courts on the basis that it violates. Excuse me. I believe it was upheld by the courts. No, no, no. It still stands as of now. They're waiting on the ruling. Well, no. The ruling, it was ruled. It was ruled that taxpayers aren't allowed to raise taxes, which they did through Prop 208. Except that they cannot exceed the constitutional spending limit.

If it's not considered a grant, the funds could be considered a grant, in which case they would not be applicable. Of course, there is ballot language that says this is a tax, not a grant.

So I would also like to point out, I would like to point out the teachers unions are not actually good at writing. I would like to point out that those funds are not actually the funds in question for the current budget before the legislature, which is what they need to vote on, because those funds are not going to be appropriated probably until about June if the ruling does stand. So what's happening right now is the actual budget that has already been approved for

by voters all of this tax money, which is a 2018 tax that was kicked to voters on a referendum. And what did the voters say? Yes, we want to pay for these taxes. Yes, we want them allocated to education. And for some odd reason. Now, let's talk about why voters keep doing that. See, there's this interesting thing going on in schools over the last 30, 40 years. Oh, sure. Yeah.

But, of course, what we're told is that we have to increase teacher salaries. Now, interestingly enough, since 1970, teacher salaries adjusted for inflation are exactly flat. Teacher numbers to students, teacher to student ratio is the same. However, there has been one change in school budgeting over that period of time, over the 50 years since then. It is that administrators have tripled their salaries and doubled their numbers. Right.

Well, if we're going to go back to the problem right now, literally happening in real time, thanks to the Arizona State Senate, I'm going to point out real quick, because I think this is worth pointing out, okay, that that constitutional limit is meant to expand in accordance with population. And it also is based... And it does. Oh, it does.

It does. And it is a percentage also based on attendance. And we have to like I love the fact that the fact that there's covid and schools were shut down. And so attendance numbers were incredibly impacted. It's just being left out of this completely. Well, except who shut down. Not a completely mitigating. Except who shut down those schools. And also. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. It was the local school boards that shut them down.

I think there's the governor had two quick shutdowns. Wasn't there? Yeah, I was going to say I could have sworn that everything was open back up involved in that. And then federal agencies offering guidance, you know, at that point. Yeah. The federal agency is offering political advice from the White House and from Dr. I can't even say what I call him in real life on this Christian radio station. Dr. Frack up. I can say that.

Anyways. Yes. And also, if you really want to get down to it, I mean, the whole that entire cap was passed in 1980. And I think the state has outgrown it on both, even on just a purely legal. Wait a minute. Taxes scale with population and economic growth. So how would you outgrow a limit that's based on population and economic growth? Well, you would have an anomalous year where the numbers are completely skewed because you mean wide pandemic. Wait, wait. You mean a year when all the. I don't know. Maybe that's a thing. Wait a minute here, though. Hang on.

Do you mean a year when every one of those schools received massive millions upon millions upon millions of dollars in additional federal funding direct to the school districts? More money than they've ever had. Yeah.

Where we're now up to $14,000 per kid. I'm sorry, how much does a hotspot cost? What were those Verizon contracts? I'm sorry. I seem to recall the city of Phoenix buying a lot of those. Yeah. That's for you guys. Yeah, which is interesting. It could have invested in like mesh networks and be more resilient. No, and which would have been a good point. That's another show. Yes, you're right about it. That's another show. We can have a show. Christina pretends that she doesn't like the IT world, but she actually understands it better than most humans.

Better than our IT department at the city of Phoenix. Well, but the average nine-year-old understands it better than the IT department at the city of Phoenix. I'm not even joking about that. So I will say, so there's two things with this issue, though, that I really would like to say. Okay, well, you're going to say them after the break. I'm going to say them after the break. That's what it comes down to. Because Broken Potholes will be coming right back with more of this fantastic argument.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host, Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of studio today. So in studio with us is Christina Eichelkraut, school board member for the Ball School Board District. Also holds numerous other civic titles. Entirely uncompensated. Probably works a 40-hour work week for not a dime to benefit the tax... Which I'm not even trying to make fun of that, actually, Christina. I don't want to sound like I am...

I am knocking that because you actually do put in a huge amount of time between the school board, the Orangetail Neighborhood Association, and the Camelback East Village Planning Committee. You really do put in a lot of hours every single week to

And none of those are paid positions. It's not like you're getting anything financial out of it. I'm keenly aware of this, yes. I often wish society valued the work I did for it. Okay, well, actually we do. As much as folks, as much as Christina and I argue, I do want to say that we are actually ridiculously enough friends from all of this. It's a begrudging friendship, but sincere. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely.

As other friends can tell you, we often have phone conversations that can be heard on the other side of the neighborhood. That's so true. It's so true. I'm so glad I don't live by you guys. No, I mean, fortunately, there's a cemetery and a green belt there, so the damage is somewhat limited. Yeah, quite a bit. And then a guard base. So I'm sure the guard base has thought about killing us once or twice. And they have mortars, so they could do it. They could. Don't tempt them.

It's a good point. This is going to be a next door post in no time. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But at any rate. So when we were talking school funding, you had a couple of points to make. I do. Fire away. So and this is going to be me getting super wonky again, which, of course, is, you know, a death knell. But I'm doing it anyways. All right. Here's the deal. So there's several issues with this. First of all, poverty.

The proposition funds are not going to be allocated until next year. We are talking about funds that could shut down schools this year. And I'm talking about closing schools. I am not talking about going remote. I am not talking about temporarily shutting down. I am talking about the most vulnerable populations of our districts, the schools closing. These schools feed people.

Now, they've already spent more money. This is sometimes where people get their food, and we are talking about that getting shut down in April. Okay, but wait a minute. No, no, no. We do have to have a little conversation on this point because, quite frankly, they have already spent more to date this year than they did in any previous full year. That's why we're at this point. I think we're at this point because what should be a bureaucratic pro forma mechanism in the state legislature has become weaponized and politicized. Am I wrong?

I think it's very easy to make a sweeping statement about, quote, more money. But when you're starting from so far behind the eight ball, if I owe $400 and you give me $200 instead of $100, guess what? I still have not caught up to the $400. Yeah, no. I mean, are you going to seriously sit here and tell me that the fact that we're starting from so far

They have literally spent more money, more money to this point in this year than they ever have in history in the entire year. You're acting like they're excess funds when they're not. They're funds that basically are helping us approach what should be the norm anyway. Oh, wait, wait, wait. OK, so what you're really saying is that at fourteen thousand dollars and change per kid per year, they are still underfunded. Well, depending on what that school needs. And see, this is the other problem with this whole conversation.

You cannot compare the funding. You cannot compare the revenue allocation and the funding of a rural school in, you know, or a reservation school to an urban school district. It's not going to work. And that's the whole issue with school funding conversations is that you're trying to take blanket sweeping statements and apply them to completely diverse aspects. You can't.

do that. What's going to be a boon to an urban school that already has infrastructure or certain like mechanisms to facilitate programs in place is going to be barely enough for a rural district. I mean, it's just it's not it's so easy to take large numbers and just throw them around and make these sweeping statements. And they're not relevant. At the end of the day, your data becomes diluted by basically practical application.

OK. So but now let's go to the fact that all of our schools have already spent more money than they already have in any previous year. And that's why they're closing down, because they were told about these numbers. They were given warning. They were given fair. That's true. And the districts that are able to are putting mitigation measures in place. Plenty aren't. Yes. Deliberately to foment this crisis.

Oh, that is ridiculous. If anyone's fomenting a crisis, it's people holding up, again, what should be a bureaucratic, not a politicized measure in the state legislature based on funding that is not applicable to this budget. It got politicized when a teacher's union from another state came in and spent millions of dollars to pass a tax. Then talk about next year's budget. Then if the...

If the prop stands, then you can talk to me about next year's budget and you can withhold that vote. You don't withhold this vote. You don't shut down schools in this April based on funds that aren't even there and aren't going to be dispersed probably until July. No. And by the way, for all

the talk on the conservative side about election integrity. Well, guess what? Here you go. The voters said they want this tax money spent on schools. Why won't you let them do it? Because they were lied to about the purpose of that money, which is to fund administrations, not teachers, because we keep giving them money for teachers and they don't actually spend it on teachers.

Why? Because if they ever spend it on teachers, the argument for more money would go away. That is rich coming from someone who proposed ESA vouchers, which take money directly away from classroom spending. I propose backpack funding. That is rich. Broken Potholes is coming right back.

You are in the ring with Broken Potholes.

Chuck Warren out of studio today. I'm Sam Stone. We've got Jamie Kleschek in here playing referee, valiantly trying to hold down the middle of the ring. I'm not doing well. Christina Eichelkraut, Ball School Board member and maybe one of my favorite sparring partners for everything political. As we were going to break, we were talking about all sorts of stuff school board related. But before we get too far into it, Christina,

How do people follow you? How do they stay up on what you are doing? How do they get into this argument with you? So that, I mean, hopefully... Well, as you pointed out, I don't have a lot of free time. But I am on social media. I only get like 45 texts from you in a row most nights. I don't know what you're talking about. Yes, and they're all like infrastructure related. That's true.

It's a really geeky text string. Yeah, it is. So, okay. So if you want to learn more about me or alternately just contact me, you can go to www.ChristinaEAZ.com.

That was a smart decision. Yes. As in it's easy to vote for me. Yes. I still can't spell your last name. So, I mean, you can't pronounce it. And I am deeply, deeply grateful to you for that. Legitimately. Seriously. There's no sarcasm there. Which is a total revelation to most of our guests on this program whose last names I butcher. But you got the important one. And that's what matters, Sam. OK.

So that is Christina C.H. with an A at the end, E as in Echo, A-Z dot vote. You can also find me on Facebook. That's going to be Christina, the number four, Bolt Schools. And then I am on Instagram, which is at Christina E-A-Z. See, and we didn't even have to ask her, but she is using our sponsor dot vote as her website, which if you are running for office and you don't have your own dot vote domain, you

You're missing out. It's a good idea. I did steal that from you. 100% will have done that. Totally stole that from you. But .com also works. .com works, but .vote is better if you're running for office. That's all there is to it. I may be biased. Real quick side note for all of my techie friends, my domain provider is porkbun.com.

Okay. So for lots of security and other ethical reasons. Yeah. Once again, you're giving away the fact that you actually do know something about IT. No. I have IT friends who told me to use that is what happened there. Right. She actually refers to software developers as devs. She refers to everyone by the insider name. And then she's surprised when people come to her and are like, so how do I turn my computer on? Which is about the extent of my actual knowledge. I'm just surrounded by tech people. Yeah.

But anyway, so that's how you can follow me. If anybody wants to contact me, I do put my personal cell phone on both my school board business cards. It's on my Facebook and it's on my website. And I am more than happy to discuss my votes or anything else with anybody. That's 602-321-1243. And before President Knight says anything,

thing, I have to make the disclaimer that if you have a school district issue involving staff or students, I cannot speak to you about that. That is a legal thing. You have to go through the district office and go through building management, which would be your principal first. So if you do have a specific issue relating to your school or students, I cannot help you with that. But I am more than happy to talk to you about policy, about issues facing the district, about programs we have. Any vote that's coming up. How do people keep up with the agenda? Because that's actually one thing when

I think most people don't realize. You can figure out, learn what your local school board is doing every single week by signing up for an email list. Yes.

So how would they do that if they want to start following a BALT school district? So that is something we are actually in the middle of working. We're actually working on improving that. It is a bit clunky. Worst case scenario, email me. I will hook you up. A bit clunky just described all of government IT. Right. So what we're talking about is basically if you just go to the BALT school district website and you go to about our district, go to governing board, go to board meetings.

I realize that's inefficient. And then you go, basically, it's going to take you to a platform called Board Docs, which is what most school boards use. And then you click on meetings. You click on the little meeting. Now, they're even worse than this at the City of Phoenix is what you're telling me. It's not great. It is something that I have been pushing for quite fervently. We did just get a new superintendent. We have been without a permanent superintendent for quite some time. So that's been difficult to get certain initiatives and certain policies passed and everything. Okay.

That's top of the list. But worst case scenario, if you just email the school district office, like we have one of the best executive assistants in the history of mankind, and Mari will hook you up. She will get you the agenda and the backup and everything you need to know. So that's actually something we've talked about a little bit on this program, and Jamie can attest to this also. But people who try to go through the standard channels with your local government, your school board, your county, whatever it might be. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, good luck. Yeah, bureaucracy literacy is a thing, and that needs to be addressed in this country as an accessibility issue. I actually think it should fall under something along the lines of like an ADA. You're actually much, much better if you go through an office. Yeah, 100%. Whatever office that is, but actually call somebody up and ask what you should do. And always be skeptical if you're told that you can't get the information. Always vet that.

Don't ever just accept that. If they tell you like, you know, oh, well, we can't tell you that. The exceptions to that are probably like the FBI and the police if they say there's a pending investigation. But any time a government official tells you they can't give you that information or they just don't know or maybe they can't find it or gosh, they're just going to have to call Bob who's on vacation. Don't you dare give up. You keep calling and you call an attorney. If you go to an attorney, there are plenty of attorneys pro bono. They will advise you on open meeting law and they will make sure you get the information you need. Don't you ever back down without a

Okay. This is actually fine. I can't second that enough. We had that problem a lot and we were in the council office. No, that is true. I am still waiting for Valley Metro to respond to my request on their ad spending. I have a citizen's petition to move council times and I've got nothing on that. No.

Now, look, so this is actually one of those things we do agree upon is the government is terrible at this information business. And parts of the time it's deliberate and part of the time it's just incompetence and laziness. Yeah. I mean, not to be overly cruel, but that's what I do on this program. So anyway, we got a couple more minutes here. We're going to talk schools again a little bit more. I want to talk about something because it's a big issue right now. Obviously, curriculum, critical race theory issues.

It has been pushed out there quite a bit. We have schools that will tell you it doesn't exist, and yet it's actually – if you go to – there's basically only two textbook companies in America, right, at this point? That's fair, yeah. And it's embedded in their text from kindergarten on up at this point. Yeah, she's shaking her head, but she's not actually saying no. I'm also not saying yes. Uh-huh, right. But for the purpose of communication, and it's a short radio show, sure. Yeah, okay. I will –

So here's my thing. And I think you can probably talk to this better than most people. But at the end of the day, the job of a school is not to ideologically define children. It is to educate them to be able to think for themselves. Right. Oh, oh, this just got good. This just got good. I think that that attitude is actually part of it.

I think that that attitude is actually part of the problem. I think the fact that we look at schools merely as places of education is actually at the crux of the majority of conflicts and issues that we're seeing today. And what I mean by that, and I am not trying to deflect, what I mean by that is that schools are so much more than education. They are the nexus for communities. There are people who have rental assistance because a school campus could facilitate that.

And I'm going to go back to the fact that there are a lot of people in communities who, when the schools were shut down at COVID, they still went to school campuses to get food and eat.

So schools are so much more than that. Except here's my problem with that is that your local food bank, we could contract your local food bank to set up that site and deliver food. One entity, the food banks work with the schools. We work with St. Mary's. The food banks work with the schools. At the end of the day, there was a moral imperative, and it was school districts. I don't complain about that, but what my issue is when you bring in a St. Mary's food bank, you're doing the right thing. When you're trying to do it through your own cafeteria program, which costs 50 times as much per meal, I have an issue with it.

So, well, it's not really, it's more of a facilitation thing. And also, if you dovetail that with which many of them do with basically programs that are teaching kids how to eat nutritional, how to prepare and eat nutritional meals, especially when they grow up in food deserts. Well, well, are you listening? I've got my godson in the studio right now. He's online. So you're saying there are classes near to where we live that can teach him how to cook? If you go to a Balt school, yeah, actually we do. Yeah.

Yeah, no. Is it too late to transfer to your school district? I graduated 10 years ago, but they did not teach you how to cook. But what I'm trying to say here is yes, it is. But going back to curriculum, because I know that's what we have like limited time. And again, I'm not trying to deflect, but I do think having that narrow of a focus on what public schools are and their function in society, in a state as a whole, I think that's actually part of the problem. I think if you're going to pigeonhole them to just

not just, but to education only, they do so much more. And hence we get into like, and I know you're going to love this, social emotional learning, and you get into all of that. That's what I thought. And so you're going to get into all of that too. You're going to get into like social skills and everything else. Now, that being said, yes, schools obviously have a responsibility to educate

children. Now, I don't know of any education that exists without cultural overtones. If you point me to something, I mean, I suppose if you want to get into hard sciences, maybe if you get into the structure of a molecule, you can make an argument there. I think you absolutely can. I think mathematics, I think generally STEM. I'll concede on the STEM field. But my point is, is that if you're going to teach history, social studies, if you're going to teach governance, if you're going to teach

Sure. I would agree. But there's a big difference between I grew up in an era when the education system, when you're talking about social studies and history, was far too much of a cheerleader for the United States. But our teachers would correct that in class. They would say, listen, this, you know, I know the text says this, but it was more complicated than that. And they give you a little bit of an opposite side. They're really going to want to do that with cameras in every classroom, aren't they?

Well, I'm not for cameras in every classroom that are accessible to the public. Or if they have to have every single note of their lecture turned into some higher authority. Yeah, I can't see how that would have a chilling effect on that kind of mitigation at all. Unfortunately, what we have gone from is an era when teachers would give a little bit of a different perspective to the material to an era when the teachers view them – there are many teachers straight up. If you follow them on Twitter, you can see –

view their job not as educating children, but as creating citizens who have their viewpoint. And that is indoctrination. I don't know that I agree with that. And I also think it's worth talking about the actual material here. So, I mean, OK, so let's get so critical race three was was originally a legal construct. Nobody cares. That's not how people refer to it now. So let's just. It came from the dark recesses of.

of higher academia. It came from law school. And it got unleashed in 2012 by Barack Obama who needed to divide the country to get reelected. Wow. There's a, that's, okay. So moving on. My point here is if you want to talk about critical... How did she not take that bait, folks? But I...

When I – I can be surprisingly disciplined when I need to be. I'm going to do this. Rats. So – but I will say this. So when I think a critical race theory and as much as I hate, hate, hate when people take personal anecdotes that apply them to like macro situations, which put me in a bad position for a board vote, I might add. But I will say as much as I hate this, I'm going to be slightly hypocritical and do it.

I went, I was, I'm a high school dropout and then I got my high school diploma, not my GED, through correspondence school. I didn't have access to a computer or the internet at the time. So it was literally snail mail and I was constantly having to change the address and get my textbook and stuff mailed to my friend's house. And then, but I did actually. That's the Shawshank Redemption education system.

But but miraculously, I did actually end up going to one of I did get into after a little hiatus there. Somehow, I still to this day don't know how I got accepted with a lot of student aid into a very good private university, Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire, which is one of the best mass comm schools in the country. And I also studied political science and Middle Eastern studies. And this is relevant. OK, now.

I was in my sophomore year of this curriculum. This is at a college level. And that was the first time I had ever, ever been exposed to

I believe it's Richard Boucher. And he was the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize for his negotiations, his role in negotiations in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Now, why did it take me until college to get there? And I vividly remember sitting in that carrel enraged that I had not been exposed to that before. Wait a minute. How many people in this country –

If teachers are advocating teaching Zora Neal Hurston alongside everything else they've taught, why is that bad? Why is the exposure to more education? Zora Neal Hurston is one thing. Ibram X. Kendi is another. And a lot of this is being driven by people like him who say racism in the past justifies current racism, which justifies future racism.

And I think they have thrown out the idea of equality in favor of the Marxist concept of equity, which are two very different things. Equality, equality under the law is something I believe everyone should agree with. Right.

But equity is the government evening out outcomes. Right. Like redlining. And no two people are the same. Why don't we learn about redlining? Why don't we learn about that? Why is that so terrible? Because it's a complicated subject that you should be learning about in college. There are lots of things that you should be learning about. You should be learning about it in high school. Oh, God, no. No.

You're talking about zoning and planning issues for crying out loud. Yeah, we should because it's tied to the civil rights movement. The average high school student. If you're going to learn about the civil rights movement, you cannot have that conversation without talking about zoning. You're lucky if the average high school student can name Martin Luther King and Michael Jordan. You can't talk about the gay rights movement without talking about Brainyard Rustin. Okay. What are you talking about? That is just ridiculous.

Folks, we are going to continue this here on the podcast only segment. We're going to break out into all things political and have just a rollicking discussion because, you know. It's been so tame already. Yeah. And please, folks, tune in. Download. Subscribe. We are on Apple Substack. All the places that you can find a podcast starting next week on the air in Tampa.

Battleground to Battleground, Broken Potholes is coming at you and coming back next week. Welcome back to Broken Potholes. This is your podcast-only segment with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren is out of the studio today. I dragged Jamie Kleschuk onto the mic.

And in studio still with us is Christina Eichelkraut, local school board member for the Ball School Board District. Does all sorts of other civic fun. When we went to break, we actually were talking a little bit here about some things I wish I'd gotten in while the show was still on the air on the air segment there because we just had three school board members were called in San Francisco.

And who went down by like 75 percent. I mean, these were landslides. And you literally had the school board president then say it was because of Republicans. Republicans make up 6 percent of the population of San Francisco. I do not think that that sort of margin is possible. I'm impressed by the get out the vote effort, if that's the case. Well, I believe it was a Democrat version. Get out the vote effort. We went down to the cemeteries and just gathered up voters there. Oh, yeah.

Christina is shaking her head because she knows she should not have stayed for this extra segment. I think it has to do with the unification of the Asian-American community in San Francisco and their voices not being heard. And maybe, again, going back to listening to the community you're in. You mean like equity doesn't work and it's hosing over kids who work really hard and not helping the ones who aren't?

Wow. Wow. Where to even go on that when you say I mean, you know, and like what what are you saying there? I mean, like give me the nuts and bolts of that. Equity doesn't work like what he doesn't work. I mean, look, the pure and simple, the idea of equity, which is government using its power to even outcomes, has never worked anywhere in history. It's been tried. And everyone who keeps saying, oh, it hasn't really been tried, is basically saying that they're racist or a nationalist, at least because they're

Lots of places have tried real hard and they have failed. I think a lot of the policies and the ways that equity has been attempted to be implemented for whatever, for a myriad of reasons, like whether it's external state or county policy, whether it has to do with the environment they're in and basically being basically held hostage to quantitative measures. Right. I think that's the reason.

Yeah, quantitative measures are important, though. Yes, they're important, but they're not the only measures. So, OK, let's talk about that, OK? Yeah. Let's talk about school letter grades real quick. Let's talk about that. You want to talk about public schools? Let's go there. Oh, let's do it because Arizona public schools, despite spending $14,000 per kid per student, get worse results than Arizona charter schools, which spend $9,000 per kid per student.

So the charter schools say. We really can't verify that because there's no accountability for that. No, we absolutely know that's the case because they get the state shared revenue, but they don't get any additional funds. They don't have any taxation. What are you talking about? There's ESA funds. We're literally taking money out of public classrooms. That is the state revenue. Gosh, why are public schools

suffering. We are taking the... Like, gee, I don't know. Maybe because we're giving everyone a voucher and taking money away from them. Golly, gee, what could the problem be? Why does everyone want to get their kid out of the public school and take the exact same money that the state would give that public school and it goes over to the charter school? And they actually do get a little bit more. However, that doesn't come from the state shared revenue for schools. That comes from the general fund.

So they don't take any money. And a matter of fact, when they leave, there should be more money per kid left over behind in those public schools. The problem they have is they don't want to fire people. Here's what I want to know from you. When you say per kid, are you talking about per kid? Are we talking about the food they get, the desk they have? Are we talking about their books? Are we talking about because people seem to forget that about school funding. They picture a classroom and they picture like a whiteboard and they picture desks and that's fine. But they're forgetting.

getting about like transportation costs and oh gosh you know kids have a tendency to plug up toilets so there's a lot of like plumbing and infrastructure costs as far as I know charter schools have toilets and children who plug them up also this is reminiscent of like the public transit should pay for itself debate which you know that's a whole other show too but like well no I agree with that position we can talk about that in the future too

It should pay for itself. No, it shouldn't. It's a service, not a business. Enough with applying capitalistic models to public service. Here's all I need to do with our public transit system. I can fix it right now. I eliminate it and replace it with Uber vouchers. That's another show, and I am more than happy to come back and have that fight with you. Okay, yeah, we're doing that. I've got a question, Christina.

Do charter schools have fewer overhead costs than a public school? In some cases, actually, they do. Because, for example, they may not have to accommodate certain students that have special needs. They may not have to accommodate certain dietary needs. They may not be held to state regulations in which they have to make both physical and also kind of structural things. And also charter schools have a little bit more freedom in terms of how they can basically utilize their revenue. Yeah.

Well, that's – now, see, that is a legit – how you use revenue should be up to the school. I don't have a problem with that. And I think Republicans have been behind the eight ball on trying to address and not addressing that problem. But – and it is true that they do have some additional costs. The busing is a problem because, one, people don't use it anymore. If a child who has severe physical or mobility issues –

needs to go to school and they perhaps live in a rural area because that's what their parents can afford because their parents have medical costs that are incredibly egregious and do not allow them to live in an urban environment and there is not a charter school available, the public school cannot turn that child away.

Public schools teach everybody who comes to them. And that also means that resources have to – and then they're beholden to how they allocate those resources. And that is absolutely true. But for instance – So this whole notion of just – But for instance here, because I live across from a public school.

I would write behind one. Yeah. Yeah, it's the same one, as a matter of fact. Indeed. And there are theoretically buses for that school. Well, actually, that's New Way Academy is kind of quirky. It's not a good example. But yeah, folks, drive by any school in the morning and watch what happens. You have empty buses pull up.

When I was in school, they didn't offer buses for us because we lived too close. You have empty buses pull up and then all the kids show up in mama's SUV. But I want – hold on. We're going to go back to letter grades because I want to talk about this. And let's talk about the fact that those are the same kids demanding public transit for everyone because they won't ride the school bus. I don't buy it. For a second, they believe someone else is going to be taking that public transit, not them.

But, okay, let's go back to those school letter grades. That's what the kids believe. There are plenty of kids that ride public buses. You can see them getting off. And as a bus rider, I have often, like, with much chagrin, got onto a bus full of high scores. Like, no, this happened.

So here's the actual thing. That sounds awful. Here's the thing, because Arizona actually – Like, that's just categorically untrue. They are, in fact, using it. Wait a minute. Yeah. No, they're not the kids demanding the light rail. So here's – that's the thing, right? The ones you're seeing that do that are because Arizona actually has universal school choice.

you can go to whatever school you want. You don't have to stay in your district. If there's a school available. What if there isn't a charter school down the street? No, no, wait a minute. We're not even talking about charters. We're talking about government-run neighborhood schools. You can go. You don't have to go to your school district. You can go to a different one. So lots of kids get on the public bus and transfer across town to be able to go to a better school district. But that's what I want. That's why I keep going back to letter grades. I want to talk about what makes a school district good or bad.

And I want to talk about people's perceptions versus reality on that. Okay. Because I think that that's a huge issue. I really do. Okay. So the school letter grades use – they focus on individual student progress. Usually I think it's over a course of three years. They use five quantitative and only quantitative measures. Okay? Yeah. There are –

And I think, you know, several schools in my district are an example of that. There are schools that, for example, the schools in my district, which is K through eight,

We have a lot of kids that come from families experiencing homelessness. We have a lot of refugee kids. We have a lot of kids that are not with us for a full three years. In fact, oftentimes they're only there for 120 days. And as you can imagine, and I know that you're a data geek, so you can imagine the havoc that this wreaks on the statistics and on our

I agree. That is a big problem. There was a charter school right by Crockett. And when they shut down, they urged all the parents to go to Crockett Elementary because it is like a phenomenal school that offers not just they absolutely stay on top of their data. They're absolutely meeting their metrics and they absolutely are quantitatively superior. I have said for years. However, they also have.

have a sharp focus on like the PBIS program. My school district is one of the ones that has mindfulness program. We are a district where the kids working with Sodexo actually learn how to prepare nutritious meals. We have a really cool fun light competition every year. And these kids come up with their own ingredients and they're learning about nutrition, which is not state mandated. There isn't 16 instructional minutes for nutrition or whatever, right? Well, I mean, there might be, but...

But not to that degree. I am all for throwing out some of the garbage they're teaching and replacing it with functional knowledge. Well, my issue here is with the letter grades. Because when I first moved into the district, I just took a kind of random tour because I'm a nerd as a community member, even though I have no children. I'm happily child-free. Shout out to the child-free. And...

You'll never hear another school board member say that, but OK. But I do care about education. I do care about public policy and everything else. And again, I think schools are so much more than education. They are such a vital part of a community in so many ways. And so my point here is that I have convinced neighbors to at least and I told them, I said, look, they're all concerned about the letter grades. I had a neighbor down the street who came to my house. She was all concerned. She's like, it's a B school. I was like, go to the school, take a tour, talk to the teachers, look at what they're learning, see how it is.

Two years later, she came back to me, said it was one of the best decisions I ever made. And her kids are thriving. They're perfectly happy. So this notion of just looking at a letter grade and now the school actually increased its letter grade. But like the notion of just looking at a letter grade and then making the summary judgment based only on quantitative measures. Your kid is not just sitting there. Bankers education. No, look, I think I think the way that they do these grades in particular leaves out some things that are maybe more complicated to assess.

but that are more important? In other words, where are the students for eight and 12 years after they're out of that school? So there is actually a metric for that. Well, there's a metric that supposedly guides, it's supposedly a quantitative metric. But it focuses on college. Yeah, it focuses on their future success at the next level of learning. So like grade schools, high school, high schools, college. Right. And so one of my issues is that why does it need to focus on college rather than, for instance, outcomes looking at

How many of their students compared to the local population are on government assistance eight years out of school? How many of them are making a median income or better? How many of them have earned technical degrees or other opportunities beyond a four-year school? Because a lot of what these policies are built around and the assessments are

are based on everyone going to college, which is a really, really poor theory for education. I agree with that. But I do think that there is advocacy for vocational schools in public schools, especially in poorer urban districts. And I think you can say that nationwide. So I think that there's a lot of teaming up with public school districts with vocational programs.

And that's another thing to look at. OK, that's a charter. It has a nicer whiteboard. Very cool. But if the public school is going to get your kid into a welding program, that's going to put them in the upper middle class for the next 20 years. Maybe that's a better option. I think there's an issue with parents. I think there's a big issue with parents. Just saying public schools are bad because they're public and saying charter schools are good because they're charter. Like, that's not a way to make an assessment. No, I would not make that assessment. But the assessment I would make here in Arizona is that

when you take the same, essentially same student population, so you do have charters that accept everyone, that do have kids with disabilities, all of those things.

And they do a better job than the public school. You better be looking at EEOC violations. You also have charters that have egregious like standards. You have charters. But here's the thing. When that happens, those charters are getting closed down. Parents are leaving them. They're getting shut down. And what's happening is the good charters are taking over. Some go back to the public schools. Some go to others. But for instance, Primavera.

which has for years taken a bad rap in the local media and a bad rap with the school in, you know, the public school crowd. Primavera is getting actual high school diplomas in the hands of a lot of kids who were not getting them through the traditional school system. And when the pandemic hit,

Now, Primavera, which for folks who don't know, it's largely in the past. It's transitioning a little bit now more, but it has largely in the past been an online academy for kids who were struggling in other circumstances. Maybe they had kids of their own or couldn't do certain things, you know, barriers to being in school. It was focused on getting them their actual high school diploma instead of just a GED. And they've taken a lot of grief from a lot of people, but their success rate with those kids is much higher than with any other school in the state.

And their online programs are developed over now the course of, what, almost 20 years, right? And when the pandemic hit, they offered the State Department of Education free access to all of their online programs to be able to take them and use them in our schools. And they didn't. And the kids got remote learning that was crap. And this is far better product. It's been developed. It's been tested. It's been proven. And public schools wouldn't look at that.

I'm sorry. That's a problem because they're not innovative. They are government institutions, which means everything happens really slowly. Oh, I am going to disagree with that. Oh, no. I would disagree with that. I think public schools are incredibly innovative. Public schools are like the breeding ground for new education. They're good at spending money on things that aren't education. I agree with that. Well, maybe they're good at expanding curriculum to include a diverse racial history. That could be something they do. They could also be something like my school district that has one of the first mindful. Many schools have a diverse racial history. I had a diverse racial history growing up 20 years old.

Oh, God, I was about to say 20 years. It's been like 40, folks. I'm sorry. This is getting old, but I'm getting old. And we're going to have to go here in a minute. But I do want to thank Christina Eichelkraut. This has been a fantastic discussion. She's more than welcome to come back on and talk about anything at any time. We can have all sorts of arguments. I will trade you time on broken potholes for fewer text chains at 9 p.m. at night. I will trade those text chains for sidewalks on Virginia.

Yeah, okay. Once I'm elected council member, I'm in. If that's what it takes to shut you up, I'm down. Deal. You could have done that years ago. I mean, that's our first meeting. You just could have handled it. You know, voter allocated funds, man. Let's go. Oh, good grief. Now we're talking. Good grief. Sam, do you remember how much the city wanted to charge for those sidewalks? Yes, I do. How much was it? Yes, I do. I'm sorry. I can't hear you over the sound of the voter approved neighborhood improvement. It was $1 million per mile. Inpatient funds.

I'm sorry. Which, to be fair, is absurd. There's absolutely no reason it should cost that much. They should have been able to get those sidewalks for you. Are you not RFPing your concrete contractors? What's the deal? That's part of the problem. The RFP process itself is so overblown and ridiculous. I can't be held accountable. It's not my fault the city isn't, you know. All right, folks.

We're going to have to cut this off because we can go for hours right here and it's actually getting close to lunchtime here. And, you know, I'm a fat man. So I have to get back to work. There really is no getting past lunch. I do have a paying job. Really? Yeah, I do. Yes. I know.

Who knew? I know. Who knew? It's hard to tell. All right, folks. That is it for today. Thank you for tuning in. This has been a Broken Potholes fantastic argument with Christina Eichelkraut from Ball School District. And we will be back next week with Chuck in studio. We have some fantastic national guests. And please stay tuned in because, like I said earlier, Broken Potholes is about to become Broken Battlegrounds. Actually,

We might actually even need to change the title. Do we need to change it? That could work. I don't know. That's pretty good. We'd have to explain it to fewer people. Yeah, that's true too. People don't understand my obsession with potholes. No. Neither did the city of Phoenix. And then look at their streets. Explains everything. That is it for today. Thank you for tuning in. Join us again next week. Potholes, coming back. Where my darkness goes.

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