Tag: education

Background Briefing: June 14, 2022

 

Republicans Don’t Trust Teachers to Teach But Trust Them to Have Loaded Guns Around Children with Little Training

We begin with the Governor of Ohio signing a bill on Monday that would have school employees armed with as little as 24 hours training in the use of firearms. This following Sunday’s announcement that a bipartisan group of senators have reached a deal on gun safety that would enhance safety measures at schools and support training for school employees and students. Joining us is Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania who was previously Professor of Education and History and Director of the History of Education Program at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. A former Peace Corps volunteer and high school teacher, he is the author of a number of books including Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools and, most recently, Free Speech: And Why You Should Give a Damn. We discuss the madness of arming untrained teachers after trained and equipped police failed to stop an active shooter massacring students in Uvalde, Texas and how Republicans do not trust teachers to decide what they teach in the classroom but trust them to have loaded guns around children with far less training than what is required to drive a car.

 

Blaming the Fed Instead of Biden For the Economy As the Era of Easy Money For Wall Street Ends

Then, with stocks down 20% and inflation rising to 8.6% in May, the fastest rate since 1981, we examine the Federal Reserve’s expected rise in interest rates of three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday and speak with Christopher Leonard, a business reporter whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He is the executive director of the Watchdog Writers Group at the Missouri School of Journalism and the author of Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America and, most recently, THE LORDS OF EASY MONEY: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy. We discuss his op-ed in The New York Times, “If You Must Point Fingers on Inflation, Here’s Where to Point Them” and how the Fed’s balance sheet before the 2008 crash was $900 billion but by 2015 it had risen to $4.5 trillion and is just short of $9 trillion today suggesting that the era of easy money for Wall Street is over.