As we move into another school, I’d like to recognize Ryan Boyer, head of the 40,000-member Philadelphia Building Trades Union and, surprisingly, a supporter of school choice.
I know this because Boyer was my first guest on my new Old School, New School, Next School podcast, which is dedicated to school choice and parental rights.
Boyer told me that he would be a hypocrite if he opposed school choice because he sends his son to a private school on the Main Line. He also talked about his grandmother running a speakeasy so that he could go to Gesu Catholic School. He wasn’t even a Catholic, but that was an excellent school for him. He even outed local politicians who say they send their kids to public schools, but the schools are special schools like Masterman and Central, not one of the failing neighborhood schools.
Boyer drew a parallel between the urgency to repair I-95 following a truck explosion in Northeast Philadelphia and the need to improve public schools. Of course, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro moved heaven and earth to fix I-95 and topped it off with a live feed video to show the progress.
Shapiro has at times supported school choice scholarships but has retreated when challenged by Pennsylvania Democrats led by Rep. Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery).
Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, Shapiro’s chief opponent in the upcoming governor’s race, has also joined my podcast to discuss school choice as a model that would benefit all Pennsylvania families, particularly those in rural areas.
She also underlined the fact that Shapiro may be hesitant to sign off on getting the money from the One Big Beautiful Bill that would come Pennsylvania’s way for school choice. Watch for this to be an issue in the upcoming governor’s race.
Probably, the most startling for me was my podcast reacting to a Forbes magazine column dealing with the main reasons why its editors oppose school choice. Forbes is seen as a significant player in the defense of and the spread of capitalism. However, it said many parents are unable to make the best choices for their kids, and claimed that it’s hard to make good choices when options are abundant.
Have people from The Daily Worker captured Forbes?
Of course, parents generally love their children, know them best, and should undoubtedly be the ones to make decisions for them.
They also cited a study indicating that a system of choice results in a concentration of struggling students in neighborhood schools. That appears to me to mean that Forbes would like parents to have their kids held hostage to prop up deeply failing schools. Would they keep their kids in abysmal schools if better options are available?
As kids settle into the school year, there are plenty of reasons for parents to want to leave public schools. The National Education Association, at its summer meeting, passed resolutions that strongly suggest that reading and math improvement will not be its 2025 guiding star, but rather an emphasis on opposing fascism. The translation of this is they will be leading the charge against the Trump administration, helping students to organize against it.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, echoes this fixation with her new book out this month titled “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.”
I hope to get Weingarten on my podcast along with anyone of note helping families have choice. Did you know that Pitbull, Andre Agassi, and Jalen Rose are involved with charter schools? The place for inspiration and information is my podcast “Old School, New School, Next School.”
Boyer is just one of the inspirational people I’ve interviewed for the podcast.