Joe Rogan & Larry Sharpe Discuss Education Reform

The worst part is with the old New York, speaking of the people who are older, people who are retiring, they can't stay in New York State. Because it's too expensive. Too expensive. They pack up and go to North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida. Is it taxes? Is it real estate? It's both. It's taxes and it's an opportunity. It's both of those two things, right? So they decided to head on down to North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee. They actually have a name for us in the Carolinas. They call us halfbacks. We went to Florida and halfway back. That's true. They call us halfbacks. That's how many New Yorkers go there. Well, most people who go to Florida go, ah, this is a mistake. There we go. See? Well, the sad part here is though, Florida actually has more people than we have and half of our budget. And the governor, Scott, actually thanked Cuomo for sending over people on there because 15% of New York State's budget is actually pensions. And so many people who have pensions are actually leaving New York State and going to someplace else. So New York State people are paying for the pensions and then they're being spent in other states. It's a terrible idea. The state is broken. It is so broken. And people are talking about if you're a Democrat, you're saying everything's still great. If you're a Republican, you're saying, well, tweak this or tweak that. I'm saying rebuild from scratch. There are things you have to change. You have to change the route so you can make the branches actually die. We keep clipping branches. The weeds keep growing. Now, we got way off track with this school shooting thing. And I wanted to get back to it because I think it's a very complex issue. And I don't know what the answer would be. I think you found problems. And these problems that you're willing to discuss, very few people are, are these people lonely and sad that it's public suicide and that they're on psychotropic drugs? Absolutely. I don't know why you don't think that other people want to fix it. I just don't think that they have a solution that they can discuss that is not so controversial that it overwhelms the rest of their messages. What could be done? Sure. I have a couple of answers. The issue is this is an issue that's been going on literally for decades. So there is no do this and it's done. Right. There are several things. One of them is fixing education. The other one is fixing family courts. Okay. Well, let's start slow. How do you fix education? Absolutely. It is a complete reboot. Right now, the first thing you want to do for education is you want to make sure there is no standardized testing until high school. None whatsoever. Standardized testing is bad for several reasons. Number one, it's an unfair way of grading teachers. Right. Teachers are now graded by how their students do in a standardized test, which is silly. That doesn't mean you're a good or bad teacher. Next, it makes a bunch of kids who are 10, 11, 12, 13 years old feel stupid because they're not good test takers. And you create now a secondary class of student for absolutely no reason because the next reason is standardized testing is no indication of success in life. You could be a great test taker at 12 or 13 or terrible test taker and it does not mean you'll be successful or not successful in life. Last is how New York State often will decide how to fund schools. So it's a way of funding schools that's also unfair. There's no advantage to standardized testing except it means the federal government now begins to control our schools more. So when you say that standardized testing has an – there's an effect on funding, does that mean that if a school does really well, they get more money? Yep. Often they do. It's part of a very complex algorithm that New York State has that almost no one can actually find. That seems like it should almost be the opposite, that if a school does poorly, that they should put more resources into that school because it's not being effective. In theory, that's true. I'm not sure that's accurate either. We throw about $22,000 per student per year in New York State, more even than California, and it doesn't work. We have mediocre results at best. Dollars isn't the answer. It's revamping the system, right? Funding is not the answer. So how do you revamp the system? There's more parts than that. The first one was just going to be that. The second thing is we shouldn't even have K through 12. K through 12 was an anachronism and shouldn't exist. Why is that? Because the last two years – should be K through 10 – the last two years of high school for a huge chunk of people – gym, study hall, video games, and probably smoking weed – just nothing but bad for too many students, just sitting around doing nothing. They have no purpose. They have no community. They have no reason to do anything. They're unhappy, right? Another reason why they're unhappy. Isn't that a gross generalization that they're unhappy and they're not doing anything? No. I mean, there's probably a lot of kids listening to this that are 16 and 17. They're working their ass off right now. Absolutely. And I have a solution for them. They're paying for their future. And I have a solution for them that's even better. I have a solution. Again, let me keep moving. Okay, go ahead. Right. First thing is how do I know what I just said is true, right? Right. You just asked that question. K through 10. I'll tell you why what I just said – why I know is true. Because for the vast majority of students going to college now, the first year of college is 13th grade because they're not ready for school. Because the last two years didn't prepare them for a college. If it did, we wouldn't require 13th grade. How do I know it's 13th grade? The average student now takes six years to graduate college. So the results show me that I'm correct, right? The results of what's happening. And here's the worst part. Now we ship these kids off to college who many of them don't even want to go to college. So we send them anyway, take some six years to graduate. They're 24 years old with at least 50K in debt, if not more. Minimum 50K, some 100K, some 200K, depending on what it is. And now there's no job for what they want to do. And now they're working on Starbucks. Wow. What a disaster that is. We wonder why our kids coming back home. So how about this instead? At 10th grade, take a test. You pass the test, you get a diploma. Whether you were homeschooled, private school, public school, diploma's yours. Awesome. Now you have five choices. And this is exactly to your point. You have five choices. Number one, you're a kid whose hardcore you think that college is your answer. Good. Go to two year prep school. Imagine that kid who right now you just had his busting his ass. He could be in a prep school of his choice. And the people in that prep school are all kids who want to be in that prep school. It would change his entire situation. No more knuckleheads who don't want to be there, who are forced to be there, who are cut in class. The kids who would be there are those who want to be there. The teachers, no disciplinary issues. The kids who want to be there. Better for them. They can hustle better. Now they're ready for college when they get there. They take advantage of incubators, of internships, maybe even graduating three years. Now they're rocking the role. Less debt, better off, life is good. Better services, better everything for less money. I'm not done. You're not that kid. You're the kid who's super smart. You want to become a scientist. You want to get a PhD. Awesome. Go right to an associate's degree. Start right away. 16, 17, 18, get to your degree. Because you're that good. Take your SATs. You're that smart. You're Einstein. Awesome. Go do that. Not, you know, one of those things. No worries. Go to a school. Become a plumber, a carpenter, mason, whatever the crazy thing be. Go do it. New York state desperately needs tradesmen. Desperately, the average tradesperson in New York state is about 50 years old. Too old for an average. Should be 30 something for an average. 35 and before an average. It's too high. Which means we have a lot of trades jobs that are not filled. I mean, a lot of foreign labor has to come to New York state. Right. New York kids aren't doing it. Why? We've been told a lie. And that lie is the only way to success. The only way is to do well in high school, get a great four year degree and go get a job and sit behind a computer all day. That's a lie. That is a way to success. It is not the only way to success. There are a lot of kids now, I'm sure you know people like this, who they spent the first five, 10 years of their life trying to make it that way, struggling through school. Then at 28 years old, they go, I just want to build houses, man. Then they go build a house. Or that's what I make. I just want to be a computer guy. They just make apps. Let's go do something they want to do. They should have been doing that at 18. Well, for most people though, they don't know what they want to do. This is a big part of the problem. I get that all the time. They don't have a passion. They don't have a direction and they're confused. Yes. This is one of my biggest complaints I got about this plan, right? Because the other two ideas are, just go get a job. You can work or start a business. You just said this one all the time. But Larry, they're 16. They don't do doing. Good. Make your mistake at 16, not 26. We're making mistakes at 26. We have people who are lost at 26. We have a generation now. If you ask the people in our 20s right now, across this nation, you say, do you feel like an adult? Over half will say no. Over half will say no. 40-year-olds will say that. Not as much. But yes, but not as much. It probably won't be over half. It won't be over half. You go to 20-somethings, over half will say no. I don't feel like an adult. Right? Because they're making the same mistakes that many people made at 18, 19, 16. They're now making it 25, 26, 28. Well, there's also not a rites of passage. Bingo. This would actually be that. They'd have to make that choice at 16. But here's the issue. How do I pay for it? And this covers the entire issue that we're just talking about. That's the next question I get. New York state says I have to pay for full 12 years of school. Have to pay for it. State has to pay for it. No worries. I was a Marine. When I got a Marine Corps, I got a GI Bill. X-thousand. I think it was $100,000. I forgot what it was back then. This is in the 90s. I think $100,000 is like 10 years to use it. We're going to give all of our kids $20,000 and 5 years to use it. They don't get the physical check, but the state will pay a check to whatever school they want to go to for $20,000. They have 5 years to use it. What does that mean? You can at 16 start experimenting. You can say, you know what? I know college is for me. I'm going to go to prep school. Here's what I promise you. I promise you this. I'll bet any amount of money you want. Promise you this. As soon as this comes into play, you will find tons of all of a sudden prep schools and trade schools that pop up. And guess how much they're going to cost for 2 years? $20,000. That's going to be their tuition. You might say, well, wow, Larry, that's a lot of money. It isn't. We're paying $44,000 now for each of those kids. We're saving $24,000 per kid and giving them better schooling, more accurate, actual choices. They can learn something. They make their mistakes at 16, 17, which is way better than 26 or 27. And maybe they figure out what they want to do. Well, why is it so cheap? Why are you going to be able to do that for $20,000? It's going to cost so much more now. What's going to be different? The people are going to be choosing. Right. But the people that are educating these people, how are they going to get paid? Oh, I love it. Where's the money going to come from? Great question. Now, a couple of things to remember. Teachers ask me all the time. They say, Larry, how are you going to help us? Here's what I tell you. I'm going to get rid of a bunch of you administrators. In New York State, we actually have school districts that have more administrators than teachers. What? Yes, that's correct. Do you own homework? What's the value of having administrators? Because you have to check boxes for government. You have to check boxes for government. Did you do X? Did you do Y? Did you do Z? These are the miniatures required. That's what's going on? That's correct. There's about $60 billion in our budget in New York State for education, give or take. About $4 billion comes from the federal government. About $35 billion comes from the state. About $20 billion comes locally, give or take. These are our round numbers. And they change yearly depending on who you talk to. But it's about that. Once we get rid of the federal government being involved in New York State, $4 billion goes away. People get afraid. Oh my God, we lose that money. Good. Good. Let it go away. Because all of the miniatures go away also. If you can get rid of three, four, five, six administrators for every one of two teachers, oh my God. What could you do? I'm not a professional educator, but I would imagine that if I was, I would be upset at this. I would say that there's a reason why those administrators are there, and we need them to take some of the administrative weight off of the teachers. The teachers are stressed out enough by teaching the students. They don't have the time to be taking care of all the formalities and the things that these administrators do. I have never heard that ever because that's not true. You are the first person to ever say that to me ever in over a year of me doing this. So every teacher would agree with you? No, no, no, no. Not every teacher. I never heard it. You never heard it. You've talked to a lot of teachers? Lots of them. Does it. And what do they say about administrators? They say awesome because it's not in those words, but yes, because most of those administrators are actually administering teachers. They tell them how to teach, what to teach, when to teach, grading them. Okay, but if they don't, who will? The parents will. The parents will. Yes. Do you think the parents have the time or the understanding of what an education should comprise of to be able to direct not just their student, what their child needs, but a group of 50 or however large the classes. Great question. And generally speaking, probably not, but teachers do. Teachers do. Yes. So they're going to self police? There'll be some administrators. You're assuming that I'm going to get rid of all administrators? No, no, I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that. But you're definitely saying administrators. You went to school though. Hold on. You went to school. Do you remember how many vice principals there were at any of your schools? Do you remember? No, I don't. Probably two or three. That was normal in most schools. When I was in school, often it was two or three. I don't remember. Now there's 12. 12. 10. 14. And why? Why is that? Because they're administrators and they're making sure other things, they're making sure boxes are checked. So here's your alternative. Your alternative is keep funding a broken system and be afraid, which is what you're saying. No, I'm not saying be afraid. You're saying teachers will be afraid because of- Afraid. Yeah, because then who will educate our kids? No, no, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed? Okay. Yeah. A fear of being overwhelmed. Well, yes. Not just that, but also like having a mandate, like having a very strict- I'm with you. Curriculum that they have to teach these children. Yes, and that is nothing but a bad thing. I'm going to give you real fast if you don't mind. I'm going to give you a list of all the time centralized controllers worked. Okay. Finished. Centralized control meaning- It doesn't work. In education meaning what? In anything. When does centralized control make things all of a sudden better? Define centralized control. A strict mandate from Albany, a strict mandate from DC. I'll ask you a question. I'm assuming you're old enough that you were in school at one point at 1980 or older. Yes. Oh, yeah, or before. I was. Yes. Prior to 1980, basically the Department of Education didn't really exist as it does now. It did exist, but it was basically just a repository for information. It didn't really do anything. It didn't have any power. Since 1980, it began to have power. Do this and we'll give you money. Don't do this. We don't give you money. Here are your rules. Follow them up. We punish you. That's what they are now. You learn to read and write. You learn to function in society. So did I. Somehow every American prior to 1980 went to school, learned how to read and write, learned how to function in society. Somehow it worked. Do I trust an administrator or a teacher? I would rather trust a teacher. Now, does that mean there'll be no administrators? Of course not. There will be administrators. Of course there will be. There will be still principals and things of that sort, of course. But the difference is an administrator cares about checking a box. Check a box. Your students aren't better off because boxes are checked. Your students are better off because your students are getting better and because the parents are happier. Right, but when you're saying boxes being checked, that means things being covered that they feel are significant. Yes, or a standardized test. Yes. You just said that they feel significant. That's correct. Yes. Well, that someone, I mean, I would say, I don't know how curriculums are set up, but I would imagine that people get together and they decide that children need to have a certain amount of ability with grammar, a certain amount of understanding of mathematics. Yes. I'd agree. So who's going to do that? How about teachers and the local administrators and how about the local PTA? What's wrong with that? So less administrators, but not an elimination of administrators. I never said that. So I didn't say you did, but how we decide how many administrators are necessary and how many can you cut out? I love that. And this is even better. You're going to love my libertarian ways on this one. Right now what happens is there is a convoluted way of deciding how to... A what? A convoluted way. Oh, I thought you said comm loaded. Did you hear that? It could be, but no. I don't think it is. Convoluted. Convoluted way. I'm like, this is a new word and I don't think it should be used. Is that new? No, not convoluted. The other one. Yeah. I'm loaded. I was like, this is... I'm sure there's a fetish there somewhere. I'm sure there is. I just haven't heard it. Me either. See? You're ready to go now. So there's a convoluted way of actually funding these schools. I don't want that. I want to be very simple. I want to flat fee to come from the state. Here district, depending on how many kids you have, here's your money. What does that mean? Well, the reality of it is there are about, if I'm not mistaken, about 700 school districts in New York state. A lot. A lot. That's a lot. It is a lot. And so what happens now is there's your money. Most of them are going to make no changes because they're going to be afraid. But it's like anything else. They'll be early adopters. And early adopters are going to say, wait a minute. So the federal government isn't telling us to do this. The state government isn't telling us to do that. So we can change some things here. So when you say here's your money, they're going to get less money than they're getting now? It depends on the school district. Some will, some won't. It's not like you'll have less jobs there. They're going to have to decide whether or not they have less administrators. You got it. Exactly right. Yes. And you're saying, oh my God, that's scary. Some of our school districts will fail. Yes. But in New York state, they're all failing now. So why do I care? But the administrators. We're failing in mass right now. I'm okay. Let me finish. Please go. I don't want government to be what you always hear, which is elections have consequences. So I win. I now get to impose my will upon all of you because I won. So what I say goes, I'm supposed to know everything, be everything, create boards and make sure that you're not going to be in the right place. I'm going to be the guy who, when you have trouble, I can help. So as school districts begin to have trouble, I will without question try to help them. Of course I will. But there's 700. That's correct. How would you have time to do that? I won't personally. I'll have people who would have right now. There's already an infrastructure to handle that already. I don't have to create a new one already exists. But right now it's just it's making up reasons to punish people. I don't want it to make up reasons to punish people. I want instead to say, okay, this school district is lost. How do we help? I only have one string attached to the money I give only one. And that is transparency. As I told you before, I'm a business guy. And here's what I know. This is an actual equation that works every single time. Very simple, simple equation. Personal freedom plus transparency plus accountability equals innovation. If we do that, the other doctors will come on. They will find great ways of making things work. They will get rid of some administrators. They will get rid of some teachers. They will hire new ones. They will decide which one should be given raises. That will happen. Okay. Can I stop you there? Please, go ahead. Because what you're saying may work in the world of business because people have incentive to succeed in business. And that incentive is monetary success. Not always monetary, but yes. Okay. Not always, but for the most part. Yep. Sure. When you're talking about a school and you cut the funding for the school and say, hey, figure it out. You guys decide how many administrators you want to keep. Aren't the administrators essentially the bosses? Aren't they the ones who are in control? I mean, they're not going to get rid of their own jobs. So what are they going to do? Are they going to pay the teachers less? Are they going to get inferior teachers? It's a great question. And ramp up their control of the cash flow because they realize that there's less of it. It is a great question. And here's the issue. It's not going to happen overnight. It's not like I went in November and go, great. All the money's gone. It's not how it works. I went in November. People know what the plan is. We start talking about it already. We start bringing parents on board. We start coming up with plans already. The plans, it's like any other organization. You're saying business. I'm thinking, oh, this works in military. This works in business. It doesn't matter. It works in everything. It works in your family. It doesn't matter. If you knew that six months from now, you were going to have a significant decrease in your income, you would start to make changes. Particularly if there was someone above you saying, hey, Joe, you're going to have a decrease in your income. How do we make this work? What can we do? If someone's there to guide you and you already have an infrastructure there, you'll begin to fix it. My fear would be that they would have less teachers. It's possible. And they would have larger classes. Totally possible. Because they're in control, people don't like to give up control. But the administrators aren't actually in control. Well, who's actually in control is the PTA. The Parenting Association can have a lot. The school boards would decide. But they would have to agree with you. Yes. They want to get rid of administrators. Absolutely. And if they didn't universally, if they didn't universally across the board, then this fails miserably. And then classes get larger. And then kids get less attention. Yep. And then the already piss-poor education system sinks further into the abyss. And we have two choices. Number one, we can be afraid of that and stay a hostage to a terrible system that's not working as failing our kids and making us unhappy in destroying the state. That's option one. Or option two, do that and just watch over it. Right? Understanding that that could happen. Because those aren't the only two options. The other option is, yes, fund it more. Boo. Fund the bad system? Boo. No. Why is that bad? Okay. If you had a talent. What's wrong with the system? Let's go over that first. I just told you already. No, no, but I mean in terms of like how much money are they making, right? And what would increasing that amount of money enhance? Okay. Two things to remember. The first thing is there's no way in the world that a governor should be deciding what every teacher makes in a state. That's just philosophically wrong. So I'm never going to do that. That is simply philosophically wrong. It's against who I am. Centralized control is a bad idea. Localized control is always a better idea. So that premise, I'm never going to even touch that. What I'm trying to achieve here is to make change, I know that locally there will be people who do it right because that always happens. That's just how it works. You will see out of seven districts, some of it decide to get together and mix districts together. Some will decide not to. Some will do different things. You'll see it happen. My point is this is a major overhaul. I get it. The businesses do it all the time. Families do it all the time. If you're able to watch it, I don't want to be the mother or the father, right? Democrats want to be your mother. They want to give you everything. Republicans want to be your father and protect you from everything. I want to be your brother. I want to be the guy you love. You don't want to live with him. But you love him. And when you need it, ride to the airport, he's there for you. I'm going to be the firefighter, the guy who comes to help when you need me. Now, you're saying, but, Larry, this will fail. Yes, some will. No, that's not what I'm saying. Well, okay, some might fail. That's what you're saying. I'm not even saying they might fail. What I'm saying is that you're going to put them in a compromise situation. Yes. You're going to give them less money. And you're going to say, figure it out. Yes, but not just – see, you're assuming that it's just, here's money, good luck. No, here's less money. Yes. Here's less money. I think you have too many administrators. Yes. And let's talk this out over a series of several months. When you talk to professional educators, do they agree that they have too many administrators and that they could do well with less money? The teachers always do. Yes. So far, every teacher I've met, everyone – But they agree they could do well with less money? If they didn't have the administrators, yes. And how much less money are you talking about? I'm unsure to be forward with you. I'm not sure yet. This is what I'm sure of. But you feel like the way to fix the education system is to cut funding. That would – from people like me who are on the outside, you hear that and you go, ooh, I already feel like teachers are underappreciated and probably because of that unmotivated. Because you decided to say the answer is cut funding. That's not what I said. No, no, no, no. It's not what I said. Regardless of what you're saying. Yep. Regardless of what you're saying. Yep. What I'm saying is currently, even in California – forget about New York – I feel like teachers are underappreciated. I would agree with that. And I feel like it's a noble profession that's incredibly valuable and the people should be able to make a decent living. Agreed. I don't know how the solution to that is to give less money to the school. You're missing a very important point. If you ask most teachers why they're underappreciated, most of them, they're not going to say that people like you and I don't appreciate them. They're going to say, the system doesn't appreciate me. That's why they're always fighting the system. Oklahoma, they fought the system. They're always fighting the system. What I'm saying is fix the system. The system is heavily controlled in many cases by the federal government $4 billion worth. So we have to lose $4 billion unless we want to keep the federal government in our system. But your fix is to let them figure it out. Get the federal government out and let them figure it out with less money. I have to push back here. You keep saying, let them figure it out. As if I'm just going to walk away and say, oh, well, good luck. I hope I'm going to go off and hang out in Puerto Rico for a while. No. I'm saying I'm going to facilitate it because you know what I do? I trust teachers more than I trust administrators. I trust the local people that if I give them the right tools, they'll do the right thing. But more importantly, they'll show others as also transparent. What's going to happen is they're going to figure out the right way to deal with teachers. Should school district one hire more Spanish teachers versus school district two? I don't know. I'm not supposed to know that, but they do. And if they make a mistake, then they'll fix it. When you say they, are you talking about the teachers themselves or are you talking about these administrators who you want to eliminate in the first place? What about the school boards? The school boards. The school boards are going to be the ones with the PTA. If we make this work the right way, it will be everyone talking together. It will be school boards talking to administrators, talking with teachers, talking with parents. I don't want schools graded by standardized tests. We've been doing that for years, and we have very, very unhappy people, unhappy students, unhappy parents. I want parents to be happier. I want students to be happier. And you might say, but then, Larry, they won't learn certain things. Is that a horrible thing? I'd rather them be happy than learn AP chemistry. Yes. If that means one school district decides that AP chemistry isn't that important in their school district, it's fine. Those kids will learn it in the prep school, and some kids won't learn AP chemistry. If that makes your school district happy, I'm okay with that. Because it goes to the next level, which of course becomes kids with special needs. You have a special needs kid? How do you make that kid happy? How do you decide whether that kid's successful or not? The standardized testing doesn't work. What do you do? You start doing check boxes. Does that work? Of course not. That's why you literally have hundreds of parents every single year suing New York State because they weren't happy with their kids getting services but not getting better. I want your kid getting better. You're assuming that because the federal government puts these standards in that that makes them good or bad. It doesn't. If anything, it makes them worse. I'm not assuming that. If my kids are happy, that's what I want. Happy New Yorkers means they stay in New York. Happy New Yorkers means they grow their businesses in New York, keep their families in New York. I get that, but saying happy and saying the solution and the key to happiness is funding them less and getting rid of administrators. Oh my God, you're a Democrat, Joe. I'm not. You're a Democrat. Yes, you are. My God, you are so a Democrat. How am I a Democrat? You got less funding. Less funding means the world's ending. Less funding means the world's ending. You're a Democrat. But for a lot of people, they hear that you're going to take money away from schools. The person who only hears that, if the person says all he's going to do is get rid of money from schools, that person is never going to vote for me. That person is probably a Democrat. That person is going to vote for Cuomo. And that's fine. I'm not going to win everybody. I can't win everybody. But I'm going to change the system that is completely broken. If you say this, what you're talking about, people talk about the MTA also in New York City, the MTA. You got to keep funding the MTA. I'm not going to be hostage to a shit system, period. I don't care. I'm not going to be hostage to a shit system. This is a terrible system that is failing New Yorkers, that is failing people in New York City when it comes to the MTA. That's failing our state. And for people who don't know what that is, that's mass transit. I'm sorry. Yes, those of you who are not in New York. It's a bad system. I'm not going to be a hostage because of fear. No, I will fight my jailer, period. And my jailer is a system that is broken that says, if you better give me more money, otherwise this will happen. You better give me more money, otherwise this will happen. No. No. If I fix that system, I'm going to help facilitate fixing that system. I'm not just going to let them go away. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is I'm going to help facilitate that system. And to do that, we're going to lose $4 billion. And we'll get over that. We'll fix that. We'll make it happen. We'll make it work. And if you get more people into this state, and this is the most important piece, you can raise money through other ways in just raising taxes on people. And this is the most critical piece. When we hear funding, and this is why I was teasing you on calling you a Democrat, because when you talk about funding, you're talking about more taxes. I'm not talking about that. If you get more people to stay in New York State, you raise your revenue without having to raise taxes on anybody. But if you raise your revenue, are you going to put more revenue into the schools? Of course. There'd be more people in the schools, more revenue. Yes. So you'll spend more money in the schools. There'll be more people in the schools and more taxes. Of course we would. If we could re- Of course we would. Of course. Of course. New York State has a $170 billion budget with about a $4 billion deficit and $300 billion in debt. And the answer for every Democrat and Republican is more funding. There's going to be nothing left. This state's going to go under in 10 years. So how do you get more people to come to the state? All right. First thing about having a really super cool education system, I just talked about. Super cool education system. Education system. That'll get people to come back. Are you going to hire someone to create this super cool education system, or are you going to let these teachers figure it out on their own? If we need- Hey, teachers, build me a super cool education system so that we get more funding. I already have the- I already have the infrastructure for the super cool system I just told you. I've already told you what the infrastructure is. The concept of the skeleton is already there. Okay. Now, once I win in November, we begin to build it out. And yes, it'll be me and other people. Be clear. It's not like New York doesn't have enough- New York doesn't have enough workers. We have tons of workers that we can absolutely use to make this happen. Tons of them. If I'm not mistaken, the New York state has the most by percentage government employees, I think, in the nation. I know we're the most unionized, but I think we're the most government employees by percentage. So you're going to move their jobs? Sure. Different jobs? Love it. Yes, let's do that. Love the idea. You're asking details that are simple to fix when a time comes. Simple to fix. So you're going to take people out of what professions and move them into fixing these things? Do you think I actually have decided for every person in New York state what they're going to do? I don't know. That's why I'm asking you. Of course not. You're doing it like a show now. I'm not doing a show. You're a Democrat. Look at you. You're a Democrat. You are a Democrat. I'm just asking you real clean questions here. You four times said you're going to take money away from the schools. But you are, right? Yes. You've said like four times. Right, because you keep going on about these other things. Which is what matters more than losing $4 billion from education. Right, but I just want to be clear about what you're saying, about what the actual plan is. I'm going to fix this system by creating a good skeleton off the bat that people are going to enjoy and like. And then once that went in November, we're going to fill that skeleton up to make an amazing school system that people are going to be proud of. They're going to want to bring their people. They're going to come back from North Carolina. They're going to come back from Tennessee. They're going to move from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. I'm going to be part of this system. They're going to see schools that actually work well. They're going to see prep schools get kids into college. They're going to see colleges that actually educate kids and get them into jobs. When they see that happen, they'll all start coming. That's going to happen. It doesn't happen by me saying, how do I fund this? It doesn't happen by me saying, being afraid of making a step. You don't have to have the perfect plan to move forward. No plan is perfect anyway. You want a good, solid plan with motivated people. If you have motivated people to take up a plan, it'll wind up being successful. Again, it's how it works. This grandiose plan is that you're going to get rid of the last two years of high school, and you're going to offer potential prep school for children. You're going to, for other kids, offer them trade schools. You're going to get rid of $4 billion in federal funding. You're going to let the schools figure out how many administrators they should have. With help. With help. With help. What's the help? Who are you going to hire to oversee this whole thing? We'll figure that out. You'll figure that out. Yeah. Look, I'm two months away from the election, and then at least six months from implementation. Right. At least. That's probably low, probably like nine. But plenty of time. This can't come into play until next September. Right. At earliest. Right? The earliest thing coming to play is next September. I hope it's that fast. That'd be amazing. I hope it is that fast. But it isn't five minutes. I'm not doing this so I can become king. We already have a king, and that's why we're in trouble. Right. I want to give localized control many more options. I'm the crazy guy who actually means what he says when I say, let teachers teach. I actually mean that. Most people say it, and their response then becomes, give more administrators. So you think what's stopping them now is standardized tests and administrators, and then funding that's based on the success of the tests in these school districts. That's correct. The answer is always more funding. The answer is always more funding. And it isn't. It is not that. People always say, we have to fund, fund, fund. That is not the answer. There are better answers out there. Of course there are.