Leo Terrell: Ohio Considering to Pay Kids To Go to School ‘Outright Ridiculous, It Is Scary’

PERINO: “And bringing more on this. Ohio lawmakers considering a new bill that would pay students for good attendance. More than a quarter of Ohio students were chronically absent last year, which means they missed at least 10 percent of the school year. Now, this is a problem across the country and it is getting worse. Nationally, 6.5 million more kids were chronically absent in 2021 than the previous school year. Civil rights attorney and former school teacher Leo Terrell joins us now. I want to set this up a little bit Leo, and then get your take, of course, because you were an educator, and you have strong opinions. So the bill’s co-sponsor — call for number one, this is what he said.”
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SEITZ: “So we’ve tried pizza — Pizza Day, and we’ve tried playground hours, and we’ve tried all kinds of foo foo stuff, doesn’t seem to work.”
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PERINO: “So what I want to do is put this up on the screen here, $25 made biweekly during the school year, $150 at the end of each quarter of the school year, $500 at the end of the school year. There’s a critics of this, as you can imagine, and this is the last thing I’ll say before I get to you, this is a critic, his state Representative Josh Williams saying he didn’t like this.”
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WILLIAMS: “Why are we going to pay kids to follow the law? We have laws in place that say you cannot skip school, you cannot be truant, you can be criminally charged and penalized. Parents, your kids must be enrolled in school. If you don’t enroll your kids in schools, you can be charged and you can be penalized.”
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PERINO: “What would you do, Leo?”
TERRELL: “First of all, this is outright ridiculous and it is scary, Dana. You’re negotiating with children as to what’s in your best interest. Kindergarten, but you know, what’s in your best interest, sixth and seventh eighth graders — it is totally ridiculous. The whole concept assumes the fact that the kids would be motivated for five bucks 10 bucks $25. Dana, where are the teachers? Where are the parents? The absenteeism results in the parents not taking charge of their kids. Where’s the incentive by the school teachers or counselors? They’re focusing on everything in the wrong direction. I find it offensive. Because what’s happening here is they’re trying to basically incentivize what’s in the best interest of the kids, when the parents are the key central factor along with the teachers and along with the counselors. It’s — it’s just ridiculous.”
PERINO: “The law says that kids have to go to school. And when Kamala Harris was the attorney general of California, that was one of the things that she actually really focused on was truancy. Because you know, if you don’t go to school, what your life looks like in the future.”
TERRELL: “Quality of life depends on breaking the poverty level. You cannot — education is the key to break the poverty cycle data. And I’ll tell you right now, when you focus on the cause of the problem, which is what’s happening in the house, the — the illogical concept here, Dana, is that there is a different value system in every house. You have to go to each house, you have to individualize the students problems who are not going to school. And that’s where the problem focuses at home and what’s happening at the school. There’s an assumption that the the teachers are doing the right thing. I would represent to you that you’re not because the kids are not motivated to learn. This is a problem that will not be solved by 15, 20, $25.”
PERINO: “The other thing is that there are — there’s a problem in K-12 education. Literacy rates are at record lows so is math proficiency. We know that this is partly due to Covid, but the schools are not — I can imagine that the parents are thinking ‘Oh, he seems happier if he’s not at school. And he seems like he could learn enough’ — maybe, maybe they’ll figure out a way to do something, online homeschooling, I don’t know, but they’re not doing enough. But the K-12 education, that’s what’s not good enough. Let me give you the last word.”
TERRELL: “Oh — yeah, I’ll tell you right now, that’s easy question. The unions, public school unions. Remember during Covid, they were interested in the teachers. They did not care about the students. And it’s been a continuation. Get rid of school unions. School unions out of public schools, and I guarantee you you will see an uptick in quality education in public schools.”