[00:00:04] Broadcasting live from atop the Rocky Mountains, the crossroads of the West, you are listening to the Liberty Roundtable Radio Talk Show. The never and the always Trump deranged syndrome Americans seem to be at polar opposites. Where's common sense in the middle? Home education, critical. Why aren't we doing more of it? Happy to have you along my fellow Americans.
[00:00:33] Sam Bushman got Lowell Nelson, CampaignForLiberty.org with me. Welcome, sir. Good to be with you, Sam, as always. All right. We've got a great opportunity with homeschooling to discuss, ladies and gentlemen. Homeschoolers do better. A new study shows. Now, this is a person that I haven't heard of over at the New American. Is it Mari Newman? Marlee. Marlee. Marlene. Yeah. Marlee, yeah.
[00:01:03] Makes me wonder. Yeah, Marlee Newman. Maybe Alex Newman's wife, maybe? I don't know. I don't know, but it's a great article, by the way, over at thenewamerican.com. Lowell? Yeah, basically saying home-educated students do notably better on standardized academic tests, on average, than those in institutional schools. And this according to a powerful new study. Now, this might come, well, this does come as a surprise to people conducting the study somewhat.
[00:01:32] You know, apparently they were expecting a little poorer performance as the homeschooling movement has grown. But, you know, such is not the case. Quote, for years, parents struggling with the decision of how to educate their children have wondered if homeschooling really provides as strong of an academic base as a conventional school. In the last 50 years, homeschooling has gone from being perceived as a fringe experiment to a form of education serving around 6% of American school-aged children.
[00:02:02] That is about 3.4 million kindergarten through 12 homeschool students. End of quote. All right, I want to grab Lowell back again really quick. Sorry to keep doing this, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to have to. It just gets too warbly, and I want to make sure it's clear.
[00:02:23] Every word Lowell has to say is really important and worth the time to get because, man, he's a treasure trove of knowledge and information. And this homeschooling article over at thenewamerican.com is incredible because it does the most in-depth study than we've ever had before. This is a study to the study of all studies, if you will, Lowell. That's right.
[00:02:48] This Brian Ray, who is the chief of the National Home Education Research Institute, published this large study just this year. And it's the first national academic achievement study of home education in more than 15 years. So it's been a while since anyone's done a study like this. And the results, they were clear. They were overwhelming.
[00:03:13] Home-educated students continue to perform well, scoring 25 to 29 percentile points above the national average. Right? The national average would be 50. And these home-educated students are scoring 75 to 79, which is, you know, way above the national average. The study used numerous tests to examine reading, language, math, science, and social studies.
[00:03:37] Now, obviously, standardized tests are not the only way to measure student scholastic achievement and success and so forth. But they are an important consideration. Well, the researchers didn't stop with the test. They're also considered variables such as household income, parental education levels, sex of the students, number of children in the family, ethnicity, and several other factors.
[00:04:04] And what they found was that, you know, whereas the critics claim that homeschoolers do better because their families are wealthier or their parents have better education, these claims simply do not hold up, according to the research. They found that neither household income nor parental education levels had a meaningful relationship with the child's educational achievement.
[00:04:36] Well, government intervention usually tanks. You'll find that if you study more deeply on that topic. They didn't drill into that too hard, though. But I submit whenever there's government intervention, things go south in a hurry because, let me write this down, because, quote, quote, it's not the proper role of government, quote, got it? Good. That's important to understand. Secondly, I will say this. The reason that poorer families and less educated families do so well and that surprises them is I'm going to give these guys doing the study a little hint.
[00:05:06] What usually happens is mom and dad care for their kids. They want them to be better, do better, have more than they have. They don't want to repeat the cycle. They have hope for their children. And so, believe it or not, what mom does is start to get educated with her children. And she basically tries to really hard because she wants to stay ahead of her kids a little bit so she can be actually mom and helpful. And believe it or not, that innate desire in all of us matters.
[00:05:28] You know, you say, hey, I might not care about education when I'm 16, but when I'm 18 or 20 or 21 and have two or three kids and I know that I'm poor and struggling and everything and my kids have a chance, I'm going to push hard for that chance for them and do all that I can. I'll give you one example to prove the point. I'm a blind person. I went to general government schools but had to do a lot of homework, more homework than everybody else in order to keep up and everything else. Well, I was half homeschooled or homeworked, if you will, in that case.
[00:05:56] But I bring this up because my mom actually learned Braille to help me in school, proving my point. Yeah, that's awesome. And the great thing about that is as parents do that, as they engage in learning and relearning in order to stay ahead of their students, they model learning. And modeling is basically setting an example.
[00:06:18] So if the parents are excited about learning and relearning, you know, the ABCs and math and science and so forth, that rubs off on the children. The children, they get excited about it too. And this modeling of learning process is one of the most valuable skills that parents can give their children because then their children become forever learners. You know, they don't just go to school until they're age 20 and then quit learning.
[00:06:46] They become lifelong learners. And that is very, very exciting. And Ben Carson's mother, by the way, would be a great example of this. You know, she said, hey, when you come home from school, you're going to have to turn off the TV and you're going to have to do some chores. And then I expect you to read a book. And I want when I come home, I need you to tell me I need kind of a oral book report on this thing. I need to know what's going on. And Ben said that's what got him started in really loving to learn. That alone is key. And she was poor. She was a single mom. He was a kid in crisis at one point.
[00:07:16] But this turned things around. God and his mom insisting that he do some homework. You know, Sam, we never had television in our home until after my mission. So after I was 21 years old, I was the baby of the family, the very youngest. We never had television in our home at all. But, boy, did we do a lot of reading. We had a lot of books. We read fiction. We read science. We read nonfiction.
[00:07:45] I mean, we're voracious readers in our family. Every single one of my siblings, voracious reader. Why? Well, because we just didn't have TV. We did have radio. We could listen to BYU football games and basketball games. And when Paul, what's his name? Paul James. Paul Harvey. Yeah, and we listened to Paul Harvey. And in the meantime, so you want to. Yeah, you were talking about the coach. And the announcer for BYU.
[00:08:13] Yeah, Paul James, I think is his name. Yeah, that's right. Back when Stan Watts was coaching basketball and Lavelle Edwards was coaching football. And that came before Greg Rebell was the announcer. Yeah. So there you go. Exactly. Yeah. So that was how I was brought up, Sam. And it's a great way to grow up. You don't have the distraction of TV, but you have the benefit of authors who do a lot of writing. And so we just did a lot of reading. That's the basis of good home education, in my opinion.
[00:08:44] Big old shout out to mom. You can do this. To dad, you can do this. Don't let the society or the system, you know, browbeat you into believing that you cannot do it. Even if you're not as educated as you wish you were. You know, we can all say that. We can all say, well, I'm not great at this. I'm not great at that. But look, just because you're not good at something, that doesn't mean your kids won't be good at something. Okay? Your kids have natural aptitudes that they will bring to the table. And believe it or not, your goal in the beginning of education is to help them find what they have the aptitudes for,
[00:09:14] then give them the start as far as you know, and then let them go. And so me and my wife, I mean, we know decent math and we're pretty good at it. But, man, my son's a math whiz. Now he's an analytics person for the University of Utah. He's got a master's degree. And he left me behind about the fifth grade because he was doing stuff way beyond high school at that point. And it just fascinated him. And he loved it. And he was good at it. Man, I got left behind. But all I did was smile. You know what? We gave him the start, gave him the on-ramp, so to speak.
[00:09:42] And, man, he learned how to drive that dude and punch the gas. And he ain't looking back and he's doing incredibly well. So I'm just giving you some examples of solutions and how it really works. You know, they call it homeschool, and I think that's a bad term. What's funny is when you go to school, they call it school. When you do things at home, it's called homework. Well, I think we ought to call it homeschool. We ought to just call it homework. Because what do you do when you work at home for your job? It's homework, right?
[00:10:11] Or work at home or whatever. What do you do when you're a little kid? You do your chores. What do you do when you're a little kid? You play and learn. Well, that's their work, folks, through their whole life. And we need to teach people that you work your whole life. You work for God as a minister. You work for God as an example setter. You work for your education to be able to do things. You work for your employer, work for yourself. You know, all your days are work. And God doesn't talk about schooling in the scriptures. He talks about work. What does he say about work? Idle hands are of the devil.
[00:10:42] Work is good. Man should work by the sweat of his brow. Six days a week. But I do. So there you go, Lowell. I love it, Sam. I, too, think home education is a much better term than homeschooling. We don't want to mimic public education system at home. That's destructive, right? And one of the great things about home education is that our children get to be involved with other, with their siblings and with their parents.
[00:11:09] And that gives them multiple levels of, you know, children, adolescents, teens, and adults. And so you're interacting with all levels of the human race. Whereas if you just go to school, you just interact with people your age, right? People your or and or teacher occasionally. But there's so many students in the school, you know, one to 30, one to 35 ratio or something that you're pretty much interacting most of the time with students of your own age.
[00:11:37] Well, that's that's a less and less. What do you call it? So social maturation. Social. It never exists anywhere in the world except for during that time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's very abnormally strange. And it creates all kinds of havoc and problems. And no wonder they can have these trends and fads that rifle through children as teenagers and destroy society and destroy moral values and everything else. No wonder people are so focused on idealistic or idealistic kind of things.
[00:12:07] And, you know, both to where they have they're completely confused, but they kind of run around like a pack of dogs in their grade. If somebody's two grades ahead. Oh, man, I can't talk to that person. That person two years younger than me. They're a punk or whatever. And you get this whole psychotic view that's not reality in anywhere in society except for that. But here's the deal. When kids say I'm buried in homework and they're giving me too much homework. My response is just quit the school then. Just do the too much homework and you're good. That's right.
[00:12:35] And realize that home education was the norm here in America for most of our history. It was really not until the early 1900s that home education declined or began to decline. And it's been declined until about 40 years ago when it began to rise again in popularity. And it's probably bigger and stronger now than, you know, 100 years ago. So let's just look upon our history and be grateful that, you know, our founders, they were mentored.
[00:13:05] They were home educated. You look at Thomas Jefferson. He knew Latin and Greek as well as English and French by the time he was 14 years old. He read the Bible in the Greek language. I mean, these were very well-educated people at a very young age. Very similar to your children there, Sam, and excelling way, way beyond what most public-educated students get.
[00:13:35] Well, that was our history. That was our history, folks. And so we need to return to that history. We can learn the lessons of history by home educating our children and giving them a step up or a leg up on life. Learning the lessons of life. And I'm going to take this a step further, Lowell. We're supposed to be like Jesus Christ, right?
[00:13:57] We're supposed to do everything that we can to follow him, keep his commandments, do as he instructs and guides us to do because he has our best interest at heart. How was he educated? Well, probably in his dad's wood shop. Yeah, there's a carpenter there at home and helping his mom wash the dishes and clean the house and playing with his siblings, I guess. That's probably how he was educated. He didn't lack for any education, did he? No.
[00:14:27] He studied his scriptures. All right, so if we're going to be like Jesus, let's just do our education like Jesus did, shall we? Mm-hmm. I like it, Sam. Great concept. Just saying. I just want people to kind of understand. Man, you can say it's crazy, redneck, won't work, whatever you want, but if it worked for Jesus, it's good enough for me, ladies and gentlemen. And if it worked for the founding fathers, the people that created the freest country on the face of the earth for the longest period of time than any other example you can point to in history,
[00:14:53] then I would simply come back again and say, wow, sounds like the solution. Sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. I'm just calling it homework, though. You know, I don't even like the word school. It's just homework, whether it's playing as a little kid to learn your, you know, letters and just play, and you learn your letters, and you learn how to put things away, and you learn how to share, and you learn how to talk, and you learn how to, you know, get up and get down and move your body and do all the different. All that really is the work of a child.
[00:15:21] And as they get older, their work changes. But you know what? We all need to love together, work together, laugh together, pray together. When we do all those things, things work out incredibly well. Now, Donald Trump was at a rally on Saturday. It was in Clarksville, Tennessee. And Donald told supporters, he said, I can say the stupidest things, and you guys would clap. The crowd responded with laughter and applause.
[00:15:48] Trump then added that he and his supporters, well, they say things are common sense, so don't worry about that. Everything they say is good. But the problem is, Trump has made similar boasts before, folks. In January 2016, President Trump said he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue without losing voters. In August 2019, while discussing trade with the communists in China, he declared, I'm the chosen one.
[00:16:16] That same day, he publicly thanked and quoted well-known talker, host, and commentator Wayne Allen Root, who said that Trump is the king of Israel. Or he compared Trump to the king of Israel, to be accurate. And the second coming of God. God. So, you know, you look at these kind of statements. Now Trump just says, hey, I can say anything I want to, and I won't lose voters.
[00:16:40] Yeah, he says, my voters, my supporters, would applaud the stupidest things, echoing past claims of unshakable loyalty. Well, sadly, I think that he's going to get his head handed to him come midterms, and he's going to be in for a rude awakening, sad to say. But here's my response. Trump, if you really have that stupid of an electorate, if you're really saying your voters are dumb, and they'll do whatever you say and think and do, no matter how stupid or ridiculous it is, you're really insulting your own voters.
[00:17:09] That's almost as bad as calling them deplorables as Hillary did. But I would say this. If we really are that stupid, Donald, if we really are that ignorant, if we're really a never-Trumper or an always-Trumper and we both have Trump-draignment syndrome, which I have neither because I'm a realist on Trump, by the way. But if we're really as bad as you say like that, then I think that you should take us under your wing and treat us and educate us and support us.
[00:17:36] And speaking of homework, give us guidance of how to do it right and what to learn and what to study and what to do. Don't make fun of us and mock us with that. Use it as a way to love those whom you serve. Isn't that what a real king would do? Speaking of the king of Israel, what would the Savior do? Would he mock us and go, I can say the stupidest things and it would be great. Everybody would still love me. Is that what the Savior would say? Or would the Savior basically say, you know, hey, you lack understanding.
[00:18:06] Learn of me. Listen to my words. Keep my commandments. Follow me. Spend your time learning to be true followers of Christ. I just compare any king that Wayne Allen Root might refer to to the real king, King Jesus, and say, I see a massive difference in delivery and expectations. Lol. Well put, Sam. Yeah, I don't know more.
[00:18:36] I can say that, except I agree. We should be using the Savior as our exemplar and following him. That's the way to, I mean, you don't win friends and influence people by calling him stupid or saying things that make him feel stupid. And that sounds to me like what Trump is doing, unfortunately. And my response is what he should say is America doesn't support a king, so how do you dare compare me to a king? And, you know, think about John the Baptist and his comments regarding the Savior.
[00:19:06] His shoe latchet I am not even worthy to, you know, to tie compared to Donald Trump's and Wayne Allen Root's comments. I see just wow, folks. I don't know how to make it more plain. I'm not here to criticize anybody, but I am here to call a spade a spade. There is only one king, and that is Jesus Christ. In America, we are to have no kings. So let's be very, very clear. I know you're saying it tongue-in-cheek. I know you don't mean it exactly as it's coming across, but I'm telling you, it doesn't sit well at all. And why?
[00:19:36] Because we've seen nations of foolish people lose their view, worship idols, look to what they ought not. We've seen that too many times in history. So, yeah, you can say it's not really that real. Sam, quit being so literal. Quit having a cow about this. And my response is I wish somebody would have spoke up in those other cultures. Maybe they might not have gone that way. And in America, when we've given up so much to make sure we never go that way, let's double down and deliver.
[00:20:03] One of the great problems we're experiencing is midterm election spending is at least a billion dollars of undisclosed PAC money. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the New York Times analysis found at least a billion dollars in dark money spent. And it turns out that Elon Musk spent more than 270 million dollars of his own money for a Republican midterm push.
[00:20:28] And Elon Musk has contributed more than 276 million since July alone through his own America PAC. And anyway, it's a Senate leadership PAC, a bunch of senators and a bunch of House races. And the report identifies Musk as the largest donor for the GOP in this midterm elections. To me, it flat out smacks of vote fraud.
[00:20:55] Lowell, you and I are ratcheted down to only a little bit of money because, hey, we want to want to make sure that it's fair and honest and everything else. And this on the back end to me just smacks of vote fraud. Lowell? Well, we have a big problem here in this country because the elections are not handled by citizens anymore.
[00:21:15] We would do well as we turn to our policies and processes we used, you know, 100 years ago or 50 years ago, which is where citizens conducted the elections. When you've got public officials who either appointed or elected to their positions handling the elections, we citizens no longer have control of them. And so basically we forfeit or we sell our birthright when we do that because we no longer control the elections.
[00:21:44] We need to be the ones who administer the elections, the ones who count the ballots, the ones who, you know, administer the elections. And we need to do it in our precincts. We don't want counties to do it. We don't want the state to do it. We want this to be done in neighborhoods, neighborhood by neighborhood, ward by ward, precinct by precinct.
[00:22:08] We should be casting paper ballots using no computers, no electronic devices or machines of any kind. We need to do it on election day. The Constitution talks about election day, not about election month. And we need to make sure that only the citizens are voting. They're the ones participating in the election. So you don't have people who are here illegally voting. And we need to get back to that, Sam. Amen.
[00:22:38] Instead of moving it to the national level, we need to move it to the precinct level and demand accountability and transparency big time. The reason that I say that it's vote fraud, folks, is think about this. Why should a PAC, so a government-created entity, a business, if you will, of sorts, nonprofit or otherwise, why should it have special privilege? Why should it be able to pull the lever of government in its favor where I can't put in a certain amount of money? I'm blocked at what I can do. But it has carte blanche to do anything.
[00:23:07] I have to, you know, say where my money comes from, da-da-da-da-da, say everything about me. Whereas they can just come to the trough, spend as much money as they want to, and they don't even have to document anything. They can just basically say, oh, we're not directly talking about a candidate specifically. Well, then Trump says, hey, you know, in the elections, the court shut him down and said you can't use taxpayer money for your ad spending. And he said, okay, my PAC will do it then. Well, wait a minute. I thought there was a separation between PACs and the candidates. Oh, well, Trump's not running so he can say what he wants. See, now we're just playing. We're going down that play game.
[00:23:37] So far, it's not even funny. But it's election fraud when a PAC gets special privilege. The liver of government is pulled in its favor against the rest of us voters as individuals. That's fraud. And you can say, oh, Sam, it doesn't rise to the level of fraud. Call it what you want. I'm not using fraud in the legal term. I'm just telling you that it's unethical to say the least, and it goes way beyond that. Last quick story before the end of the hour. Federal agents are searching Representative Ilhan Omar's house. Her home in criminal investigation.
[00:24:08] Yeah, Homeland Security investigations agent searched her home in the Washington area. And they say they had a legitimate search warrant. And the nature of the investigation was not disclosed in the report. We pray they get to the truth on that. We want accountability everywhere. But so far, we haven't seen it. We pray they hit pay dirt and take action. And we pray that justice can be done. And for Lowell Nelson, CampaignForLiberty.org, RonPaulInstitute.org, thank you so much, sir.
[00:24:37] A special treat to have you on for the full hour this week. Well, I'm glad to do it, Sam. Thank you very much. We're everywhere. Spread the word. God save our constitutional republic. Thank you.