Becket Fund’s Eric Rassbach on Loffman v. CA DOE, Religious Liberty, & Schooling

The Learning Curve Eric Rassbach

[00:00:00] Alisha Searcy: . Welcome back to the Learning Curve Podcast. I’m one of your co-hosts, Alisha Thomas Searcy from Democrats for Education Reform. And joined this week again by my other co-host, Dr. Albert Cheng. Welcome back.

[00:00:36] Albert Cheng: Hey, yep, good to be back. How’s it going, Alisha? Happy Thanksgiving, I guess. Happy Thanksgiving. I am so excited.

[00:00:43] Alisha Searcy: Should one be this excited about eating?

[00:00:46] Albert Cheng: Why not? I mean, look, part of being grateful is enjoying your food and to be thankful for it, I guess.

[00:00:53] Alisha Searcy: And sitting around with people that you love that you can enjoy that food with, right?

[00:00:58] Albert Cheng: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Friendship and food. That has been part of the human experience forever.

[00:01:04] Alisha Searcy: That is right. And so, one last question before we move on. Who’s doing the cooking in your house?

[00:01:10] Albert Cheng: Well, it’s a team effort, but the turkey is my job.

[00:01:15] Alisha Searcy: Nice. Well, I can cook a little, not, you know, Thanksgiving worthy. So I will do some sides and order a few things. And I’m hearing that lots of people are doing that these days. Doing more catering than they are cooking. But I have found that whatever works for you and your family or friends, do that and just eat and be merry. You know?

[00:01:35] Albert Cheng: That’s right. Yep. Do whatever it takes to help you be welcoming and hospitable to your guests, I guess.

[00:01:41] Alisha Searcy: Exactly. Well, please enjoy. So, we’ve got a great show this week and of course we’ve got to get started by talking about our articles for the week. What do you have, Albert?

[00:01:51] Albert Cheng: Yeah, I saw an article. from EdSource. I mean, the title is intriguing, but I think if you just read the title, you wouldn’t know what the actual article is about. I mean, the title is, for true meritocracy, education must not be one size fits all. And I know that’s a theme that comes up on this show quite a bit as we talk about school choice and educational opportunity.

[00:02:12] But you know, this article was focusing specifically on CTE. And making vocational ed more widely available, I know we’ve talked about that theme as well on the show, so I just want to flag that article, have people look it over, just get more thoughts on voc ed, and certainly, you know, I think one of the other things that struck me in reading the article was you and I, Alisha, talk a bit about coalition building, you know, bipartisan work and doing, you know, seeing folks from, from both sides of the aisle get together and, you know, Get some education work done.

[00:02:41] And, you know, it occurred to me that I think CTE is one of these issues where there’s pretty wide agreement across party lines. And so, yeah, I wonder if states could get together and perhaps make a move here. Maybe there’s some potential here. I would like that very much. We’ll stay tuned, won’t we? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:02:59] Alisha Searcy: Very good. Well, mine is an opinion piece by Jonathan Gyorko. Hope I’m saying that correctly. And it’s entitled, Some Advice for a Political Left. Let’s redefine public education to improve all schools. And the subtitle is, a deal maker in the White House is an opportunity to increase federal support. So why not make a deal?

[00:03:22] So it’s a very interesting piece, right? I work for Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now. One is political. One is more of a C3 policy organization. And of course, we’re thinking about, um, What is education going to be looking like for the next four years? We’ve heard these threats perhaps about the elimination of the Department of Education, and so there’s a lot of concern around funding and programming for Title I students and for students with disabilities and so, you know, all of that, but I think this opinion piece is interesting in particular for me and for Democrats, because he makes some good points about.

[00:04:05] Sort of the tried and true, I’ll call it, I would prefer to use a different phrase, but I’m going to go with tried-and-true ideas that Democrats talk about in terms of public education, right? And how, under these new circumstances, you now have a president elect who’s a dealmaker. And so why not think about, What deals can be made to improve public education?

[00:04:28] So I think it’s good to have these kinds of conversations. I agree. While I may not agree with everything in this article, I agree with the fact that Democrats need to change our message and even our approach and even our ideas. around how we improve public education. I think if we keep talking about how we just need more money and we just keep arguing about vouchers and charters and traditionals, I think we’re going to lose.

[00:04:53] And I would argue that certainly the polling that I’ve seen that we’ve done as an organization and other polls, Democrats in general have lost focus. We have lost footing with voters on education. We used to be the party most trusted with improving public education, and we have lost that, I think, because again, we keep arguing about the same things.

[00:05:15] I think we have allowed the other party to tag us with things that aren’t really on our agenda, like transgender bathrooms and things like that. That’s never been a policy push. For Democrats, but somehow it’s got pegged on us. And so he also talks about, and this is the thing that I probably disagree with in terms of the organization and the work that I do, like the teachers unions and Randy Weingarten are like the representatives of the Democratic Party.

[00:05:43] Again, I would argue that’s another problem that we’ve had. There are Democrats who support charter schools. There are Democrats who want to see accountability in our public schools. You know, there are a number of things that we support that maybe the teacher’s union and some of the other more traditional Democrats don’t.

[00:06:00] So we get lumped all in the same category.

[00:06:03] Albert Cheng: Yeah.

[00:06:04] Alisha Searcy: And so the final point that I thought was interesting is that he talks about how we need to redefine what public education is. One of the arguments he’s making is that while vouchers could be a form of public education because they use public funds and et cetera, et cetera.

[00:06:21] On the inverse of that, he’s saying that some of our public schools, because of the way that they operate, could be considered public schools. Not public. And so, you know, very interesting argument, different, interesting nuances here. What I take from this all together, though, is that we do need to think differently.

[00:06:40] We do need to look at where the opportunities are. I’m not one of those doom and gloom types of people. You know, there may be some things. I think we heard this when we interviewed Governor Sununu a few weeks ago. That maybe there are some challenges with how special education is administered from the federal level.

[00:06:58] So maybe some changes wouldn’t be a bad thing to make sure that we’re serving kids well. Now let’s be clear, for anyone that is listening, I am not saying in any form or fashion that I want to see the U. S. Department of Education go away. I want people to be very clear on that, okay? What I am saying is, sometimes when you have disruptors, even if you fully disagree with them on a lot of things, and in my case, I absolutely do, I do think it creates an opportunity for conversation, for having to look at things differently.

[00:07:30] And so that’s what I’m hopeful about, and I think that’s what this article should represent. That we’ve got to think differently, approach some of these things differently, because at the end of the day, if we want to protect public education and the children that we serve, we better do something different, at least for the next four years, to protect those institutions and those, and those children. So that’s all.

[00:07:50] Albert Cheng: Yeah. You know, one thing that I’ve always said, I know a couple of colleagues of mine say, you know, we conflate public schools with public education, and in my mind, those are different. And I like to say, if I might venture this, that all education is public because all these institutions are there to serve the public, to take care of everybody who are in our community.

[00:08:10] So, I’m with you on trying to reimagine or change the imaginary, really, on that phrase. Public education can include Lots of different providers and models. That’s always been my view.

[00:08:22] Alisha Searcy: Yeah, and I agree. And I, I think there’s some limitations for me, but generally I agree, right? It’s about the delivery of public education or delivery of education to the public and how we define that, right?

[00:08:34] If there’s accountability in place and equitable resources and all of the things, if it’s going to serve children well, let’s do it. You know? So, always great conversations about these articles, so I appreciate that. Coming up, we’ve got Eric Rosbach from the Beckett Fund.

[00:09:03] Albert Cheng: Eric Rosbach is Vice President and Senior Counsel at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, participating in path breaking victories at the United States Supreme Court, including Hosanna Tabor, Hobby Lobby, and more. Holt v. Hobbs, Zubik v. Burwell, Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, and Fulton v.

[00:09:23] Philadelphia. In 2020, Eric argued Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey Beru to the Supreme Court, garnering a 7 2 win for his Catholic school clients. Eric has briefed and argued cases in the federal appeals courts and state supreme courts nationwide. He frequently comments on church state issues in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.

[00:09:47] Eric has published legal scholarship in the Harvard Law Review Forum, Tennessee Law Review, the Illinois Law Review, the Cato Supreme Court Review, and other legal journals. He was a law clerk to United States District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston. Eric graduated from Haverford College with a degree in comparative literature.

[00:10:06] He’s a member of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Eric, welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure to have you on. Thanks so much for having me. Great. Well, why don’t we jump right in? As our listeners probably have heard by now, we have a really recent important court ruling, and we want to get into this.

[00:10:26] This is the Loffman v. California Department of Ed case. And so, just again, in case listeners are Unaware, this is a case where a group of parents wanted to send their children to Orthodox Jewish schools but were prevented from doing so because California politicians prohibit federal and state special education funding from being used at religious private schools while allowing those funds to be used at secular private schools.

[00:10:50] So, share with us more details about this case wherein Beckett successfully represented the plaintiffs in this unanimous Ninth Circuit court victory.

[00:11:00] Eric Rassbach: The problem that this case addresses has been going on for Many years in California, and for specifically for members of the Orthodox Jewish community, of which there are many, particularly in Southern California.

[00:11:15] And the problem is that there is federal funding that’s given to every state in the form of a block grant to help kids who have disabilities learn. And importantly, that funding is not predicted by the federal government on what It a school you necessarily go to. It has to be a school that’s able to help kids with specific disabilities, but it doesn’t say, you know, exclude any group of, you know, particular group of schools.

[00:11:43] In particular, it doesn’t have to be used at public schools. So the federal government sends this money to all the states, including California, and then the local, you know, the State Department of Education, in this case the California Department of Education, then distributes that money, usually via different public school districts.

[00:12:03] And that’s true whether the money ends up going to that particular school district or if it goes to a private school that’s in a better position to help the child with the specific disabilities. This is a right that has been around for a very long time. It’s a kind of funding that has come from the government and really just for decades to help.

[00:12:24] Kids who really need that help, whether it be physical disabilities or cognitive disabilities. The problem in California is, back in 1993, when they passed their implementing legislation for the federal law, which is typically referred to as IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, California passed a law implementing that, but they tacked on a special condition.

[00:12:52] And that special condition was that You could use the money at the best school for your child and the best school to deal with their disabilities. Unless it was a religious school. So you could use it at a private school, you could use it at a school out of state, even out of the country. And if that’s the best, you know, school for helping your kid and dealing with your kid’s particular disability, then that’s where you could send them.

[00:13:22] Unless it’s religious. If it’s religious, you can’t do it. And that really presents a huge problem for Orthodox Jews, because they are commanded by their religious beliefs to send their kids to Orthodox Jewish school, which is, of course, very religious. So, what do you do if you’re a family? You have a child with a, let’s say, a profound cognitive disability, they can’t do basic things like keeping kosher themselves, or, you know, remembering to, you know, say the midday prayer before they, they have their meal, or things like that, that are just really incredibly basic to Orthodox Judaism, and, If they were at an Orthodox Jewish school, they could do that.

[00:14:04] Often these schools don’t have the ability on their own to help these kids with these profound disabilities. They do need the support, the monetary support that those kids are entitled to. So, it presented this huge problem and, and what’s happened is that people either had to send their kids to the public school system, which of course then they’re being offered things like pepperoni pizza, which is definitely not kosher or.

[00:14:29] They move. So there’s actually quite a few families who have just moved out of the state of California because they can’t help their child, and so they move in order to help their child. So, that’s really the problem that we were addressing with this case. And the thing that changed in recent years is a trio of U.

[00:14:50] S. Supreme Court decisions, you know, that I would call the Trinity Lutheran line of decisions, So one’s Trinity Lutheran, second one is Espinoza against Montana, and the third one is Carson against Macon, which is a case out of, out of the state of Maine, and what those cases made clear in a way that hadn’t been clear before is that excluding including.

[00:15:13] Anybody from a public benefit, so this is like a generally available public benefit, solely because they’re religious, is unconstitutional. And that’s, that’s where we saw the opportunity to get rid of this long standing injustice in California.

[00:15:30] Albert Cheng: Well, we have some time here to get into those cases. So the Trinity Lutheran case, Espinoza, Carson v. Mencken.

[00:15:36] Eric Rassbach: Sure. So, you know, these are all cases that were brought where someone said it violates the free exercise clause, which is part of the first amendment to the United States constitution. So usually when you talk about first amendment, you think freedom of speech, but it’s also the part of the constitution that it protects freedom of religion, and specifically, there’s a part of it called the Free Exercise Clause that says, you know, government cannot inhibit the free exercise of religion.

[00:16:03] So what this line of cases, starting with Trinity Lutheran, challenged was exclusion from programs solely because you’re religious, because what it does is it says you can either do your free exercise of religion, so you can either engage in whatever the religious exercise is, or you can get this government benefit, but you can’t get both.

[00:16:23] So the Trinity Lutheran was a case out of Missouri where Missouri said, we have a part of our state constitution that people usually call a Blaine Amendment, and it says no money can go to quote unquote sectarian schools. And, because of that rule, we’re not going to let you have tire scraps, recycled tire scraps, so these are shredded tires, you know, tires, to put on your playgrounds, you know, to keep kids from skinning their knees or whatever if they fall off the jungle gym.

[00:16:55] And they said, you’re well qualified, but you’re actually number five on our list, but because you’re a Lutheran school, No tire scraps for you. And so, they sued, and the Supreme Court said, no, you can’t, you can’t exclude them on that basis. That’s discrimination, that’s wrong, and it wrongfully burdens their religious exercise by forcing them to choose between being a religious school and getting access to this benefit.

[00:17:22] Same thing happened a few years later in the Espinoza against Montana Department of Revenue case, where that was a case involving whether you could get vouchers, basically, for school, you know, help with getting to go to a school, and Montana said, well, you can use it at private schools, but you can’t use it at religious private schools.

[00:17:42] Also, because of one of these state constitutional provisions, the Blaine Amendments that I was talking about earlier. And Same result. Supreme Court says, “Nope, you can’t do that”. And actually, Justice Alito wrote a very long, concurring opinion explaining the whole, sort of, nasty, anti-Catholic, anti-religious history of these Blaine Amendments, including pictures.

[00:18:05] So I highly recommend that if you ever want to look at that one. So that was the second one in this trio of cases, and then the third one was a case out of Maine involving what’s called the Town Tuitioning Program. Basically, if you live in a rural part of Maine, which Maine is one of the most rural states in the country, they don’t have enough kids to set up their own high school.

[00:18:25] So in lieu of that, the state will pay for a kid to go to any school, including schools out of state, overseas, what have you. Same rule, though. They said, no, you can’t use this at a religious school. And the same result happened at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said, nope, you can’t exclude people from benefits just because they’re religious.

[00:18:46] And that one was interesting, too, because it wasn’t based on a Blaine Amendment. One of these historically, you know, proven to be hostile to religious minorities laws. This was just something where the state of Maine decided, whoa, we can’t do this anymore because of this federal establishment clause. So, the federal law says you can’t do that, which turns out not to be true.

[00:19:08] So. Um, that’s a very strong set of cases that says that this needs to happen. But the problem is that a lot of states have not gotten the memo, and it’s not like they’re saying, oh, well, the Supreme Court ruled this way in this case. Let me go through and try to get rid of all these anti religion things in my laws. And so, unfortunately, it means we have to sue them.

[00:19:30] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. Well, talk about that a bit more, because, uh, you know, with these three cases, Various public interest law firms like the Beckett Fund, the Institute for Justice, right, you guys have worked together in tandem to help bring forward cases about religious liberty and equal access.

[00:19:48] And these have really reshaped, you know, our understandings of the Blaine Amendment and the K 12 schooling landscape. So, could you talk about just how do you guys come together and bring forward these cases?

[00:19:58] Eric Rassbach: I think each case has its own story, and often, often it starts with a religious institution or a religious group. Family being really shocked to know that they’re being excluded from these programs. Now, I think with the Jewish community in L.A. in particular, they’ve known this has been a problem for a long time. They just didn’t see any way to be able to deal with it. In that case, we saw Wow, these new cases say you can’t do this.

[00:20:28] You can’t have this sectarian exclusion in your laws. And so we thought, wow, we’ll just bring this up and say, look, you ought to, you ought to not be able to do this. And I actually wondered whether California would say no. You know, California would just say, you know what, you’re right. We shouldn’t have this in there, you know, we agree.

[00:20:48] They haven’t come to their senses yet, but I’m hopeful that with the Ninth Circuit ruling in our favor that they will. In terms of cooperating amongst groups, it has been a very collaborative process over the years. You know, Institute for Justice, Mike Bendis specifically brought that case, the Carson case that I was mentioning, out of the state of Maine.

[00:21:06] And, you know, it’s been a collaborative process where people, for example, will file an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, in the other person’s case. And I think it’s, it kind of all ends up being woven together across cases, if that makes sense.

[00:21:21] Albert Cheng: Yeah,

[00:21:21] Eric Rassbach: yeah.

[00:21:22] Albert Cheng: Well, so, let’s keep talking about the case and just the background and the context here.

[00:21:27] So, in Loffman, the Beckett Fund had the backing. of the Orthodox Union, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization that represents nearly a thousand congregations, as well as more than 400 Jewish nonpublic K -12 schools across the nation. So, talk more generally about the need for religious groups to be aware of the growing legal challenges that they’re facing, as opponents of religious liberty and school choice attempt to use electoral politics and state and federal bureaucracies to abridge their rights.

[00:21:56] Eric Rassbach: I think that’s a really crucial issue. So, first of all, we’re very grateful to have this ability to work together with Orthodox Union, which as you mentioned is one of the leading Orthodox Jewish groups in this country. And they’re very committed to Jewish education and specifically Jewish private education, because it has to be religious, right?

[00:22:17] So they’re not, they’re not going to be going to public school. So they really need, they’re very focused on this issue because it’s hugely expensive, you know, when you’re. You’re both paying taxes to the public school system and paying, you know, to have your own community’s school that can teach religion.

[00:22:34] So that collaboration is crucial to my mind. I think it helps, you know, the Beckett Fund is not a Jewish organization, it’s not a, you know, religious organization, it’s a, you know, we fight for a particular principle, the principle of religious liberty. So I think it’s helpful when you have someone within the community who you’re collaborating with, both so that you can do a better job of representing your clients, but also people have that kind of trust level that, You know, it can be in short supply sometimes and I think you’re absolutely right to say that religious institutions need to be more aware of these problems.

[00:23:12] I think a lot of religious institutions sometimes assume that they’re acting in good faith, they’re, you know, just trying to get along with everyone, and they don’t quite realize that there might be people out there who just don’t like them because they’re religious. That’s why a lot of these plaintiffs are totally shocked.

[00:23:28] Like, I’m sure the Trinity Lutheran Church was like, What? You know, you can’t give me the tire scraps because I’m Lutheran? You know, like that, that’s the kind of reaction you get. They’re just shocked that that’s the rule that the government wants to enforce. And so, I think, I think raising that awareness, particularly through programs like yours, is really very helpful because it can help people realize, like, first of all, there is a problem out there.

[00:23:52] But second, and even more importantly, there’s something you can do about it. So that’s, I think that’s crucial.

[00:23:58] Albert Cheng: I mean, we keep coming back to these recent Supreme Court cases, Espinoza, Carson, you know, Trini Lutheran, and now this one. So I guess I just want your take about what the future might hold. What are the long term constitutional implications, particularly for K 12 American education, as well as where you see religious school choice law and litigation heading over the next several years?

[00:24:20] So where are we going?

[00:24:22] Eric Rassbach: I can talk about sort of what’s happening right this minute and where I see it going. So, I think, you know, right this minute, so we, obviously, we got a great win, 3 0, from the Ninth Circuit, which has, in some cases, been more in favor of religious education, sometimes not so much, but in this case it was a, you know, I would say a resounding victory for our clients.

[00:24:44] And it said, this law violates the Free Exercise Clause on its face. So, you just read the law, it has a sectarian, this quote unquote sectarian exclusion. That’s enough to violate the Free Exercise Clause. That ought to give a really strong message to a lot of governments, at least in, on the West Coast, which is where the Ninth Circuit is.

[00:25:04] But we’ll see what happens both with that case. California could, of course, appeal the case to the United States Supreme Court. They get three months to do that. But also, there’s a host of other cases that are similar going on around the country, brought both by my organization, the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, but also other organizations like Institute for Justice or First Liberty Institute, and we actually have You know, at least three or four other cases going on right now that I would call post Carson cases.

[00:25:36] So sort of cases that are building on that big win in Carson against Macon. And one of them is actually in Maine. So we have a case against the state of Maine on behalf of a Catholic school named St. Dominic’s where Maine has said, well, we still don’t want you religious schools to use the town tuitioning.

[00:25:56] We’ll let you use it if you don’t really do anything religious.

[00:25:59] Albert Cheng: Yeah,

[00:26:00] Eric Rassbach: sure. Which doesn’t really work for pretty much 99 percent of religious institutions. And so, they’re kind of, you know, I would say doubling down, and we’re tripling down, or whatever the right phrase is for poker, but, you know, we’re saying, look, you can’t You know, continue to try to exclude these groups.

[00:26:20] We also have a case in Minnesota about getting access to higher education funding that the state of Minnesota offers to people. And then of course, you know, I mentioned we have the Laughlin case, which, you know, hopefully will be done soon. Um, but there’s just a lot going on, and I know there’s other groups that have cases.

[00:26:37] So that’s, uh, I think there’s a lot of building on the Carson decision that’s going to go on, and the reality is there’s a lot of laws in the books that are just facially discriminatory, like the one in California. And unfortunately, the state legislatures are not going to immediately just take those out because the Supreme Court said so.

[00:26:58] It’s going to take plaintiffs, it’s going to take litigants, it’s going to take people who support these efforts to get out there and, and really. Push for that kind of thing across the board.

[00:27:08] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Well, let’s actually keep talking about that because, you know, one of the developments in at least education policy in a lot of states is the passage and establishment of education savings accounts, education tax credits.

[00:27:22] I mean, we’re just seeing school choice expand in a lot of states. And so, in some sense, you know, I wonder how much of that is, you know, Due to, to the recent rulings like in Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and the Carson. But give us your take on, on just where you see federal and state K 12 laws heading. You know, you’re talking about states maybe having to rewrite certain things.

[00:27:43] You don’t sound too optimistic unless there’s, there’s maybe some more push. So where do you see the actual government, what changes government’s going to make in the short term here?

[00:27:52] Eric Rassbach: Well, so I am optimistic. I want to be clear. I am optimistic. I just think that there’s a huge amount of inertia within a lot of states that just are not going to move off of their position unless they are given a pretty good firm shove.

[00:28:07] And so I think in some states the shove won’t have to be too hard, right? So I imagine, you know, some states already embrace various forms of, say, school choice or ensuring that every kid, no matter what kind of school they go to, is able to get a great education. Some states are already fully on board with that.

[00:28:28] Their political culture is there. Their education culture is there. And so it’s really just a matter of maybe getting rid of some older laws that no one really supports anymore.

[00:28:39] So that’s at one end of the spectrum. I would say at the other end of the spectrum, there’s some states that are going to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new reality.

[00:28:48] And I think, for example, Maine, I think is unfortunately an example of that because their response to losing at the United States Supreme Court. Pretty massively is to try to do the same thing again and, you know, besides costing taxpayers in the state of Maine a lot of money and distracting people from actually trying to educate children, it also just, you know, sort of indicates a kind of foolhardiness that I think doesn’t make any sense.

[00:29:18] I think they are the shove. In states like that, I think the shove is going to have to be a little harder. Yeah, yeah. But I think overcoming that inertia, creating a culture where people think Wow, like the norm is not, you know, everybody has to go to public school. The norm is everyone should go to the school that’s going to help their child get the best education possible.

[00:29:39] That shift in paradigm, if you will, is going to be ongoing and I think is a long-term shift in the way that people think about education in this country.

[00:29:51] Albert Cheng: All right, so last question, and I don’t know if I’m going to make you weigh in on something that’s maybe not your primary area of expertise, but so, you know, look, I mean, on the show, we often talk about our math and reading test scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress, for instance, you know, we’ve We’ve seen those test scores, you know, remain flat generally, uh, I mean, there’s been some gains here and there, but then certainly after the pandemic, we’ve seen huge drops in student achievement as measured by these tests.

[00:30:19] So I want to get your take. How would religious schooling and religious liberty, you know, how can those two things that religious schooling and religious liberty help improve educational opportunity and outcomes for our nation’s kids?

[00:30:33] Eric Rassbach: I am definitely not an education scholar in the sense of someone who, you know, could tell you the statistics about kids, but I think it’s just common sense that when you have a problem this big, and as you mentioned, the pandemic really Put a dent in education in this country.

[00:30:50] When you’ve got a problem that is that big, you really need all hands-on deck, and you really need everyone helping. And to have these sorts of obstacles in the way of having communities of faith, who of course have traditions of education that. Predate this country by millennia to say, oh, we’re going to, you know, keep you out.

[00:31:13] You know, we’re gonna have these obstacles to having you help and help educate, you know, get education for everybody. I think is just, it just lacks common sense. So, I don’t think I need to marshal any statistics or be an education scholar to tell you that, that Education is something that the Jewish people, for example, have been doing for thousands of years.

[00:31:35] And to say, oh, you know, we’re gonna put these roadblocks in the way of your being able to do something you already want to do and have a proven track record of doing is just, it’s just nonsensical to have those obstacles. So, I think, You know, what I can do as a religious liberty advocate and attorney is to try to remove those obstacles.

[00:31:57] Obviously, the people who are going to have to do the educating are the teachers and the kids and the parents.

[00:32:03] Albert Cheng: Well, that’s well said, and I hope our leaders and teachers and parents who are part of these religious school communities can take advantage. Roll up their sleeves and serve the students that are there in the community.

[00:32:16] So, hey, Eric, thanks for the conversation. It was a real pleasure to have you on.

[00:32:20] Eric Rassbach: Same here, Albert.

[00:32:21] Albert Cheng: Well, Alisha, I enjoyed that interview. Getting to know the work of the Beckett Fund and what Eric’s up to. During the interview, I kept thinking about the article that you brought up last week, where the group of Black pastors, they were hosting Cornell West to have a conversation about charter schools.

[00:32:35] Yeah, I mean, just again, this theme of the civic institutions we already have, like the religious communities, getting involved for improving our education system and serving our kids better.

[00:32:46] Alisha Searcy: Absolutely. Those partnerships are very important.

[00:32:48] Albert Cheng: And speaking of partnerships, this is going to take us to the tweet of the week, which comes from a previous co-host, a former co-host of the Learning Curve podcast, Cara Candal, and she’s got an article, it’s her take on the MCAS ballot measure results.

[00:33:05] And so I want to flag that tweet for our listeners to read. The tweet reads, For decades, MCAS has provided students, families, and educators with an objective measure of student achievement, ensuring that graduates meet essential academic standards before pursuing employment, enlistment, or post-secondary education opportunities.

[00:33:25] So take a look at her opinion piece and her debrief of the results of that ballot measure. Yeah, we’re going to be talking about that for a long time. Hey, and Alisha, who do we have coming up next week?

[00:33:38] Alisha Searcy: Well, looking forward to next week. We’ve got Deva Sobel, who’s going to talk about Madame Curie and STEM. So be sure to join us next week.

[00:33:46] Albert Cheng: I’m looking forward to that. I don’t know much about Madam Curie, but certainly you got me at STEM and I know all her work on radioactivity.

[00:33:54] Alisha Searcy: Yeah. Well, this will be a very interesting one, so looking forward to it, but great to be with you as always. And again, have a wonderful Thanksgiving and to all of you who are listening, please do the same.