Rahm Emanuel: Democrats Must Reject the Far Left and Clean Up Washington

Greta Wire

In this episode, Rahm Emanuel discusses his vision for revitalizing American institutions through education reform, ethics in governance, an

Key takeaways

• Mississippi rose from 49th to 9th in reading by implementing mandatory science-based phonics and continuous teacher retraining.
• Emanuel proposes a ban on all stock trading and prediction markets for members of all three branches of government.

Main topics

• Education Reform
• Political Coalitions

Notable quotes

The answer can be found in America. We don't have to go to Denmark.

Conclusion

The episode offers a pragmatic, centrist roadmap for addressing system

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) The Greta Wire podcast is presented by Paramount+. Let Speaker 3 (0:05) chaos reign. Mobland, the hit crime series from the underworld of Guy Ritchie, is now streaming on Paramount+. The Harrigans are on the brink of uncivil war as power plays, fractured loyalties, and reckless decisions collide. Their fixer, Harry, is left to clean up the fallout. Don't miss Mobland, starring Tom Hardy, Piers Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. now streaming on Paramount+. I Speaker 2 (0:30) know it's 2026 and everyone's talking midterms, but 2028 is on. He has not said that he's going to run for president, but all signs are. And you need to hear his ideas because you're going to have to make an important decision come 2028, and you want to make a decision after listening to everybody. By the way, he says the Democratic Socialists. are not part of the Democratic Party. Watch Robin Manion. Speaker 2 (1:10) Ram, nice to see you. Speaker 1 (1:12) Good to see you, Greta. Speaker 2 (1:13) Been a long time. Speaker 1 (1:16) Yeah, you've noticed. With Speaker 2 (1:18) both of us, it's been a long time. Speaker 1 (1:19) We've both traveled many miles, haven't gone very far. Speaker 2 (1:22) That's exactly so true. Well, I appreciate you doing this. And I wanted to start with something that, I mean, I have a bunch of questions for you about all sorts of things. It's been so long. But the thing I wanted to talk about, which I think is profoundly important. And I did a little research. You're the only one who is stuck on this. And that's the, and for good reasons, the Mississippi miracle and education. And I got to tell you, it's like, there's nothing more important. So tell me, tell me what the Mississippi miracle is. Speaker 1 (1:53) Yeah. Well, first of all, interesting when I spent two days down there about a little over a year ago now, they refer to it as a Mississippi marathon. Speaker 1 (2:03) Not the Mississippi miracle. And Mississippi, for those who don't know, has gone from 49th in this country on reading to ninth. And if you account for demographics, Mississippi now is number one in America for reading gains. And a day from now, I'm going to be going to Louisiana because they are the only state whose both math and reading scores are above pre-COVID. I don't want to prejudge it, but there's a lot of similarities. I'll start with Mississippi. One, it's not an option. You must do phonic science-based reading. Two, they start very early on in a child's life, pre-K. Speaker 1 (2:42) Three, it's totally focused on phonics. The teachers get totally retrained. That's a weak link in our system nationwide. They get not only retrained, they get constantly retrained during the year and specifically in the summer. The retraining dollars we pay for teachers in every contract, and I'm familiar with this, is really wasted money. Four. The schools work on the curriculum around the phonics and are constantly upgrading and constantly training on the teachers. Five, you get tested in third grade. And you get three tries. And if you don't pass, you don't get moved on. But if you do pass, you move on. To Mississippi's credit, they realized after third grade, you're driving towards this goal line. It plateaus. So they're now setting up schools or not schools, campuses to deal with fourth, fifth and sixth grade and to make sure that that surge in reading grade growth continues. That's it. And, you know, states that do optional phonics, no. States that don't have literally re-engineering and retraining of teachers constantly, not once and done, but constantly. And then a curriculum that's being honed in like a sharp knife all the time. And then accountability to not just the teacher, the school principal, which is always lost in debates, the school itself. And then the district wide system. So accountability is not diffused, but it makes sure that it's system wide and comprehensive. And from what I can tell, and again, I want to go I'm going to go firsthand with Senator Kennedy. I think if the Senate's out, if not, he won't make it. We're going to go to three different schools. They have to also, you know, the retraining of teachers, mandatory adoption of the science of both reading and focus on the fundamentals in math, a curriculum that is honed and not optional, and the retraining and constant training not optional, and a braided system because what happens in a poor rural minority district is not the same as in a suburban. New Orleans district. It just isn't. And so accounting for that and how you distribute resources and what type of resources and then accountability system-wide. Those are kind of familiarities. Speaker 2 (5:04) Well, not too Speaker 1 (5:05) different, to be honest, if I may brag a little about what we did in Chicago, Greta. Speaker 2 (5:09) All right. Well, this Mississippi law was a state law passed in, I think, 2013. Speaker 1 (5:14) Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:15) Looking at its progress. I'm blunt. You're blunt. I'm Speaker 4 (5:19) a Speaker 2 (5:19) hothead. You're sort of a hothead, too. Sort of. You can drop that. We both are. We both are. I can talk like a sailor. But anyway, it is insane that the rest of the country isn't doing this because I interviewed a. calculus professor at Berkeley. And she's having all this trouble having to go back and teach the kids who are in calculus basic stuff. I mean, it's just insane. Speaker 1 (5:47) What's worse, you have college classes. One of the fastest growing classes in colleges today, freshman year, is remedial math and reading. So we have done no justice and no favor to a child graduating them without the skills. So look. Speaker 1 (6:03) I don't want to do this, but if you go 30 years back, when you had the Nation at Risk report by Bloom, nobody really knew what to do. But a lot of governors of both parties, obviously unbiased, Bill Clinton, Governor Hunt of North Carolina, Governor Riley of South Carolina, Governor Zell Miller of Georgia, they were groping and trying different things. And they showed leadership. But here's the difference is today, unlike then, we actually know what to do. Speaker 2 (6:31) That's what I do. I give credit to people who tried. I tried everything. I give credit. But now we know. But even like with, OK, the Department of Education. But, Greta, Speaker 1 (6:43) you've got to look at this. Look, I blame everybody on this. Speaker 2 (6:47) I do, too. All the adults, Speaker 1 (6:48) both parties. Speaker 2 (6:49) I blame the media, too. We've been silent. Speaker 1 (6:52) Right. The National Governors Association never have called an emergency meeting. Number two, presidents never comment on it. Number three, never brought everybody together and said, OK, here's the models. Number four, they haven't tied federal resources to these proven results. And Mississippi has been replicated by Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee all have seen a spike in their reading score. So it's not like a one trick pony. They actually know what to do. I am angry that the Democrats walked away in 2012 from accountability and standards. Republicans have walked away from public schools and the funding for them. And our kids are failing. And what's worse, I'll give you this. We spent a record amount in the post-COVID. era to support schools. Speaker 2 (7:41) Well, over 150 without Speaker 1 (7:43) any education. In fact, we went backwards. So while money is important, especially when you're dealing with poor kids, it is not a money issue. It is a standards, accountability and curriculum issue. And this debate about how much money you spend or whether, you know, what class size is missing the target. We have something that works. The truth here in America is every challenge we face, specifically on schools and education, the answer can be found in America. We don't have to go to Denmark. You don't have to go to Korea. It's different demographics, different kind of thing. We actually know what works. What is lacking is leadership and determination to see through the political morass that's harming our kids. All Speaker 2 (8:29) right. Going back to 1980, President Carter, big hope. You and I are both alive then. Big hope. That the Department of Education would solve everything. We've now spent, at least according to AI, $3 trillion. And Mississippi and Louisiana seem to be the only success stories on this. And the Department of Education basically became full employment for a lot of people here in D.C. Because if you look at the stats, the stats you're talking about, it's been an abject failure. Not because people didn't want to make it work. Speaker 1 (8:59) But to that, I actually, it's your show, but. I think that misses the mark, if I can. Speaker 2 (9:05) Okay. Speaker 1 (9:07) If you go from Ronald Reagan through George Bush, Bill Clinton, public school choice and teachers of excellence, through Leave No Child Behind to race to the top under Obama, over the years, steady, steady progress. Speaker 1 (9:25) Pause 2012. 2012, that's progress over 30 years. You know, not all one way, but it's no doubt better from where it starts. 2012, because everybody was yelling about we were teaching to the test, rather than reform it, we end it. Massive mistake. We walked away from the core curriculum. Massive mistake. And then the other piece of this that doesn't get discussed, what happens in 2012? Instagram. And so you plateau, then you hit COVID and you collapse. And so I don't think, look, the Department of Education, I'm not going to defend it. It needs massive reform. It literally went around and basically walked in, you know, it was basically on a treadmill walking. Okay. They didn't focus. And again, as we said, both whether the Mississippi Marathon, Louisiana, Louisiana is the only state of 50 whose math and reading is above pre-COVID. That's why I'm going there tomorrow. So the fact is, in 2012, two things happened. One is social media. And the second is we walk away from core curriculum and test. And again, I can tell you that teaching to the test was a mistake. But the answer wasn't to get rid of accountability in the testing. It was to reform it so good teaching could work rather than just teaching to a test. I get that. But we did the app. We went from. First to fifth without any adjustment and then didn't realize what Instagram and other social media accounts were doing to our children from an attention span and focus in the classroom. And Speaker 2 (11:07) just reading. When I was in grade school and high school, I was getting in trouble. I talked too much. Speaker 1 (11:14) And Speaker 2 (11:14) I had to stay after school. You know, Greta, that's Speaker 1 (11:17) not hard to believe. Speaker 2 (11:19) I actually, I had a lot of trouble in school. But anyway, the nuns would make me stay after school and diagram sentences. And now everyone speaks in, first we do in soundbites and now in memes. But we would have, we'd have to learn grammar. So that, which is the foundation of reading and writing. That's just gone. Nobody does that. Let Speaker 1 (11:41) me tell you one thing. Who do you think in America has the single best school system? And it's like the number 12th largest in America. Speaker 2 (11:52) I give up. Speaker 1 (11:53) U.S. Armed Forces. Speaker 2 (11:55) Where? Speaker 1 (11:56) U.S. Armed Forces. Oh, Speaker 2 (11:57) U.S. Armed Forces. Yes. Oh, yes. Speaker 1 (11:59) Number one, no vouchers, no charters. It is a school on the base. Now, what people don't want to talk about, and I've actually gone through the research, and it has a, you know, if you looked at demographics from minority population or income, et cetera. It has a higher than society-wide concentration of two-parent families, which goes back to that book called The Two-Parent Premium, which every child with two parents starts on the 50-yard line. And my heroes are the single mothers making it work. Your kid starts, you know, the kids on a single-parent home isn't. The armed forces doesn't do any of this stuff as it relates to. Speaker 1 (12:40) Department of Education, vouchers, charters, different, it's fundamentals. It's, as I've always said, there's three doors a child walks through that will determine their life. The front door of the home, the front door of the school, the front door of the place of worship. One of those doors is closed on a child and it will affect that child's moral and educational development and character. It's just a fact. And so I believe, now fast forward. Louisiana and Mississippi now need to be scaled and federal dollars need to be held. And I'll give you a tie to adoption, not kind of voluntary. And what I mean by that, California just passed a phonics-based system, but it's optional. You know, that's just, that's a press release for public officials, has nothing to do with a child's education. Okay. This is Mississippi. They