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Ohio's public schools serve 1.6 million children - 90 percent of students in the state! What happens in the classroom has impacts far beyond the walls of the K-12 school building or higher ed lecture hall. So, on behalf of the 115,000 members of the Ohio Education Association, we're taking a deeper dive into some of the many education issues facing our students, educators, and communities. Originally launched in 2021 as Education Matters, Public Education Matters is your source for insightful conversations with the people who shape the education landscape in Ohio. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on Public Education Matters? Email us at educationmatters@ohea.org
Rep. Greg Landsman 0:00
I think the key is figuring out what you wanted to get done, and then who who are the people who will work on that. And most of the time, you can find people on both sides of the aisle who want to get something done on that particular issue.
Various student voices 0:20
Public education matters. Public education matters. Public education matters.
Jeff Wensing 0:26
This is Public Education Matters, brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.
Katie Olmsted 0:38
Thanks for joining us for this edition of Public Education Matters. I'm your host, Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association and the 115,000 public school educators OEA represents across the state. We talk a lot about how the decisions made in Columbus impact what happens in our public school classrooms, but the decisions that come out of Congress also have an enormous impact on Ohio's public school students and educators every day. That is why it is so important to elect members of Congress that support public schools and really understand the public education and labor issues. The guest on this podcast episode absolutely does and has been a champion on public education initiatives throughout his time on the U.S. Capitol Hill, as a Cincinnati City Council member before that, and even before that as a lead organizer of the Preschool Promise Ballot Initiative in Cincinnati in 2016. Now he's running for re-election to return to Congress and continue his work for Ohio's public school students and educators. We had a chance to sit down with him a few weeks ago to learn more about the work he has done and the work he plans to do as he continues to work across the aisle in his next term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Take a listen.
Rep. Greg Landsman 2:02
Hey, I'm Congressman Greg Landsman. I represent the first congressional district in Ohio.
Katie Olmsted 2:08
And you are the OEA member recommended candidate in that race because of where you stand on public education issues and labor issues. And I'm so grateful for this opportunity to really dive into that with you, let's start with your background. You're a former teacher yourself, the child of two former public school teachers. How does that impact your approach to your work in your first two terms in Congress?
Rep. Greg Landsman 2:35
Yeah, I mean, you, I, you know, I looked up to my parents. They were teachers. They dedicated their careers to investing in other people, and you know that got me really interested in public service teaching. Ultimately, I taught, but public service in particular, the idea that that could be your your profession, your vocation, which is to you know spend your career working on issues that impact other people or all of us, and trying to do it in a way where, you know, you know, folks who have been historically left out or left behind, you know, have more opportunity because we did the hard work to ensure that they had what they needed.
Katie Olmsted 3:16
And one of the big things that you have shown that you believe people need is a good start. I know that access to high quality early education has been really something that has driven you all through your time, well before even your first race to serve on city council. What can you tell me about that work?
Rep. Greg Landsman 3:39
Yeah, I mean, when our kids, our kids are now 14 and 16. When they were in preschool, we just you know they even before that you learn as a young parent how important you know that quality time that you have with them is you know holding them you know in in terms of brain development how they're doing, and how they're growing quality childcare, quality preschool, and I was doing advocacy work for an education organization called the StrivePartnership, and you know I knew that most families in Cincinnati didn't have access to quality preschool; it just was you know unaffordable for them, and so we started organizing in in Cincinnati around this idea that every kid should have what our kids got, which is two years of quality preschool, and that we could collectively find the resources to ensure that that families could afford that, that we could help them pay for high quality preschool, which is what we did. We got it on the ballot, and in 2016, 10 years ago, it passed. It's called the Cincinnati Preschool Promise, and it provides two years of quality preschool, high quality preschool for three and four year olds for those families who couldn't otherwise afford it.
Katie Olmsted 4:47
On a personal note, I'm talking to you at the end of August, and I have a new kindergartner. She just started last week, and fortunately for us, we had access to high quality preschool, private pay for that.
Rep. Greg Landsman 5:00
Yeah.
Katie Olmsted 5:01
I know. Going into kindergarten, the expectations, the demands on students are so much bigger than I could have possibly given her myself. What do you see from? I mean, this has been something you did 10 years ago, so we've got a lot of data about the difference something like this makes. What have you seen from this initiative?
Rep. Greg Landsman 5:23
The data is pretty incredible. They, you know, the kids that get two years of quality preschool, they show up to kindergarten prepared. There's an assessment that kindergartners take. Are they, you know, ready for school? Do they know their shapes, their colors? You know, socially, emotionally, are they doing okay in in a classroom, can they follow instructions? Can they interact well with other kids? Because if if they're not ready for those things, it is an enormous amount of work. It's very expensive, and a lot of kids don't get what they need, and they never are really on track. Whereas for those kids who have two years of quality preschool, they know their shapes, they know their colors, the alphabets. You know they're good at you know sitting there and and following instructions and working well with other kids in the classroom. And so those kids do really well. And then you know the other big milestone is are you reading successful by the end of third grade? Because that's when you really have to transition away from learning to read to reading to learn, and you know, kids that have two years of quality preschool are something like 80, 90% more likely to be reading on grade level at the end of third grade. Those are the kids that graduate, and so it's just an it's an investment that obviously pays off, but it's just I think it speaks to our commitment to one another and whether or not we really do believe that everyone should have a chance. Because if you do, you know, believe that everyone should have a chance, then you got to invest in those things that are going to set up a kid to be successful, as opposed to a situation where a kid doesn't have those things, and you know, before they even have a shot, they're already behind, and you know, you know, arguably out of the game, and so you know, investing in prenatal care for every expecting mom is you know a really important thing because brain development happens before a kid is even born, and then you know, does that parent have time with their kid? You know, do we offer paid family leave? Obviously, no, not to everybody, but we should. And those countries that do reap the benefits, so that's got to be a priority. And then, quality childcare and preschool should be as universal as kindergarten and first grade and second grade. Like everyone should have it. You know, if we do that, we'll have a fundamentally different and better education system.
Katie Olmsted 7:51
And it's not just about the education system; it's about success after school. It's about setting them up for success in life. And it is something that you are also prioritizing as you head back to Congress when you are reelected. You have a whole platform, a legislative platform about our great American moment. But the part of it that really speaks to this early childhood and also education, supporting educators, that's the Every Child Education Act. What can you tell me about what you're trying to do?
Rep. Greg Landsman 8:26
Yeah, so we wanted to put together sort of 10 bills that would fundamentally transform and improve the you know the country and people's lives. And you know, one of the bills has to do with the economy and fixing the tax code and breaking up you know all this corporate consolidation and taking on price gouging, getting costs down, and and and making the economy more fair, taking on the corruption, you know, issues one around healthcare and housing, and then of course, what is the big plan for education? And my feeling is, you put it in one big bill and say we're gonna we're gonna transform the system of education in this country and whether or not the bill gets on the floor, hopefully it starts a conversation, which is, you know, we haven't had a vision, a national vision for education in 25 years, and that one was really about testing, right?
Katie Olmsted 9:17
Not the best vision to be honest.
Rep. Greg Landsman 9:19
Yeah, didn't didn't didn't get us where we wanted to be. So, what is like if if you had a a country that was you know focused on becoming the best country in the world to educate in terms of educating their children, what would that look like? It would mean massive investments in early childhood, from prenatal care to childcare to preschool, and it would include paid family leave. It would be a a new approach to investing in K-12 where we were putting more and more of our dollars in classrooms and getting teacher pay up, and improving curriculum, so that teachers were not sitting around teaching to the test or. Having to test prep all their you know all the time, but you know doing project based learning and all the kinds of stuff that teachers want to do, where their kids can start exploring these topics together and and moving at their you know their own pace, and so just updating the curriculum so that you know kids are getting exactly what they need, and and teachers have time with their children, with their students, and then making college way more affordable, so that you know we have more and more people going to college, being able to pay for it, and then graduating without a bunch of debt.
Katie Olmsted 10:34
To be clear, curriculum is set at the state level. This would be federal support for the state's effort is that correct?
Rep. Greg Landsman 10:41
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just saying, like, look, you know, what we want to see is you know more and more, you know, project-based curriculum where teachers are really driving, you know, what's happening in their classrooms as opposed to what you've seen for decades, which is you know test-driven curriculum, which is just brutal for kids, absolutely brutal.
Katie Olmsted 11:06
I ask for that clarification because I think one of the the narratives around potentially dismantling the U.S. Department of Education is send it all to the states, send it all to the states. Well, we know in Ohio, when we send all the funding to the states, we're going to put it into vouchers like we have been doing, so that's not ideal. But curriculum is already a state-driven thing. What is happening in our classrooms? That said, the U.S. Department of Education provides essential funding and support for our students. I know IDEA is part of this legislative package for you. What are you hoping to do with that?
Rep. Greg Landsman 11:41
I mean, you know, the thing that the country promised to do when you know we started to invest more in in kids with disabilities who were struggling, who needed additional help, which is to fully fund it, as opposed to telling states they have to do it and then providing limited resources to do it. So, I mean, this is obviously one of the big differences between public schools and private schools is that public schools are required to provide a great education to every kid, which is which is wonderful. That's that's a shared value of of ours that every everyone matters, and so if if there's a kid that you know has additional needs, you know, public schools take that kid as they should, and you know some of these kids, you know, it will cost 50 to $100,000 a year to provide the services that that kid needs. A private school doesn't have to do that. In fact, they'll turn them away, but the federal government hasn't fully funded that. It's always been a percentage, and so it's time to fully fund it.
Katie Olmsted 12:46
And another one of the prongs of this that you mentioned was increasing teacher pay, making sure that we can recruit the very best people, retain the very best people to serve our students. But you've already done a fair amount of work around that on your work on the Social Security Fairness Act, that's a huge deal for educators in Ohio, especially our education support professionals who often work multiple jobs and had paid into social security and were paying into social security and were getting penalized for that.
Rep. Greg Landsman 13:16
Yeah, it's it's really a teacher, probably a OEA teacher. She's was in Lebanon. She just retired, and she. I met her at a town hall, and she asked me about the Social Security Fairness Act. I said I'm very supportive. She said, "Well, that's great, but I need you to help get it passed". And I said, "Sure, you know, here's my email, and let me know how I can be helpful. And she emailed and said, "You know, can you get more people to sign on as co-sponsors? Because if we can get count 290 co-sponsors, it the the he the speaker is supposed to you know put it on the floor for a vote. It's been there for 25 years. This is this would allow all of our teachers to get and firefighters and police officers and letter carriers to get all of their social security. So it's a difference of you know 7, 8, $900 a month. It's a big deal, and this is money that our teachers paid into. This is their money. It's their social security, but it was capped because they get a state pension, and but that's part of their compensation package, so I was very much committed to to getting it done, and we we started working on getting co-sponsors, and we ended up getting to 363. That's when I sort of had enough, and I was like, "This is absurd. This is just people saying they want to get it passed. You know, now I'm now I'm obsessed like she is, and we convinced the bill sponsors to do what they hadn't done, and you know ever, which is to force a vote. The speaker wasn't going to give it to us, and so there's a procedural, you know, path where if you get 218 people to sign a discharge petition. The speaker has to put it on the floor, and so we did that. We got we got five, sorry, 218 signatures in five days. Got it passed, and 25 years later, it's $20 billion a year that goes to our retired teachers and police officers and firefighters.
Katie Olmsted 15:18
But that's not something you can do if you're working in your own silo, if you're only working with other Democrats in Congress, only working with other people who are, you know, in a state or from a state like Ohio, where we had that weird system, I think that speaks a lot about what you do working across the aisle and working with anybody who will work with you on these issues.
Rep. Greg Landsman 15:41
Yeah, people like having something to do together. I think I don't think people really like fighting with each other. Maybe, maybe every once in a while, but I think most people would prefer to do something meaningful and and to do it with others. And so, yeah, we got that done with it's a group of Democrats, a group of Republicans, and we worked on it with teachers from all over the country, firefighters from all over country, cops, letter carriers. I mean, it was just remarkable. You know, thousands and thousands of people who went after this for months. I mean, the better part of a year, and decided this was it. You know, been too long, and you know, ultimately we got it done. And yeah, again, like I just think that's one of the things we need as people is to have that kind of shared work.
Katie Olmsted 16:33
And you do a lot of shared work. I on your website there is a list of the caucuses you are on, and it is as long as my arm, and it's it's it really runs the gamut. What can you tell me about how you work with other people of all different backgrounds, all different ideologies in the work that you're doing?
Rep. Greg Landsman 16:53
Yeah, I think the key is figuring out what you want to get done, and then who who are the people who will work on that. And most of the time, you can find people on both sides of the aisle who want to get something done on that particular issue, and so you know. And I also just think the more something becomes partisan, you know, the harder it is to get something done on that. So it's really important for us if we care about these things, which I do, is to figure out a way to make sure that we're making it bipartisan or trying to get it a little bit more bipartisan, so we can actually get something done.
Katie Olmsted 17:27
Because honestly, we can't afford not to get things done in Congress. What happens in Congress makes a huge impact on Ohioans and especially on our public schools every single day.
Rep. Greg Landsman 17:39
Exactly.
Katie Olmsted 17:40
Do you think a lot of people in Ohio really understand that connection and and why the congressional elections are so important?
Rep. Greg Landsman 17:48
Yeah, I think so. Although there, you know, you kind of want to get to a point where you're not thinking about Congress or the president. You're just, you know, you're you're you're out there. You're you're working. You're trying to raise a family. You're, you know, you don't want to spend so much time worrying about politics. And unfortunately, over the last couple of years, because of the chaos in Washington and the corruption and just the cruelty, it's it's it's impossible to avoid. And people recognize that this is this is where our tax dollars go, and the question is: Are they spending it on the things that we care about? Is the money going to housing and healthcare and education, or is it going to the super wealthy and you know with tax breaks and all kinds of other things that you know that advance you know their their agendas and and you know build their wealth at the expense of the rest of us, and I think more and more people appreciate that they need folks in Congress that are going to what that share their values, and then are going to spend our collective tax dollars on them as opposed to on you know which is what's happening now on the super wealthy.
Katie Olmsted 19:00
And as Ohioans are getting ready to make decisions about who we send to Congress to do that for us, what do people in Ohio's first congressional district, what do educators in the first congressional district really need to know about why you are the very best person for that job?
Rep. Greg Landsman 19:20
I just, as a former teacher, I you know I absolutely believe in what you do, and and and and as a as a son of teachers, like I just I'm in awe of of of what teachers do. It's just it's it's one of the hardest, if not the hardest, jobs I ever did, and I believe in not only supporting the profession and our professionals, but the kids that you all are investing in and making sure that they have what they that they have the healthcare they need, that they have the housing stability that we know they need, that they, you know, are in safe neighborhoods, all all that stuff, and so I think it's just you know having a partner that that knows the work and and values them.
Katie Olmsted 20:06
Well, I appreciate so much you sitting down to to share your thoughts with us.
Rep. Greg Landsman 20:11
Anytime.
Katie Olmsted 20:12
Good luck with the campaign.
Rep. Greg Landsman 20:13
All right, thank you.
Katie Olmsted 20:18
Congressman Greg Landsman is one of many OEA member recommended candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, who are running for office in the November general election. There's a link in the show notes for this episode for OEA members to see the member recommended candidates who will be on their own ballots. You can also go back and listen to the last 10-ish minutes of episode two of the season for a deeper dive into how those candidate recommendations are made by your fellow educators. The TLDR that you really need to know is that it all has to do with where candidates stand on public education and labor, and nothing else. But we have a lot more information in that episode about the process and how OEA has been making it easier for educators and candidates alike to be involved in that. New episodes drop every Thursday this season, so make sure you subscribe to this podcast wherever you like to listen, so you don't miss a thing. Because in Ohio, public education matters.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai