Too Cool for Public Schools

They say people hate me, but I’m not sure why – I think there’s a misunderstanding.
Some powerful forces – like parents, and teachers, and students – give me a backhanding.
And then I was asked on TV if I visited schools where kids underperform.
I said that I haven’t, but maybe I should – most considered that answer lukewarm.

Should teachers have guns in the classroom? My gosh, that’s a thorny and complex morass.
I just can’t imagine my dear first-grade teacher popping caps in some poor student’s ass.
But it’s up to each state to decide what will work; not the government’s place to impose.
So the odds of your kids living through the school day will depend on which township you chose.

My mission for decades has been to present every family with choices galore:
The rich and religious with private and charter; the public schools stuck with the poor.
Some states (mostly red ones) have put plans in place that I certainly think are cohesive,
Using billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, which I hope to get a big piece of.

Our public school system, which I oversee, I’ve described as a real “dead end.”
It may be sufficient for blue-collar families, but not for my kids to attend.
Each state should set their own direction. A federal hijacking will only spoil it.
Let each district choose how their children are taught – and where trans kids should go to the toilet.

I hemmed and I hawed and I smiled and I struggled during my sit-down with Lesley Stahl.
And afterwards, millions of people who watched it asked why had I done it at all?
A chance for a “teachable moment,” to let me explain without being ridiculed,
But now that it’s over, it’s painfully obvious I am the one who got schooled.