Dr. Larry Arnn
Appearances
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
They just have an interest in getting the kid and getting the money. You know, good institutions do have a big interest in their students succeeding, but in this case, they don't have a financial interest in that. Most of the money that goes into education is state and local money. But this money comes to the states and localities as free money. And so all you got to do is do what they say.
Morning Wire
Education Overhaul & RFK Jr.’s Bold Moves | 3.7.25
You don't have to tax your own people for it. You tax everybody for it. And so that is a perverse incentive. So what would it take to make this happen?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
That's why they come and work here and that's why they stay. Fun. You know, that's right.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
You know, what's our goal? And, you know, after that, it's just an interesting discussion about how you'd go about it. But they're going to have to figure that out. That's free people, see. Whereas just, you know, I was told when I went to work at Hillsdale College, we don't take the money from the government, so we don't have to find the sign or abide by the various federal titles.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Yeah, well, it could almost be damning with faint praise. But it is very good, and it has a very powerful sense of itself. It knows what it is for 180 years, and everybody there is committed to that. That's why it's great.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And I asked a lawyer, education lawyer, I said, why don't you send me Title IV of the Higher Education Act? I was curious, you know, what is it we escape by not taking this money? And he said, well, there's no use. He said, you won't be able to read it. And I said, you know, I'm pretty smart. What are you, a lawyer? And he said, no, I can't read it either. He said, only a specialist can read it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
See, Madison says, if the laws be so voluminous and changing that no one can tell what they say, even if they're made by the right process, they are not laws. So that's what we got now, right? We're trying to shape and control the society in detail. And that spirit is the spirit of historicism from which progressivism arises, and it's the spirit of early progressivism.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And it's the reason why now they're taking people's kids away from them and doing surgery on them.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Yeah. I've learned an interesting argument lately that I didn't know as much about. There's this man, Karl Popper, and he wrote the book The Open Society. And George Soros has founded the Open Society Foundation. And what is the Open Society Foundation? The open society is a society where all of our natural attachments are diminished. Family, love.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
We're open borders, tribes, government by consent. We have to be open to the whole world. The other night, the Secretary of State, Mr. Rubio, was questioned by a CNN journalist. But it was freedom of speech that led to the Nazis. And Rubio, you know, who turns out is a pretty smart guy, read a little history. Unlike this woman.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Yeah. I did not choose to remember her name. But she didn't know that the Nazis suppressed freedom of speech. And of course they did. It's what tyrants do. I have an online course on that right now.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And see, that's straight out of Karl Popper. See, attachment to freedom causes war and Nazism. And apparently that's all she knows. She didn't read a book and find out whether that's actually true or not. And that... How did I learn that? I read some really good – I haven't read Karl Popper. My education is incomplete or maybe it's more complete. I think it's more complete.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
But I read a long article by a highly intelligent man about him the other day and I said, oh, yeah, I see. That's what – and see, Soros, that's what he's doing to our country. He's going to undermine our attachments. And that means the worst thing in the world is for somebody to get elected president on the ground that he's going to work on his country first. See?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Because we're not supposed to have a country. Because then we'll have wars. But the purpose of the country, by the way, is to protect us.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Is that right? No, it's from 1844. The people who started Hillsdale College were – preachers on the frontier from New England, and they were classically educated. You had to know Latin and Greek to enter the college in 1844, and they were patriotic, learned Americans.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
It's – I can't think of a single thing, movement in politics that I have seen that is as important or skillful. And it even, the skillful part, I mean, first of all, to make it the center, you know, Donald Trump, you know, first of all, I met Donald Trump for the first time in early 2015. Astonished myself by deciding to take him seriously. Right.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
and because before you know I thought what everybody thought about him interesting guy you know show pony but What was he saying? He was saying, America first, drain the swamp. And, you know, America is for us. We the people in the United States, in order to secure the blessings of our liberty for ourselves and our posterity, right? America first. And drain the swamp.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
That's what the Doge is about. Because we have built this administrative class and it consumes, one way or another, half the gross domestic product of the country. It's got us $37 trillion in debt. And equally bad to the waste is that the things that we used to be good at, we're not very good at them anymore, right? We can't teach a kid to read to save our lives, right?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
We can't get equipment back from Afghanistan, most of which equipment ought not to have been there anyway. That's right. And so, I mean, you know, it was a very good idea to go over there and kill those guys who did the 9-11. And we did that. And the plan, I happened to know at the time, because I knew Don Rumsfeld very well and admired him very much,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
was to go over there and get them, light force, use their enemies against each other, kill them and get out. Go back somewhere safe. And, you know, I happen – I believe – I happen to know that because Roosevelt told me that. That's what they thought they were going to go do. And what – by the way, they did do that. They got that done.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
But then to stay and build a democracy there and in Iraq, I believe – what information I've been – I've learned – that they decided that after the fact, right? Which means they don't quite understand how politics works or how democracy is built, in my opinion.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Yeah, so, but, you know, that's one reason why it's good for a person, if he's going to be a citizen in a free country, to be a student and learn a bunch of stuff. Because, you know, you need to know, right?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Yeah, but the ignorance of that woman, Brennan, who questioned Marco Rubio, she was actually silenced, which means probably she was astonished by the point that everybody was afraid to say anything in Nazi Germany.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, no. I'm pretty good. I know a lot about it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
So the document begins, the nomination of Christians known as Free Will Baptists, along with other friends of education, grateful to God for the prevalence in the land of civil and religious freedom. and intelligent piety, believing sound learning is necessary to preserve these, hereby endow.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, we've gotten a lot of things wrong about Churchill in both directions. We think that Churchill is for war. And Churchill is for winning war, but avoiding it if possible, and winning it at the most economical possible cost. And now we think that some people are arguing Churchill caused the Second World War and dragged us into it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And that just turns out not to be true, and not even very hard to look up. And so that means that we've now made both mistakes, We thought Winston Churchill, I happen to know that people in power thought that Winston Churchill was their example for building democracy in Iraq. And just a factual point that he was, in fact, in charge of Iraq at the end of the First World War and for three years.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And that his plan was to cut the cost of being there and get out of there as quick as he could. And that's what he did. And he did not want Iraq. And he did want a place, a ruler acceptable to the people. But that's pretty broad range. What do they want, right? But he also said that this is not a central interest of Great Britain and we're not going to stay here.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And so that means that's got something wrong, right? Something, by the way, that is not difficult to look up. And then now we get another thing wrong, the opposite thing wrong. Now we think he was a crazy warmonger, and we've got to stop being that. What he was was closer to the truth about these things than anybody else I know. War is very dangerous.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
The only way to prevent it, and there's no perfect way, is to be in a position to win it at the cheapest possible cost. And the reason for that is only a fool, no classic philosopher, thinks that the purpose of politics is to win wars. They all think, and the founders of America thought, and every sensible person thinks, that the purpose of war is to preserve freedom and peace in politics.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And that means you do as little of it as you must. And you spend as little on it as you have to. And that means you need to be efficient about it. And you may have to spend a very great deal. But if you do, you regret it and look for a way to stop. And that whole thing that, you know, there's a national greatness movement.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
So we exist to provide sound learning in support of civil and religious freedom, which is America's gift to the world, by the way, and God's gift to America and America's gift to the world, and intelligent piety. Those are the purposes of Hillsdale College.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Winston Churchill would not be a good leader of such a movement because he thought the greatness of Britain was in its protection of its people. And so, yeah, so I argued those things. I've written a book to argue those things. And, you know, there is a tendency...
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
and I'm not immune to it either probably, except that I've just made a series of propositions and I think I can prove them, have labored to prove them. There's a tendency to use all kinds of information, including about things in the past, for a purpose alien to them. And that's because, and all humans have that, of course we have that. But how do you conquer that?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
One way is to learn to be a student. That is, take yourself out of it and look at the thing, which is what a student does. You're going to look at a book, and it will change you if you listen to it. And I think we have to get better at that in America because we make a lot of mistakes.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, I've been taught not to answer questions. What would he do?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
I have looked through the Churchill Corpus, and there's almost no mention of Ukraine. It is a breadbasket contended between Germany and Russia. As an independent thing, it hardly comes up. I can find a parallel kind of thing. And remember, this is very – so to figure out what to do about Ukraine, first of all, there's a current situation.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And the current situation would have to include not just Russian aggression, which is real – It would have to include history. It would have to include our strength or weakness. It would have to include China and its strength or weakness. It would have to include Iran and its strength or weakness. And how...
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
So whatever we do in Ukraine affects all that so that the net result you're after is the protection of our country if you're having to be elected in our country. So that's the way you think about it. And so I can describe to you in some detail places where Churchill made judgments like that. In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to be prepared to go to war to save Czechoslovakia from Hitler.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Czechoslovakia had a big defense industry and a big army, and he thought, now's the time. Neville Chamberlain did the opposite. Then in 1939, a year later, Hitler has violated his word in Czechoslovakia and taken all the rest of it that he promised not to take. And so then Neville Chamberlain gives a guarantee to Poland, which is farther away from Western Europe and weaker than Czechoslovakia.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And Churchill was not in the government on either occasion. But he thought, well, that's a big step. So when the war broke out, the Second World War actually broke out over German and Soviet invasion of Poland, and Britain declared war on September 3rd, 1939 because of that thing. And then they took no step, no serious step anyway, to actually defend Poland because they couldn't even get there.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And the Soviets and the Germans and the Nazis carved up Poland. And now there's a Polish government in exile in London. It's a long story, sorry. And Churchill becomes prime minister. And now he's dealing with the Soviet government in exile. And Britain has gone into war over Poland. And so he has hours of conversations with them.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
I turn out to be the man who edited those conversations and published them in the document volumes to the official biography. And the Polish leaders say, look, we have to confront these Russians before they get after the Battle of Stalingrad. Everybody knows the Russians are common and they're strong, really strong. And they say, you've got major forces with Americans in Europe.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, first of all, it's not part of the national maw of a system today. We don't take the money from the government, which money carries several hundred pages of rules that are impenetrable and difficult to even follow, even to understand. So we don't have that. And then what that liberates us to do is to form a college. It's a word that means partnership.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
We've got to confront the Russians, the Soviets, not let them take Poland. Churchill says, it would be lunacy to think that we will fight the Soviets over Poland. What he was for instead was you should give Russia territory in the east and we will give you territory from the Germans in the west and then maybe. Stalin will not gobble up Poland. They never made that deal.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
It's very odd how it worked out. At both Yalta and Potsdam, the two final conferences of the Second World War, there was no deal, but Stalin gave, offered, gave guarantees... of the free elections with independent international observers in Poland at both those conferences. And the Potsdam Conference was in July 1945. And then the war's over.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And in August of 1945, one month later, he arrested all the Polish leaders and closed Poland. And Churchill was not prepared to go to war over that. Probably could not have. even with us because the Soviet army was very big and we were busy bringing ours home so the point is that's not exactly opposite but You know, it's in the middle of Europe. Churchill favored the peripheral strategy.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
You know, we got a big navy. We can reach the edges of everything. If you look at a map of the British Empire, it rings Eurasia and some in South America, Canada, you know, important place where nobody lives. And so, yeah, what would he do? I don't know, but I am confident that When the Ukraine war started, I was concerned.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
I mean, first of all, the Russians said they guaranteed the independence of Ukraine, and then they invaded it. That's bad. They shouldn't do that. Against that, Crimea has been a Russian and Soviet naval base since the 18th century. I'd be astonished if we ever got them out of there. And, you know, so the reinvasion of Crimea, they never really left it. And then there's the fact that
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
that we are weak. We're running out of bullets. The Chinese have a bigger navy than we, and they're building much faster than we are. Is this the place to fight the war? I can see why there'd be big doubts about it. I've had them from the beginning. And then the effect, you know, China looks to me like a more serious problem than Russia. Hard to make the judgment, but I think so.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And we're driving them together. And you can see that in these negotiations, I don't know how any of this is going to come off. And remember, What would I do? I'm not in charge. I have been doubtful about us drawing a complete line in Ukraine from the beginning.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
There are some who think, and I don't know the story as well as they, that we could have made a deal with Russia about Ukraine a long time ago if we gave them the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, and that seems to be roughly what Trump is offering. So, there you go. That's what I think. I do not think, by the way... Oh, here's a... Let's talk about Lincoln. There's a man named Kossuth.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And so the reason Hillsdale gets on and proceeds is because to come to Hillsdale College in any capacity, you must make a commitment to the founding mission of the college. You must believe, you must agree that the college has a right to pursue the mission and you will help it. It doesn't mean you can't argue with it. You can argue about anything at Hillsdale College.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
He was a Hungarian revolutionary. There's a statue of him, a nice one, in Washington, D.C. And he went around America giving speeches about Hungarian independence. And he got Kossuth resolutions passed in many places. And... and one of the places is Springfield, Illinois.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And so he gave a talk to the Republican Club, and then the committee retired, and they came back with a resolution, and it's rather different than most of them. It says the United States has no right to intervene in any country by nature. I'm paraphrasing. There are three. The second one is... If a country attacks us, we can.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And the third one is, if a third country attacks another country, we may intervene if we find it in our interest. You see, signed, A. Lincoln. LAUGHTER I thought that's something of a guide about how to think about it. Is it in our interest?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
But you agree that the institution is formed for these purposes and that is not to be obstructed. And so that means that we, you know, the first line of Aristotle's politics is every community is formed for the sake of some good, right? Well, we have a good that we're formed for and we follow it. And that means we can cooperate. We can be a college together.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And, you know, college is a certain kind of thing, a very beautiful kind of thing. And it's not for everybody. But for people who are prepared to suffer, to learn the best things, it's great. You are such a person, by the way, I've discovered. It's the reason I get on with you. That, you know, it takes work. You have to change your mental weather.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
You have to forget about yourself to learn the best things. Now I'm going to read this book. And the question on my mind is not, what do I think about it yet? The question on my mind is not, do I agree with it yet? The question is, what does this say? And what does it mean? And then that's first. And then after that, is it true? Is it good? So that's college, right? And you learn to do that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And you learn to do that in the humanities and in the natural sciences. And it's a wonderful activity, and it's difficult. What is education? It comes from a Latin word that means to lead forth. And that means education is the process of our helping the young go forward in the way that they are made to go. The Bible says, train up the child in the ways he's meant to go.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
That's what it means. And, you know, you learn we're freedom guys, you and me. And the truth of human freedom is profoundly revealed in college education. in the daily operations in every class by this fact. You can't learn for them. You can only help them. They have to want to. And so, you know, the first test when we, you know, take every human achievement, like you have built Turning Point.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
I've walked around it today for the first time. It's very impressive. And it is the product of two things that are the cause of every human achievement. You are able and you are willing and you urgently want to do it and you can do it. And this is your thing right now. Everybody I've met here and some dozens are also willing and able. Everybody's a volunteer. That's why it works.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Should that even exist? No, it's a bad idea. Why? Well, first of all,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
uh there too there there's there are many reasons but uh the first starts with the nature of education now i'll start with the constitutional reason first because it's actually very important but it's not the most important the constitution of the united states lists 17 things if i remember the number of paragraphs right that the federal government may pursue in article 1 section 8 of the constitution and education is not among them uh
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, not there. It doesn't. Well, it does, actually, at the beginning of Article I, Section 8. if the General Welfare Clause meant that, then the rest of Article I, Section 8 would be redundant, right?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
So, yet, in the summer that they were writing the Constitution of the United States, they were passing the Northwest Ordinance, which is one of the four organic laws of the United States, and it gave 1 64th of the western lands in the Northwest Territory reserved for only one public purpose, education in each township.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Now, that meant that the federal government and the biggest asset it ever owned supported education through the states. That's the constitutional arrangement. It's not that education is not important. It's vital. It's just that it is not a federal authority for profound reasons. The second thing about education is it is inherently as local as a thing can possibly be and
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Because the learning is in each student and they need others around to help them. They need to be nearby.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
You know, it was actually first formed in 1867. And it was called, at the outset, the Department of Education. And there was enormous pushback. And so they downgraded it to a part of the Department of the Interior called the Bureau of Education. And it was to be a clearinghouse of information among the states. No regulatory power.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Just gather up facts and make them available to... And it's defended on that ground for decades. And then in 1979, Jimmy Carter, who I read has a deal with the teachers' union, elevates it to a department. And it actually goes into... operation two months before Ronald Reagan was elected president. And every Republican since Reagan has promised to get rid of it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
I think it's very possible that we've elected the one who will do it now. And it should be done because here's the numbers, right? First of all, it's a microcosm of what afflicts the most serious affliction in America. There are 23 million round numbers in permanent civilian employees of the government, state, local, and federal. 11 million are in education.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Yeah. And of the 11, 6.7 million, which is more than half, are neither teachers nor teacher's assistants. So it's top-heavy education.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
6.7, yeah, yeah. The non-teachers outnumber the teachers in public education. And, you know, Hillsdale College starts charter schools, about 100 of them now.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
It's like the ratio is like 8 to 1 in favor of teachers. Because you don't need all that, right? And a lot of that is driven by funding from the Department of Education, which directs a lot of the state spending because it demands that they do certain things and spend their own money on it, too. And hire people to manage it, see. So you need to decentralize.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
The whole government of the United States is radically top-heavy and expensive. And so education is a great place to start in reforming that because of the nature of education itself, which is you don't need a lot of bureaucracy to run it. You need focus on the classroom.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Last time I looked, but it's, you know.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, they, you know, shuffle paper. You know, they make rules. See, you have to understand that the, well, you do understand. The bureaucratic state is a different state.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
kind of government from constitutional rule this is the most important thing one of the most important things i learned from hillsdale yeah and it and it proceeds in a different way uh you know i have 850 employees it turns out i hate rules uh me too because what rules do is they Try to, you know, something goes wrong, pass a rule so it doesn't go wrong again.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Next thing you know, you got a thousand rules. The right way is goals. What will we achieve together? Now, go do that. And the only rules that work are rules your mother told you. Don't lie. Don't steal.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Be nice. Stuff like that. And so in a free society, things work from the bottom up. And people are responsible for themselves. Because you have to locate authority and responsibility together. And so if you move authority to a central place, people lose responsibility for their lives.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
If you return authority to them, they must accept responsibility for their lives, and then they can live as free people. So education is exactly like that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Well, first of all, the progressives who did all this were educators, and they had adopted a tendency in modern philosophy— the purpose of learning or knowledge or reason is not to know the thing, but to make. And so we're going to remake the society.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
When he's president at Princeton, Woodrow Wilson said that his object was to make the young men, his men back then, of Princeton as little like their fathers as possible. So we're going to remake the society. And that means that now all of a sudden higher education is an exercise not in discovery or truth but in power. And that's the key to the progressive era.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
Proud to be here with such a fine student.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
They substitute the pursuit of truth for the pursuit of truth power. And that means the federal government becomes an engine of power. And the administrative state looks upon us as objects to shape, not as citizens to represent. And that's why there's, I mean, these crazy things that the Doge is discovering. That's why they're there.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Real Education vs. The Department of Education
And they're not crazy if your purpose is to remake everything in the society. See, I walked around your place, right? And what I saw was there's a sort of pattern. There's rooms, a lot of people in them. They're mostly young and attractive. They smile a lot. And there's not somebody, there's not rules all over the wall. There's not people watching everything they do. Right.