US Public School is Not Bad—It’s A SCAM!

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the surprising ways American public schools have started to resemble multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes. From endless fundraisers and donation drives to the rise of for-profit school photo companies and Scholastic book fairs, they explore how the focus has shifted from education to extracting money from parents and families.

They discuss the impact of teachers’ unions, the inefficiency of increased school spending, and the lack of accountability in the public school system. The conversation is filled with personal anecdotes, data, and a critical look at how school choice and alternative education models could offer a solution.

If you’ve ever wondered why your child comes home talking more about selling popcorn than what they learned in class, or if you’re frustrated by the constant fundraising requests, this episode is for you.

Finally, here’s today’s episode outline, as Simone did this one! The transcript can be found at the end.

Episode Outline: Schools Are MLMs Now - We Are In Full-On Idiocracy Already

The Gist

* The only thing our son talks about with regard to his school experience is fundraisers and donations

* This week—THIS WEEK ALONE—we have been repeatedly hammered about THREE THINGS:

* Picture day (retakes)

* Donating candy for decorating gingerbread houses, BECAUSE THEY CANCELLED THE ONE FIELD TRIP OF THE YEAR

* Participating in a readathon fundraiser

This comes at a time when it is more clear than ever that US public schools are failing:

* Trening on X: A University of California, San Diego report shows placements into remedial math courses jumped from 32 students in 2020 to 921 in 2025, or 11.8% of freshmen. Despite high school GPAs averaging 3.74 and many claiming calculus experience, placement tests revealed gaps in basics like fractions and word problems, with weak links to transcripts. Factors include COVID learning losses, test-free admissions since 2021, and more students from under-resourced schools; outcomes are poor, with high failure rates in calculus and fewer engineering degrees.

* Peter Meijer puts it well: In just a decade, education activists in the US managed to set back student outcomes by 50 years, an impressive accomplishment rivaled only by the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.

Schools Have Become MLMs

Schools Are Being Used to Shill Private Companies’ Products

There’s a Great Planet Money episode titled “The secret world behind school fundraisers and turning kids into salespeople”

Here’s a summary of the NPR Planet Money episode, “Why do schools in the U.S. rely on kids to raise money?”:

* The podcast addresses the open secret that school fundraisers are a staple in American education.

* It talks about how students are often incentivized to sell products (like popcorn, chocolate, wrapping paper) with the promise of prizes—sometimes extravagant ones, but usually less valuable than the effort required.

* SC personal memories selling See’s Candies and wrapping paper

* The episode follows Villacorta Elementary in La Puente, California, showing how fundraising is needed for things not covered by the official budget—especially field trips. The PTA plays a central, tireless role in organizing these efforts.

* While schools receive substantial funding per student (mostly spent on salaries and basic operations), Principals have limited discretionary funds. Budget rules often restrict spending, making PTA-raised money especially valuable because it’s unrestricted

* [NOT MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE: This spending is functionally restricted, if not technically restricted, by TEACHERS’ UNIONS DEMANDS]

* Fundraising companies compete for PTA business, enticing members with dinners and easy logistics. The typical split is ~40% to the school, 60% to the company, so the value-return for schools is not great.

* Kids today “sell” mostly via family and friends, not door-to-door, but social pressure remains. Teachers often organize smaller events, while kids hope for prizes, even if they’re small trinkets.

* The motivation for fundraising is partly tactical: It’s easier to rally families to support fun perks like field trips and parties than operational costs. Cash donations are less popular than fundraisers with tangible rewards.

* PTA funds fill gaps, helping schools overcome bureaucratic hurdles and buy things needed quickly, which public funds can’t always provide.

* The Planet Money team concludes that ultimately, the system persists because people prefer to give when there’s excitement, visible reward, and community involvement—despite the inefficiencies and emotional discomfort of turning kids into salespeople.

Don’t Forget the Other Fundraisers!

These fundraisers are in addition to X-athons, school photos, and Scholastic book fairies, which were a part of my public school education and also a part of our son’s public school education

X-Athons

Walkathons and readathons, along with similar achievement-based fundraisers, have been held in US public schools since at least the early 1970s, gaining significant popularity by the late 1970s and 1980s

* Simone’s walkathon experiences

* Octavian’s current readathon

* But this encourages kids to read!!

* NOT AT ALL

School Photos

The Lifetouch Conspiracy

* Early school photos were often group shots taken outside the school; the idea of individual portraits and unified “picture day” events became popularized more broadly as companies like Lifetouch scaled up operations and introduced standardized processes and products.

* Then Lifetouch came along

* Lifetouch is the major school photography company in the US

* Lifetouch has been providing school photos since 1936, when it was founded as National School Studios in Minnesota. This means the company has nearly 90 years of continuous operation in the school photography business

* Prior to Lifetouch’s expansion, the school photography industry was comprised mostly of smaller, independent photographers and regional companies.

* It encourages schools to disrupt classes to have students photographed so they can sell those photos to parents

* Lifetouch photos ARE AWFUL

* Public schools receive a commission from Lifetouch ranging from 15% to as high as 50% of sales, though the typical range is 15% to 20% for most contracts.

* Some agreements are based on a flat fee per package sold or a guaranteed minimum commission. Other contracts might include signing bonuses or extra products and services as incentives for schools.

Scholastic Book Fairs

* Scholastic book fairs have been held in public schools since 1981, when Scholastic purchased the California School Book Fairs and began organizing in-school book fairs nationwide

* California School Book Fairs was a company that made money by selling books directly to students and families at school-hosted events

* Schools that host Scholastic book fairs generally receive either 25% of the total sales as cash profit or 50% as “Scholastic Dollars,” which is a form of store credit usable for educational materials from Scholastic

* This 25% cut only comes with the highest tier; the book sales have to exceed $2,500 to get that cut

* Profit returned to schools nationwide totals approximately $200 million annually.

* But Scholastic makes A LOT more

* Scholastic Corporation is a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SCHL

* Gross profit margins for Scholastic Corporation have typically been strong, with the latest trailing twelve months figure around 55.8%

More Spending Doesn’t Produce Better Outcomes

This is summarized well by Emil Kirkegaard on substack in his writeup “Against the economists on school spending” in which Kirkegaard highlights how large randomized, controlled trials on educational interventions almost always show no or negligible benefits.

Highlights:

* Kirkegaard critiques claims, common in economics and education policy circles, that increasing school spending significantly improves student outcomes, particularly test scores.

* Kirkegaard references major studies (like the Coleman Report) showing that parental background and socioeconomic status matter much more than school variables for student achievement. School-related factors contribute only about 10% to outcomes.

* He highlights meta-analyses and prominent studies frequently cited by economists, noting that effect sizes for increased spending on test scores are extremely small (typically 0.030.030.03 standard deviations per $1,000 per pupil, or even less), and that results are often muddied by bias, p-hacking, and publication bias in the literature.

* There is deep skepticism regarding complex economist studies employing complicated statistical techniques to claim causal effects. Kirkegaard prefers large, simple randomized controlled trials, which consistently find null or very minor effects for spending and interventions (average effect size about 0.060.060.06).

* Examples such as massive funding boosts for “Abbott” districts in New Jersey, Mark Zuckerberg’s donation to Newark schools, and LeBron James’ high-profile Akron school, all failed to improve achievement gaps or test scores.

* Kirkegaard argues academia has self-interest in producing research suggesting more funding yields positive results, comparing “Big Education” to industries like “Big Pharma” when it comes to bias.

* He concludes that real-world attempts to increase spending fail to close gaps, effects are minimal, and much of the advocacy for spending increases rests on flawed assumptions and weak evidence.

Main Takeaways:

* Economist studies using quasi-experimental methods find tiny effects, but often exaggerate their practical significance.

* There is an incentive for academia to argue for more funding, raising doubts about objectivity.

* Real-world historical cases of major school funding or reform projects have repeatedly failed to close achievement gaps or boost outcomes meaningfully.

* Strategies focused solely on spending increases are unlikely to solve deep-rooted problems in education; student backgrounds and broader social factors are far more influential.

Despite This, People Keep Throwing Money at the Problem

The Center for Black Excellence

One of our listeners encouraged us to check this out

Teacher’s Unions are Driving the Charge

This is well illustrated by Tony Senik who wrote an article in City Journal about the California Teachers Association that provides a good case study of this; it’s titled “The Worst Union in America”

* Senik argues the CTA is the single most powerful and problematic union in California, and is central to the decline of California’s public education quality as it blocks education reform, protects underperforming and sometimes criminal educators, and lobbies to inflate teacher salaries and benefits, creating fiscal burdens for the state.

* The CTA’s power surged after the Rodda Act (1975), which allowed collective bargaining for teachers; since then, it has used its growing membership and financial resources ($186 million annual income, much spent on politics) to oppose reforms and control local school boards.

* Notable CTA campaigns include blocking school choice initiatives and fighting measures like class-size reduction (which led to costly results without educational improvements) and resisting efforts to make teacher dismissal easier.

* Simone anecdote: Biology teacher in high school

* Firing bad teachers in California is extremely difficult due to union-backed rules. Teacher misconduct—ranging from incompetence to criminality—rarely leads to termination.

* The article details incidents where the union used aggressive tactics to oppose vouchers, accountability measures, and reforms, including intimidation, costly ad campaigns, and political influence.

* “In 1991, the CTA took to the ramparts again to combat Proposition 174, a ballot initiative that would have made California a national leader in school choice by giving families universal access to school vouchers. When initiative supporters began circulating the petitions necessary to get it onto the ballot, some CTA members tried to intimidate petition signers physically. The union also encouraged people to sign the petition multiple times in order to throw the process into chaos. “There are some proposals so evil that they should never go before the voters,” explained D. A. Weber, the CTA’s president. One of the consultants who organized the petitions testified in a court declaration at the time that people with union ties had offered him $400,000 to refrain from distributing them. Another claimed that a CTA member had tried to run him off the road after a debate on school choice.”

* The CTA also funds various progressive causes unrelated to education to broaden its political reach and discourage dissent.

* Among these causes: implementing a single-payer health-care system in California, blocking photo-identification requirements for voters, and limiting restraints on the government’s power of eminent domain. The CTA was the single biggest financial opponent of another Proposition 8, the controversial 2008 proposal to ban gay marriage, ponying up $1.3 million to fight an initiative that eventually won 52.2 percent of the vote. The union has also become the biggest donor to the California Democratic Party. From 2003 to 2012, the CTA spent nearly $102 million on political contributions; 0.08 percent of that money went to Republicans.

* Senik points to the case of Locke High School, which illustrate how union resistance can stifle reform; only external moves, like conversion to a charter school operator, led to improvements.

* “Consider the case of Locke High School in the poverty-stricken Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. Founded in response to the area’s 1967 riots, Locke was intended to provide a quality education to the neighborhood’s almost universally minority students. For years, it failed: in 2006, with a student body that was 65 percent Hispanic and 35 percent African-American, the school sent just 5 percent of its graduates to four-year colleges, and the dropout rate was nearly 51 percent.

* Shortly before Locke reached this nadir, the school hired a reform-minded principal, Frank Wells, who was determined to revive the school’s fortunes. Just a few days after he arrived, a group of rival gangs got into a dust-up; Wells expelled 80 of the students involved. In the new atmosphere of discipline, Locke dropped “from first in the number of campus crime reports in LAUSD [Los Angeles Unified School District] to thirteenth,” writes Donna Foote in Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America. Test scores and college acceptance also began to rise, Foote reports.

* But trouble arose with the union when Wells began requiring Locke teachers to present weekly lesson plans. The local CTA affiliate—United Teachers Los Angeles—filed a grievance against him and was soon urging his removal. The last straw was Wells’s effort to convert Locke into an independent charter school, where teachers would operate under severely restricted union contracts. In May 2007, the district removed Wells from his job. He was escorted from his office by three police officers and an associate superintendent of schools, all on the basis of union allegations that he had let teachers use classroom time to sign a petition to turn Locke into a charter. Wells called the allegations “a total fabrication,” and the signature gatherers backed him up. The LAUSD reassigned him to a district office, where he was paid $600 a day to sit in a cubicle and do nothing.”

* CTA-backed policies jeopardize the fiscal security of California schools, noting unsustainable teacher pensions and job protections even in times of budget crisis.

The Solution is School Choice

* The only way to fight this is to allow parents to take their school tax dollars elsewhere:

* Private school

* Charter schools

* Homeschool

* To give people an example of how much of a difference this makes: These dollars being portable HAS A BITE

* Our school tax for 2025 was 8,971.78 (this is not based on income, it was connected to our home, which we purchased in 2019 for $535,000

* Note this is just local funding; our schools also get state and federal funding

* How much does the average american household pay annually in school district taxes (tax to support public schools)?

* In many states, school funding relies heavily on local property taxes, often representing about 21% of the local education budget, with the rest coming from state and federal sources.

* in New Jersey, the average annual school tax bill per household is around $6,200

* In California, local property taxes funded about 21% of the education budget, but average amounts per household are not directly stated; median property taxes (all purposes) tend to range from $1,000 to over $10,000 depending on locality.

* Public school spending per student averages about $15,600 nationwide, but most of this comes from a mix of local, state, and federal sources rather than just household property taxes

* LET’S MAKE THAT PORTABLE

* This makes public schools accountable

* We don’t want public schools to be eliminated; we want them to be accountable

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: HELLOOOOO MALCOLM! I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because I am being driven crazy by our son.

The only thing he talks about with regard to his school experiences are fundraisers and donations. Oh, she

Malcolm Collins: says this and I’m, and I am. Absolutely serious. I have never, and I ask my kid every day, what’d you do at school today? What’d you learn in school today? Yeah. Would you, I’ll get some vague notion like numbers or like maybe there was a book.

If it was a fundraising event, they remember every effing detail.

Simone Collins: I’m sorry. He does not talk about books that they read or any, any educational activity. Maybe he talks about like playing around with some friends, but no, I, this week alone, Malcolm, this week alone, okay. We’ve been repeatedly hammered about three things.

One Picture day retakes two donating candy for decorating gingerbread houses because they canceled the one field trip of the year [00:01:00] and instead of making gingerbread houses that day, but God forbid, they provide the supplies for gingerbread houses. And then three, participating in the Readathon fundraiser for the school.

Three school fundraiser activities. One week, one randomly sampled week. Of the school year,

Malcolm Collins: and this is becoming a, I don’t think this, and I think what you’re gonna go into, this isn’t just our school district. The school system in the United States has become basically an MLM scam. Yeah. It teaches kids almost nothing.

Yeah. And is completely dedicated to milking as much money from parents as possible.

Simone Collins: And yes. And this comes at a time when it is more clear than ever that us. Public schools are failing. You know, this isn’t just an issue of them being turned into MLMs. They’re also utterly and completely failing on x. I log onto X this morning, of course, after an evening of my son hounding me for money right from the school because he’s been indoctrinated not to learn, to read, to raise money for them.

[00:02:00] And, and, and then I see trending on x. That a University of California San Diego report shows placements into remedial math courses have jumped from 32 students in 2020 to 921 in 2025, or 11.8% of freshmen. 10% of freshmen are in remedial math. Despite high school GPAs averaging 3.74, and many claiming calculus experience placement tests revealed gaps in basics like fractions and word problems.

Is this, wait, this is policemen you said? No. This is students at uc, San Diego. Oh wow. The university in California at San Diego. A, a good, like a good, decent school. My mom went there. Not, I mean, you know, she wasn’t, she, she’s, I think she was smart. I. I consider her to be anyway, the, the, the average GPA of a student going into uc, San Diego is 3.74.

[00:03:00] 3.74 word problems. Yeah. 3.74. That’s a decent GPA out of four point. No, that’s a decent

Malcolm Collins: GPAI didn’t have a 3.74. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so I mean, people are pointing to COVID learning losses and test free admission since 2021 and more students from under-resourced schools. But let’s, let’s, let’s be clear here.

I think an underrated thing that no one is really talking about. Is this MLM thing? So we’re gonna go into it. I wanna talk about this today. We’re gonna talk about other underlying factors, money in schools, but I think the, the MLM thing is if more money does

Malcolm Collins: not make schools better, I wanna make this clear.

Are you gonna go into the, we’re gonna go into that

Simone Collins: Malcolm, we’re gonna go into that. But I, we’re gonna start with the very colorful world of MLMs because if you’re not in the US I think it’s, it’s gonna be really surprising to you. And if you are in the US. Even if you are in, in our generation, millennials, like we’re, we’re in our, in our mid to late thirties, you are going to find [00:04:00] that.

Oh my God, even in my childhood, my school was in MLM because I, I, I realized this myself. So basically there are many ways in which schools are acting like MLMs. One of the big ones that I think is the most egregious is that schools are being used to shill. Private companies, products. And this isn’t in the, in the form of fundraisers.

Which I don’t know if you experienced Malcolm, because I don’t think you ever went to public school. I

Malcolm Collins: did go to public school. I went to a lot of public school.

Simone Collins: Okay, so you went to public school and then you were sent into like the prison camps and system, so like No, no, I went to public school, then private school, then prison.

Were you ever in for your public school or even for private school, like sent out to sell wrapping paper or chocolates?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was, yeah. And we, they, we’d also do fundraisers with families. We’d also do fundraisers for little toys we’d do. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So there’s a, the, this is a very common practice in, in US public schools.

I did it too. I sold wrapping paper and I sold Seas candies to raise [00:05:00] money for my school. I cannot remember what it was possibly for. But there’s a really great Planet Money episode. This is a, a podcast affiliated with the NPR that I actually running

Malcolm Collins: these, right? It’s like, other companies that run them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s other companies. So the episode that the Planet Money did investigating these was called The Secret World Behind School Fundraisers and Turning Kids into Salespeople. Which, it addresses the open secret that school fundraisers are a staple of American education which I think people just don’t really think about.

It talks about how students are often incentivized to sell products like popcorn or chocolate or wrapping paper with a promise of prizes, sometimes extravagant prizes, but usually way less valuable than the effort required. Yeah. And the episode follows villano Villanova Elementary School in it, it’s in California.

It’s just a normal, totally middle of the road. California Elementary School. They show how fundraising is needed for things not covered by the official budget, like [00:06:00] especially field trips. Which kind of makes, you know, like our, our son’s field trip being canceled, like a very indicative of this. What was the field trips supposed to be too and why was it canceled?

Some, some like kind of Dutch theater. It seemed, it seemed cute and wholesome and adorable, but yeah, they’re not doing that anymore, so it doesn’t matter. And, and, and the PTA, apparently the Parent Teachers Association plays a really pivotal role in deciding to do these because they want like, cool things for their kids and they’re just not seeing it happen.

So they’re turning to these private companies as a fundraiser, which is really kind of lame because they’re only getting really small cuts of this. So while schools receive substantial funding per student. Mostly spend on salaries and basic operations principles have limited discretionary funds, so budget rules often restrict spending, and this is why PTA raised money plays such a valuable function in this.

Here’s what’s not mentioned in the episode, because Planet Money being NPR affiliated, being a generally progressive podcast does not. [00:07:00] I guess wanna anger teachers unions, but teachers unions are really the ones that are tying school district’s money on how money could be spent. And in basically insisting the money needs to be spent on teachers’ pensions and teachers’ unions, and all these things that, that really restrict school’s ability to buy basic school supplies or you know, send the kids on field trips or, or do any of the fun things that a school should have discretionary spending to do.

Now, the, the, the fundraising companies, they, they compete for PTA business so that they will actively market to parent-teacher associations and entice members with thi things like dinners and super easy logistics. So they’ll like take a mom out and be like, oh, like this will, this will make so much money and the kids will have so much fun.

But the typical split is about 40% to the school, 60% to the company. So you’re, you’re really wasting people’s time with us. Like people should really just be donating money to schools and the value to Yeah, the value return to schools is really not great at all. And, and of course the kids are [00:08:00] mostly selling to family and friends.

They’re not going to door to door, but I used to go door to door. I don’t know if you did.

Malcolm Collins: And remember we were encouraged to by the organizations. I always thought it seemed like an enormous waste of time

Simone Collins: because it is, because the, again, like this school is only getting, and this is in, in like a nicer situation, around 40%.

The reason, the, the reasoning why and what there’s trying like, at least with these companies are telling to parent-teacher associations and parents is, oh, well, like people don’t wanna donate to a fundraiser, but people will find it more fun to sell. You know, like wrapping paper and popcorn. ‘cause everyone likes popcorn.

Who doesn’t wanna buy popcorn? Does,

Malcolm Collins: does the NPR R piece go over? There’s the 40 60 split. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They’re open about that. The, the one thing that I, I criticize them for is not really talking about the role that teachers unions. Take in, like taking all the money that isn’t associated with student outcomes or student benefits, that it’s all just going to teacher union associated and, and I, [00:09:00]

Malcolm Collins: it’s absolutely not that they’re not getting enough money.

American schools get more money per student than I think almost anywhere on earth.

So if you combine secondary teary and primary education with the second highest spending nation on earth after Luxembourg.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Yeah. It,

Malcolm Collins: it is that they are not spending it, well, they’re wasting it on the unions. Yeah.

Simone Collins: It, it’s being wasted on really stupid stuff. So the but the, the like, sort of the, where the planet money team leaves, it is like, oh, well this system persists because people prefer to give when there’s excitement and visible reward and community involvement.

Like in, in the, in the episode itself, which I’ll link to in my show notes, which is available for our paid. Patreon and Substack subscribers. Thank you so much. You guys. It’s, they, they talk about. Like they, they, I think they include like some, some audio from an assembly where they’re like, yeah, like, let’s go.

You know, like they make, it’s, it’s a total MLM thing. Yeah. It’s like those stupid MLM like motivational speeches. It’s insane that they’re doing this in schools wasting students’ time for this. But guess what you think? Oh, so this is. Like, [00:10:00] okay. That it’s just pretty bad that this happens in school. But I mean like this is something the PGA puts together.

Like maybe it happens for a portion of the year. I remember we did it twice a year in my middle school. That is not the only fundraiser that’s happening at your school. Like I said, our son has come home to us for with three asks so far this week. Okay. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: hold on, hold on. It’s not just that now. Now they’re doing stuff like for our kids.

They’ll give them computers to take home on days when like schools cancel for the date. Didn’t even

Simone Collins: include that.

Malcolm Collins: You’re supposed to like learn on this home computer, except the apps, which are games for the kids to play on require a subscription to pay. Yeah. And of course they know the parents, that the kids are just gonna ask the parents, sign me up for this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I, yeah, I didn’t even include that. So that’s another one. Here’s some other examples. Is, is is walkathons and Readathon. So I had this, this fight with our son Octavian last night about, a readathon that his school is doing. The way that these work is with a walkathon or a readathon basically Walkathon and [00:11:00] Readathon are, they’ve been held at US public schools since like the 1970s and they got really popular starting in the 1980s.

And, and they’re meant to sort of like encourage healthy activity or like encourage kids to read, like so drive literacy, drive. Physical fitness by getting kids to pledge to walk a certain distance. And then you, you have your friends and neighbors and families say, well, I’ll give you this many dollars per mile walked or per book red.

And then those dollars are, are funds that you donate to the school. So this, this, in this case, at least, it’s directly donated to the school, but it’s still the school trying to raise funds for discretionary spending again, because they’re not. Their, their money is tied up by teachers unions, basically. And other rules, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: the way I wanna handle the walkathons and stuff like that with our kid, just so he doesn’t have to go and walk for no money is just on the days that the walkathon is, we won’t send ‘em to school.

Simone Collins: Well, but here’s the problem with the read-a-thon. And here’s the funny thing is like, oh, this [00:12:00] encourages physical fitness, just encourages reading activity. Okay? So Octavian last night is like, well mom, you have to, you have to gimme money for the readathon. And I’m like, okay, fine. Like read a book. And he’s like, well, fine.

And he like goes and grabs a book. You know, one of the, one of the books that, that we read to them, that they really like the x for geniuses books. Yeah. And he chooses the optical physics one, or optical whatever. And, and he, he, he starts signing up pages and stuff, but he starts getting really frustrated and because, you know, he’s still like in that sanding out stuff and the phonics stuff and it, it, it’s just, you know, he didn’t feel like doing it.

He didn’t wanna read the book. And he is like, it’s a read-a-thon. You don’t have to read books for it. And I’m like, Octavian, the whole point is you have to read books. But he’s like, no, it’s about getting prizes. It’s very clear to me that the way that this is being sold to the kids in school is not, oh, reading is great.

Let’s read more books. We love reading. You know, like, show how much it’s about Raz Mom, is that about reading? [00:13:00] No, literal, literally, I, I, I didn’t have my phone right next to me, so I couldn’t film him yelling at me about this. But he was getting so mad. He was like, no. You know how like you get really confident when you’re like mad at me and you think that I’m wrong?

He’s like, you’re obviously wrong. He was doing that to me.

Speaker: All right, buddy. Tell me about this Readathon. This Readathon. Like my teacher said, you don’t have to read for Readathon. Okay. So what do you do for Readathon? We just don’t have to like read and we can do all the stuff. What’s, well, what is the stuff? It’s a game board. It’s a game board, yeah. That we have to fill up.

Speaker 2: If we fill up all of it and save $200. And we’re short a trophy, a star one if we save home over $2,000. Oh, okay. Yeah. We need to get the most donations. And why do you want the most donations? [00:14:00] Because we get, because if we don’t get that many donations, then somebody else is going to be in first place. And how do you fill out the game map?

We need to do a lot of stuff. It says, well, what’s the stuff in a read-a-thon? It is make guess you read books, right? No, you don’t have to.

Simone Collins: Where he is like, no, mom, obviously it’s not about reading. It’s about the praise. And I was just getting so mad and I’m like, yeah, clearly this is not the, the the, ooh, we’re, see, we’re just promoting literacy is same with Walkathon. So my school story time, I don’t think you knew about this, did a walkathon.

So they, they had us do it on the naval base. It’s, it’s in Alameda, the, the abandoned naval base. Yes. So guess what happens? One of the kids steps on a bees nest. [00:15:00] But it turns out to be a really large one and it turns out to be killer bees. Oh God, we were in the news. It was great. I remember walking, you know, and it’s in the heat.

You know, it was, it was, it was close to summer by that point, or it was like right after summer break, I can’t remember which, but it was hot. We’re like walking on this old airstrip on a naval base in, in the Bay Area. You know, this is like, you know, it’s like walking in circles in prison camp, you know, this is not like a fun activity.

It’s, it’s, it’s like making children trudge to raise money. And then suddenly. There are ambulances, people are running, and I’m just kind of confused and Yeah. Just everyone’s just like, like panicking and, and trying to run away from a very large swarm of bees. Fortunately, nobody died. But we, yeah, we, we did make the news.

So that was very, everyone was very excited about the news. That was great. So yeah. This is,

Speaker 3: Open the box, [00:16:00] Joe.

Simone Collins: this is what this American public schools at their fun bees,

Malcolm Collins: bees

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don’t know if this is when they started calling them Africanized be, I don’t remember when that whole thing happened.

That sounds

Malcolm Collins: racist.

Simone Collins: That was, yeah. It was really hilarious. And then, I don’t know if you, you realize this

Malcolm Collins: Africanized feel like it’s the new unoffensive term for African Americans, African Africanized.

Simone Collins: Oh, God, I just

can’t,

Malcolm Collins: so the.

To be like, it’s to remind you that they’re humans.

Simone Collins: [00:17:00] She’s, yeah. So, the, yeah. The other thing that, that Octavian and it, you know, honestly, he just, they must repeat this to the kids so much at school because he sounded like a recording. He was like, and also tomorrow is school photo retake day. Where if you don’t like the photo that you got of me.

Then you can have another one taken tomorrow. And remember how he, he took home. So school photos get taken in American schools. This, this stems from a tradition that ha was totally normal, where like in, back in the day, back when photos were first invented, you know, groups of students would go out to the front of the school and pose.

And have their photos taken to like remember, you know? Yeah. And, and, and typically it was like Joe, you know, Philip’s dad who had his tie, his camera, his special camera would, you know, take a picture and then, you know, make copies for people. Maybe people would pitch in to pay for the paper or whatever.

Right. But like, yeah, yeah. You know, and then, and then of course, you know, gotta the point where some local [00:18:00] photographers. Started, you know, oh, well, hey, I’ll come to this school. I’ll take everyone’s photo. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Professionally. And, and then some larger companies were like, Hey, like, I’ll, I’ll be like, I’ll, I’ll come and I’ll bring a, a backdrop, you know, I’ll, I’ll be more professional about it and we’ll do a class photo.

And then they started doing individual photos, so the students, because you know, people didn’t have cameras back then, right? So they’re like, well then I’ll, you know, I will take a photo of you, you know, every year you can buy a photo of your kid that was professionally done, and I’ll, I’ll convince the school to let me go in and do it.

By sharing some of my profit with them. Okay. So I don’t know if you knew this, but schools are sharing in the profit of school photos at this point. Of course. And still today

Malcolm Collins: of course it’s almost certainly major private equity companies that are doing this well.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So actually Life Touch is the company that took my photos as a cable.

Did he take your photos as a cable life touch? I dunno. For me it was always life touch and for our son. It’s Lifetouch at his public school. They’ve even made it now into daycares. I don’t know if you [00:19:00] remember, but at KinderCare when our children were in daycare, Lifetouch also descended upon their facility and descended upon.

Yes. Yes. Well they did. And Lifetouch is, is just a giant you know, faceless company that, that interrupts the school day. And, and now it is sort of like the, the one big company. There’s, there is no other school photo company, the bigger thing. He has been providing school photos since 1936 when it was founded as National school studios in Minnesota.

And, and yeah, I mean the company’s basically been in continuous operation for nearly 90 years. But then it, it started to acquire and just roll up. All of the, the, the small, like little companies, and the way that it works now is it negotiates a contract with every single school district and their earnings range from as little as 15% to as high as 50%.

Like some school [00:20:00] districts have gotten wise to this and they’ve like literally made rules where like, we will accept nothing less than 50%. But some school districts are total rubes and they just like allow themselves to be totally fleeced over and make like 15%. And what’s, but you, what I understand,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, why can’t I, as an outsider start a company that takes school pictures and then go to the school districts and be like, and offer more, 75%?

Simone Collins: Because they have these like binding contracts, I think, you know, they’re just like so used to it, but they’re just, they’re people arent trying to do

Malcolm Collins: this.

Simone Collins: They’re so bad. So let me, let me share with you just ‘cause you might think, oh, well these are professional photos, right? Like, you know, it’s nice to have your kid professionally photographed.

Let me show you the professional photos.

Of our, our children that are just so great. Really, really fantastic. Oh my God. He looks, I’m not even gonna put these on screen. They look so mad. No, you still, you need to put them. And my favorite is this one that they got of Torsten. He, he just looks [00:21:00] absolutely like a prisoner, you know, like hold up the newspaper in the face.

So existential

sad.

I also found one of you, Malcolm. Here you go. That’s just, yeah. Amazing photo. Just they really nailed it. Nailed it. With the purple background. That’s just great. And here’s here’s, here’s old Simone life touch. Oh God, just. Absolutely fantastic. So yeah, life touch. Well, you can tell there are kids, I’ll tell you that.

I, I’m just, I’m just trying to argue like there’s absolutely no justification. For, for shoving these upon parents showing them to kids, interrupting the school, school day. But it doesn’t end there. There’s also the scholastic book fairs, schol, scholastic book fairs. Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: The book fairs are such a scam.

The kids, no, but hold on. Someone before you go further with all this, something I need to emphasize to the listener here. Yeah. Our kids remember. Nothing, nothing, [00:22:00] nothing from school. This is all hear about, literally nothing in school that I am aware of. I am not aware of any reading. We, all the reading he does, he learned from us, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. The little bit of time we spend on it with him, with that being the case, he can remember the book fair stuff. Like verbatim. Yeah. He can remember five pitches in like one day that he got over the course of that day. Yeah. He’s as is, they are teaching the children literally nothing but the melon pitches anymore.

Simone Collins: I mean, sales is always be closing, right? I mean like to a certain extent. Okay. I guess like, it’s kind of the, before

Malcolm Collins: we get to the book fair thing, this actually for me specifically, what it, what it has done is I just thought maybe it’s his personality. Maybe he’s too young, maybe he just can’t remember whatever he’s doing in school.

No. And now what I’m realizing is they are doing nothing of value. And so I [00:23:00] now have this, this perspective, Simone, where you can tell me if you, if you wanna push back on this, but I’m really thinking maybe at the end of this year we just pull ‘em out. And I don’t know if we should send the other kids.

And the reason I’m saying this is because it is actually a lot of our time to send him to school. And if instead of waiting on the school bus every morning, I just spent 30 minutes teaching him to read to get more education than going to the school I know. I’m, no, I’m being very serious, Simone.

Like I know, I, I know, I know. You’re being serious. And then other than that, we put on documentaries or something. Right? Like I can’t, until he gets proficient enough at reasoning to use pia.io, which is our alternate school system, anyone who has kids of school age, there’s actually already kids who are doing their educational on pia, which is really cool.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which I like. I like that we’re able to offer that to people. Listen, the

Simone Collins: only reason Octavian is in school is because he asked to, I I don’t know if he’s gonna ask. Not anymore.

Malcolm Collins: He asked to originally.

Simone Collins: Does he still ask to? Yeah, he’s asked me to not go. He, he a, yeah, he asked to [00:24:00] again this year.

So I, but I also feel like. He might be getting on the edge of it

Malcolm Collins: at this point. Well, Simone, I think the problem with how you’re asking him is you are asking him at the end of a period where he hasn’t been to school in a long time and he’s excited to go. You, you ask him. You ask him. You should ask him while he’s in school.

Yeah. Ask him tonight. Ask him tonight. Great.

Simone Collins: So anyways, Scholastic book fairs, they’ve been held in public schools. In the United States since 1989. In 1981, when Scholastic purchased the California book fairs which was a company and began organizing in school book fairs nationwide. So California school book fairs was a company that made money by selling books directly to students and families at school hosted events.

Schools that host Scholastic book fairs generally receive, you wanna guess how much they get in profit? 25%. Yeah, actually you nailed it. Either, either 25% of the total sales as cash profit, or 50% as scholastic [00:25:00] dollars, which is a form of store credit, usable. For educational materials you purchased from Scholastic that are already overcharging.

Yeah, because they’re, they’re immensely overpriced, by the way. Yeah. So, so yeah, it’s, it’s, it is MLMI, I dunno what else to say. Now keep in mind the 25% cut only comes. With the highest tier of compensation, you have to se sell over $2,500 in books in your school to get that cut. Otherwise you’re getting a lower percentage.

And I just wanna be clear that well, okay. Profit to schools nationwide. Totals approximately $2 million annually. Scholastic makes a lot more ‘cause considering that’s of the 25% at best that schools are getting. Yeah. And I bet they’re also counting Scholastic dollars in this, which totally don’t count.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: totally don’t count. So Co Scholastic Corporation, well, actually I think it’s Shutterstock owns Lifetouch [00:26:00] now. They, they bought them, so we don’t know how much a margin that they’re making. The the school photos company, Scholastic Corporation is a publicly traded company on Nasdaq under the ticker SCHL, and its gross profit margins have been very strong with the latest 12 months figure being around 55.8% growth.

So these guys are making a lot of money.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, wait, 55.8% growth.

Simone Collins: Gross profit margins. Oh, gross profit margins. They’re profit margins. Year, year gross. Yeah. Yeah. So to just like, this is, this is absolutely ridiculous. This is, again, for, for discretion. Shut it down. Shut it down. I Shannon again.

Speaker 6: Shenanigans shenanigans.

Speaker 8: What’s all this

Speaker 6: officer Paul Brady. I would like to reinstate my previous shenanigans. This whole carnival is a rip up,

Speaker 8: you know? Uh, excuse me, but I agree. These rides are really stupid.

Speaker 7: Okay, let’s calm down. People of South Park, do you declare shenanigans on the carnival people? Yay. Okay, carnival people. Do you accept this [00:27:00] decree of shenanigans? What the are you talking about? This old town is screwy.

Well, that settles it. Everybody grab a broom. It’s shenanigan.

Simone Collins: I like schools need more money, but schools need more money.

And some people might be like, okay, well. You know, well then we just need to give schools more money if then they won’t be so desperate to raise money. More spending does not produce better outcomes, first and foremost. And this is summarized really well by an essay that just came out from Aila Kirker Guard.

I mean, at least as of recording, I, it came in my inbox this morning. It inspired this whole episode actually titled against the econ economists on school spending, in which he highlights how large randomized controlled trials on educational interventions almost always show no or negligible benefits.

So he, he’s trying to, in this essay critique common. Claims that economists and educational policy circles make that increasing school [00:28:00] spending significantly improve student outcomes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And particularly test scores. He references major studies like the Coleman report showing that parental backgrou