Transcript

During the Christmas season of 1976, I

  sat down one night to watch television.

  As we started looking for something to

 watch, every channel had something inappropriate on it.

  There was nothing good.

  I became angry that night. I left the parish ministry and founded the National Federation for Decency.

  And I remember people going, you're gonna do what now?

  Exactly.

  Reverend Wildmon. Reverend Wildmon. The Reverend Donald Wildmon. Reverend Wildmon says the show is too sexually suggest. We monitored television to see who was sponsoring the offensive shows. It was totally covered from the networks to the advertisers.

  Well, at first they wanted to ignore it, but then after a while, they couldn't.

  NBC said the boycott is an obvious attempt at intimidation, and we will let the people judge the fairness of this tactic.

  I'd like to know what right you

  think you have to tell me what

  to watch on tv.

  Send that question to the network. Okay.

  He used to say, well, let everybody think I'm dumb.

  Said that's to my advantage. You know who sells more pornography than

  anybody else in America?

  7 11.

  Your friendly family convenience store. He stepped on a whole lot of toes early on, and they thought, I think, that they could just crush him.

  Don told me that. Ben, I've been sued by Penthouse and.

  And by Playboy.

  Things were changing, and many people just

  sort of acclimated to it. And Don Wildmon didn't.

 The Last Temptation of Christ. It was gonna be a blasphemous movie about the life of Jesus. We're not talking about the specifics. We're talking about the general. Athena,

  what you did with Brother Don as the leader, you got on and hung on as best you could.

  Ava is funded in part by a

  grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. So it was just vile stuff that was being funded by the.

  If we lose this cultural war, we're going to have a hedonistic, humanistic society.

  He was going to be faithful, and live the success up to God. He's had an uncanny ability to look down the road and see the impact of things that are happening today. I'm not trying to be a prophet of doom. I'm trying to be honest with you.

  When you see people live out their faith, you know, there's something to it.

  One person can make a difference.

AFA at Home is talking about the future of education in America

Walker Wildmon: Welcome to AFA at Home, episode seven. And today we'll be talking about the future of education in America. And this topic has been in the news recently with the Trump administration and the federal Department of Education. And we'll talk a little bit about that. but we want to go back in history and talk about the history of education in America and, and just really help lay the groundwork. Before we start talking solutions to the problems in our education system, we want to give a little context and history, just to tell you how we got to where we are today. Before we jump in, I do want to introduce our guests. We have, ah, starting from over here, Abraham Hamilton iii, host of the Hamilton Corner and also general counsel here at afa. Toby Paxton's with us. She's school board research director for IvyerGuide. Many of you use IvyerGuide each election cycle, of course. I'm Walker Wildmon. Jamison Taylor. Dr. Jamison Taylor. He's director of Government affairs for American Family Association. Julie Pickering's with us. I've interviewed her on my radio show recently. She's on the Texas State Board of Education. And then lastly, Rhyen Walters, he's the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction. So, thank you all for being with us and we'll just jump right in.

Mr. Abraham: Why was education so important in early America

Mr. Abraham, let's go back to early America. And education is kind of, it's a second thought if you will. It's assumed, we assume it's always been this way as far as having K through 12 instruction, having higher ed, but going back to early America, I want to ask you, why was it so important in early America? Why was education so important?

Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, in the founding era, the comprehensively education was done at home and the formalization of education occurred, when you had people who wanted to train pastors and ministers, which led to the founding of institutions like Harvard University 1636. Harvard was founded expressly to train ministers. That's what it was founded for. And Thereafter, in about 1701, Yale was founded as an orthodox alternative to Harvard because Harvard had already begun theological drift, as early as 1701. So Jameson is laughing. This is true. This didn't take long, didn't take long at all. But the express commitment was to train ministers and pastors because the American founding era, and prior to Talking about the 1600s to 1700s, obviously prior to America's establishment as a nation, but that investment was made, that commitment was made because we wanted to have a populace who could navigate the word of God. And as George Washington said in his farewell address, that religion and morality were indispensable supports to our constitutional republic, this experiment in individual liberty and self governance. And so that was the reason why education was formalized in the first place. To have a populace that was commensurate with navigating the word of God and applying it to public life.

Walker Wildmon: Well, to that point, that dovetails well in this quote and I don't have many, so I'm not going to steal everybody's time. But I did come across this Noah Webster, quote, and he said he's got a lot of quotes out there, but he said, in my view the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. He went on to say that no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. so our founding fathers understood, we didn't just need, we did need a literate populace, but the reason we needed them to be literate is so they could understand scripture and understand our Constitution.

Jameson: Has mass education always been available, even pre America

Jameson, I want to talk even before America's founding, about education. Because this mass education hasn't always been a thing. throughout much of human history there's been a lot of people groups have had trouble getting access to education. so was education as we know it today, has it always been this broadly available, even pre America?

Dr. Jameson Taylor: So the answer is, no and yes. No insofar as no state had a compulsory educational system that was funded by taxpayers that said there were lots of opportunities for education. I mean you had homeschooling of course, but you had church schools, you had apprenticeships, you had parent led schools. So today we talk about hybrid models of education. You had these hybrid models of education already at the time of the founding. But as Abraham said, what we are talking about is a very well informed population. you're talking about people that have read the classics, they're reading Shakespeare and other great works, Cicero, but also they're getting an education through the newspapers, imagine that through the media. You know, they're used to debating big ideas. And in particular Americans were used to being educated in church, not only about the scriptures, but about political issues about current events. So we know we have the sermons from pastors talking about political issues, talking about the problems for, from British rule. So again we're dealing with a very well informed population. Even though they weren't getting education through a formal state run government, funded system, they were still very well educated. And that's in many ways that's the system that we need to replicate today. You know, kind of crowdsourcing education, so to speak, through Local communities.

Ryan Walters: Oklahoma has been working to get the Bible back in schools

Walker Wildmon: M. Ryan, Once again, Rhyen Walters, the, one thing you've been working on in Oklahoma, which I love, is the Bible as history. And, you know, we hear all the noise out there that the Bible can't be in schools, God can't be in schools, and they throw out, you know, all these unconstitutional reasons. But, you've actually been working to get the Bible back in schools. Tell us a little bit about that.

Ryan Walters: Well, and as the panel already laid out, I mean, this is the way education started in this country. And so when you look back, you go, how did we get so adrift? Right? How do we get to a place where we're sitting here in Oklahoma and we're seeing this across the country, we're seeing books like genderqueer, Flamer, all this explicitly sexual material being pushed to kids. You take a step back and go, well, not only should that nonsense not be in front of your kids, how do we get here? How do we get so far from studying truth, studying history, studying things that are actually high value about, character development, our nation's history, Western civilization? Well, we step back and go, well, when you remove the Bible out of schools, when you remove any mention of faith from the history classes, well, you've created now generation of individuals that, frankly, I think they're going to be very shocked by hearing a lot of the conversation today, because that wasn't in their history class. You know, they think that the founders were these incredibly secular people that never mentioned God, never mentioned their faith. That's not our history. And the left can be offended by it. They cannot agree with it, but they can't rewrite our history. And that was so important in the founding era. And we talk about this a lot. Not only was the Bible the most cited book by the founders, the book of Deuteronomy was cited more than any other book. I mean, they were so into scripture, talking about the character of the country, but also about how do we structure a government, that aligns with the way that God intended for rights to be carried out. So if our kids don't know that history, it is, you know, frankly, in my view, academic malpractice. Ah. The kids have to know where America started. They need to know real history. And that obviously, a major part of that is the Bible and its role in American history.

Walker Wildmon: Yeah. Julie, you're on the. Obviously on the Texas State Board of Education. And when, you and I were talking recently, I was getting your kind of your insights on the history of government Role in education. And of course, the federal Department of Education is a rather new phenomenon over the last several decades. But, talk a little bit about your view at, ah, being in an elected position in the state. Talk about your view of whether the federal government should have any role, what role the state should have. Just talk a little bit about that, surely.

Julie Pickren: And to your previous question, Texas did it. We, we fully added the Bible back into instructional materials. We put well over a billion dollars into it. And so Texas now has the, Old Testament, the NewSong Testament firmly planted in English and civics and instructional materials throughout the state, but the role of federal government. So I think we talked previously that when I was first elected in education. It's been a while now, right? We're not getting older, we're just getting better. you know, when I first started education, everything from the federal government came as block grants, which was ideal for states. So, you know, your food and nutrition came as a block grant. Your title one, your idea, your funding for, you know, children with disabilities. It all came through blocks, block grants. Because, you know, how we may educate a child on the Texas Gulf coast may be different than how you, you know, the needs of a community and the educational needs of a community in Northern Oklahoma or in Illinois or NewSong York River. So when the CAM is block grants, it really allowed us to tailor workforce development and to tailor the education needs of a child according to what our state needs were. But then we saw under the Obama administration a huge shift in the funding with, through the federal funding of, suddenly strings were being attached. You know, things were changing. We saw a huge change which really negatively affected local isds budgets just in the food and nutrition changes. you know, we were paying about 8 to $10 for a gallon of ketchup. And all of a sudden now we have to order a special ketchup, which is $28 a gallon. So it's things like that that the public never really saw that really put a burden on local ISDs. And then, you know, it went into, overdrive in 2016 when the Obama administration issued a Dear Colleague letter instructing all the school districts, to make all their locker rooms and restrooms gender neutral. Well, at the time, I was elected the fastest growing school district in Texas. So I asked for a budget meeting. And we had a budget meeting and we realized that federal funding was only about 3 1/2% of our overall budget. So our decision was, pretty easy. You can make up three and a half percent In a budget, you know, in a multi hundred million dollar budget, you know, pretty easily. And so, you know, we, said thank you, but no thank you. It's not what's right for our kids. But then we saw it in hyperdrive under the Biden administration that just all of the strings attached to Covid funding, you know, what we saw that was just, completely new in the world of education. I think, really a shock to the nation as a whole, was what we call intersectionality, right? Extending the 1964 Civil Rights act to the LGBTQ, where now the LGBTQ community had to be represented in all of your parent groups, all of your academia, all of your, advisory groups, student advisory groups. Now you're, now you're combining a population, you're combining populations together, which in my personal opinion, and I think the Supreme Court now agrees with my humble opinion on this, that, the 1964 act, civil rights act does not extend. Because what was happening is that the federal government was forcing states and forcing local school districts to give people special rights. We moved out of equal rights, and we're moving into special rights. But I m. Think under President Trump, he has said multiple times, Secretary McMahon, wonderful, wonderful woman, loves the Lord, amazing businesswoman, has, said publicly to going back to a form of block grants without the strings attached. We know what to do. Ryan knows what to do in Oklahoma for his kids. We know what to do in Texas for our children. We know what we need and what our needs are. So just looking forward to that day that we can get back to how it was since the Department of Education was created and started where we go back to block grants.

One thing I want to flesh out is what role does the state have in education

Walker Wildmon: One thing I want to flesh out a little bit, is this even getting down to the state and local level? Because I think we all agree the federal, role in education, if it even needs to exist, it all needs to be very minimal. Maybe block grant system like you're talking about. but it does. Once you get past that and you find consensus on that, then you get into, all right, how do we manage this state and locally? which you could say, let's just go back to before the federal Department of Education and how was it done then? But, what are y'? All, what anybody can weigh in here? What? Let's just, let's just go state and local. what, what role does the state have in education? is it standards? Is it, you know, accountability? How much state control versus local control should we have and what should the balance be?

Dr. Jameson Taylor: I mean, I think in Many ways if we look to, we can look to the founding for guidance where Thomas Jefferson, it's very important to him, along with the founders, to have a strong public education system. And I think sometimes we get so focused on some of the problems in public schools that people, they want to run to private education forgetting, you know, public education actually at the time of the founding, as Rhyen pointed out, was in a sense a, religious education. And you look at some of the first laws that were founded that were passed by Congress, the Northwest Ordinance for instance, it says that religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to political prosperity and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. So let's think about that. It says religion, morality and knowledge. So we talk about standards. What are the standards at the time of the founding? Religion, morality and knowledge. And note, not just religion, science, knowledge, note, they say twice, Religion, morality and knowledge. And those two things first, religion and morality. So I think certainly the states have a role to play in terms of setting standards and making sure that kids are getting access to, to a high quality education. But what is important is to think about what are those standards. And I think what we have seen in modern America is that there is no longer a, kind of middle ground, a neutral ground. There's either going to be the DEI woke Marxism or you're going to go back to the founding religion, morality and knowledge. So while I think parents have to be in control, local communities should be in control as to what's going on. Our standards need to be those standards that the founders recognize as absolutely necessary. As Abe said, indispensable supports. We cannot do away with these indispensable supports for good government and for happiness.

Walker Wildmon: Toby, you do school board research. You lead school board research for ivoterguide. And I voter guys gotten more into this than maybe you were four or eight years ago to where you're doing hundreds of school board, races, or at least candidates that you're evaluating. And when we talk about control and influence. Well, a lot of these are elected positions. Not all, but a lot of them are elected positions. what does it take for, let's just say not necessarily like Julie's position where it's a very large area, but let's just say like a local superintendent over one district, how many people show up for an election like that?

Tobi Paxton: So for superintendents, they're not all elected. There's maybe 10ish states where superintendents, county superintendents are elected. Most, of them are appointed by the local school board. So I actually don't know how many people show up for superintendent races. school boards, typically 5 to 10% of voters will vote for school boards. And I think that's, you know, they're at the bottom of the ballot, they're on the backside of the ballot. people don't know who they are, so they just don't vote. and that's why the work that we're doing is so important, I think.

Walker Wildmon: Yeah, that seems like, though, low hanging fruit for parents who are concerned about their child's education. Because, you know, looking at some of these local races recently, municipal races, one candidate gets 250 votes, the other one gets 200 and boom, all of a sudden they're in elected office. So we're not talking about. You talk about getting a few neighborhoods together and then, boom, you're on the school board. So I think that's important to emphasize here that these problems that we're talking about and the influence we're talking about is not some lofty goal that's unachievable. Ryan, this is very attainable stuff for parents who want to run for school board.

Ryan Walters: It absolutely is. And, you know, I so appreciate that, the work that you're doing in that space.

We're battling to put school board elections on the primary and general cycles

Because here's one of the things we're seeing in Oklahoma, and this is what you see in a lot of states. We're battling to put school board elections on the primary and general cycles. Because right now what happens is our school board elections. I mean, we had a district, one of the largest districts in the state, hold a school board election on Valentine's night. They're not wanting you to turn out to vote. What they want to do is they want very low voter turnout. They want to use the teachers union to drive out only teachers union, either literally members of the teachers union or their friends and allies. And so you see these really low turnout numbers and, well, you're looking at it and going, well, how many people on Valentine's night were going to go vote? Well, you move these to the general and primary cycles, then all of a sudden everyone's paying attention. Then all of a sudden candidate forums. You have not a dozen people showing up, you have hundreds of people going, hey, well, this is on the ballot. And so I think that, I know it will come as a shock to a lot of the audience that the teachers union tries every way possible to keep parents in the local communities, out of the schools, out of education. And so I believe we've got to make these school board elections great again. I mean, we've got to raise the profile of them. So I think moving them to the general and primary cycles. I'm going to say one other thing. I think we've got to have party affiliations on those as well. So many times you have candidates run and they kind of get by on the. Well, it's nonpartisan, so we're not going to tell you. And I'm going. Well, I think voters need to know, right? I think voters want to know if you're a Democrat or Republican. That obviously says something about your platform, your policy positions. It also says a lot to voters of who you're going to listen to once elected. I think these are things that are crucial that we've got to go in there and win. And you notice the state school board, associations, the national school board associations, the teachers unions. This is a fight that they're fighting. I mean, it shows you how detrimental this can be to their cause of how much money they pour into these elections, how much money they pour into fighting these election cycles. So I do. I think it's a very, very important part of what we're talking about today.

Walker Wildmon: Well, Governor, DeSantis recently, with the legislature over the last year or two, made it to where the union dues are not able to be deducted from the teacher pay or from the teacher pay process. And it's not, compulsory. And even not in the application, process for a new teacher, for example, which is a big deal because even my wife in Mississippi, you go into a hire, and if you're a young new teacher, you don't know any different. You assume that the union dues are compulsory. It's just part of being a teacher. Right. I pay union dues. Well, we, of course, ask questions, and it's not compulsory, at least not in this state. but it's presented basically in the enrollment paperwork as if it is. and it's not. And then you're like, well, who's part of this union? Who's in charge of it? And it's like this. This mystery. so that's important as well, shifting away from making teachers think that they have to pay union dues. And, what Governor DeSantis was pointing out is that's cut off a lot of funding to the Democrat Party because they were funneling that money through the teachers unions into the Democrat Party in the form of campaign donations. so that needs. That type of, reform, Abe. Needs to happen in every state yeah.

Abraham Hamilton III: And you had recent Supreme Court rulings on this very point that you have certain union dunes are not mandated, not compulsory. but the point that Jamison brought up, and really everybody speaking here, is one that I think needs to be underscored. because if we're going to have a nation of self governance, what, is the basis for that? Now retired, Justice Steven Breyer let the cat out of the bag and the Carson vs. Maine Supreme Court case. In his dissent, he literally said that, well, the main reason why we need government, supported public education, because public education is the primary vehicle. This is what he said. It's on page 10 of his descent. It is the primary vehicle to transmit the values upon which our society depends. Many parents have been thinking for generations. You talked about, the federal Department of Education, which only goes back to 1980. Most parents and families are thinking that, wait, we're sending our children for reading, writing and arithmetic. Well, the highest court in our country has recognized that. Well, no, it's a values transmission vehicle, the primary, according to Justice Breyer. So if its primary function is values transmission, what is the standards, the basis, the foundation for these values that are being transmitted according to the Biden administration? As Julie pointed out, it was a reading, writing in the arithmetic. It's no matter what the subject matter is, let's include lgbt, lmp, the whole deal. And I would even add that that was just pronounced like a king. It wasn't. The Civil Rights act of 1964 was passed by Congress. The Biden administration effectively amended it extra congressionally, and yet required all of America's students and parents to just comply. That's something, I think, that requires attention that should be highlighted.

Julie Pickren: And you know, Abraham, the, really, the egregious part of that was what they were threatening. Right. The Biden administration said if you don't adopt these rules, if you don't expand, right. If you don't make your locker rooms and, and, restrooms gender neutral, allow boys and, or allow men and girls sports. If you don't do all of this, right. That huge Covid funding contract that states and local ISDs had to sign with the federal government, what were the threat was withholding federal funding. Right. So what does federal funding do? It, you know, provides an education for students with disabilities and it feeds poor kids. So when you really think about it, that was so important to them to push this agenda on our little children, right? 28 different genders and teach them 28 different genders in elementary so they could pick what gender they want to be right. All of this craziness, it was so important to them that they were willing to starve poor children and not provide an education for students with disabilities just to, just to push this woke agenda on our children.

Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Folks, you've been listening to episode seven of AFA at Home. We've been talking about the future of education in America. we'll talk more about the teachers unions when we get back. We'll, talk about, what type of schooling models are best for the future, school choice, things like that. So thanks for joining us. We'll be back in a few minutes.

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AFA at Home is talking about the future of education in America

Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to AFA at Home, episode seven. We're talking about the future of education in America life. Let me, reintroduce our panel for those who maybe missed the, first segment and are just now tuning in. we have with us, Rhyen Walters, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction. We have Julie Pickren. She's a member of the Texas State Board of education. Dr. Jamison Taylor, he's over government affairs for AFA. Once again, I'm Walker Wildmon. Toby Paxton heads up school board research for I Voter Guidelines. And then Abraham Hamilton iii, host of the Hamilton Corner and our general Counsel here at afa.

Administrative costs have risen 95% compared to teacher costs, Ryan says

jumping back into this, I do want to talk about the administrative cost. So I've got a chart here, and we'll put the chart up on the screen. But administrative, cost over the last. This is just looking at the last 20 years have skyrocketed. it looks like almost a stock market rise. but let's say from 2000 to 2021, the administrative, staffing levels and costs have risen 95%. The teacher, costs, have risen about 10%. So about 85% difference there, in administrative costs versus teacher costs. And you look at the chart and basically teacher hires and teacher, costs have remained relatively flat, maybe gone up a little bit with inflation. But administrative costs, meaning administrative staffing, has just absolutely skyrocketed. Ryan, what are you experiencing? Let's just say in Oklahoma with this issue of having heavy administrative staffing, but yet teachers are having more and more students added to their classes with no help.

Ryan Walters: You know, I think it's one of the most, absurd examples of what you see so often in a school district with the administration and the school board, the local school board, they want more money for education. more money is given to education, and they claim that they want that for more money to get to the classroom, more money for teacher pay, things like that. And Then states give more money to education, and guess what happens? The administrative bloat grows, the administrative positions grow. They could have hired exponentially more teachers with that pay. You could do things like we do in Oklahoma, merit pay for teachers. You could get more classroom, funding directly. But what you continue to see is a status quo establishment that continue to take care of themselves and grow bureaucracy. And that's part of why President Trump ending the federal Department of Education is so important, too. That was a bureaucracy in itself that just grew bureaucracy in states to line up with the regulations that are being pushed down on you by those bureaucrats. So it was a bureaucracy built on top of a bureaucracy. And so what we've got to continue to do is bring transparency for taxpayer dollars so parents and taxpayers, can see how their money is being spent in schools. In Oklahoma, we're pushing a requirement to spend 60% of taxpayer dollars in the classroom, in education, not in bureaucracy. That should be a pretty low Bar, right? 60% we've had folks fighting back on. Should it be 50, should it be 40, should it be 30? And we're going, this shouldn't be that hard to spend 60% of your funds on, what you're supposed to be doing, educating kids. And so this is where you've got to see education reform. You've got to come in here and shake up the status quo, or else. Money, frankly, is not the problem in education. It's how the money's being spent. And this is a great example of that.

Walker Wildmon: Yeah, we're spending more per pupil than any other developed nation. and it continues to go up. the quote from President Trump's administration, I forgot which spokesperson it was. But, they basically said, the Department of Education talking about the federal level, they haven't educated one child.

Abraham Hamilton III: Well, that was Linda McMahon. Secretary McMahon said it herself. Doesn't educate one child, doesn't hire one teacher.

Walker Wildmon: It's true. It's shocking, though.

Abraham Hamilton III: It is shocking, but only if we hadn't been paying attention to what was going on. You know, I didn't mean for this to become like a catchphrase, but, it kind of became that on my show when I said, darkness is not an affirmative force. It merely reoccupies the space that's vacated by the light. You know, and what's often happened is just that we've kind of let things downshift into neutral and say, well, things must be going well, things must be going okay. And then we have, like, I was shocked just now to hear there's actually pushback on the idea that 60% of education funds should be spent in the classroom. Who would push back on that? And what would be the basis of that argument? But it's happening. And while that's happening, look at the results. Like you quoted, the quote that President Trump mentioned, that we spend, more in education per pupil than any other developed nation. But to what end? What are the results? And so it really should cause us to question, well, is the stated goal truly the actual functional goal? And I think the evidence bears out that it has not been for quite some time.

Dr. Jameson Taylor: I was thankful, actually, when I heard that quote. I was like, I think I'm glad that the federal government has not educated one student because they're going to be miseducating the students. And then what I'm wondering, yeah, we definitely want education to go back to the states, but then I'm thinking, like the administrative state, you know, at the state level, I just imagine these education bureaucrats especially, you know, if people aren't paying attention with elections and things like that, they're going to use it as an opportunity to grow their state bureaucracy. So I'm just kind of wondering, like, how do we, how do we address that?

Walker Wildmon: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. So it's one thing to say it needs to go back to the state, but you're saying it can go, obviously it can still go wrong at the state level. Now, my motto is local control is better control. and at least at the state level, voters have a say, as opposed to, you know, part of the country having a say via the Electoral College, and then other states being affected by it. So, state and local control is better. But still, to your point, Jamison, I've noticed we've got to stay on alert because with this. And we could look at Wisconsin maybe for an example. I think a lot of people have kind of let their guard down. I think Biden was so bad, Trump got elected and people are, like, breathing a sigh of relief. But as I've said, if anybody listens to my show, I've said it over and over again. This is a generational fight. This isn't going to be fixed in four years or eight years.

Finding information about a school board candidate can be difficult, Toby says

Toby, on the, I've just got to ask, on these school board races that you're covering over at ivoterguide, what kind of information can you find on these candidates? Because it's gotta be difficult looking. Unless you've got boots on the ground, it's gotta be difficult Finding information about a school board candidate, it can be.

Tobi Paxton: Sometimes it's very easy and sometimes Wisconsin as an example, it's rather difficult. you know, we're looking for their websites and social media where we're scouring through their campaign finance reports. We're having to do FOIA requests to get through the campaign finance reports and to see, you know, we're not local, we don't know everybody on that list. But, you know, if it is obvious of a heavy hitter or a pack or, you know, a congressman, whatever it may be, we'll add that. Or if it's a large donation, we'll hit that. You know, we're looking for endorsements. I mean, we're really doing everything we can. We do sometimes have boots on the ground that can help provide some information, but oftentimes it's just us keyboard warriors trying to find everything we can online. forums are helpful when they do have forums.

Walker Wildmon: Yeah, that's why it's important to have, I know you guys have been working on getting kind of boots on the ground in the communities, where you have people that know kind of the history of the candidates, and their, their positions on the issues. I want to talk about the moving, forward.

Jameson: Mississippi has had the hardest time getting school choice in place

All right, so school choice, let's just say looking in Mississippi, every state's different. But Jameson, we've had the hardest time getting school choice, in place in Mississippi. And you would think we're a pretty conservative state. It shouldn't be that hard. But what's the issue and what's the holdup in getting school choice? Because it sounds like the 60% funding to the classroom, is a no brainer. At least you would think. And then having school choice, you would think, oh, that's a no brainer too. There's a lot of pushback on.

Dr. Jameson Taylor: Ah, yeah, there certainly is. and you're seeing pushback from two different groups. So on the one hand you have, I think to kind of cut through things to a great extent. And you know what Rhyen's talking about. Education is about contracts. So these education bureaucrats, what are they doing? Well, they're issuing contracts and sometimes they're issuing contracts to their friends, to different vendors, things like that. And you know, you hear about competition, but sometimes it's like the publishers will say, hey, you get it this year, we'll get it next year. And that's not real competition. But when the left looks at education, they don't look at educating kids. What they're looking at is this is A source of political power, this is a source of campaign donations, and this is a source of, of money for our friends, and this is an opportunity for us to get rich. And so likewise, when they're looking at education in local communities, it's not about the quality of the education, it's about the jobs. And that puts us off track because if you start to think about, well, your local school is just about the jobs in the community, then what about the kids? What is the best way to educate them? And certainly there are better ways to create jobs than to have a school that is not even educating kids. It's not even providing the product, so to speak, that it's supposed to provide. And so I think when we talk about school choice, we have to make sure that we're centered on the kids, but also centered on the schools that are going to be providing school choice. and that's private schools. So that's where you see pushback from another side, where folks are saying, look, I'm worried about school choice because I'm worried about the strings that might be attached to school choice. And we know, you know, with government money always comes government strings. And so I think the thing to realize with school choice is it's a tool. It can be used for good or it can be used for bad. If school choice empowers and strengthens private education, then it's something that's good. But if it's, if it's something that comes with a lot of government strings attached to, then it's bad. And so you're seeing, for instance, in some states like Arizona, that had robust school choice, now they have a Democrat governor and she's wanting to regulate their school choice programs. So I think even if you have school choice, you know, we talked about kind of complacency under the Trump administration. and you know, the way I think of that is like President Trump and his people who are great and his cabinet picks are great, you know, he's on the front line and you kind of probably looking back every once in a while like, hey, come on, governors, you know, hey, come on, even, you know, state board, officials, everyone, come on, America. You know, I'm leading the way, but I need you to follow me. I need you to help fight the fight. And so likewise with school choice. I think even if you get school choice, it still means that parents have to be active, your local communities still have to be in charge of that. It can't be something that's top down. so likewise. And Just going back to the, you know, the principles of education from the very beginning is that it has to be local, has to be parent led, has to be about religion and has to be about morality. So as long as we're guided by those four principles, I think school choice is going to be great. But if we, if we veer off from that, then school choice won't work the way that we need it to.

Walker Wildmon: Julie, what does Texas do? How does Texas handle school choice, private NG, education, et cetera?

Julie Pickren: Well, to kind of build off what you were just saying also, right. I think what people forget with the election of President Trump, first of all, during the campaign, he was super transparent on what his policies were and his initiatives were and the direction that he believed that America needed to go. Right. A change of course. And so, you know, with a clear mandate, right? I mean, the most legal votes ever in the history of our country for a president, he received that clear mandate. But what people forget was that was the start line, that wasn't the finish line. Now the work needs to be done, and the power's always with we the people. So I would, firmly, with passion, ask everyone watching this, please stay firmly engaged in your local elections and in your state elections, because everybody understands now, especially in the area of education, that it is moving down to the state and local level. And so we need people to stay engaged. And thank you so much, Toby, for what you do. I mean, just incredible work that you do, providing information to voters. But, on, education savings account, school choice, parent empowerment, whatever you want to call it, for me, it always falls within parents rights. Psalm 127 says that children are a blessing from God. The Bible, the Lord was talking to parents. He wasn't talking to government. Children belong to their parents. They do not belong to the government. And so I think that's a foundational truth that we have to agree on before you can start building an education of who do the children belong to? It's always the parents. But, going back to what you said, the problem we've had in Texas, you know, parent, empowerment, school choice. It's been an issue in Texas since 1992. It's receiving a lot of attention right now. But it's been before the legislature for, you know, over 30 years now. But what's, what you're saying is true. So how the opposition is really building the campaign is around what I call a spirit of fear. Okay. Which we know as Christians. The Lord says he has not given us a spirit of fear. But of power, love, and a sound mind. But this is a campaign built on fear. It's an economic fear, because many rural counties, the school district, the local independent school district is the number one employer. So the spirit of fear that operates in those local, in those rural counties is that, oh, you're going to lose jobs. But what does common sense tell us? Common sense tells us you still have the same number of jobs, children that need an education in that rural county. So you're not going to lose teachers. There's not going to be this sudden depopulation of teachers losing their job. You're not going to have this huge economic impact where, you no longer need teachers. The landscape is just going to shift, right? Is the teacher going to now be in the private school or are you going to have micropods? Micropods are huge in Texas now. is it going to look like a teacher now going into a micropod where, we have teachers now that are doing that, right, Teaching out of their home or renting small spaces that are making close to $200,000 a year educating the same 10 or 15 children every week? And so you're not going to have this huge, economic downturn in your rural county. It's just going to be a shift of where does that money flow? And so that's the fear. The other fear is, like you said about, government control. In Texas, we have a wonderful Supreme Court ruling called the Leaper case. And the Leaper case really extends a lot of what it does, extended private school protection to our homeschool families. So especially in Texas, families are really, protected because we have a Supreme Court case around it.

What's been happening in America at the federal, state, even local level

But, it's just, you know, it's this fear. It's this fear mongering. So Christians, you know, just when you hear these campaigns against parents rights, because like I said, this is really where it goes down to, really at the heart of education. What's been happening in America at the federal, state, even local level is who does the child belong to? Does the child belong to the parent or does the child belong to the government? If you fall into the camp, which we have had federal, state, local officials publicly say that the government knows what's best for children over the parents. Well, now you've tiptoed into communism 101. There's a lot of countries that believe that way, and there's a lot of people risking their lives to flee countries to come to America because the countries believe that way that their children belong to the government. So, you know, you just have to start with a firm foundation. The firm foundation is the word of God. Psalm 127. Children belong to their parents and then you can build up from there. And parents, I mean, like what we talked about from the history of education in America, we know that when parents are directing their child's education, that is when you have truly a thriving education system. System, you know, that's what we get. Back to Alexander de Tocqueville. Right. France, powerhouse Europe. Right. What's going on in America? How is this brand new country that's just a couple of decades out of a revolutionary war, how are they now emerging to be the powerhouse nation on the world stage? Right. And what was the conclusion? De Tocqueville said, basically, I'm paraphrasing here, okay, it's a big document, two volumes. Basically, he came back and said what their churches and their schools. And it's because their schools are happening in their churches. Right. The marrying of the two. And so, you know, if something, you know, just back to good old common horse sense, as we would say in Texas and Oklahoma. If something's not broke, don't fix it. Let's get back to the basics and let's, start providing a great education for children again.

Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Abe, on homeschooling, these statistics probably have changed in the last few years, but around 20, 20, 2021, this is, according to the U.S. census Bureau, about 11% of families were homeschooling. further statistics, have found that of Those students, about 25% who returned back to the public school system, tested at least a grade level above their recommended level of education. So as a homeschooling dad, you and your wife just talk about that. The, improvements are the advancements when you're able to customize and localize your education.

Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, I mean, and that number, that 11% number was a surge following Covid, when everybody was sent home. You know, the numbers were far lower than that prior to that, time period.

Studies show that homeschools outperform private schoolers and public schoolers

but often something that comes up in the classroom is teacher student ratio. How many teachers per student? Well, you don't get much of a ratio, one to one. and you have an organization like nheri National Home School Education Research Institute, which shows, and this is not a humble brag or anything, it's just true that homeschools outperform private schoolers and public schoolers exponentially. I mean, and that's been the case for quite some time. And it's not because it's rocket surgery. It is when you have the Opportunity to have that individualized attention. One of the things that it's not the teacher's fault. And they're in the classroom with 30 different children, they don't have the opportunity to learn each child's gifts, talents, abilities, learning styles and things of that nature. You know, you have the seminal book from Gary Chapman about marriage and relationships, about the five love languages. but you also have the reality of learning styles. You know, certain different children have different learning styles. You know, in my home I have one child. My oldest is just like me. Give me a book, put me in a corner, we'll be fine. Then I have another one. My next one is just like my wife. They're kinesthetic learners. So in order to grasp the concepts, they need to be physically and actively engaged. Between the two of them, they're equally intelligent. They just have two different learning styles. They communicate information and receive that information in a different way. And so when you have the opportunity to do that in a customized manner, it's not surprising that the children get it. You know, right now, my 14 year old and my 12 year old, they're both learning algebra. One is in a more, I guess, conventional sense. The other uses a program called Math UC where they use physical manipulables to do it. And they both are thriving in algebra, you know, and it's just, it's just the thing. Because every human being is made in the image of God. There's no such thing as a person who's not intelligent. What often happens is you throw, you know, a bunch of children in one room and put a teacher, 30 kids in one room and the teacher's in there. They have to teach to a means. So what's going to happen? The one who has the best memory and can digest information through a, ah, book will thrive more. Doesn't mean they're smarter than anybody else, you know. And our whole society has been bent in a way where we have scores of children who have unintentionally been instructed that they're not intelligent simply because they haven't been educated according to their learning styles. So when you have the reality of the home education as an option, you have that customizable feature that allows everybody to thrive. And Jameson brought up the point. This is something that is concerning me in the home school, I'm sorry, in the school, choice debate is I don't want the government involved and what I'm doing with my children, you know, which is why I think the best route, frankly is not direct voucher, anything at best, have a tax deduction for places that have state income tax. Texas doesn't have one. Praise God for that.

Julie Pickren: Praise God.

Dr. Jameson Taylor: But, you know, property tax break.

Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, Property tax in Texas. Yes. And then, by the way, we've had

Julie Pickren: huge compressions because, you know, the Texas economy is what, now? The seventh largest economy in the world. I mean, we're governor. Abbott here has done a phenomenal job growing our economy. So we've had two huge, tax rate compressions. I think $18 billion was the last one.

Abraham Hamilton III: That's wonderful. But I often ask myself the question, do I have a right to my neighbor's money to educate my children? I would say, no, I don't have the right to demand that you pay for me to educate my children. And to the point that you made that the children belong to the parents. The government's best function is supplementing the parents and their initiative and their leading and their instruction for their children. I think that's the best way forward. Unsurprisingly, that's what happened that allowed the greatest nation in history of the world to come to the fore. Almost all of our founders were educated at home.

Walker Wildmon: Yeah. Amen. Toby?

We need more good people running for school board and other positions in education

all right, so we may have parents watching now, or grandparents that are saying, I want to run for school board. which is great, right? We need more good people running for school board and other positions in education. But, talk about that process, because you guys evaluate, depending on the election cycle, a lot of different school board candidates. but what are the qualifications? Who can run for school board?

Tobi Paxton: you have to be 18, or older. you have to be an adult. we have seen students actually running for school board. you know, you have to be in good moral standing. You can't have any criminal history. Shouldn't have any criminal history. I think there's some caveats to that. you have to live in the area. Usually it's at least a year, but it really depends on where you live. filing the correct paperwork is key, and having that done on time, that's always an interesting thing to watch that play out. but really, I mean, anybody can. A grandparent, a parent, somebody who doesn't have a kid in school. You'll see, a lot of the time, people be like, they don't even have a kid in the district. And, what does that matter? You know, my husband and I had our children in public school for half of their careers and then pulled them out, homeschooled the second half. That doesn't mean that we don't have a say in our local school district. so that doesn't matter.

Walker Wildmon: Yeah, these races, as I mentioned early on in the first, segment, are a lot of these races are determined just by a couple hundred votes, depending on the size of the district. Some of them are chosen, by under 100 vote difference. but, what can people do to help Ivoter guide? Because, you've got all kinds of different kind of layers in the process of evaluating candidates. But you do need volunteers, right? We do.

Tobi Paxton: I mean, there's a lot of different things. number one, I think, is getting conservative candidates actually run. many are afraid to. Many are told it's not worth it. and I just don't think that's true. I think there's a lot of voices out there that really are looking for a conservative voice, and we just aren't seeing that. So that's number one is getting. Whether it's your church saying, hey, we need people to run for school board, who's willing and we can get all behind them. that would be step number one. But as far as people on the ground, please come and check out I voter guide. we are trying to get as much information on these candidates as we possibly can and just getting the word out, letting people know there is an election. As you were saying earlier, the elections for school boards being on these just random days, in Oklahoma and Wisconsin, they're in February and April, and in Texas, they're on Saturdays in May. And, I mean, there's just, there is no rhyme or reason. They're very rarely on primary or general elections. I do see a shift. I think people are trying to get there, so that fight is happening. But, letting people know there is an election is key. Getting out the vote, door, knocking, letting people know, hey, there's an election plug for a voter guide. Check it out. Look and see who they've evaluated and see who stands with your, with your values. And then get to the polls.

Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.

Tobi Paxton: so important to do, that.

 President Trump has given states an opportunity to lead on education

Walker Wildmon: Ryan, if you had to send a note of encouragement or challenge to other state, education officials around the country, what would you say?

Ryan Walters: Well, what I would say is, number one, you know, thanks to President Trump's election vision for the country, you got an opportunity like never before. you've got a president that truly understands education, truly understands that kids were given by God to their parents, not to government. That's a foundational belief. I agree. It all starts there. You have a president that understands that, a president that has kept his promises, and I mean, by the way, he's kept them very quickly. I mean, you know, we've, in Oklahoma, we're proud, we put forth the largest waiver in the history of the country in education to say, okay, we want no strings on these federal dollars then, and that we're working with the federal Department of Education on that right now. But again, President Trump has given us the ability now to return power back to the states. And then, so I would say is be encouraged by that. But then I would also advise states do what we're going to do in Oklahoma. And when you receive the power, you give that power back to parents. You give it back to parents through school choice, through parents rights, through transparency, for where their tax dollars go, what their kids are learning in schools. But this is the opportunity we've been given. And I couldn't agree more, President Trump has literally taken bullets for this cause to get into office, to now empower states, especially our red states. It's time to lead. You are now been given the opportunity we've asked for years, give power back to the states. Well, it's coming. So red states, go govern on conservative principles. Go put parents first in everything you do. Get education back to the basics. Make sure that you are teaching kids the basic fundamental history and truth of this country, the biblical principles we were founded on, and also American exceptionalism. We need to be growing patriots in our school that understand why America is exceptional. We've been given this opportunity. I can't thank President Trump enough for that. But red states, we have got to act and we have got to show parents, taxpayers, these conservative principles in action work. There is tremendous benefit to our society, to individual families, to individuals with conservative principles in action, and it's time to see that happen.

Walker Wildmon: Amen. All right, folks, you've been watching episode seven of AFA at Home talking about the future of education in America and, not just thoughts, but what you can actually do to make a difference. Thanks so much for joining us.