Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Senior Editor-At-Large at The Epoch Times Roger Simon to the studio to discuss his recent article in response to the Brearley School letter written by the father of a student in defiance of critical race theory being pushed in the curriculum.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by the newest all-star panelist on The Tennessee Star Report, my former boss at PJTV who is now the senior editor-at-large for The Epoch Times, Roger Simon. Good morning Roger.
Simon: It doesn’t refer to my waistline.
Leahy: (Laughs) Roger, we’ve been talking education this morning with a couple of state legislators and very troublesome proposal coming out of the Biden administration. What they want to do is they want togive grants to K-12 public schools to advance. Wait for it…critical race theory. How about that?
Simon: I can’t think of anything worse. I’m with maybe advancing Maoism pure and simple or something like that. But I think critical race theory is the worst thing to happen to America since World War II.
Leahy: It’s pretty bad. You have a great column at The Epoch Times. A Real Consumer Revolution is Starting to Take Over Education. There’s a very specific incident at a very highly regarded or prestigious private school in Manhattan that prompted this column. Tell us about that.
Simon: Well, what prompted the column was a letter by a father at the prestigious Brearley School in Manhattan. The kind of place where they cost $50,000 plus to send your kid to high school. And as bad as that is. Anyway, the father very educated guy wrote a brilliant letter discussing how the curriculum at Brearley, like almost every school in the country, has been infected by nonsense like critical race theory he refers to as many other things of that ilk.
And he says I’m taking my daughter out, goodbye. Well, this letter went viral on the Internet. That’s why I wrote about it. And also it parallels what’s really going on. I’ve been meeting a lot of people in that age category or that are starting to home school their kids because what’s going on in our schools is we might as well be in Beijing. In fact, I think Beijing is probably better because they probably don’t talk as much nonsense and get down to brass tax.
Leahy: Reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Simon: Yeah, exactly. Because we have been controlling the world where we are showing off a virtue which is non-existent.
Leahy: A false virtue because they’re putting forward this critical race theory bunk from the 1619 Project. But now the Biden administration is apparently going to be giving grants to K-12 public schools teachers all around the country, including Tennessee. You just apply for it. And now I’ve been pressing members of the Tennessee General Assembly to say, look, this grant is coming right now unless you do something, there will be critical race theory grants given by the Department of Education to K-12 public school teachers in Tennessee this fall, and they’ll be teaching it.
Simon: It’s horrible. And it’s the way that the Biden administration is essentially putting something in the arms of our youth. It’s more or less like the COVID vaccine I’m sorry to say. I mean this is really despicable. And what the citizenry has to say something, because that Brearley father is to be admired because he had real guts because most people are afraid to do this because I think something bad is going to happen to their kids, or there’ll be blackballed or something. And the truth is, something worse is happening if they don’t do anything.
Leahy: And the problem that I see is that the ability of kids today to think independently is much much less than it was in our youth.
Simon: Absolutely. They’re scared to think independently because independent thought is ostracised.
Leahy: And crushed with peer pressure and pressure from the school. And it’s very difficult to do that. Now, a lot of parents look at this and say, well, I’ve got to do this because I got to get my child into a good school. And once they’re in a good school, they’ll be able to make a good living. What’s wrong with that picture?
Simon: Well, what’s wrong with it is actually, they’re being steered into the subject matter which will not make them make a good living. That’s the irony of it. The only possible thing you can do, for example with a college major in gender studies is to teach gender studies.
Leahy: That’s the only thing you can do. That’s funny. Good point.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
