Live from Music Row, Wednesday 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 the original all-star panelist and American Classical Education’s Philip Schwenk in studio to talk about the school’s main objective of working with local school boards and supply clarity to misinformation.
Leahy: In studio, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael, also a very good friend, Phil Schwank, who’s with American Classical Education. Great background in education. Crom, you, and I were catching up on the process that Phil is going through with American Classical Education.
And just a reminder, the first time you were about a year ago in studio talking about all this stuff, Phil, it looks like you’ve got your capacity hearings before these school boards.
Carmichael: How many different school boards?
Schwenk: Five.
Leahy: And they’re in Maury County, Rutherford County, Robertson County, Montgomery County, and Madison County, which is the Jackson area.
Schwenk: Yes.
Leahy: And that those capacity hearings will be held over the next two months. And then the boards will vote over the next month or two after that. So we’ll know if you’ve got approvals. And as we talked about, it seems to me to be a total no-brainer, particularly in these areas where they are growing like crazy.
You mentioned something to me during the break that the idea here is you want to have a good, positive relationship with the local education agencies, it’s basically the county school boards. And then in some areas, we have city school boards, but it’s all before counties. So talk about that positive relationship that you develop with the local education agency.
Schwenk: Sure. One of the things that we’ve had to outline and it often gets, there’s a lot of misinformation, is that this is meant to be contentious and it’s not. We’re an organization, and I’m an individual that cares deeply about students. And my hope is to be in a dialogue with these local districts around those students and how we can work with them to do this work.
I think the only thing that there’s any kind of differentiation is we’re just basically advocating that parents should have a choice as to whether students go to school, but it’s not meant to be contentious. In fact, a lot of these, if we can, if we’re okayed or given a yes by these districts, the hope would be to be working with these districts in the work around these kids.
Leahy: Crom, choice that’s not contentious. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
Carmichael: I have a few questions about the schools that are open because I think as I was driving in, I think you said there’re 22 that are open. And you start with K-5 and then you add one a year…
Schwenk: That’s correct.
Carmichael: I guess up for seven years, and you’re adding to get to 12. Once it’s matured, how many students are in a school?
Schwenk: The model that we’re presenting would be around 700 kids.
Leahy: K-12?
Schwenk: Yes.
Leahy: By the way, it’s interesting about the school size. My dad was a principal in a school in upstate New York and every time there was this consolidation pressure, they wanted to centralize schools, and put them together. I went to one school that was K-12, 350 kids, another school, K-12 was 700 kids, another school, K-12 was like 1,400 kids. Every one of them had pressure to centralize and get bigger. Everything I’ve seen said that the best size school is like 500 for a thousand K-12, somewhere in that range. Is that right?
Schwenk: That’s absolutely true.
Carmichael: It’s the fact that it’s 12 or 13 grades. And so 13 grades divided into 700 is about 50-60 per class. That’s a pretty small class which means you can keep track of the educational achievements of each student. That’s a big deal. What percentage of those who attend school drop out?
Schwenk: Oh, very few. In the BCSI schools, the graduation rates of the various schools are well over 90 percent.
Leahy: And let’s be clear on the language, BCS is a Barney Charter School that uses a particular classical education curriculum. And they’ve been around for a while.
Carmichael: And then what percentage of those who graduate, which is almost all who attend, what percentage of those go on to college?
Schwenk: The majority. I would say 70, 80 plus. They all do something. Some go into the military. Some go into trades and learn skills and those types of things.
Carmichael: For those who aren’t particularly interested in college, do they have a trade? Are they qualified or do you help guide them as part of the guidance process upon graduation, saying, I think based on your educational results here and your aptitude and your interests here’s what we would encourage you to consider?
Schwenk: It’s the latter part of what you said, meaning that classical education is really about making a person literate, numerically sound, logical, reasonable, and a good human being. That’s what we’re trying to do. Our desire is when you have these, learned good people come out. Some will decide to go to college, some will go into the military, and some will go into the trades.
And that’s the idea, that we have good people who become lawyers, good people that become plumbers, good people that become soldiers so that when you start directing them, a lot of that comes out of the interest of those students because there’s a lot of kids that might be actually very strong academically that desire to go into like the military for example.
In fact, the military, a lot of kids that are going to the military are well-trained people academically. So it’s not our task as a classical school to direct them to a trade or occupation. It’s that they are able to reason learn, be rhetorically sound, good human beings that may decide to go in various directions.
Carmichael: You’re applying to five different school districts in middle Tennessee?
Schwenk: Yes, that’s correct.
Carmichael: If you were to get all five, do you all have the capacity to open five schools?
Schwenk: Oh, absolutely.
Carmichael: Wow. In 2024?
Schwenk: Oh, absolutely.
Leahy: Let’s use Maury County as an example, right? You say you would start K-five. What will happen is you do your capacity hearing before the school board in the next two months. And then they’ll make a decision. And let’s say you get a positive decision; you’re immediately going out and looking for a place for this K-5 school, right?
Schwenk: Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. Some of that, looking at a lesser level, is already happening. But obviously, if it became a real thing, we would be getting a facility, setting up the personnel, starting to look for teachers and administrators, and all the things that happen to put a school together. It’s a lot.
Leahy: Because we say, oh, why can’t it be this fall? And no.
Schwenk: Not in any reasonable capacity. (Laughs)
Leahy: He laughs hilariously.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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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.
Live from Music Row Friday 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 the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to weigh in on the lies of Anthony Fauci and Merrick Garland to Congress regarding gain of function funding and labeling parents domestic terrorists that oppose to school board mandates.
Leahy: Crom Carmichael, the original all-star panelist is in with us. Crom, lots of developments on the origin of the coronavirus. A stunning letter was released on Wednesday from the deputy director of the National Institute for Health, basically saying Fauci and Collins misled Congress of funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab. What’s your reaction to that letter.
Carmichael: Yes. The letter is going to really put the Justice Department on the spot because Fauci, frankly, lied to Congress
Leahy: Repeatedly.
Carmichael: Yes. And that’s the point. Because Ron Paul was very specific in his questions on each of those occasions over a period of about six months. And Fauci not only denied it but he also in the process, said that it was Ron Paul who was lying.
And so now we’re going to see whether or not the Justice Department will hold Fauci accountable. And by the way, if, in fact, that NIH letter is true.
Leahy: It is true. It exists. It was written by the deputy principal deputy director, a guy named Tabak.
Carmichael: Yes, but if what is in that letter is true, then that casts to me an entirely different and even worse light on Fauchi. Gain of function research is potentially species threatening.
Leahy: Absolutely! Absolutely!
Carmichael: It is worse than any bomb that you could conceive of because it could potentially wipe out the human race.
Leahy: It potentially could. Talking about reaction. Our own Chris Butler contacted members of the Tennessee congressional delegation to get their reaction to that letter. And here’s his report.
(Chris Butler clip plays)
News that the Bethesda, Maryland, based National Institute of Health funded gain of function research in Wuhan, China, has attracted the attention of certain members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation.
Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, who represents Tennessee’s First Congressional District, said in a new Washington Examiner column that Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Health knew more than they led on about a possible lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Harshberger said ‘Taxpayers deserve to know exactly what Fauci was aware of when and why he did not take action.’
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, meanwhile, tweeted that Fauci lied to Congress. ‘He knew we were funding gain of function research, and he lied about it. This admission is long overdue.’ Reporting for The Tennessee Star and The Tennessee Star Report, this is Chris Butler.
Carmichael: Now, that’s a great report, Fauci, I think, should be in enormous trouble because not only did he lie, but if it is proven that he lied to Congress, it’s not just the fact that he lied to Congress, it’s what the lie was about. Gain of function research should not be done, period.
Gain of function where you take two viruses and you put them together to see how bad they can get. In short, that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to see if it’s possible to create a super virus that would be devastating.
That’s what they were over there trying to figure out. Whether or not it was possible to do it. And this is Fauci’s argument from a number of years ago is that it’s a national defense issue to be able to determine whether or not that’s possible.
But if he was doing it in the Wuhan lab, then that takes that argument and completely flips it, because now he’s actually helping the Chinese develop a deadly virus.
Leahy: Here’s what looks like happened. For years, Dr. Anthony Fauci approved funding to a vendor who then gave money to the Wuhan lab who approved this money to improve the gain of function to make the coronavirus deadly to humans. This is what it looks like to me.
Carmichael: That resulted. I would say they didn’t do it to do what happened because you don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s the whole point.
Leahy: That resulted in.
Carmichael: That resulted in.
Leahy: And from that now in the United States, we have now had more than 600,000 deaths because of that result of that gain of function research done in China by our primary adversary in the world and funded by U.S. taxpayers. Approved by Anthony Fauci who lied about it and hid it. To me, that is one of the great crimes of America.
Carmichael: We’ll see what the Justice Department does because Merrick Garland testified yesterday himself the Justice Department is extremely busy trying to figure out whether or not parents are inflicting mental harm on school board members by complaining to them about the lousy job they are doing in education.
Leahy: He’s already instructed the FBI to go after American parents.
Carmichael: He denied that yesterday.
Leahy: Except who are you going to believe? Your lying eyes? He did deny it. How do you deny the statement that he told them to go after them?
Carmichael: Well, what I’m saying is now, if the FBI actually is investigating parents, then Merrick Garland will be found out to have lied to Congress also.
Leahy: It sounds like a blatant lie to me.
Carmichael: It does to me. But what I’m saying is either he may have told them to do it. Now, he may go back and tell them not to do it.
Leahy: There’s a memo that tells him to do that. The memo says investigate these incidents of domestic terrorism from parents.
Carmichael: And he says, you’re taking that entirely out of context.
Leahy: In other words, you’re reading it directly. (Laughter)
Carmichael: What I’m saying, though, is that Merrick Garland, has politicized the Department of Justice more than any person I can remember.
Leahy: Unbelievable.
Carmichael: And he’s done it in less than a year. And then now you have this Anthony Fauci lie to Congress and whether or not he does anything about it because the lie will certainly be referred to the Justice Department for action.
Leahy: We’ll see what he does.
Listen to the full second 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.
Photo “Merrick Garland” by Senate Democrats. CC BY 2.0.
Live from Music Row Thursday 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 all-star panelist and senior editor-at-large at The Epoch Times, Roger Simon, in-studio to speak about his latest piece addressing the need for citizens to take back America by running for their school board.
Leahy: We are joined in the studio by our very good friend, my former boss at PJTV. Also Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and now a senior editor-at-large for The Epoch Times, Roger Simon. Roger, good morning.
Simon: This is a good morning because the coffee is good here. (Giggles)
Leahy: I made it, especially for you.
Simon: Because I complained.
Leahy: You must start the day off with good coffee. And as our listeners are there getting up, most of them are brewing their coffee right now. And they’re starting to pour it. And so, like us, we are enjoying coffee as we have our morning discussions.
Simon: I was just going to say one thing about coffee. Woody Allen said life is 90 percent about showing up. Actually, it’s not even said about a coffee.
Leahy: Coffee helps you show up and get the day started.
Simon: You have a terrific commentary at The Epoch Times. Theepochtimes.com. I’d like you to talk about it. I think this is the central point of what’s happening in America today. You write, to save America, run for school board.
Simon: Yes. I don’t think there’s anything more important John Q or Jane Q citizen can do other than run for school board at this point in the history of the United States. Ironically, as I say in the piece, it’s more important than running for Senate or Congress or any highfaluting job you can think of it. It’s the grassroots of the grassroots.
What’s interesting about it is that one of the commenters on my piece already – and it only went up at 11 o’clock last night, but it’s really getting a lot of traction – it reminded us that Lenin said to give him four years of educating any young person and he would have them for life.
Leahy: And I think those four years kind of go up to fourth grade. By fourth grade, they’re 90 percent formed, I think.
Simon: I think you’re right.
Leahy: Of course, we have actually some educators out there who may comment on that note. Just as an aside tonight, Roger, I’ll invite you to join me at this event. It is an open house for Thales Academy in Franklin at 6 pm.
If you come, you might want to write about it at The Epoch Times. This is a fabulous private school. It’s a chain now of eight.
Simon: People have been telling me about that for a couple of years, and I am anxious to see it.
Leahy: They use direct instruction as the most effective way to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Since it’s most effective, the teachers’ unions hate it. But it’s very effective.
And they have a classical education based on the values of Western civilization. They learn about American values and it’s a great place. The tuition cost is just a little over $5,000 a year.
Simon: That’s pretty good.
Leahy: That’s really good. Tonight on Carothers Parkway in Franklin.
Simon: This is all about running for the school board. And I learned a few things from my colleague and from my wife but also from my colleague Trevor Lauden at The Epoch Times who’s been studying this.
If you’re going to run for school board, which is a very important thing to do considering what’s happened with schools, where they’re teaching Critical Race Theory and all the rest of the absolute Marxist lies to your children, you should do two things: Do not run by yourself and try to run with four or five other people.
Leahy: A slate. It’s easier to organize campaigns that way. If you’re running by yourself, the opposition, basically a bunch of lefty groups, particularly here in Williamson County for years, have been doing this.
That’s why of the 12 members of the Williamson County School Board, about 10 are lefties and two are just struggling to deal with all that pressure from the left.
Simon: As we have heard, and there’s been a lot of research on this, that people get slanted very easily in campaigns when they’re by themselves because in the last three days they publicize, you know, when did you stop beating your wife or one of those kinds of things.
Leahy: And you got a parking ticket you didn’t pay 20 years ago. You are a scofflaw.
Simon: One of those things. You have no time to reply and you have no allies in making it good. So do it as a group. And I’ll tell the second thing.
Leahy: Alright, we’ll hold off till after the break.
(Commercial break)
Leahy: A great piece to Save America, Run for School Board. Now you were giving advice to people running for school board. I think Trevor Loudon is a guy who suggested this. Number one, run as a slate with others. Great advice.
Simon: That one came from my wife. But the second one comes from Trevor. And it’s true. And that is not just criticize, which we have to do and highlight Critical Race Theory and the rest of the nonsense that’s being inculcated in children.
But also come up with and have a program that you want to replace it with. A specific one. Thales Academy is one good example. The place that leads the country in all this is Hillsdale College. And if you go online, you can see their K-12 programs.
You don’t need to run with super details of this. Four or five bullet points are plenty for everybody to digest. But you’ve got to have something when you run for all or the people to say, oh, what are you going to do? Well, this is what we’re going to do.
Leahy: Implement this curriculum. Classic education curriculum, a pro-American history. Honest pro-American history.
Simon: And not this nonsense like two plus two don’t equal four because they’re racist or the other extreme stuff that’s being thrown out there right now.
Leahy: I don’t know if anybody’s ever told you this, Roger, but you are a very good writer. I’m just going to read two paragraphs from your piece. You’d be saving America from turning into the bleakest socialist Communist state imaginable, because that is what our current educational system, K-12 is designed to do.
And sadly, has been successful in doing literally for decades. And it’s only getting worse. You would in the process also be a true revolutionary in the tradition of the founders of our country in bringing back truth, justice, and the American way to our children and our children’s children.
Simon: That is rather good.
Leahy: No, it is great. It’s a lyrical salute to America.
Simon: Well, thank you. It took me a while to get there having had a left-wing path.
Leahy: (Laughs) But everybody has a left-wing path. You know, the famous quote from Churchill. “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you don’t have a heart. And if you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you don’t have a brain.”
Simon: Right.
Leahy: Except the problem is a lot of people kind of get stuck in that liberal stance because as we’re talking about the schools.
The John Dewey approach to schooling is a propaganda approach, and we have a generation of children who have come through schools where they aren’t taught to think independently, but rather to kind of anticipate the answer the teacher is looking for.
Simon: That answer is so dull and socialistic. And it’s quite sad what’s happened, because of the self-replicating system. The people who become teachers have been taught that, too, for years and years and years. So what we need is you, John Q citizen, to get out there and run for school board.
Leahy: And yet, Roger, you know, just thinking about this independently right now, I will say for those in our listening audience who are saying, yeah, I’ll run for school board. Then they think about it a little bit. It is a daunting task, given the current structure.
Let’s think about Metro Nashville Public Schools. Right now there are nine members of the school board. Eight of them are lunatic, left-wing ideologues. And one friend, Fran Bush, actually has a brain and is an intelligent person and has common sense. But it’s very difficult. She’s been our guest here in-studio many a time.
And when you look at the kind of groupthink conformity, left-wing ideology promoted by the school board director and their focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And then, headline at The Tennessee Star this morning: Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Calls for Board to Issue New Mask Mandate.
Simon: Here’s the irony in the whole thing. The United States spends more money on public education per capita than almost any country in the world. I believe Switzerland was once more. It varies, but we’re pretty close to the top and we’re getting terrible results. Think about that.
What a war on black people that is. Teaching equity and inclusion and all the rest of these buzzwords that are nothing but political power or fraud is an insult to the very people they’re trying to help.
They are the people who get screwed. Any Democrat out there should be ashamed of themselves. I used to be a Democrat, and I’m saying that. I mean, grow a brain.
Leahy: The problem is so they don’t think, they don’t analyze data, they just drop into almost a zealous religious approach.
Simon: Totally religious.
Leahy: It’s the religion of the left of totalitarianism, and it’s extraordinarily dangerous. We talked about this. The Judeo-Christian principles of Western civilization, that really is the building block of our American constitutional republic.
Simon: Of course it is. But sometimes they’re hard to follow. It’s easier to follow the leaders of the left who are going against that on every level. But you can save the country and yourselves by waking up to this. And I’m talking to liberals like I was. Some of them might be listening to this show.
Leahy: Our friend Karl, to whom I lost a bet because he bet that Joe Biden would be inaugurated. And I bet that it would be Trump. And I lost that bet. Took him out and had a steak dinner with him, bought it at Rafferty’s. Karl’s a great guy.
He got his start as a waiter at Rafferty’s and now has his own business, basically hauling junk and trash away from folks and very successful. But still, he’s got a certain worldview that’s different from ours. But he listens and we’re delighted he does.
Simon: Hello Karl. (Leahy laughs) We’ve never met.
Leahy: He is a nice guy.
Simon: But getting people to change their politics is very hard because most people have a whole network of reasons that they can’t change and that they won’t face or look at including work, including family, including friends. And it goes on and on.
And I’ve seen that all over the place. And I think most of us have. And right now we’re in a very bad place in our country because a lot of us are hating each other for reasons that have nothing to do with reality and have everything to do with being manipulated.
Leahy: But that’s an intentional effort at dividing the country, don’t you think?
Simon: Absolutely.
Leahy: This is what the Democratic leadership and I’ll go on, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Chinese Communist Party, to me, all seem to be aligned in promoting American division.
Simon: Oh, absolutely. And they’re doing a good job, unfortunately. So it’s up to us. And that’s why back to the school board. That’s one of the places that any reasonably educated person can get in there and try to stop it.
When you were talking about how skewed the Metro school board is here, eight to one, and so forth, don’t let that stop you. Go, as I mentioned earlier, get three or four or five friends to run with you.
Leahy: As a slate.
Simon: As a slate. Don’t do it by yourself. Then you’re just running into a wall and it’s silly. But everybody’s got a few friends who are like-minded and do it together. First of all, you’ll help each other.
Secondly, you get more money that way from supporters. And that’s what you can do. And if we do that all over the country, the country is going to change.
Leahy: That’s a very good point. I think it’s an organizational challenge to a degree. Because it does have some similarities, I think, to the Tea Party movement…
Simon: It does.
Leahy: Way back when in 2008, 2009. You and I were involved.
Simon: You more than I.
Leahy: But it was putting people together and focusing them on a common goal. So we’ll see how it all plays out. Very insightful, Roger
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.
Photo “Board Meeting” by KOMUnews (CC BY 2.0).
Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson to the newsmakers line to discuss the structure of state education policy, local school boards, and the importance of their elections.
Leahy: On our newsmaker line we welcome back State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. Jack, thanks for your patience. If you would indulge me. Jack, I just have to read this breaking story.
I’m not asking you to comment on this breaking story. We’ll get back to education in just a minute. I just have to read this because it’s funny. (Laughs) Are you ready for this Jack?
Johnson: I’m ready.
Leahy: This statement by Donald J. Trump just came out, like a minute ago. I’ll just read it. You don’t have to comment on it, but I find it very amusing. Just like in the 2020 presidential elections, it was announced overnight in New York City that vast, irregularities and mistakes were made in that Eric Adams, despite an almost insurmountable lead, may not win the race.
The fact is, based on what has happened, nobody will ever know who really won. The presidential race was a scam and a hoax, with numbers and results being found that are massive, shocking, and determinative.
Watch the mess you’re about to see in New York City. It will go on forever. They should close the books and do it all over again the old-fashioned way when we had results that were accurate and meaningful. Jack, thanks for letting me get that statement out. I’m not going to ask you for a comment. (Laughter) Isn’t that amusing?
Johnson: I would like to make one statement. And that’s why in Tennessee we don’t have universal mail-in voting. But we have a very strict system. You can vote absentee, but you must request the ballot with the signature.
That signature is verified, and you must do it and have a reason for voting absentee. And I believe that the root of many of the problems in last November’s elections, and I do think it’s very ironic, I believe, is a word you used earlier in the program that New York (Laughter) and what is going on is because of their massive mail-out voting.
It’s problematic. We’re not going to do that in Tennessee I can assure you.
Leahy: All I have to say to that Jack is, Amen brother. And thank goodness for the Tennessee General Assembly and for Secretary of State Tre Hargett, because we don’t have those kinds of problems here in Tennessee.
So a good point. Thanks for that comment. It’s just so funny. I just had to bring it up. (Chuckles) Now, Jack, we’re talking a little bit about education and it seems to me that we have at 145 separate school districts in the state, and they all have boards of education and people run for it.
And here’s what I’ve noticed. I liked to get your comment on this, and these are probably groups that you deal with, but I have a perspective that maybe they’re not doing such a hot job. So what happens is people will run for the board.
They’ll have an agenda that’s more traditional education. They get elected to the board, and then they go off to training with the group called the Tennessee School Boards Association.
And somehow they get the impression from that training, this is how I see it, that their job is not to run the schools, but to do whatever the school Superintendent does. I think that’s wrong. Am I off on that, or is there something there to it?
Johnson: No, you’re exactly right in terms of the way it should operate. The way that the system is designed. And it is it’s a little bit complex. But I think on paper, it’s a good system, which is that you have the state, you have the General Assembly, people that are elected like myself, to serve in the General Assembly.
We set broad education policy for the state in terms of standards and the way schools should operate, so that we have a degree of consistency across the state. And then we have created political subdivisions, that is what they’re legally referred to as, in the form of a school board school.
We call them local education agencies, LEAs, or local education authorities. Sometimes people say that. So we create these LEAs that are run by an elected school board. And it’s not a perfect analogy, but I think it’s the best we have, which is to think of that school board as a board of directors.
That’s what they are. And just like with a company, a board of directors hires a CEO to run the day-to-day operations. And so you have locally elected school boards that set the local policy that makes those decisions about the curriculum and about things that are important to the community that might be different.
As I said earlier before the break, from community to community. That’s why we don’t want consistency across the state. The elected boards are the ones that are accountable to the electorate.
They’re duly constitutionally elected. They should set the local policy and then that policy should be enacted by the director of schools or the school Superintendent. Whatever you choose to call them.
And so I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I do see, and we’ve certainly had a testimony, and we’ve had folks that have come in and talked about that its kind of the inverse that the director comes in and tells the board what needs to be done from a policy standpoint.
And that’s fine for them to make recommendations. But ultimately, that policy should be set by the elected school board.
Leahy: Yeah, I agree with that. And it seems to me, however, that the way this institution is set up, it is very difficult for a school board member to come in that wants to reverse course from these various elements of critical race series that are now creeping into the school systems and other things that they don’t like.
Very difficult for one member of a 12 member board or two or three to change course and then actually to get the local school district director to follow their direction. Instead, it seems like the school superintendents are unaccountable and tell the school board what to do, which is exactly the opposite.
I think that makes people very discouraged. Last question for you, what do you think we do in the future on this?
Johnson: I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, and I’m encouraged that there is more engagement from parents and communities relative to the school board. We have school board elections next year, and I think that there’s going to be a great high level of engagement. And that’s the answer to the problem that you just outlined.
Leahy: Let’s hope it happens that way.
Listen to the full first 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.
Photo “Jack Johnson” by Jack Johnson.
Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson to the newsmakers line to discuss the age-inappropriate wit and wisdom curriculum that has many people in the community angered. He also urged parents to get involved in local school board elections and oversight.
Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line, our very good friend, Tennessee State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. Jack, good morning.
Johnson: Good morning Michael. Good to be back with you.
Leahy: Well, it’s great to have you on. Now we’ve got to tell all our listeners is in full disclosure. You and I are pretty good friends.
Johnson: We are! We are! For many years.
Leahy: For many years. So this is just a couple of friends talking about a public issue. But it’s interesting how this one came about. Yesterday, as you know, in addition to hosting The Tennessee Star Report radio program here on Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLC, and owning and operating eight state-based news sites, including The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network, I write for Breitbart.
And I was very surprised yesterday when I saw a featured story at Breitbart News (Johnson chuckles) by my colleague Kyle Olson. And there was Jack Johnson. (Chuckles) It was a story about you, Jack.
And I sent this story to you right away. I said Jack, I didn’t know it was in the story. I said, Jack, I didn’t write this story or push it to anybody. And here it is. The headline. Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Fights Critical Race Theory in Own School District. So I sent you the text with that story, and I guess you’ve just seen it just a few minutes before.
Johnson: Yeah. Someone had sent it to me literally moments before you had as well. I wasn’t aware that it was going to be a national story in Breitbart. It was based off of an interview I had done with another news outlet here in Tennessee on the subject.
And I guess Breitbart picked it up. And by the way, I want to point out you’re a busy guy, you know that? You kind of rattled off all the things you’re involved with. You’re a busy guy. I can certainly relate to that.
Johnson: As are you. (Laughter)
Leahy: But of course, the other thing that’s great about you, Jack, is that you are a mean bass guitarist, right? You play with the Austin Brothers, and it’s always fun to go to a GOP event where you and your team are playing. It’s good music.
Johnson: We have a lot of fun with it. There was a time long ago when I tried to make money doing that. Luckily, that’s not an issue anymore. I just do it for fun.
Leahy: What’s interesting about this story, and I thought, Kyle, although he did not interview you, apparently for this story…
Johnson: Right.
Leahy: It’s very interesting how he put the story together. He started off. He saw a piece in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, where you were talking about the wit and wisdom reading program.
But he added to that three other sources, the Williamson Herald, the Tennessee Lookout, which is kind of the far left, funded by the usual left-wing billionaire types. Our friend Holly McCall, who we are friendly with, although she’s ideologically on the far left is running that operation.
And then, of course, also The Tennessee Star. Let’s go to this wit and wisdom curriculum. What’s going on with that?
Johnson: This is a curriculum that was adopted by the Williamson County School Board recently within the last year or two. And as you know, Michael, with this national debate that’s taking place relative to Critical Race Theory, there is an extremely heightened awareness, I think, on the parts of parents and communities across the nation and certainly here in Williamson County, where I represent.
That is the case. And so I have seen a level of parental engagement and involvement with the school board on a myriad of things. But certainly, I think Critical Race Theory and the debate over that has driven this. And so this curriculum was discovered that is being used in Williamson County.
It’s been used in Davidson County as well. I’m not sure how broadly it’s being used across the state. And it’s problematic in that some would argue that it is an entree if you will. It has elements of Critical Race Theory in it.
Others would say it does not. I care about that. But I’m not going to go into that argument. I have reviewed the curriculum and it’s problematic just from an age appropriateness. This is a curriculum that is used for young kids at school as young as, say, second grade.
And it has some dark themes about some historical events that may be have taken place that might be fine for a junior or a senior in high school, but not for elementary age kids. That’s one aspect of it.
And there are others that I could get into that make it problematic. And so that’s what the interview is about. And that’s what I spoke about. And in one of the interviews I did, I was very clear that I’m not making a case that this is or is not Critical Race Theory. It is problematic. And I don’t believe it’s age-appropriate for small kids.
Leahy: We looked at that. We did a bunch of stories on this. Our ace reporter, Corinne Murdock, showed examples of the curriculum. And you’re absolutely right about not being age-appropriate.
They’re really painting a very, very negative picture of America’s history to second graders, second graders. That’s undeniable. It seems to me to be a judgment problem to include that in the curriculum for second graders.
Johnson: Agreed. And this is why it is so important. And I’m grateful, Michael. This is very reminiscent to me of the whole Common Core debate when Common Core was introduced and it was being pushed in schools in Tennessee and across the nation.
And parents got involved. They learned about Common Core and what it was. They got involved and it led to it being removed. And now we don’t use Common Core in Tennessee. And we passed legislation to guarantee that.
So it’s very similar to the debate and discussion we’ve had about Critical Race Theory. And now it’s transcending into this wit and wisdom curriculum, which is being used in some areas.
And I think that’s healthy. I think it is good the more people involved and the more parents are involved. And I’ve had so many people, Michael, that have come up to me and say, Jack, you know what?
I’m not even sure if I voted in every school board election but you can bet I’m going to now, and I’m going to be involved. And I’ve gotten to know my school board member, and that’s what makes the system better.
Leahy: What’s interesting about this is we watch this and there’s a group of Williamson County parents called Moms for Liberty. I think it’s a national group, but there’s a very active Williamson County group and a friend of ours a man named Robin Steenman.
Steenman is one of the heads of that group. They’ve been very active in talking about the curriculum. Of course, I live in Williamson County, you represent me in the state Senate. And, of course, my children went to Williamson County schools.
But it seems to me that part of the problem is, and maybe you can talk about this in general, perhaps not specifically. Parents have concerns, and they go to the school board and the school board kind of responds to them like they are their children. Get it out of your system but we’re going to keep doing this. That’s what it seems like to me.
Johnson: Well, and that’s not an acceptable answer at any level of government. It’s certainly not acceptable. If a constituent or constituent group comes to talk to me about an issue at the state level, if it’s a city or a county issue, and certainly whenever it comes to our kids.
And I’ll preface this or digress for a moment here Michael. I’ve often said that I think one of the hardest elected positions in the world is to be on the school board. It is a very challenging job, and it’s one of the most important.
And it saddens me and I think you and I talked about voter engagement before. It saddens me. I’m very happy that there was a 70 to 75 percent voter turnout last November for the presidential election in Williamson County and a huge turnout across the state.
But when we have school board elections, typically the turnout is maybe around 15 or 16 percent. And it should be 100 percent across the board. But more people should be engaged with their school board and whether that’s in terms of working with them and lobbying with them and voting for the school board because the children in our Williamson County schools do not belong to the school board, they belong to their parents.
And the parents should make those decisions. We have an elected school board for a reason and that is so they can make appropriate decisions regarding public education that are right for our community.
The state created school boards. We could just have one statewide, and we do have a state-wide school board, but we could have one state-wide school board and do away with all the local school boards and just have one policy across the state.
I don’t think that’s appropriate. Educating a child in Memphis, Tennessee is going to be different than it is in Hancock County or Perry County. And so I believe in the local school board system. But that level of parental engagement as we’re seeing now is so critically important.
Listen to the first 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.
