Insights Into Teens: Episode 176 ”Distorting Parental Rights”

INTRO THEME]
[INTRODUCTIONS]
Insights Into Teens: Episode 176 “Distorting Parental Rights”
My intelligent and in-touch co-host Madison Whalen Summary
There has been a lot of talk about “parental rights” from prominent conservative personalities.
This is a top often associated with LGBTQ rights, the history of slavery in our country and other sensitive topics
Laws are being passed in some states that are essentially changing the history and culture of our nation to fit a false narrative in the name of “parental rights”
Today we’re going to talk about some of these initiatives, what they are based on, what reality really is and how these politically motivated ideologies are adversely affecting our kids in the name of political agendas But before we do that, I want to take a moment to thank our audience for pushing our Insights Into Things podcast beyond the 50,000 download mark and invite you to give us your feedback Show Plugs
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https://www.insightsintothings.com [TRANSITION] [SEGMENT 1] https://time.com/6215119/parents-rights-education-gone-too-far/
https://bit.ly/3sacVWM For kids in school, the focus should be on math, science, reading, history and the other subjects and learning habits that will set them up as good productive citizens in the world
But these efforts have been sidelined by campaigns mounted in the name of “parents’ rights.”
Some parents are demanding that books be banned from curricula and school libraries, targeting teachers and administrators based on viewpoints, and fighting for control of various boards of educate.
There is no question that parents deserve a say in shaping their children’s educations
They have moral and legal responsibility for their children, and the freedom to make fundamental decisions for their families.
But the rallying cry of “parents’ rights” is being wielded to do far more than give parents their rightful voice.
It is turning public schools into political battlegrounds, fracturing communities, and diverting time and energy away from teaching and learning. The current parents’ rights movement goes well beyond the usual channels of dialogue between families and schools—parent-teacher conferences, PTA meetings, and calls to the principal.
The movement is an organized, nationwide effort waged by advocacy groups, including Moms for Liberty, the Parental Rights Foundation, and No Left Turn in Education.
Their aim is to activate parents to contest what is taught in the classroom, what books are available to students, and the professional authority of teachers, administrators, and librarians to carry out their work.
This campaign goes well beyond a judicious effort to prompt reconsideration of controversial aspects of certain school curricula or questions of the age-appropriateness of certain materials and narratives.
Rather, its methods center on censorship and are chilling speech in classrooms across the country. In Alpine, Utah, 52 books, including Judy Blume’s Forever and Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes, were pulled from school library shelves after an “internal audit” initiated by the school board determined that they contained “sensitive material” and lacked “literary merit.”
After an outcry, the district pulled back slightly, limiting access to the targeted books to students whose parents “opt-in” and making them available to their kids.
In Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and other states, campaigns have spurred the passage of new laws to limit the availability of books in schools, sometimes under penalty of steep fines for teachers or punishments for librarians.
PEN America, has documented more than 2,500 book removals in the nine months between July 2021 and June 2022 The accelerating pace of book bans across the country might suggest that such measures are popular.
But surveys show that upwards of 70% of Americans, including both Democrats and Republicans, oppose these bans; a 2022 Harris poll revealed just 12% of respondents favor banning books on “divisive topics.”
In the name of vindicating their “rights,” parents with special interests are pursuing tactics that the overwhelming majority of parents and citizens reject. The origins of the parental-rights movement reveal why its new focus on restricting school curricula and reading lists is so distorted and counterproductive.
Michael P. Farris, the driving force behind the Parental Rights Foundation, was an architect of the homeschooling movement, advocating for parents who wished to educate their children privately, at home.
Homeschooling won adherents in the 1970s and ’80s as court rulings, including in a 1986 Tennessee case in which Farris was an attorney, rejected parents’ efforts to get certain books – including Macbeth – removed from the curriculum on the grounds that they offended families’ religious beliefs.
When these litigants failed to enlist the support of courts to impose their religious preferences in public school classrooms, Farris and his allies shifted tactics, seeking to be “left alone by the government” to educate their children as they saw fit. The new efforts of the past few years represent a return to Farris’s original approach.
In 2007, Farris launched ParentalRights.org, a group that is now at the forefront of mobilizing parents against what its website describes as “’expert’ agents of the state,” namely teachers, librarians, and principals.
ParentalRights.org’s current President, Will Estrada, has celebrated the movement’s rising influence, saying:
“We’ve been speaking into the void,” whereas now, “suddenly everyone cares about parental rights.”
ParentalRights.org played a key organizing role in passing “Parents’ Bill of Rights” laws in Florida and Georgia, which impose heavy administrative burdens on teachers, make it easier for individual parents to challenge curricular materials for all students in a school district, and target LGBTQ+ affirming practices.
Many similar bills have been proposed in other states, and may well become law in the coming years The parental rights rhetoric championed by Farris has become a staple of some conservative attacks on public education.
At a conference of the conservative Moms for Liberty, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke about the importance of parents being able to challenge the books available at schools.
The conference included a session on “Gender Ideology in Our Schools. ”
A movement that for years sought to prevent the government from controlling how they educated their own children now seeks to decree what entire student bodies and school districts can and cannot learn and read.
The rhetoric of parents’ rights has morphed from a movement aimed at constraining the power of government over education to one that is mobilizing politicians and legislatures to extend the heavy hand of the government into the classroom. [AD1: SSE] [SEGMENT 2] A recent report from PEN America on book bans documented how groups organizing under the banner of parental rights curate and publicize lists of books that they view as “indoctrination.”
They then present those lists to district officials, and then administrators remove the challenged books from school shelves.
Established processes for reviewing challenged books objectively to determine if concerns are founded are swept aside as books are banned wholesale.
The report found that proposed or enacted legislation as well as political pressure from lawmakers played a direct role in over 1100 bans across the country, or at least 40 percent of the bans.
Spontaneous, sweeping book bans have become an alarming new norm, in which titles are removed at the slightest sign of complaint from parents or lawmakers. As stakeholders in the school system and simply as citizens, parents should participate in deciding how schools are run.
Their voices deserve to be heard alongside the expert judgment of principals, teachers, and librarians.
But to use legislation and mandates to declare certain stories and ideas off-limits violates the compact underpinning public education.
Parents who opt for public schools, rather than private academies or homeschooling, are signing up for a system designed to serve entire communities and general interests.
They are pooling their resources with other families to raise future generations.
It is one thing to believe that parents have the right to forego regular schooling in favor of imparting an individual belief system to children at home; it is quite another to insist that public school curricula and libraries be remade to match those predilections. These tactics also risk denying and defeating children’s own sense of educational and intellectual agency.
Efforts by parents to dictate what books their teens read and subjects they study stand in the way of allowing children to develop the autonomy and judgment they will need in adulthood.
Schools should breed critical thinking such that no book or lesson has the power to indoctrinate a worldview.
A major purpose of a library, a broad curriculum, and of the protection of free speech itself is the notion that exposure to the panoply of available ideas and narratives is what enables us to form and test our own opinions and beliefs. The same tensions provoking these battles are also roiling society more broadly.
Social and generational shifts in thinking about racial justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity have stoked concerns in some quarters about how marriages, families, and society at large may be changing in unrecognizable, irreversible ways.
The impulse of parents to shield their children from what seem like alien social forces and values is age-old.
The challenge is compounded in an era in which traditional geographic boundaries that demarcated communities are eroded by online platforms that make traditional controls on what children see, hear and know virtually impossible to enforce.
Some parents who find themselves raising children in an information ecosystem run amok have sought to more aggressively police the arenas they can control, training their sights on the public school classroom and library. Self-proclaimed parents’ rights organizations play on those fears.
They have turned their backs on time-honored modes of dialogue and partnership between parents and schools, stoking the belief that the threats they perceive demand government intrusion.
In some communities, frustration over pandemic school closures and learning loss has bred resentment and distrust of administrators and teachers, fueling confrontational approaches.
The American Federation of Teachers has reported a precipitous jump in the number of educators quitting their jobs over the last few years.
Meanwhile, children, who suffered learning loss and mental health challenges during the pandemic, find themselves in school environments wracked by tension, where their own rights and interests are often an afterthought. In an era of intensifying polarization and fragmentation, public schools are among the few unifying institutions with the potential to help solder together a diverse rising generation of Americans ready and equipped to live together, solve problems and help build a better nation.
If parents are worried about the books their children may find in school, they can speak to a teacher or librarian, and—even more importantly—engage with their child about the values and stories they wish to emphasize.
The phrase “parents’ rights” may have a nice ring to it, but the agenda now afoot in its name should sound alarms for all those who care about the future of public education. [AD2: ENTERTAINMENT] [SEGMENT 3] The Ongoing Effects of Catering to Conservative Propaganda in our Schools
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/opinions/florida-advanced-placement-psychology-controversy-young/index.html
https://bit.ly/44ZXtLn Recently an email was sent to the parents of several school districts in Florida making announcements about AP Psychology course availability to students in the state
“As you may have seen in the news…,” the email read, “the Florida Department of Education has determined that under Florida Administrative Code select content cannot be taught in Florida classrooms. The College Board AP Psychology course contains such content.”
“College Board requires educators to teach the entire curriculum for an AP course for college credit consideration,” it said, “therefore AP Psychology is no longer a potential course option for Florida students to receive college credit.” These decisions came after the College Board, which administers the Advanced Placement program, announced that the state had “effectively banned” AP Psychology because state legislation, commonly referred to as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, doesn’t permit instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which the College Board considers essential for completing the course. Florida officials have countered that AP Psychology hasn’t been banned, but rather that the College Board is playing politics by telling school districts they can’t offer the course unless it’s taught in full.
Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. issued a statement that AP Psychology can still be offered “in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate,” but Florida counties are rushing to figure out what this guidance means before students begin the new school year. As Florida continues to serve as a model for other conservative states looking to overhaul their public education systems, it’s vital to understand what led to the standoff over AP Psychology and what this controversy reveals about the politics of parental rights in the supposedly “free state of Florida.” It isn’t Florida’s first scuffle with the College Board. Earlier this year, the state banned AP African American studies from its public schools after Republican lawmakers asserted the course taught critical race theory.
That decision led the College Board to revise its AP African American studies’ curriculum, but the changes didn’t appease Florida nor did it stop several other states from putting the course under review. In the current fight over AP Psychology, the College Board has indicated it doesn’t plan to negotiate with Florida.
Some Republican lawmakers in Florida have predictably responded by accusing the College Board of being “so committed to wokeism” that it is willing to sacrifice the course rather than adjust it to comply with Florida’s rules. That AP Psychology has even been caught in the crosshairs of the “Don’t Say Gay” law may surprise many Florida parents.
When the controversial legislation, officially titled the Parental Rights in Education Act, was first proposed in 2022, it only pertained to classroom instruction for students in kindergarten through third grade.
That narrow designation helped inoculate the bill against much of the criticism directed at it. Yet critics recognized that Florida’s restrictive legislation wasn’t really intended for only its youngest students.
Instead, as some educators and LGBTQ activists contended, it was the opening wedge of a broader assault on LGBTQ rights and public education in the state. In April, that plan became clearer when the Florida State Board of Education expanded its ban on instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity through the 12th grade.
The bill sold to Florida voters as a sensible measure to ensure kindergartners wouldn’t hear about sex in the classroom would now prevent high school seniors from being able to learn about the psychobiological basis of human sexuality — and possibly also from earning college credit for such coursework. In light of all the talk in Florida — and around the country — that parents should have a greater say over their children’s education, it’s worth noting that the AP Psychology class apparently has generated little objections in Florida in the past.
Quite the opposite.
It was the fifth most popular AP course in the state in 2021.
For the 2023-2024 school year, about 30,000 Florida students planned on taking the class. Given both AP Psychology’s popularity and its uncontroversial reputation in the state, the dust-up over the course exposes the lie of the parental rights discourse in Florida and elsewhere.
Some Florida parents have voiced their anger that the course may be canceled, just as they have protested the ban on AP African American studies.
Rather than empowering parents, Florida’s overreaching legislation always seemed to be just a play for power by the state’s Republican lawmakers and, especially, a publicity stunt by a small-minded governor who wants to be the next president. [TRANSITION] [CLOSE] Closing thoughts shoutouts [OUTRO AND CREDITS] Show Plugs
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Email us at:
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https://www.insightsintothings.com Parents in Orange County, Florida, where I grew up and attended public school, received an email late last week. Neil J. Young
Neil J. Young

00:00:01:21 – 00:00:51:23
Michelle
Insightful podcasts by informative host insights into Things, a podcast network. Welcome to Insights into Teens, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years. 00:00:51:26 – 00:01:03:05
Joseph
Welcome to Insights into Teens. This is Episode 176 Distorting Parental Rights. I’m your co-host. Your host, one of mine. The host of the show. 00:01:03:06 – 00:01:03:29
Madison
You the Host. 00:01:04:01 – 00:01:09:13
Joseph
I’m the host, Joseph Whalen. And my intelligent and in-touch co-host, Madison Whalen. 00:01:09:17 – 00:01:10:12
Madison
Hi, everybody. 00:01:10:17 – 00:01:12:09
Joseph
How you doing today, Matty? 00:01:12:11 – 00:01:14:12
Madison
I’m doing all right. How about you? 00:01:14:14 – 00:01:25:11
Joseph
Doing all right. So. So today’s topic is going along with a series that we had tried to kind of stick to a theme of controversial topics. 00:01:25:13 – 00:01:26:06
Madison
Yep. 00:01:26:08 – 00:01:31:05
Joseph
And I think this is probably the hottest one that we’ve had to deal with so far. 00:01:31:07 – 00:01:33:27
Madison
Yep. Now, I would also probably tend to agree. 00:01:34:03 – 00:01:40:04
Joseph
And this one is kind of ripped right out of the recent headlines too. So I thought this was worthwhile having a discussion about. 00:01:40:06 – 00:01:41:08
Madison
Yeah. 00:01:41:11 – 00:02:08:21
Joseph
So there’s been a lot of talk about parental rights from prominent conservative personalities. This is a topic often associated with LGBTQ rights, the history of slavery in our country and other sensitive topics. Laws are being passed in some states that are essentially changing the history and culture of our nation to fit a false narrative in the name of parental rights. 00:02:08:23 – 00:02:33:18
Joseph
Today we’re going to talk about some of these initiatives, what they’re based on, what reality really is, and how these politically motivated ideologies are adversely affecting our kids in the name of political agendas. But before we do that, I want to take a moment to actually thank our audience for pushing our insights into Things podcast beyond the 50,000 download Mark. 00:02:33:23 – 00:03:03:15
Joseph
Yeah, we hit that earlier this week. Thank you very much for that. So that means I won’t bug anyone to subscribe to the podcast because apparently people obviously are. Yeah, I would, however, invite you to give us your feedback right in. Tell us how we’re doing comments on some of the topics that we’re talking about if we’re willing to discuss anything that the audience wants to talk about, you can email us at comments and insights into things dot com. 00:03:03:18 – 00:03:16:03
Joseph
You can find us on Twitter at insights, underscore things or you can find links to all that and more on our official website at WW w dot insights into the things dot com. Shall we get into it. 00:03:16:07 – 00:03:17:10
Madison
I think we shall. 00:03:17:11 – 00:03:25:22
Joseph
Here we go let the fur fly. 00:03:25:24 – 00:03:38:14
Joseph
For kids in school, the focus should be on math, science, reading, history and the other subject and learning habits that will set them up as good, productive citizens in the world. I think most parents would agree with that. 00:03:38:19 – 00:03:39:17
Madison
Yeah. 00:03:39:19 – 00:04:06:25
Joseph
These efforts have been sidelined by campaign ends, mainly in the name of, quote, parental rights. Some parents are demanding that books be banned from curricula in school libraries, targeting teachers and administrators based on viewpoints and fighting for control of various boards of education. There are no question that parents deserve a say in the shaping and shaping their children’s educations. 00:04:06:27 – 00:04:32:17
Joseph
They have moral and legal responsibility for their children and the freedom to make fundamental decisions for their families. But the rallying cry of parents rights is being wielded to do far more than give parents their rightful voice. It’s turning public schools into political battlegrounds, fracturing communities and diverting time and energy away from teaching and learning. 00:04:32:20 – 00:04:57:23
Madison
The current parents rights movement goes well beyond the usual channels of dialog between families and schools, such as parent teacher conferences, PTA meetings and calls to the principal. The movement is an organized nationwide effort waged by advocacy groups, including Moms of Liberty, the Parental Rights Foundation, and no left turn in education. Their aim is to add is to activate parents. 00:04:57:26 – 00:05:31:15
Madison
No advocate, no to make all right. Their aim is to activate parents to contest what is taught in the classroom, what books are available to students, and the professional authority of teachers, administrators and librarians to carry out their work. This campaign goes well beyond a judicious effort to prompt reconsideration of controversial aspects of certain school curricula and questions of age appropriateness of certain materials and narratives, whether its methods center on censorship and our chilling speech in classrooms across the country. 00:05:31:17 – 00:06:00:04
Joseph
It’s worthwhile pausing there just for a moment to kind of talk about that. So when they say they’re talking about activating parents, basically what you have is you have a bunch of special interest groups out there that have their own agenda. Mm hmm. And in order to get that agenda passed, they’re riling up parents with this false narrative of, well, if you don’t do something about it, it’s going to ruin your children’s future. 00:06:00:07 – 00:06:18:17
Madison
Yeah, and that’s something I’ve certainly seen a lot. Currently, it’s like the main focus is now on the children. For some reason, when it comes to literally everything. And now the topics that are like being popular now are like things that we have to worry about the children. 00:06:18:19 – 00:06:44:03
Joseph
And, you know, the the rallying cry of it’s for the children has been one that is being used and abused by politicians for generations now, because it’s one of those things where, well, if if I’m doing this for the children and you’re against me, then you must be against the children. Mm hmm. And it’s a case of basically gaslighting. 00:06:44:03 – 00:06:46:12
Joseph
And we’ve talked about gaslighting in the past. 00:06:46:14 – 00:06:47:02
Madison
Yeah. 00:06:47:04 – 00:07:09:04
Joseph
The idea of if you’re not for me, then you’re against me. Mm hmm. It’s. It’s a used as a as a divisive metaphor. Basically, tear down any type of organized opposition by saying, well, if you don’t support this thing, you don’t support kids. So you must be a terrible person. 00:07:09:07 – 00:07:33:09
Madison
Yeah. And that’s something that both sides can kind of have problems with or something that like they try to find like anybody that kind of argues politically can like it can go south, if you like, try to find a reason to think that the person that you’re arguing against is morally wrong, because what you stand for is technically morally right. 00:07:33:14 – 00:07:39:15
Joseph
Right. You know, that’s like saying, well, I’m for world peace and you’re not, so you must be a warmonger. 00:07:39:22 – 00:07:40:04
Madison
Yeah. 00:07:40:09 – 00:08:14:09
Joseph
And it’s it’s like if your idea of world peace is just giving in and submitting to tyrannical rule Ukraine not to get political, but Ukraine is a great example of that. People that are supporting Ukraine and Ukraine’s freedom to exist against an illegal war that’s being waged by Russia are now having the tables turned on them, saying they’re warmongers because Ukraine should just go to the negotiating table and and cut a deal with Russia so that the fighting stops. 00:08:14:10 – 00:08:15:29
Madison
Yeah. 00:08:16:01 – 00:08:28:04
Joseph
And the people that are saying that are basically saying, well, you just need to give Russia what they want. And if you don’t do that, then you’re a warmonger. You want this war to continue. 00:08:28:06 – 00:08:48:11
Madison
Yeah. And that’s like and obviously, while it’s a less extreme example here in the U.S., it’s still something that’s being waged in the ways of like, oh, well, if you’re not, I’m doing this for the children, I’m doing that. I’m doing it for the children. It doesn’t mean that if. Well, I don’t know. 00:08:48:11 – 00:09:19:00
Joseph
It’s just it’s what’s called a straw man argument. Basically, you’re you’re propping up a what if. Hypothetical situation out there and saying well if you don’t support that then then you’re terrible. And it’s a form of psychology that has been used in the past, but it’s being used by not some very not nice people like the Nazis, for instance, in fascist Italy have have used these type of techniques in. 00:09:19:00 – 00:09:26:27
Joseph
The scary thing is that our political system today in these special interest groups are now turning to these tactics because they’re very effective tactics. 00:09:26:28 – 00:09:50:03
Madison
Yeah, because like with strawman arguments, a lot of the times like they can’t be debated with and that’s like the problem with it. It’s like I’m all for people debating different topics. But when you use straw man tactics of saying, Well, I’m completely in the right because I’m supporting this. So that means that if you’re trying to argue with me, then you’re completely wrong. 00:09:50:05 – 00:10:01:09
Madison
Right. That’s not going to leave any room for debate because you because apparently you’re the person that’s supposedly in the right. So you can’t really be debated with. 00:10:01:10 – 00:10:15:03
Joseph
Right. And there’s no chance of reasoning with people that go down that path anyway. It might be worthwhile for us to do a topic podcast on straw man arguments and and where some of the flaws are. But let’s get back on topic. 00:10:15:09 – 00:10:16:09
Madison
Yeah. 00:10:16:11 – 00:10:56:15
Joseph
Someone else buying Utah 52 books, including Judy Blume’s Forever and Jodi Picoult and 19 minutes were pulled from school library shelves after an internal audit initiated by the school board determined that they contained sensitive material and lacked literary merit. Now, who makes that determination is kind of really what’s up for debate. After an outcry, the district pulled back slightly limiting access to the targeted books to students whose parents opt in and make them available to their kids, which makes sense. 00:10:56:17 – 00:11:11:21
Joseph
You know, if the if you if the whole thing is about parental rights and parents having power to determine what their kids can and can’t say, then the parents should be making these decisions. Yeah, you shouldn’t be getting legislatures and politicians involved. 00:11:11:24 – 00:11:13:06
Madison
Absolutely. 00:11:13:08 – 00:11:33:24
Joseph
However, in Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and other states, campaigns have spurred the passage of new laws to limit the availability of books in schools. Sometime under penalty of steep fines for teachers. Or punishment for librarians. Librarians. There’s an extra R in there somewhere. 00:11:33:25 – 00:11:35:23
Madison
Yep. 00:11:35:25 – 00:11:40:00
Joseph
One of the earlier stories. I don’t even need that extra r. I saved that one for another word. 00:11:40:05 – 00:11:41:05
Madison
Yeah. 00:11:41:07 – 00:12:13:24
Joseph
Pen. America has documented more than 2500 book removals in the nine months between July 2021 and June 2022. The accelerating pace of book bans across the country might suggest that such measures are popular. But surveys show I feel like I’m doing a gameshow survey shows. Surveys show that upwards of 70% of Americans, including both Democrats and Republicans, oppose these bans. 00:12:13:26 – 00:12:42:05
Joseph
The 2022 Harris poll revealed just 12% of respondents favor banning books on divisive topics in the name of vindicating their rights. Parents with special interests are pursuing tactics that the overwhelming majority of parents and citizens reject. Let me pause there again just for a second. In the 1930s and I want to keep going back to this and people probably are not going to like it. 00:12:42:08 – 00:13:01:04
Joseph
But in the 1930s, when the Nazis were coming to power, the first thing they did was start banning and burning books. As soon as you control the knowledge that people get, you can define what history is and what your place in history is. 00:13:01:06 – 00:13:01:27
Madison
Yep. 00:13:01:29 – 00:13:08:08
Joseph
There’s no such thing as bad knowledge, regardless of what the church may tell you. 00:13:08:11 – 00:13:30:12
Madison
And I’m not going to lie. I’m going to go back even further. I remember when I was learning about ancient Egypt and that whenever there was a new pharaoh, they would basically like the hieroglyphs from the other pharaohs that would pretty much like, destroy them and like, paint horror and like, hammer in hieroglyphs over them to basically rewrite the history and make the history lost to the other. 00:13:30:15 – 00:13:42:18
Joseph
Any time you look to control the knowledge that’s disseminated through your populace, it’s an attempt to control history and all. There’s some attempt to control the population. Really? 00:13:42:21 – 00:13:43:14
Madison
Yep. 00:13:43:16 – 00:14:06:08
Joseph
So this is why we learn history. We learn history so that when when history repeats itself, we have a reference point that we can go back to and say, See where we went last time we allowed this to happen. And it’s a warning sign so that we don’t go down that path again because we already had one Hitler in history. 00:14:06:08 – 00:14:07:15
Joseph
We don’t need another one. 00:14:07:21 – 00:14:08:17
Madison
Yeah. 00:14:08:20 – 00:14:18:05
Joseph
The Nazis have no place in our society anymore. So we have to keep that in mind when we when we talk about these things. 00:14:18:08 – 00:15:01:25
Madison
So the origins of the parental rights movement reveal why its new focus on restricting school curricula and reading lists is so distorted and counterproductive. Michael PS Harris The driving force behind the Parental Rights Foundation was an architect of the homeschooling movement, advocating for parents who wish to educate their children privately at home. Homeschooling want adherence in the 1970s and eighties as court rulings, including in a 1986 Tennessee case in which Farris was an attorney, rejected parents efforts to get certain books, including Macbeth, removed from the curriculum on the grounds that they offended families religious beliefs. 00:15:01:27 – 00:15:17:29
Madison
When these Lignans failed to enlist the support of courts to impose their religious preferences in public school classrooms, Farris and his allies shifted tactics seeking to be, quote, left alone by the government to educate their children as they saw fit. 00:15:18:01 – 00:15:39:00
Joseph
So they want to be left alone by the government. But now they’re lobbying the government to pass rules in their favor. Yeah, right. And if and if you have books out there that offend families, religious beliefs, don’t read them. Mm hmm. It’s wonderful having choice and having choice in society. 00:15:39:02 – 00:15:40:21
Madison
I know, right? 00:15:40:24 – 00:16:07:23
Joseph
The new efforts of the past few years represent a return to Ferris’s original approach. In 2007, Ferris launched Parental Rights Talk, a group that is now at the forefront of mobilizing parents against what its website describes as expert agents of the state, namely teachers, librarians and principals. He says that as though there are terrible things expert agents of the state. 00:16:07:24 – 00:16:51:05
Joseph
Oh, you mean teachers? Oh, yeah. Those teachers have nefarious intent, right? Okay, sure. Threatening rights that words current President Will Estrada has celebrated the movement’s rising influence, saying, quote, We’ve been speaking into the void. Whereas now suddenly everyone cares about parental rights. Parental rights dot org played a key organizing role in passing Parents Bill of Rights laws in Florida and Georgia, which impose heavy administrative burdens on teachers, make it easier for individual parents to challenge curricula materials for all students in the school district and target LGBTQ affirming practices. 00:16:51:05 – 00:16:52:18
Joseph
Because why not? 00:16:52:20 – 00:16:54:07
Madison
Yep. 00:16:54:09 – 00:17:01:10
Joseph
Many similar bills have been proposed in other states and may well become law in the coming years. 00:17:01:13 – 00:17:28:15
Madison
The Parental Rights Rhetoric campaign by Ferris has become a staple of some conservative attacks on public education. At a conference of the conservative Moms for Liberty, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke about the importance of parents being able to challenge the books available at schools. The conference included a session on, quote, gender Ideology in Our Schools, a movement that for years sought to prevent the government from controlling how they educated their own children. 00:17:28:19 – 00:17:49:07
Madison
Now seeks to decree what entire what entire student bodies and school districts can and cannot learn and read. The rhetoric of parents rights has morphed from a movement aimed at constraining the power of the government over education to one that is mobilizing politicians and legislators to extend the heavy hand of the government into the classroom. 00:17:49:09 – 00:18:15:03
Joseph
So you just look at the name of these organizations, right? So you look at moms for Liberty. Oh, they must be genuine, good, you know, God loving American people. Right. Just because you put it in your name doesn’t mean that you’re looking for liberty. These are people in an organization with liberty in the name who were deliberately looking to restrict what other people can do. 00:18:15:09 – 00:18:17:12
Joseph
Mm hmm. That’s not liberty. 00:18:17:19 – 00:18:18:03
Madison
Yep. 00:18:18:09 – 00:18:19:23
Joseph
That’s dictatorship. 00:18:19:25 – 00:18:20:21
Madison
Mm. 00:18:20:23 – 00:18:34:10
Joseph
You know, the Parents Bill of Rights. Because it’s all about the parents. It’s a Bill of rights that restricts what parents can and can’t choose. Because the people that are writing these laws are the ones that are choosing for the parents. 00:18:34:13 – 00:18:35:11
Madison
Yep. 00:18:35:13 – 00:18:42:08
Joseph
So it’s really a bad job of hiding propaganda, is what this is. 00:18:42:12 – 00:18:43:09
Madison
Mm hmm. 00:18:43:12 – 00:18:59:19
Joseph
It’s people who want control and the vast majority of people who are active in things like this. It’s all about control. You’re going to sit there and tell me that, well, parents deserve the right to choose. But here’s a law that tells you what you have to choose. 00:18:59:26 – 00:19:01:23
Madison
Yeah. 00:19:01:25 – 00:19:04:18
Joseph
It’s what we call hypocrite hypocrisy. 00:19:04:21 – 00:19:11:07
Madison
Yeah. And it’s just like it’s like one parent can complain about one book, and then it’s ruined for everybody. 00:19:11:10 – 00:19:28:17
Joseph
Exactly. If something offend you, don’t read it. Don’t have your kid read it. Don’t. But don’t ruin it. Macbeth. Okay. There is a like Shakespeare is like the the penultimate source for. For everything since the. His time. 00:19:28:24 – 00:19:29:22
Madison
Yeah. 00:19:29:24 – 00:20:00:09
Joseph
The banned books that he wrote is a pretty desperate ploy. Mm hmm. And it’s the subject matter, Macbeth, because it’s a good portion of it’s antic conformism. And they don’t want things that that spark people’s thoughts. They want control. They control the thinking, and they control the population, you know? We’re going to take our first break here. And when we come back, we’re going to talk about more good news about parental rights. 00:20:00:13 – 00:20:01:22
Joseph
What if you fight back. 00:20:01:24 – 00:20:11:16
Madison
The. 00:20:11:19 – 00:20:42:15
Joseph
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Joseph
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Madison
Welcome back to Inside the Teen. Today we’re talking about distorting parental rights. So prison reform and. 00:21:21:08 – 00:21:22:08
Joseph
Exactly. 00:21:22:10 – 00:21:37:17
Madison
Words are hard. So a recent report from PE in America on book bans documented how groups organizing under the banner of parental rights, curate and publicize lists of books that they view as, quote, indoctrination. 00:21:37:23 – 00:21:39:20
Joseph
Which is the ultimate irony here. Really? 00:21:39:27 – 00:22:14:24
Madison
Yep, certainly. They then present those lists to district officials and then administrators remove the challenged books from school shelves, establish processes for reviewing challenged books objectively to determine if concerns are founded, are swept aside as book bans are as books are banned wholesale. The report found that proposed or enacted legislation, as well as political pressure from lawmakers, played a direct role in over 1001 hundred bans across the country, or at least 40% of the bans. 00:22:14:26 – 00:22:26:04
Madison
Spontaneous, sweeping book bans have become an alarming new norm in which titles are removed at the slightest, such as at the slightest sight of complaint from parents or lawmakers. 00:22:26:06 – 00:22:54:21
Joseph
You know, this reminds me a lot about the 1950s red scare of Joseph’s Joseph McCarthy, where he saw Communists everywhere, had didn’t have a shred of evidence to anything and wound up ruining people’s lives, all in the name of more political power for himself. And that’s exactly where this is going here. The stakeholders in the school system and simply as citizens, parents, should participate in deciding how schools are run. 00:22:54:23 – 00:23:23:06
Joseph
Their voices deserve to be heard alongside the expert judgment of principals, teachers and librarians. But to use legislation and mandates to declare certain stories and ideas off limits violates the compact underpinning public education. Parents who opt out of public schools rather than private academies or homeschooling or signing up for a system opt for not opt out of sorry. 00:23:23:08 – 00:23:38:15
Joseph
Basically, parents who choose public schools are signing up for a system designed to serve entire communities and general interests. They’re pooling their resources with other families to raise future generations. You ever hear the idea? It takes a village to raise a child? 00:23:38:16 – 00:23:38:26
Madison
Yep. 00:23:38:27 – 00:23:59:07
Joseph
That’s what this is. It’s one thing to believe the parents have the right to forego regular schooling in favor of imparting an individual belief system to children at home. It’s quite another to insist that school, public school curricula and libraries be remade to match those predilections. 00:23:59:10 – 00:24:26:24
Madison
These tactics also risk denying and defeating children’s own sense of educational and intellectual agency efforts by parents to dictate what books their teens read and subjects they study. Stand in the way of allowing children to develop the autonomy and judgment they will need in adulthood. Schools should breed a critical thinking such that no book or lesson has the power to indoctrinate a worldview. 00:24:26:27 – 00:24:45:14
Madison
A major purpose of a library, a broad curriculum, and of the protection of free speech itself is the notion that exposure to the panoply of available ideas and narratives is what enables us to form and test our own opinions and beliefs. 00:24:45:17 – 00:25:19:20
Joseph
The same tensions provoking these battles are also roiling society more broadly. Social and generational shifts and thinking about racial justice, sexual orientation and gender identity have stoked concerns in some quarters about how marriages, families and society at large may be changing in unrecognizable or irreversible ways. The impulse of parents to steward child their children for what seems like an alien social force and values is age old. 00:25:19:23 – 00:25:54:10
Joseph
The challenge is compounded in an era in which traditional geographic boundaries, the demarcated communities are eroded by online platforms that make traditional controls on what children see here, and no virtually impossible to enforce. Some parents who find themselves raising children in an information ecosystem run amuck have sought to more aggressively police the arenas they can control, training their sights on the public school, classroom and library. 00:25:54:12 – 00:26:00:27
Madison
Self-proclaimed parents rights organization. Sorry, let me try that again. 00:26:00:29 – 00:26:02:03
Joseph
Or we’ll rewind that one. 00:26:02:05 – 00:26:31:01
Madison
Sorry about that. Self-proclaimed parents rights organizations play on those fears. They have turned their backs on time honored models of dialog and partnership between parents and schools, stoking the belief that the threats they perceive demand government intrusion. In some communities, frustration over pandemic school closures and learning loss has bred resentment and distrust of administrators and teachers, fueling confrontational approaches. 00:26:31:04 – 00:26:58:05
Madison
The American Federation of Teachers has reported a precipitous jump in the number of educators quitting their jobs over the last few years. Meanwhile, children who suffered learning loss and mental health challenges during the pandemic find themselves in school environments wracked by tension, wracked by tension where their own rights and interests are often an afterthought. 00:26:58:07 – 00:27:32:23
Joseph
In an era of intensifying polarization and fragmentation. Public schools are among the few unifying institutions with the potential to help solve together a diverse, rising generation of Americans ready and equipped to live together, solve problems and help build a better nation. If parents are worried about the books their children may find in school, they can speak to a teacher or librarian and even more importantly, engage with their child about the values and stories they wish to emphasize. 00:27:32:25 – 00:28:11:05
Joseph
The phrase parents rights may have a nice ring to it, but the agenda now afoot in its name should sound alarms for all those who care about the future of public education. But they make a very interesting point in the last half of this article here that a lot of the anxiety that parents face and I’m one of the ones that face it as well, is that you get to a certain age and I don’t know what that age is, where you look at the world today and you say, well, this isn’t how it was when I grew up. 00:28:11:07 – 00:28:33:26
Joseph
And when I grew up, you know, you didn’t have the Internet or you didn’t have computers or, you know, whatever it was. And they make the point that it scares parents. You know, the information that is available to you today is vastly more expansive than what I had as a kid. 00:28:33:29 – 00:28:34:20
Madison
Yeah. 00:28:34:23 – 00:28:56:28
Joseph
And there’s a certain amount of censorship that I impose on you and have imposed on you. You know, for your own protection. And when you get to the technology that’s in schools now, you start losing a lot of that control. So you make a valid point about that. What are your thoughts on that? 00:28:57:00 – 00:29:22:16
Madison
Personally, I do understand the idea of parental control. Like, the world can be a very scary place and the idea of it changing from how you had once known it is certainly understandable in the ways that you’re not able to control your kid as much as you wish you normally could and you know, in a way to more protect them rather than basically looming over them about literally everything. 00:29:22:18 – 00:29:54:10
Madison
So I certainly understand why parents have like the concern that, like their kids are going to be raised in a world that they don’t personally understand and with values they don’t personally know or personally believe in. So I can certainly understand, you know, the point that parents are trying to make in the ways of actually having parental rights and a say in what their kids learn, because some parents might not want their kids to learn about certain topics until they’re a certain age, or they might not want them to learn about certain topics ever. 00:29:54:14 – 00:30:07:19
Madison
And like I can certainly understand at least that viewpoint, because, yeah, it can be scary. Who knows what the world’s going to look like in like ten, 30, 20 years even. It’s like. 00:30:07:20 – 00:30:08:18
Joseph
Not necessarily that. 00:30:08:18 – 00:30:14:29
Madison
Order. Well, yeah, I should’ve gone first. I don’t know. I’m trying to, you know. 00:30:15:02 – 00:30:40:26
Joseph
No, but you make you make a very valid point. And they reinforce this this fear or by pointing out the fact that, you know, things were really screwed up during COVID. You went through it as a student. You know how screwed up it was. You thrived in it, though, fortunately. And I think that’s a testament to your your intelligence and personality that a lot of kids suffered. 00:30:40:26 – 00:31:07:03
Joseph
A lot of kids did not learn at the pace that they needed to learn. And the world just paused. But these kids schooling continued, and it continued in a way that took all of these tools that parents were afraid of because they don’t have control. And through it at the end, there was no organization to it. There was no controls that were put in place. 00:31:07:06 – 00:31:17:25
Joseph
There were no safeties that were put in place and then all of a sudden the pandemic is over and, you know, the genie is out of the bottle. You can’t pull back from these things now. 00:31:17:28 – 00:31:18:15
Madison
Yeah. 00:31:18:18 – 00:31:38:18
Joseph
So you have a lot of people, parents that are kind of frazzled by that and scared. And what you’re seeing now, I think, is really a knee jerk reaction to a lot of that stuff. I don’t know a better way of dealing with it. You know, society tends to be a pendulum, right? So it swings to the left. 00:31:38:19 – 00:31:50:07
Joseph
It swings to the right. It spend some time in the middle there. As long as you don’t swing too far to either side. Society pretty much goes on as as normal. 00:31:50:10 – 00:31:50:29
Madison
Yeah. 00:31:51:01 – 00:32:11:04
Joseph
When you start making these changes out of fear and and anxiety and they’re knee jerk changes and you’re putting them in the law, that’s where you start swinging too far because it’s easy to make a law compared to how hard it is to recall a law. 00:32:11:09 – 00:32:11:27
Madison
Yeah. 00:32:12:00 – 00:32:39:23
Joseph
And when you start making laws that are pulling because really what we’re talking about is taking decision making out of the hands of the parents. Except for those few that are lobbying the politicians to make these laws. Well, what happens when the shoes on the other foot and when these people who convince these politicians to make these laws realize in a few years that these weren’t the best laws to make and now it’s hindering our children, what are we going to do that? 00:32:39:26 – 00:32:43:00
Joseph
Yeah. So there’s consequences to it. 00:32:43:02 – 00:33:04:26
Madison
Yeah. And the one thing that I’ve certainly kind of taken away from this, so, yes, I understand that parents would want to possibly, especially due to the pandemic and them having a lot more resources to see the broader aspect of the world. I understand that some parents are fearful because they don’t want their kids learning about the world just yet. 00:33:04:26 – 00:33:33:07
Madison
They don’t want their kids to really be experiencing all that stuff just yet. And while I understand that concern, I’m also of the mindset that at some point they’re going to have to learn about it. And obviously when they learn about it is certainly up for debate. What’s the best age to teach them about certain topics? I can certainly understand like the constant struggle of when is it okay to teach this and when is it okay to talk about this? 00:33:33:08 – 00:34:03:04
Madison
And like especially specifically, what age would be best and really, it’s hard to determine that because everybody like everybody, while a lot of us can kind of be similar in the ways of how our mental structure is formed as we get older. Everybody’s different at that point. We can all like, I could have somebody the same age as me and we can be on totally different, like mental spectrums when it comes to being able to take certain things and not being able to take others. 00:34:03:07 – 00:34:27:02
Madison
So really defining the idea of when to be taught about this kind of stuff is something that’s incredibly difficult to really determine. However, it is important to keep in mind that at some point that will that point’s going to come eventually. You know, you never really know when, but it’s important to keep in mind that it’s going to happen. 00:34:27:04 – 00:34:47:24
Joseph
Right. And I agree. And, you know, I’m one of those overprotective parents when it comes to you. There are certain topics that we’ve had on the docket to talk about on this podcast for some time now that I just haven’t felt we were ready to talk about those things. Sex and drugs, but not rock and roll in a network about rock and roll. 00:34:47:26 – 00:34:57:09
Joseph
But, you know, there are topics out there that were getting to that point where we have to talk about them because if I don’t, then I’m doing you a disservice. 00:34:57:12 – 00:34:58:13
Madison
No. 00:34:58:15 – 00:35:18:10
Joseph
But I’m going through that anxiety already of, Oh, my God, you’re growing up, I have to deal with it. How do I cope with it? I’m not running out and convincing people to pass legislation so that I can deal with my own fears. That’s a little extreme. 00:35:18:16 – 00:35:37:20
Madison
Yeah, and especially now that I am growing up, I’ve learned that learning about the world and finding out about all these different things and different people and what they believe in and what really just goes on in the world is part of growing up. And I’ll be the first to admit I don’t want to grow up. Like, I don’t want. 00:35:37:20 – 00:35:41:06
Joseph
To be a Toys R US kid. That we can’t do that anymore. 00:35:41:09 – 00:36:10:05
Madison
Yeah, it’s just like I have the fears as well of going out much like productive parents might have over their kids growing up and like, yeah, I’m getting to the point where I’m having to think about things like college. I’m starting to have to drive. I’m getting to I’m getting to the age where I’m going to be able to eventually vote and like I’m going to be accepting all these responsibilities at like a certain time. 00:36:10:07 – 00:36:20:12
Madison
And a lot of people aren’t really ready for that sort of thing. Like it’s technically like a set time almost where like every responsibility is thrown out. 00:36:20:12 – 00:36:22:15
Joseph
You just drop a run on your shoulders all at once. 00:36:22:21 – 00:36:38:17
Madison
Basically, they just drop it all on your shoulders and you’re just supposed to deal with it. Yeah, and that’s what I think a lot of these parents kind of have to understand is that at some point all that load is going to be dropped on to your kids and most of the time your kids probably aren’t ready for it either. 00:36:38:20 – 00:37:07:16
Madison
So the best thing to do, like they mentioned, is to communicate with your child. And that’s really the best thing you can do because you’re both technically going through a similar experience. You’re watching your kid grow up into a world that you’re fearful of how they’re going to react to it, and your kid is forced to have all this burden on their shoulders as they get to just this certain age where all this grown up stuff is just implanted into their minds and that, oh wow, I have to deal with all this right now when I don’t even think I’m ready for it. 00:37:07:18 – 00:37:42:08
Joseph
And that’s a very good point. And this is this is why this podcast works so well, is that perspective. Because as parents, our job is obviously to keep you alive, but also to get you ready for that. And if we don’t, then we’re failing as parents. So I have to overcome my desire to protect you so that I can get you ready for that, so that you can be, like I said at the top of the show, productive citizens in society. 00:37:42:13 – 00:37:43:02
Madison
Yeah. 00:37:43:05 – 00:37:48:27
Joseph
And everything that’s going on here with parental rights is not doing that. It’s doing the exact opposite. 00:37:49:05 – 00:37:50:06
Madison
Mm hmm. 00:37:50:08 – 00:38:00:29
Joseph
So we’re going to take our last break, and we’re going to come back and talk about more good news, the ongoing effects of catering to conservative propaganda in our schools. 00:38:01:00 – 00:38:02:22
Madison
Yep, we will be. 00:38:02:23 – 00:38:15:19
Joseph
We’re going to bash those conservatives on this one. We’ll be. We’ll be right back. 00:38:15:21 – 00:38:47:20
Michelle
Insights into entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Our husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom. We’ll look at the interesting and obscure entertainment news of the week. We’ll talk about theme park and pop culture news. We’ll give you the latest and greatest on pop culture conventions. 00:38:47:22 – 00:39:18:00
Michelle
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Joseph
Welcome back to Insights into Teens. Let’s talk a little bit about the ongoing effects of catering to conservative propaganda in our schools. This actually comes from a CNN article. They say that recently an email was sent to the parents of several school districts in Florida, making it announcement about A.P. psychology courses, availability to students in the state. The letter reads, quote, As you may have seen in the news, the Florida Department of Education has determined that under Florida administrative code, select content cannot be taught in Florida classrooms. 00:39:59:03 – 00:40:50:24
Joseph
The College Board, A.P. Psychology Course contains such content. College Board requires educator hours to teach the entire curriculum for an AP course college credit consideration. Therefore, A.P. psychology is no longer a potential course option for Florida students to receive college credit. Now, these decisions came after the College Board, which administrators, which administers the Advanced Placement Program, announced that the state had effectively banned AP psychology because state legislation commonly referred to as Florida’s don’t say gay law doesn’t permit instruction related to sexual orientation or gender identity, which the College Board considers essential for completing the course. 00:40:50:27 – 00:41:17:23
Madison
Florida officials have countered that AP psychology hasn’t been banned. Rather, that the college Board is playing politics by telling school districts they can’t offer the course unless it’s taught in full. Floated Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz JR issued a statement that AP psychology can still be offered, quote, in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate. 00:41:17:25 – 00:41:41:22
Madison
But Florida counties are rushing to figure out what this guidance means before students begin the new school year. As Florida continues to serve as a model for other conservative states looking to overhaul their public education systems, it’s vital to understand what led to the stand off over AP psychology and what this controversy reveals about the politics of political No. 00:41:41:24 – 00:42:09:16
Madison
The politics of parental rights in the supposedly, quote, free state of Florida. It is in Florida’s first scuffle with the College Board. Earlier this year, the state banned AP African-American studies from its public schools after Republican lawmakers asserted the course taught critical race theory. That decision led the course board now led the College Board to revise AP African-American studies curriculum. 00:42:09:22 – 00:42:18:03
Madison
But the changes didn’t, appears Florida. Nor did it stop several other states from putting the course under review. 00:42:18:05 – 00:42:51:25
Joseph
In the current fight over AP psychology. The College Board has indicated that doesn’t plan to negotiate with Florida. Some Republican lawmakers in Florida have predictably responded by accusing the College Board of being, quote, so committed to Wokeism that it’s willing to sacrifice the cause rather than adjusted to comply with Florida’s rules. We think it’s hilarious when politicians accuse someone who’s not a politician of being political on a topic that they inflamed themselves. 00:42:51:29 – 00:42:52:23
Madison
Yep. 00:42:52:25 – 00:43:21:13
Joseph
Again, hypocrisy. The AP psychology has has even been caught in that. AP psychology has even been caught in the crosshairs of the don’t say gay law. May surprise many Florida parents when the controversial legislation officially titled The Parental Rights. Again, let’s let’s stick to you know, false names here. The Parental Rights and Education Act was first proposed in 2022. 00:43:21:16 – 00:43:37:19
Joseph
It only pertains to classroom instruction for students in kindergarten through third grade. How does A.P. psychology get involved at third grade? Well, that narrow designation helped inoculate the bill against much of criticism directed at it. 00:43:37:22 – 00:44:12:24
Madison
But critics recognize that Florida’s restrictive legislation wasn’t really intended for only its youngest students. Instead, as some educators and LGBTQ activist activists contended it, it was openly what it was. It was the opening wedge of a border. Border assault of a broader assault on LGBTQ rights and public education in the state. In April, that plan became clearer when Florida State Board of Education expanded its ban on on instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity through the 12th grade. 00:44:12:27 – 00:44:35:11
Madison
The bill sold to Florida as the bill sold to Florida voters as a sensible measure to ensure kindergartners wouldn’t hear about sex in the classroom would now prevent high school seniors from being able to learn about the psychological basis of human sexuality and possibly also from earning college credit for such coursework. 00:44:35:18 – 00:45:03:19
Joseph
So here’s another classic example of misdirection and gaslighting. So they got the initial law passed by saying, Oh, this is so that children between kindergarten and third grade don’t have to learn about sex. Well, what what horrible person would want to teach a third grader about sex? So everyone jumped on board, said, Oh, you’re right. Yet we shouldn’t be teaching these kids about sex. 00:45:03:21 – 00:45:12:22
Joseph
Even though there wasn’t a single course or anything in the curriculum that had anything to do with teaching kids about sex at that. 00:45:12:25 – 00:45:29:00
Madison
Yeah, like. Like while we aren’t in Florida. When I was in kindergarten through third grade. I never learned any of that stuff about, like, any sort of sexual orientation, whether it be straight, gay or lesbian. I didn’t learn about any of that. 00:45:29:05 – 00:45:53:00
Joseph
And this was put on the books. Prevent actively so that we didn’t distort our children. And if you said no to it, well, then you’re a horrible person. You want to expose these young kids to sexual education. What’s wrong with you? What kind of monster are you? So it was, again, that that dominant philosophy of you have to go along with this or you’re a terrible person, so. 00:45:53:00 – 00:45:55:02
Madison
You’re not allowed to debate with it either. Right. 00:45:55:02 – 00:46:18:20
Joseph
So that got it passed, Bill. Shortly after it got passed, they went in, they revised the bill. So now it’s not the third grade, now it’s the 12th grade. And they did all that behind the scenes, behind closed doors. The public taking a chance to vote on that. They didn’t even get notice of it. It just happened because that’s what they had planned to do all along from the very beginning. 00:46:18:22 – 00:46:45:12
Joseph
Let’s convince people, let’s lie to people to get the bill in, and then we can manipulate the bill however we want. That’s how these politicians are thinking. People need to keep that in mind. In light of all the talk in Florida and around the country that parents should have a greater say over their children’s education. It’s worth noting that the AP psychology class apparently has generated little objections in Florida in the past. 00:46:45:14 – 00:47:16:17
Joseph
Quite the opposite. It was the fifth most popular AP course in the state in 2021 for the 2023 24 school year. About 30,000 Florida students planned to take the class who can’t now? Now, what kind of effect is that going to have on their future college now that they can’t get those credits? Given both AP psychology’s popularity and its uncontroversial reputation in the state? 00:47:16:19 – 00:47:58:12
Joseph
The dustup over the course exposes the lie of the parental rights discourse in Florida and elsewhere. Some Florida parents have voiced their anger that the course may be canceled just as they protest protested the ban on AP African-American studies. Rather than empowering parents and this is really the moral lesson of this podcast rather than empowering parents. Florida’s overreaching legislation always seemed to be just a play for power by the state’s Republican lawmakers, and especially a publicity stunt by a small minded governor who wants to be the next president. 00:47:58:15 – 00:48:24:21
Joseph
And that’s where it is. He’s trying so hard and failing miserably, by the way, and becoming the next president that he’s doing everything he can to get what he perceives are wins in his column that say he should be president. And really what it’s doing is it’s showing the rest of the country how wound up Florida is getting at this point in time. 00:48:24:23 – 00:49:00:18
Joseph
So in a separate aside, just to kind of emphasize the impact here, the state of Florida is losing. It’s a huge convention state. People, tourism, conventions, businesses come in all the time. They’re losing over $1,000,000,000 over the next 7 to 10 years from conventions that are explicitly pulling out, conventions that have held their conventions or national annual conventions in Florida for decades are pulling out of the state because of these practices. 00:49:00:23 – 00:49:01:14
Madison
Yep. 00:49:01:16 – 00:49:28:07
Joseph
And the state has no income tax. They depend on tourism dollars, which is what conventions are classified as. So if $1,000,000,000 is coming out of that, But Coffer, who do you think is going to foot the bill for that you taxpayers are going to. Just like he’s in the middle of a battle, a very personal battle of the fantasies with Disney. 00:49:28:09 – 00:49:57:12
Joseph
And that’s costing the state over $1,000,000,000 as well. Who’s going to pick up that tab? The taxpayer is are going to also that he can garner some kind of I don’t know what kind of attention because it’s all negative attention he’s getting just so he can be president. It’s costing the Florida residents a fortune for him to be president. 00:49:57:15 – 00:50:19:27
Joseph
This also was the man, by the way, not to cut you off, but this is also was the man who had the laws in Florida changed that would have forced him to resign from office when he declared that he was going to run for president. He had those laws changed just so he could still be governor of Florida and run for president. 00:50:19:29 – 00:50:30:00
Joseph
That law was on the books specifically because when you’re running for president, you can’t dedicate the time to your job as governor that you need to. 00:50:30:02 – 00:50:42:01
Madison
Yeah, I find it interesting that just that some not the person that that law restricts is able to overturn that law for their own benefit pretty much. 00:50:42:05 – 00:51:15:03
Joseph
Right. So that’s sort of the state that we’re at here. This is another situation where people are well, using their children. Parental rights. It’s all a smokescreen. It’s all politics. Parental rights is the right for parents to make the decisions. And when you’re lobbying and you’re using third party groups to get laws put in place to take that right, the choose away. 00:51:15:06 – 00:51:17:27
Joseph
That’s the exact opposite of parental rights. 00:51:18:00 – 00:51:48:27
Madison
Yeah. It’s like it’s like this what to Santos is doing pretty much like how many parents are actually being okay with this. Some select parents are obviously, but parents as a whole, you’re taking the option away from them. You’re literally controlling every aspect of the schooling system to well, the parents have literally no say in anything, and it’s all just to fit one personal minded view. 00:51:49:05 – 00:52:13:03
Joseph
Yeah. And every survey that they’ve taken that has addressed this has shown you’re looking at maybe 12% of the population approves of it or somewhere in that amount, certainly nowhere close to a majority of people. But, you know, the Republicans right now are doing everything they can to restrict what people can do, what the power of the people have is. 00:52:13:06 – 00:52:29:10
Madison
Which, again, despite the fact that they say that we’re a quote unquote, free country and that we’re for liberty claiming themselves as a party for liberty, they’re restricting anybody’s right to do anything outside of what they want. 00:52:29:13 – 00:52:32:17
Joseph
That’s right. That’s called hypocrisy. 00:52:32:20 – 00:52:33:07
Madison
Yep. 00:52:33:09 – 00:52:47:28
Joseph
If you can spell it, I’ll show you one. So that was all we had today. I think I’ve I’ve provided enough sticks in people’s cages with this one today. Yeah. We’re going to take a very quick break, come back and get your closing thoughts. 00:52:48:00 – 00:53:24:23
Madison
Boy, okay. So to everybody out there, I just wanted to say that the concern for parental rights to an extent is a reasonable one. The idea that you don’t want your kids to learn certain things at certain ages. Yes, it’s respectable and it’s understandable considering the vast changes that the world has been going through. But I think a lot of parents who are worried about that and kids need to hear that eventually that’s going to happen. 00:53:24:27 – 00:53:52:28
Madison
And the job of the parent is to be preparing their kids to become adults. And it’s a scary thing for everybody. Parents are scared that the kids are going to go. Parents are scared. The kids are going to grow up and are going to have to face the world because they’re just worried that they’re going to face it in a way that they don’t really understand because they don’t personally understand the world from when they were originally children and had to face it themselves. 00:53:53:01 – 00:54:17:23
Madison
And children themselves are terrified about growing up because they’re going to be entrusted with all these responsibilities kids that they may not feel like they’re ready for. And I feel like the whole point is to really not think about it politically, but think about it in the ways of how do you think it’ll help to actually benefit your child rather than to push any sort of political agenda. 00:54:17:25 – 00:54:37:28
Madison
Communicate with your children. Communicate with the board. Don’t just try to get don’t get politics involved with it. Don’t get legislators involved with it. If it does have to come to that as like a really extreme example. Sure. But in reality, legislation shouldn’t have to dictate what schools can and can’t do. 00:54:38:01 – 00:54:39:24
Joseph
Sage words, as always. 00:54:39:26 – 00:54:40:12
Madison
Thank you. 00:54:40:18 – 00:55:02:14
Joseph
It’s also worth noting that one of the things that we try to do here is, is educate, inform and to a certain extent entertain. Don’t take what I’m not asking anybody to take what we say as gospel. Don’t take what we say as what you should believe. I want to enable people to go around. Do your own research. 00:55:02:16 – 00:55:19:22
Joseph
You know, it takes us a little bit of a while to do the research for each of these podcasts. And I would encourage people to go out and source your own information, fact check us, go out and think for yourself. All we’re really trying to do is to spawn people to action. 00:55:19:24 – 00:55:36:06
Madison
Yeah, and that’s the good. That is one of the good things about having all these resources now is that. 00:55:36:09 – 00:55:45:18
Joseph
Absolutely. So think for yourself. Always think for yourself. We’re we’re happy to be here as a resource, but we don’t want to be the only resource. 00:55:45:19 – 00:55:47:09
Madison
Yep. 00:55:47:12 – 00:56:15:11
Joseph
Anyway, with that in mind, I want to once again thank our listening and viewing audience for getting us to that five 50,000 download mark. But I would also invite everyone who’s listening at this point to subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions of this podcast listed as insights in the teens, both audio and visual of video of all of our podcasts can be found on this. 00:56:15:11 – 00:56:44:24
Joseph
It has insights into things. And we’re available anywhere you get a podcast Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, etc.. I would also invite you to write and give us your feedback. Tell us how far off my rocker I really am. You can us at comments and insights into things dot com. You can find us on Twitter at insights underscore things on Facebook, word facebook.com slash insights and the things podcast. 00:56:44:26 – 00:56:58:26
Joseph
We’re on Instagram at Instagram dot com slash insights and the things we’re adding. It links to all that and more. On our official website and insights into things that come to you. 00:56:58:28 – 00:57:09:03
Madison
And don’t forget to check out our other two podcast insights and entertainment hosted by you and Mommy. And then Suddenly tomorrow are not really a monthly podcast anymore, hosted by my brother Sam. 00:57:09:05 – 00:57:12:12
Joseph
Very nice. That’s it? No, on the books by everyone.