From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Corey DeAngelis On the Parent Revolution That's Terrifying the Left

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

After COVID-19 led students across the country to remote learning, parents were given new insight into what, and how, kids were being taught in the classroom. And as months went by when lesson plans seemed questionable and kids started falling behind, many parents began advocating for programs to ensure their children were getting the education they deserved. Since then, the school choice movement has taken off — with 12 states passing universal school choice laws.   National Director of Research at the American Federation for Children, Executive Director at Educational Freedom Institute, and author of 'The Parent Revolution,' Corey DeAngelis discusses how he's educating people about what school choice programs have to offer, busting the myth that the system predominantly helps wealthy families, and sharing what he believes the future of school choice looks like.   Follow Sean & Rachel on X: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife,

Rachel Campos Duffy. Sean, it's always great to be around the kitchen table with you. And especially when we have a friend like our guest, Corey DeAngelis, who's about to join us right now because he is we've been loving picking his brain over the last couple of years on parental rights, on educational freedom. He is, of course, the senior fellow at the American Federation for Children. And he's an author. He has a book that's now a national bestseller, which everybody should go out and get. It's called The Parent Revolution, Rescuing Your Kids from Radicals Who Are Ruining Our Schools. So without further ado,

I want to welcome Corey to the kitchen table. Welcome, Corey. It's so great to have you. Hey, thank you so much, Rachel and Sean. So, you know, you and I've talked over the years. I've been a big fan. I've actually endorsed your book. So has, by the way, Donald Trump. And there's a reason because a lot of people have been talking. I'm sitting here in Wisconsin, which is the home of school choice. School choice has been a conversation here and in other parts of the country for decades. But because of people like you, specifically you and your plan to take back these schools, especially with the momentum of COVID, we have seen more wins in the last, I don't know, couple of years than we've seen in the last

25 years. And so, so many times, even on this podcast, Corey, we come on and we complain about all that's wrong with America and there's a lot wrong. But conservatives are even on this podcast, Corey, we come on and we complain about all that's wrong with America, and there's a lot wrong. But conservatives are winning on this issue, which frankly is the most important issue because it's the future. So why don't you kind of maybe talk to us first about why it's so important that we win on this and maybe break down all these wins and give our audience hope about what's happening and what they can do to make a change. Yeah, look, we're winning so much, almost getting tired of winning. Just kidding. We haven't gotten California and New York yet. But look, the teachers unions overplayed their hand. And guess what? Now we've had more victories on the school choice front in the past three years than in the preceding three decades. I actually

dedicated the book to Randy Weingarten and the teachers unions. She's the preceding three decades. I actually dedicated the book to Randy Weingarten and the teachers unions. She's the head of the AFT. She fought to keep the schools closed, lobbied the CDC to do so. And she just fights against any form of accountability whatsoever. But I dedicated to her and the unions for overplaying their hand and inadvertently doing more to advance school choice and homeschooling than anyone could have ever imagined. I mean, just think about it. We've had 12 states pass universal school choice. Milton Friedman's vision finally coming to fruition right before our very eyes in the past three years alone. That's an insane amount of momentum. We've never seen anything like it. And it's their own dang fault.

I mean, I don't know if you saw the viral video by Becky Pringle. She's another union boss. The other day, I just I clipped a video from her national convention where she was saying, we want all the things we want, all the things. I mean, it's just total lunacy, just absolutely unhinged. She reminded me of Dwight Shroop from The Office with his speech, where he's just banging on the table. And it just really goes to show you they've been so drunk on power for so long. They don't know how to reverse course. And that's going to lead to more wins in the future.

And so I think, again, I love that we're having some wins. And it seems like, Corey, that it was the knowledge that came out of COVID, right, that actually it's been a lie that the teachers union don't care about kids. They care about themselves and their union. It's not about kids. But also we started to see parents get activated when they're like, wait, hold on a second. I'm paying taxes and my kids aren't learning the basics. They're being actually radicalized in school. You think they would have known that long before, but it seems like this moment in time has been an enlightenment in the parent mind of what's happening in schools, which has then caused them to get activated, which I think has given us the wins. Yeah, look, the government school system has become more of a jobs program for adults than an education initiative for kids.

But it's worse than that because, look, the unions held children's education hostage during COVID for billions of dollars in so-called COVID relief since March of 2020. They got a lot of what they wanted in terms of money. But as Votie Bauckham once said, we cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans. Well, the good news is parents aren't surprised anymore. They saw through Zoom school. It was a total failure. It was called remote learning. We should have just called it remotely learning.

There wasn't a lot of learning going on. But families got to see what was happening. They started to see the schools were focused more on the LGBTs than the ABCs. They weren't focused on the basics. It was more about indoctrination than education. And families don't want to send their kids to people who they feel like are brainwashing their children for 13 years of their lives, for seven hours a day. So even if you don't have kids, the parent revolution is important for you. Even if you don't have grandkids, this is an important battle because the radical left has figured out they can infiltrate the government school system. They don't even have to have their own kids anymore. They can use the school system to raise other people's children and shape the direction of

the country towards a more socialist trajectory. And that's a huge problem. But the good news is families have woken up and the jig is up and the unions are terrified right now because families are pushing back and holding politicians accountable. Finally. Yeah. You know, one part of this story has been Catholic schools. And I think they deserve a lot of credit because they, they had to stay open because if they didn't, they were going to go under and the ones that closed did go under. And the ones who fought to stay open during the pandemic,

didn't just save their school and Catholic education. They literally provided an example. Like they were saying, everyone's going to die if they go to school. And you're like, but wait, my neighbor's kids all go to Catholic were saying everyone's gonna die if they go to school and you're like but wait my neighbor's kids all go to catholic school and everyone's fine um and so that was such an important i mean god bless these catholic schools and again i don't know if all of them did it for the right reasons they were like we're gonna we won't survive and common sense prevailed and by the way you talked about the unions holding them hostage, Corey, but they demanded gazillions of dollars and then didn't open anyway.

And the Catholic schools were like, just give us a little Clorox and we'll wipe down the desks, you know, and send them out for recess a little longer. I mean, it was crazy the amount of money we gave them. And then in some places they didn't open up anyway. It was one hundred and ninety billion dollars. And so more than the U.S. dedicated to rebuild Europe after World War Two and the Marshall Plan. We spent so much money. Yeah, it's just so much money. One hundred ninety billion dollars. And they didn't use it to to to make things more to make things safer. They were hiring more people doing all the same things that they wanted to. But it was worse than that. It was worse than a hostage taking scenario for money. We knew they were going to ask for more money. That's what they do. It's a definition of insanity over and over again, doing the same thing and expecting different results. They when they're

failing academically, what do they say? Oh, well, we need more money. We promise we'll do better this time when they couldn't open their doors for business, when everybody, all the private schools are doing it, what they say, oh, we just need more money but in places like los angeles they took it a step further and revealed their true colors in that they were calling for medicare for all a wealth tax police free schools they wanted to ban charter schools in order to reopen what did that have to do any of that have to do with opening schools? Nothing. Not a single thing. In Chicago, you had their union. Meanwhile, their board member was vacationing in Puerto Rico thousands of miles away. They couldn't go back to insane.

And she was she was mobilizing her union members from a laptop by a pool in Puerto Rico. from a laptop by a pool in Puerto Rico. Exactly. And they also tweeted out around the same time that quote, the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny. I mean, you just can't make this stuff up. How many kids never, that situation in Chicago was particularly egregious because those kids really are in such a tough spot. So she's in Puerto Rico,

you know, tweeting and texting away. But a lot of those kids who were Zoomed and not allowed to come to school because of COVID never came back. What's the figure of how many children never reentered the school system after COVID? I mean, we don't have the latest data, but the latest that I've seen is that about a million kids left the government school system after COVID. I mean, we don't have the latest data, but the latest that I've seen is that about a million kids left the government school system. So some of them went to private, some went to charter. Homeschooling has essentially doubled relative to pre-pandemic levels. And there's some that we don't even know, you know, what they're doing now. And it's a great thing that you mentioned Catholic schools that are doing a good job. They were open before anybody else.

The Nation's Report Card found that the government schools had decades of learning loss in just a few years, but the Catholic schools did not lose any ground academically. Guess what? They were also open throughout the entire time for the most part, and they didn't lose ground. So they knew what their customers needed. They knew what families needed. And guess what? That Chicago Teachers Union, their president, Stacey Davis Gates,

she knows Catholic schools are great. How do I know this? She sends her own kid to Catholic school in Chicago. And right after she called school choice racist last year. I mean, it's just insane how hypocritical these people are. So Corey, I want to be really clear, I think with the listeners, and I want to see if you would agree with this. We're having some wins in regard to the fight for choice in education, but we haven't won. There's a long way to go in the fight.

And so how do we continue to make advancement? Where are the biggest battles right now? Is it in the legislatures? Is it, is it on the, on the ground level at the school board level? Is it where, where are we at? How do you sum up the fight in the debate right now with again, conservatives or just people who care about their kids making progress with, with choice in education? Yeah, it's a battle on multiple fronts. We win this war by fighting in the school boards,

but also at the state legislatures as well. I will say school choice bills are mostly passed in state legislatures. And I think where does the movement go from here? Look, we have 12 red states. I think the next government school monopoly dominoes to fall will be the red states that haven't done so as well or yet, including my home state of Texas. Guess what? In Texas, they passed universal school choice through the Senate easily last year, 18 to 13. Governor Abbott's a huge proponent of the issue. It moved over to the House, controlled by so-called Republicans. And 21 of those fake Republicans joined all the Democrats in the House and voted against their own party platform issue of school choice.

Why? Look, yeah, it's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for them. Well, guess what? It didn't work out for them. 14 of those guys are gone now. That basically never happens in politics, where you have incumbents just getting

ousted to a large degree. Incumbents, sitting legislators usually win their election, reelection 95 percent of the time. That trend was inverted in Texas. And now we finally have the votes for Texas for the first time in history. We picked up 14 votes in the primaries. It's unheard of. And it's because parents alone on that. Yes, that was the main dividing line in every single one of those races. And and the polls were showing these guys that they were about to lose if they didn't vote for school choice. You had the University of Texas, Austin, UT, University of Houston, Morning Consult, Dallas Morning News of all places, University of Houston morning consult, Dallas Morning News of all places, consistently showing that Texas voters support school choice, even when you use the teachers union terminology of vouchers.

And so it's a popular issue. A lot of these guys can't understand why. Why would they do it, Corey? Why? I mean, what they were. What would why would they want to vote with Democrats? This is Texas. This is school choice, which everyone is on board with on the on the conservative. It doesn't make sense to me. They were already endorsed by the state affiliate, the NEA. Eighteen of the twenty one no votes were already endorsed by the Texas State Teachers Association. So they were already owned by the teachers union. They also they tried to have their cake and eat it, too, by providing an excuse. They said, oh, well, we're in rural areas. And since we're in rural areas, on the one hand, my constituents can't use this. But in the next breath, with a straight face, they tried to tell you that this was going to defund their fantastic rural public school.

But wait, hold on a minute. Which one is it? If no one's going to use it and no one can vote with their feet somewhere else, your schools aren't going to lose any money at all. And then two, if your rural school is truly so great, you should have nothing to worry about from a little competition. Families will continue to send their children to those institutions. But look, the most the nine most rural states in the country already have some form of private school choice, including West Virginia. They went universal in 2021 and Maine and Vermont. And they have the oldest voucher programs in the country in Maine and Vermont. They started in the late 1800s. And guess what? They were specifically designed for kids in rural areas that didn't even have public schools. They gave vouchers to their families to go to private schools. They figured out over 150

years ago in these states that not having a lot of choice was an argument to expand opportunities, not to restrict them. We'll be right back with much more after this. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. So, Corey, one of the biggest complaints I hear about

or from teachers is they go, listen, I'm okay with school choice, but here's the problem. If kids leave the school system and go to a private school, but you leave me with all the really expensive kids, and I'll say, so Rachel and I have a child with special needs.

She has Down syndrome. She goes to the public school. Guarantee you, it costs a lot more money for her education versus my kids that don't have Down syndrome, right? Does there have to be some kind of an allotment to go, okay, if you do have you know kids with special needs there's a there's a there's a different calculator for them and because i might go maybe i maybe i'll send my child with special needs to a to a catholic school if they

have the resources to to provide the assistance that she needs i don't really have that option but i do think that's the one argument that they make at the public school level that I'm like, yeah, that that can make some sense. And there needs to be some equity then and parity in the cost of of educating different kinds of kids. Yep. Which is how school choice works today. In every state that has passed school choice, it's the state portion of funding that follows the student. The public schools get to keep all the local money and all the federal funding. So what does that mean mathematically? On a per-student basis, the public schools end up with higher per-student revenues and expenditures because they're losing the full student, but they're only losing a fraction of the funding. So they get to keep thousands of dollars for

students who are no longer educating. I mean, just imagine if you stopped shopping at Walmart and you wanted to go to Trader Joe's or something and Walmart got to keep half of your grocery funding each week. I'd argue that's a good deal for Walmart. This is similarly a good deal for the public schools. They get to keep any money at all. But at the same time, the status quo is not performing well for the students with special needs or other students in the current system. students uh in the in the current system and competition should give them a stronger incentive to do a better job and to spend that money more wisely than they're doing today because them just checking a bunch of boxes and saying i hired this person i have this kind of program in the school

for the student with a special need that doesn't actually mean that they're actually meeting the needs of those students and in nationwide, there's actually a school choice initiative under the IDEA federal education law that says that if you have a student with special needs, if the public school district is not meeting that need, you can actually make the case for the district to pay for your child's private school tuition. You can do that in California. You can do that in New York. It's already something that exists. But the problem is that usually the district, they have an incentive to say, no, we're actually meeting your needs. Yeah, we're doing a good job. And so you have to take it to a judge and you have to prove before. And what's complicated? It's a pain. It's a total pain

jumping through a lot of hoops. And so some people can do it, but most families don't have the resources to go through all those hoops. And so I would say we should extend that and you shouldn't have to prove before a judge that your needs aren't being met. You should just trust the parents. Right, and the money should follow. So this is the way I look at it.

And of course I look at it as a mom with a child with special needs. I mean, I think the voucher should follow the child regardless. The money follows the child. As you said, fund the child, not the system. The money should follow the child. And we get to make that decision. But I think that the amount of funding for a child who has special needs should be higher so that wherever they decide to go, that school has the resources, the additional resources to do that. You know, there's another issue that I think pushed the wins forward for you guys. And it wasn't just the indoctrination in terms of CRT, but I really think that the fact that they were trying to do sex ed and LGBTQ gender theory on kindergartners,

people just got outraged. I mean, it just was too much for them to bear. How much did that play into this parent revolution that you're seeing? Yeah, that's huge. I mean, I really think the argument has shifted in recent years post-COVID because, look, for a long time, the argument for school choice, which was a good argument, I would say, is that, look, the kids in the worst government schools based on test scores, they would disproportionately benefit. This would be an equalizer. Those are true things. It's true that the most advantaged already have school choice because they can afford to pay twice, basically, and they could also afford to live in the neighborhoods assigned to the best public schools. But now the argument is more about everybody can benefit from school choice because even if you're assigned to a good, quote-unquote, public school based on test scores, there's another dimension of school quality that's arguably more important, which is whether the school's curriculum aligns with families' values.

which is whether the school's curriculum aligns with families' values. And yes, that could be, you know, families could be upset with the Marxist curriculum we call critical race theory, or it could be the gender ideology as well. And I think that has been the more, the issue that's more prevalent and irritating a lot of parents lately. And in some cases, you have school districts fighting to keep secrets from parents. I mean, in California, for example, they're trying to make it illegal to tell the districts that they have to inform parents if the child changes their gender at school. Don't keep secrets from parents. Yet you have Gavin Newsom and his attorney general, Bonta, fighting as hard as possible to keep secrets about kids from their own parents. It's insane how far gone places like California have gotten on this issue.

But hopefully the politicians start to suffer at the ballot box as a result, because that's going to be the only reason that they change course, if they have an incentive to do so. And that's all up to the parents. That's why the parent revolution is so important, because they've become a political juggernaut in some states, a political force to be reckoned with, and that's how we're going to continue winning. So, Corey, obviously, we've seen some, you know, whether it's months or years of school choice in Wisconsin for a long time. Is there polling that's been done? If you actually ask parents, hey, listen, what do you think of school choice? Have you liked the ability to get

your child out of the school that says they want to make global citizens to a school that fits your values or the school that flies the gay flag that's bigger and brighter than the American flag and you took your child up. What does the polling show when states are implementing school choice? What is it saying about the public's perception of school choice? Yeah, the latest real clear opinion research polling that I've seen shows 71 percent of Americans support school choice, which included supermajority support among Republicans, Democrats and independents, which may make you scratch your head a little bit and say, well, why do so many

Democrats vote against it? Well, the thing is, the Democratic Party is a wholly owned subsidiary, the teachers unions, Randy Weingarten's union, 99 percent of her campaign contributions, basically every election cycle, go to Democrats. It's a money laundering operation. It ought to be illegal, but it's the only reason why you have elected officials have a D next to their name who vote against school choice, even though there's no logical reason to oppose it. There's no moral reason to oppose it. They support school choice for their own families. They they love public schools so much, apparently, but they won't send their own children to them. It's total hypocrisy on full display, but it's because of power dynamics. It has nothing to do with logic. And the best measure of how successful school choice is,

is look at a state like Arizona. And when they open the floodgates and let everybody apply for school choice out there in 2022, they broke the government website. So many families applied that, I mean, at first I thought maybe it's a government website government, you know, it's horrible at everything it does, but it's also because they now have about 80,000 families that have signed up for that program. Um, that was, that was expanded in 2022. So families want this. They know their kids more than anybody else. And if they don't want this, if it's not popular, then the status quo should have nothing to fear because people will still continue choosing their public schools. By the way, I just love the way you sometimes I have people on my podcast like you who say something in the right.

It's the right verbiage. I've always wondered about that. Like it's always been in my head. But you phrased it right. It's a money laundering operation. That's what the teachers unions are. And, you know, you look at somebody, I want to talk about the she went to public school. Her daughters haven't stepped foot inside of a public school ever. And then they went to Washington, D.C. The first thing that Barack Obama did, the very first act he did was, as you said, pay back the teachers unions for all the money laundering into his campaign. He undid a voucher program for the most marginalized children in the worst school district. I think probably Washington, D.C. is probably at least in the top five of the worst school districts in America.

And there was a lifeline that just a few kids would get. And he shut it down. And kids who went to what's the name of the school that his kids went to? to, what's the name of the school that his kids went to? Sidwell Friends. Sidwell Friends, where all the elites in D.C., all the media elites, Jake Tapper's kids and his kids, and I believe that the Clintons sent their daughter there. Everybody who's anybody in Washington, D.C., in the swamp sends their kid to this school. And Barack Obama had kids that were in that school were kicked out because they lost that voucher.

And his kids went in the height of hypocrisy and elitism as they promote it for themselves now you saw a little bit of glimmer of hope in louisiana can you just quick tell that story in louisiana because seeing democrats who are moral and not willing to sacrifice children at the altar of politics um was really heartening to me. Yeah, look, Joe Biden's also a hypocrite on the issue, went to private school, sent his kids to private school. And that D.C. voucher program, latest data that I've seen, shown that 95 percent of the kids using the scholarships in D.C. are black or Hispanic. And the average household income was only about $30,000 per year for the entire household. So these are

disadvantaged families that Joe Biden, Barack Obama, you know, total hypocrites on the issue don't want to help. And then when it comes to Louisiana, this is another glimmer of hope. This is the 12th state to go universal on school choice, the latest one to go all in. And guess what? They didn't need a single Democrat to vote for the bill. They had super majorities of Republicans in both chambers. But still, you had 20 percent of the House Democrats there. Yes, that's only six of them in Louisiana, I know, but it's still a seismic shift from before. universal school choice this year. And they had one heroic House representative member named Jason Hughes. And he went and gave a powerful speech on the House floor where he said, I don't need this job bad enough. I don't need this 13,000 or so whatever dollars that you give me a year to work in the House of Representatives. I know that there are kids stuck in objectively failing schools,

and they should have a better opportunity. So it's great when you have a Democrat buck the party trend. And what's interesting is if more Democrats did this and locked arms on the issue, the teachers unions would not be able to control them anymore because where are the teachers unions going to go? I mean, they're not going to go to the Republican Party. They will lose their power. They'll have to actually fight for things that benefit teachers as opposed to politics. Yeah, I love that. So, Corey, walk us through the book. Can you give us the pitch on the book? I'm sure you're laying out a lot of the things we're talking about on the podcast. But what else are we going to learn in the book when we get it from Amazon?

in the book when we get it from Amazon or somewhere else. And also how the why the book will help parents be better activists for their own kids, because I think that's what we really want to learn. Right. Yes. Look, the book starts out with miles of receipts so that people like Randy Weingarten can't rewrite history like they're trying to do on the issue of school choice. I mean, she went before Congress. She lied to the American public before Congress saying that they were actually fighting to reopen the school since April of 2020. That is total garbage. We all know it on Twitter. Now, X, she got slapped with community notes each day fact checking her.

She kept changing her pinned tweet to say, oh, no, actually, we're fighting to open the schools. If you're trying to open them, then why were they closed so long? And why were the private schools able to figure it out? If you're trying to open them, why were your members fear-mongering every step of the way? Why were you lobbying the CDC to keep them closed? Why were you threatening strikes when it came to districts opening the schools? It's total. So I don't want them to rewrite history. I start with that, the dark era of COVID. And there's a lot of things that you might not have even remembered or caught the first time around. So it's a real fun exercise to go through that. But also, it's mostly a book of optimism and hope to show that if you lock arms,

you can become more powerful than the teachers union. You can beat the union at their own game because parents outnumber employees in the system. And guess what? Parents care about their kids more than anybody else, certainly more than bureaucrats sitting in offices hundreds of miles away. I mean, one example, think about, you know, the teachers unions for a long time, they told us that they were accountable. What did they say? Well, we're democratically accountable. You can show up at the school board meeting. We'll listen to you. If you're not happy with the public schools, we're super duper accountable.

Well, we saw how that worked out when families showed up at the school board meetings. They had their mics cut off. They were labeled as domestic terrorists by the National School Boards Association, which sent a letter to Biden implying that under the Patriot Act of all things, parents should be investigated for domestic terrorism. They even had the FBI create a threat tag specifically for parents protesting at school board meetings. Well, that showed us that that form of accountability doesn't actually work. If they have no incentive to listen to you. They'll try to bully and silence you into submission. The good news is 26 states have since left the National School Boards Association. Why? Well, it's because parents have they showed up, they locked arms

and they they raised hell and made made an issue out of it. And so that's another story of hope that when parents want to do something, when they get a support group, then they can become a new interest group, one for the kids, the kids union, and they can win these battles. So I also laid out a plan for how this can move to blue states as well. It's probably beyond the scope of our conversation today, but also mentioned a lot of different tweaks to the public school system too, because it might seem like it's just a school choice book, but it's not. It also talks about how we can improve the public school system at the same time. That's such an important point, because to move this to blue states, this is a not,

it should be a non-political issue. The education of our kids is not about red or blue. It's about what's best for my kids. And again, I think that's interesting to go to lay out a plan in the book on how blue states can say we're going to make sure that your kids get the best education possible. where that is. Is it in a public school or is it somewhere else in a private school that's going to better serve their needs? I love that you have ideas for the blue states because, again, it's not political. This is about best education, best resources for the children of our country. And laying out the plan. I mean, Corey, when you laid out this plan, people even on the right did not instantly jump on. People were like, oh, no, that's too you're making it too political. People wanted to do it in that sort of old school Republican diplomatic. Don't offend anyone way.

And your plan has, as you said, delivered more results in three years than in the past 30 years, which again proves that, you know, we need thought leaders like you laying out the agenda and the plan for everyday parents. I know, Corey, you know about parents who've been trying to get hold of curriculums and being told they can't know what the gender curriculum is at their school. You also give advice on how to fight back. And there are organizations that will defend you because you have a right to that information and you can have a FOIA and you can get that information. There's a lot of information for parents on how to be the best advocate for your child and how to organize in your community. Any last thoughts, Corey? Yeah, look, the battle of the parent revolution is important for you

because the left has infiltrated the government school system for far too long. And guess what? If you're concerned about taxes going up, if you're concerned about the socialist drift in our country, well, this book will help you strike at the root. It will help you.

You think Hollywood and other institutions have an outsized influence on the rest of society and our culture. Well, the school system is a much bigger issue because you have 50 million kids going through it each year for 13 years of their lives for seven hours a day. And they're going to vote to raise your taxes later if we don't do something now. And so the way that we can strike at the root is to give more families more of a say in their own kids education so that they can go to schools that are aligned with their values. And so we're already winning on this issue. I can I see that we're going to continue to win on this issue. And hopefully the more that the GOP leans

into parental rights as a political winner, like we saw with Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, he beat Terry McAuliffe, who said, I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. A bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for him. It didn't. And the more it'll become an issue

that Democrats might scratch their heads a little bit and say, huh, maybe I don't want to lose on this issue anymore. Maybe I will listen to my constituents, parents, as opposed to the special interests who control me. And again, there's more voters who are parents than, as your point, teachers who are in school systems. And so if you have to be elected by a majority of the vote, probably the parents are going to win the day electorally. So even Democrats are going to have to pay attention to parents who want a better

education system. Yeah, you know, Sean and I made a decision a long time ago that we did not want to spend our dinners deprogramming our children. And I know that we're and we didn't want to spend our Thursday nights at a school board meeting, although I respect those people who do it. School choice gives you the opportunity to just, you don't have to revolutionize or reform your school. You can actually find a school that meets your values. And maybe you're the fighter that wants to spend that Thursday night fixing the public school. God bless you. I love that. But for a lot of busy parents, they just want a choice and they don't want to wait for the change.

And there are schools available right now, homeschools available. You should get funding for that from the government because it's the government's role to do that. That's the way our system is set up. You should get your voucher to send your kid to whatever school matches your family's value. You, Corey, are a hero in this movement. Your ideas and your strategies and your tactics have been proven. You have been vindicated in many ways. And I believe that this parent revolution will only continue to thrive. And America owes a debt to you for that, because this isn't about today. This is truly about the future. And I'm just so proud of

you. If you're out there listening, I highly recommend the book. I endorsed it for a reason. And this is this is the human rights issue of our time. So, Corey, thank you for joining us today. Hey, thank you so much, Rachel and Sean. You rock. We'll have more of this conversation after this. We'll have more of this conversation after this. This holiday, fall in love with deals on gifts from winners and home sense. A festive tale that'll tug at your heartstrings, not your purse strings. Starring brand name beauty gift sets from winners for $10. Cocktail sets from home sense for $25. And also featuring gift cards.

Perfect for even the pickiest on your list. Save the holidays with winners and HomeSense. So Corey's great. He's just a fighter. There's a few others like him. He's just such an honest broker. His heart's all in the right place. He's been doing the right stuff. And as I said, he's been vindicated on a lot of levels. His strategy was considered too aggressive. But when you're dealing with these Marxists, when you're dealing with these communists, that's exactly the kind of attitude you need to have.

Because they're aggressive. Yes. They take no prisoners. Look at what they were willing to sacrifice our kids during COVID to advance the political agenda. And so you better put your big boy pants on and get into the fight and fight like you mean it. And Corey's done that. And listen, I just again, it's one space where we've made progress.

We've there's been again, we've we've had some wins. And at a time when there's not a lot of wins that happen for conservatives. I've said this before. It feels like conservatives are in strategic retreats all over on on political and policy issues. And this is one where there's a win. And it shows when you get one win, there are ways to do it. You have to organize and people have to buy in to the idea of the movement, which they have. Again, you mess with someone's kid, their children, their education. You see the mama and papa bears of America stand up and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're going to go in a different direction.

and again I do think you see even the number of young people who have come out and said that they're non-binary or they're transgender it doesn't match historical averages and I think what has happened is in these school systems it's promoted, it's celebrated it's advocated and all of a sudden you have massive portions of the population in the school system that are sexually confused and if you're a parent and those are the best activists for the left by the way yeah those young people who are angry at the system are the best activists

for them you know sean um you said it you said it's about mama bears and papa bears rising up. You're so right about that. And I think you're right. When people mess with someone's child, it's personal. But if we were going to make a win on any of these fronts that you say we've been losing ground on, I don't think there was a more important space for us to win than on school choice. If we can actually complete this project that Corey has started, if we can actually complete this and get universal school choice in America, that is the most fundamental change we can make. You can literally transform the country.

is the most fundamental change we can make you can literally transform the country well because all the success of the left has started in the school system amen and the indoctrination whether it's i mean climate change promoted in the school system or after his global warming at the time it's actually started as global cooling then global warming and now it's all encompassing climate change all All these ideas start there and you're going to kneecap them. If you actually give kids the choice, all of a sudden this is a

life-threatening attack on the socialist radical communist left. Which is why they take it seriously. But they're also in a spot where they're like, yeah, we did overplay our hands, and yeah, you know what? It's a state's issue, and now we have parents who don't want what we offer. They want to go somewhere else, and they have no one but themselves to blame.

And again, this is an opportunity where good legislators, Republicans and Democrats, can come together in these states and go, you know what? If you don't like your school system, we're going to give you your money back. You pick you can put the school that works for you. Beautiful. I want to end with this one story because I had been talking about socialism in schools for a long time. During COVID, we had one child, a senior in high school who decided he wanted to go to public school for his last semester, I believe.

And, or maybe last year, was it the whole last year? I can't remember. I think it was the year. In any case, we had one child in public school and then COVID hit and he was on Zoom. And it was on a Zoom call that I was listening in on that I learned the extent of the indoctrination i was horrified on that zoom call and this is in wassau wisconsin this is rural wisconsin this is not brooklyn this is not berkeley this is not chicago this was in rural wisconsin a red district by the way um a red congressional district where the social studies professor was assigning Chinese propaganda, population control. It was a video that they were supposed to watch that advocated for population control as a positive, as a good. And when my son went to the chat room for the class, his comment to offer a count, a rebuttal to that and ask some questions of the professor.

His comments were systematically removed by the teacher. She would not allow any debate on the issue even. So that's when I was like, whoa. Like, whoa. And I think that experience I had multiply that across the country of parents, you know, not just seeing how, you know, the teachers unions were trying to close schools and take our money, tax dollars and all that. But that level of indoctrination, if that is happening at Wausau, Wisconsin, you know, that is happening all across the country. And I think people are up in arms. And thank God for people like Corey, Corey DeAngelis, who decided this was the moment to harness that anger, harness that frustration among parents on both sides and start this parent revolution. He did it. He was vindicated. We need to complete

the project. And in order to do that, people need to get engaged. And his book, The Parent Revolution, is a way that people can arm themselves with information and resources to help him in this revolution. That's right. And again, just right now in public schools, there's a lot of conversation about how bad guns are and how we need gun control. Again, these these these are political issues. They have nothing to do with math and science and English and a true American history or Western civilization. They're about political indoctrination. And we're seeing that time and time again.

So, again, this is this could be a country-changing movement. And hopefully those who have joined will get more parents and more legislators on to continue to make progress in giving parents the freedom to choose what's best for their children. We appreciate Corey and his effort in the movement, his book. And we appreciate you all joining us on the podcast. If you like us, you can always rate, review. Please subscribe. You can find us on foxnewspodcast.com, Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, we're there.

We drop every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday again. And if you like us, tell a friend, tell a family member to join The Kitchen Table with Sean and Rachel. Until next time, have a great one. We'll see you later. Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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