Kira Davis, Editor-at-Large at Red State, joins the podcast this week to discuss school choice, the on-going battle over whether schools will and should reopen, and the state of civil rights in our country.
Kira Davis is an accomplished op-ed journalist and commentator. She has interviewed President Obama and has appeared on various shows across the nation and the world including BBC radio, the Glenn Beck Show, Fox News, and the Dr. Phil Show. Kira is a dog person but has been known to tolerate the occasional cat.
Transcript
Beverly:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, we have on Kira Davis, Editor-At-Large at Redstate to discuss school choice, the ongoing battle of whether schools will reopen, and the state of civil rights in our country. Kira Davis is an accomplished op-ed journalist and commentator. She has interviewed President Obama and has appeared on various shows across the nation in the world, including BBC Radio, The Glenn Beck Show, Fox News, and the Dr. Phil show. Kira is also a dog person but has been known to tolerate the occasional cat. It’s always a pleasure to have a fellow dog lover on this podcast, so welcome to She Thinks, Kira.
Kira:
Thank you. So nice to be here.
Beverly:
Can I ask what kind of dogs do you have? We can start there.
Kira:
Yeah, we’re usually mutt people. We adopt our dogs. So our dog right now is a three-year-old mix. I think she’s a mix of some kind of hound, and a pit bull, and a… Not a pit bull. What’s the dog that’s the target dog? The terrier.
Beverly:
The target dog?
Kira:
The target dog. She looks like the target dog.
Beverly:
Oh, I’m confused. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you’re referring to. I can’t think of the name.
Kira:
I don’t know why it’s escaping now. She’s our mutt that we’ve had, we were fostering her. We’re foster people. We love to foster animals. So I don’t usually have cats in the house, but this during COVID, I guess it’s been hard for them to find cat fosters. So I’ve had a bunch of kitties, kittens in my house over the last month or so, and it’s been really fun.
Beverly:
So, you’ve had a full house because not only are you having these open arms to animals that need help, you have children as well. And I want to talk about just schooling and back to school, and starting, first of all, how has it been for you to have kids at home and trying to assist them in learning?
Kira:
Well, my kids are pretty independent and so they were able to kind of push through. We have really great teachers here. I actually really love our local public school in the area that I live here in California. And so they were able to push through. I mean, I think I had to make some decisions as to what I was willing to just let go. You just realize not everything’s going to get done. A few assignments didn’t get done. We just kind of were in survival mode. Unfortunately, sadly, my son graduated high school this year and so he really didn’t get to do anything, and he still hasn’t done anything. We were supposed to have a modified graduation next week, and now that’s canceled with the recent spikes. So, it’s been tough. And then trying to make plans for him for college. We’re not sure if it’s on, if it’s off. It’s a confusing time.
Beverly:
And you wrote an article recently that says if schools won’t reopen then perhaps parents should get those funds directly. You even mentioned in there that it’s really chaos out there. So you’re talking about in terms of your son, the higher education aspect, what does this mean for college, but also just the chaos for K-12 where parents don’t even know how to plan. Do you think if parents did get funds directly that they would be able to plan better for this coming school year?
Kira:
Oh my gosh, yes. I just look at the situation here in California and I can totally understand why there’s a push for that to not happen because I’m pretty sure a lot of parents would just choose private schools. A lot of private schools are opening with some modified safety changes, but a lot of the private schools are… They are determined to offer the parents what they’re paying for. And I think a lot of parents would jump to those private schools if they have those funds, excuse me, and I think a lot more would simply homeschool.
But what’s really terrible right now is people are working. I happen to have a job where I can work from home. I can write from home. I can appear on these podcasts, right from my kitchen. I’m very blessed to have a job where I can be available to my kids, but that’s a rarity these days. There are a ton of parents out there who have no clue what they’re going to do in the fall when kids really can’t go back to school full-time. And whenever I talk to any of my parent friends around here, the conversation is exactly the same. We have no idea what we’re going to do. It’s exhausting.
Beverly:
And frankly, it’s scary. Not only are people worried about COVID itself, it’s also just these unknowns when it comes to a logistical standpoint. And what have you heard from the public schools there? Not just in them thinking through how one could social distance, but are they really communicating well with parents and providing different options? I know it varies from city to city and state to state, but do you feel that the public educators are trying to work with parents?
Kira:
Absolutely. My school district has been great. I know LAUSD has been having issues. I’m in Orange County and it’s night and day really between those school districts and always has been. But our district has made every attempt to communicate with us. I can’t fault them at all. They’re just as confused. No one really knows, but the plan we have so far going into beginning of fall, which will start here August 18th is a 50/50 hybrid with an option for 100% online learning. So you can send your kid to two and a half days in-person learning and then two and a half days online, or you can do the full 100% online program. I will not be participating in either of those options. One of the concessions I make to send my daughter to this really great public school in lieu of a private option, which is not an option for us right now, is on curriculum.
So, there’s some things at school that they learned that I’m not that jazzed about, but the trade-off is being able to send her somewhere every day and send her to a good school. But if she’s going to be in school for only two and a half days a week, and then we’re schooling at home for two and a half days a week, it doesn’t make sense to me to be beholden to their curriculum. So I’ll be pulling my daughter out. We’ll be educating at home until the school district gets things figured out, if they ever do.
Beverly:
And that’s a big part of why you wrote the article is talking about the funds and giving parents the choice financially to make a different decision if their school district isn’t operating in the way they see fit. And this leads to my question, which is where do you find that parents typically are on wanting schools to reopen as normally as possible, meaning five days a week, even if they need to social distance, or there’s some accommodations that need to be made? Do you think most parents are in agreement with the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, agreement with President Trump that we need to do whatever we can to get schools reopened?
Kira:
That’s a tough question because I think it varies state to state, and even in county to county. Like the way we’re living our lives here in California, I’m 40 miles from the heart of LA and I’m there a lot, but the way we’re living right now is completely different. LA has been on lockdown. It’s like the apocalypse there when you walk through the streets. Here in Orange County, it’s pretty much life as usual with the exception of what businesses are not allowed to be open. But I get the sense, in my area, that most parents want their kids to go back to school. We pay a lot of money to live in a really beautiful and nice area because they have good public schools. So people want to get their money’s worth. This is what you scrape and scramble for every month to pay your mortgage or your rent for. You’re paying for this quality education.
So, I think a lot of parents feel like… Look, there wasn’t ever a problem in the school. If there had been a problem, we would have seen spikes among school children, right before we canceled school this year, right before we went to online learning, or right afterwards, we would have seen some spikes. I think a lot of parents are kind of looking at the evidence and going, “The reaction doesn’t seem to match what the risk is for the children.” Now I can understand. I mean, I take COVID very seriously and I can understand people’s apprehension, but it’s my opinion that with simply some modified cleaning things, maybe hire extra janitors, step up the sanitization… I’m not even sure that the kids really need the social distancing thing, but it’s my opinion that just with a few changes, we can make parents feel better about sending their kids back to school.
Kira:
And the parents that don’t feel comfortable with it should have the online option, the option to do 100% online learning. But we certainly pay our schools, particularly in this state of California, way too much money to be responsible for educating them at home, when part of what we send them to school for is to have all these interactions and all the… I mean, we’re not even having extracurricular activities. There’s no choir. The kids won’t be able to eat in the cafeteria. Everything that you like about school life or people tell you is the reason why kids have to go to one big building to be together, will be gone. So I think a lot of parents are left scratching their heads going, “This doesn’t make sense. The reaction doesn’t make sense.”
Beverly:
And there is a new study out by a Swedish health survey company that was taking a look at how Sweden’s response was compared to Norway’s when it comes to going back to school. So Norway, similar population size, Norway decided to close down schools. Sweden decided to keep things open, and they found that there was no difference in how many children did contract COVID and also no difference in teachers that contracted COVID. So as we get more data, shouldn’t that inform schools and therefore they can make better decisions, or do you think that there are too many politics involved right now in this time for schools to take an objective look at whether or not we should reopen?
Kira:
I feel like there’s too many politics going on right now. Part of it, if I just go with my experience as a parent with my school district, I honestly think they’ve been doing their best to navigate the guidelines. They want to put those kids back in school. So part of it is just there’s so many unknowns about this disease, but the reason for that, the reason that there are so many unknowns about this disease is that politics has just infected, forgive the pun, this entire conversation. So no one’s ever really sure if the data they’re getting is the real data. You’ve got studies that say kids aren’t a problem, but then you’ve got studies that say, well, they can be carriers. And you have studies that say the sun kills the virus, or you’ve got studies that say, no, a proper filtration system inside… Masks. No masks.
It’s all wrapped up in this idea that Americans have now been, not only were we politically divided, but we’re divided in the respect of how we view this virus and how this virus should be affecting us. And it is getting wrapped up in electoral politics, unfortunately. And then the other thing is just with the environment now, anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is going to be automatically shunned by 50% of the country no matter what he’s saying. The debate for the treatment of hydrochloriquine is a great example of that. Hydroxychloroquine. I think for a lot of parents, they’re confused. They’re not like us where they have their head in the news all day and they’re reading reports and blogs and I’m looking at my county’s COVID numbers every single day.
It’s part of my job. And most people don’t have their heads in the information like that. So there’s mass confusion going on. I think at least some school districts are doing what they can, but I don’t know how much they can do. They don’t have a lot of power here and things are changing day to day. I think the suggestion Betsy DeVos had, which is only a suggestion at this point, but I think that that would be the perfect solution, which is like, “Look, you need to have these kids in school. Our public education system is set up, so you pay a lot of money so your kid can go get this public education. If they’re not sitting in the school, if they’re not sitting in the classroom, then that money’s not being used. Let the parents have the money, then they can make that arrangement for babysitting when they need it, educating at night, or hiring tutors, or getting together in homeschool groups.” That, to me, that’s the ideal solution. But, again, that brings in a lot more politics, too.
Beverly:
And percentage-wise it looks like private school options, charter school options are more willing percentage-wise to reopen. This has actually led to one of the teachers unions in LA say that they’re not going to reopen and they think that charter schools in their area should not be allowed to reopen either. So they want everything to stay closed if they’re staying close. And also they had a list of other demands, such as Medicare for all, and other typical, typical political platform issues that they worked into that. But the question is about charter schools in general. It seems that Joe Biden, as he is the Democrat nominee, is continuing to say that charter schools are a detriment to society. It takes away funding from public education. Do you think that there’s going to be more of a divide from those who support traditional public schools and those who support school choice options because of COVID? Is COVID potentially this wedge?
Kira:
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. I think we’re going to see a fundamental shift in how we view public education after this year, and I think that’s what the teachers union is fighting against. I couldn’t figure out why the teachers union was fighting so hard, particularly in California, to say closed, given that the numbers among children don’t really warrant this same type of panic, and most teachers want to be in the classroom. No teacher gets into teaching to teach over video. My thing is follow the money. And so I was wondering where’s all this… What’s kind of money is exchanging hand for these unions be pushing so hard to cancel school basically again. And I realize now that that is the issue, is that if everything’s not canceled, then people are going to figure out that they don’t need school the way it’s been traditionally set up, that they have other options.
This is something interesting. I think a lot of parents are finding out what’s being taught to their kids and how their teachers are talking to them. I’ll tell you a just quick story. I’m actually on vacation this week. It’s a self-imposed social media break. I do it once a year, and my husband and I went for a couple of days to Palm Springs and found a hotel that was open, sat by the pool. We’re eating next to a couple and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. They were both teachers and they were talking about going back. And the woman said, I thought this was very interesting. She said, “I don’t want to teach online because it’s a privacy issue. I think it invades my privacy because I don’t want the parents to have to see me teaching the kids. I think that’s something I should do in private.”
Beverly:
Wow.
Kira:
Right. That’s what I said. Now I’m on vacation. So my husband heard me. My husband watched me react to that and he was kind of like, “Cool it. We’re on vacation.”
Beverly:
Get another drink. Get another drink, it’ll be fine.
Kira:
But I was like, to me as a parent, I was like, “Wow, that’s very revealing.” She seemed like that was normal, the idea that the parents shouldn’t know how she’s speaking to the kids or talking to the kids, that the parents in the equation were the problem, and that’s what’s happening here. Parents are beginning to figure out that they’re not actually the problem in this equation and they can be more of the solution. And unfortunately for unions, that means giving up some power that’s already waning, thanks to the Janus decision, and membership in unions have been dropping across the country. But that’s why Biden is pushing hard.
And this is exactly why Trump should keep pushing that school choice issue. You should make the Democrats tell people why they’re not allowed to choose where their kids go to school. You should make them do that every chance you get. Now, what’s interesting is that Biden and Warren and the Democrats are against charter schools, but charter schools are public schools. And also, it’s just an outright lie that charter schools take money from public schools. If anything, public schools save money because they still get half of their federal and state funding, even if that kid is not sitting in that classroom. That’s a deal that the union’s brokered. It’s all lies.
Beverly:
And here’s something that I’ve wondered as well is I’m wondering if there is fear, as you mentioned, there’s fear from those who are against charter schools because this whole COVID pandemic has shown that the ultimate people in charge of children and their education are the parents because guess what? When things got bad, the kids went home, and the parents were in charge. Now, yes, there were online learning options, but not every school was up to par on how kids were being taught. And so this necessitated parents taking control of their child’s education. I wonder if there’s fear among some people in traditional public education that they think, “Oh, no, parents are going to think they’re in charge again and we have to tell them-“
Kira:
Yes absolutely.
Beverly:
Yeah, it’s a power grab.
Kira:
And here in California, this is exactly what we deal with the teachers unions, this is exactly an issue that we deal with. The teachers unions are constantly pushing and passing legislation to shield the classroom from parental viewing. So we’re always having to go and fight for our rights to know what’s being taught in school. I mean, it’s just insane what we… So they are always fighting against it. A lot of that is because there’s political agendas being stuffed into our curriculum. I happen to live in a pretty conservative school district so the school district does what it can to work around that. And they do a pretty good job because everyone’s fairly like-minded around here. But the law is the law in the state. And some of the stuff, particularly in health and sex-ed curriculum, is shocking and the unions have made it so the schools don’t have to notify you when some of the stuff is being spoken about.
And, yeah, of course there’s a control issue that’s led by people who feed the unions as well, and those are extra, those are organizations like the human rights… Organization for Human Rights and that is a very stringent and fascistic LGBT organization, and they’ve written their sex-ed curriculum here in California. So, and there are a lot of parents because we have a lot of immigrant parents here who have been fighting against it. And so if we’re not in school, we don’t have to learn that stuff. Right? And so that’s a big point of contention on this. I mean, as a matter of fact, when our kids came home in March, I was like, “Yeah, we’re scrapping all of the health stuff. There’s no way I can talk to you about your body.” And we can talk about the functions of this, but this extra stuff that the state requires us to teach the kids about transgenderism, and masturbation, and all kinds of crazy stuff here in California, I took that opportunity to be like, “Oh no, that’s gone.”
Beverly:
Yeah. And it makes me wonder what the curriculum will look like next year in reference to race, so whether or not the Black Lives Matter Movement, the political organization, the unions are trying to implement curricula that is going to talk about race in a new and expanded way. Have you seen any evidence that that could be the case?
Kira:
I’ve seen rumblings. I know the 1619 Project is working on trying to get their hands into public education. If it’s going to happen anywhere, it’ll happen here in California. My hope is that we don’t try to do what the kids that are throwing temper tantrums out there right now are doing, which is erasing history, canceling history, tearing it down. My hope is that we’ll expand it. As a Black mother, I’ve always thought that we don’t teach enough about the history of Black Americans in this country and, as a matter of fact, Black history month has become almost nonexistent in schools in my area. It’s been pushed aside for Pride Month, and every February, my kids come home and I’m like, “What’d you learn about Black history this month?” And they’ll be like, “Nothing.”
I’ve always thought we should be teaching more… I call it Black history, but really it’s American history. So I see nothing wrong with expanding and expounding on the history in a way that we maybe have been irresponsible in the past in not teaching more of, but as far as some of this communistic stuff coming down the pipeline, it’ll be interesting to see where it gets pushed and what the pushback will be. I don’t know.
Beverly:
And for parents who are listening to this and are in full agreement with you, maybe they are like you, they’ve seen some of the lesson plans that they were supposed to help their kids with, and they’re like, “Nope, not going to do it,” do you think that this is a unique opportunity and time for parents to have more of a say? And if so, what are some of the options they have?
Kira:
Absolutely. Listen, we’ve kind of been conditioned to assume that the public school has this ultimate authority over our kids and they don’t. You can say no to anything. It’s fine. What they’ll do is they’ll hold that grade over your kid’s head or they’ll hold that… You can find ways around that. So what I did for my daughter is the work is required, there’s some paperwork that has to be done, like a test or a quiz. I just figured out the answers. We filled out the answers and send those back, and then we did our own lesson. I know a lot of California homeschool parents who do the same thing, just to get past some of the rules. That might be sound like I’m telling you to lie, but I’m actually telling you to rebel against the idea that you have to tolerate the curriculum. You pay for this education. You don’t have to tolerate what’s in there, but sometimes you need to be creative.
You could do what I’m doing and just take your kid out of school, and then you have full control over that curriculum. Or, the harder option is to let them go and let them learn what the curriculum is, and then make sure you’re deprogramming when they get home. Make sure you’re discussing those things. That’s a lot of extra work the parents don’t want to have to do, but it’s an option for you. And then, of course, there’s charter. Listen, this is my advice to any parent. If you have the option to get your kid out of public school this year, just do it. And I’m not against public schools. Like I said, I love my public school here in the area that we live in. The teachers are great. The building’s great. It’s a wonderful and supportive community. I love it. It’s breaking my heart to not send my daughter back there. But I think if you have the option this year, take your kid out of public school. I don’t think anything good’s going to happen there in the next year.
Beverly:
Final question for you to end on a more lighthearted note. Do you recommend that other people take a social media fast and how has your week been? Is your week up? Have you finished?
Kira:
No. I’ll be back online. It’s officially up on Friday. So I did Friday to Friday but might extend it just to Monday. I absolutely recommend you take a social media break. My life has felt a lot less stressful, even though there’s all kinds of stressful stuff still happening. It’s amazing how much air can be taken out of your rage and your angst when you’re not reading everyone’s thoughts and comments all day long. And so I know I was hoping that you weren’t going to ask me too much about current events for this week, because all week long, I haven’t watched the news at all. I logged into Twitter today, take a quick peek about a friend who was getting into some controversy online, and that was it.
Listen, folks, social media’s not the real world. I know a lot of people feel like we’re really divided. We’re more divided than ever, and these are very stressful times. But it is my sincere opinion that most Americans are not living this way, day to day. Most Americans are living next to their neighbors just fine. Most Americans are going to work with the people who are different than them just fine. Most Americans are having interactions and pleasantries exchanged between people that think differently, and look differently, and live differently than them, and they’re doing it just fine.
Online, it looks like we’re all raging. And right now, the squeaky wheels are getting the grease. But turn off social media when you just feel like that you got that knot in your stomach. Turn it off and go talk to your neighbors, and don’t turn it back on. You don’t need it. You really don’t need it. And I’m not saying give it up because it’s our new reality. But I definitely recommend building in social media breaks. You don’t have to take a full week like me. Maybe it’s a day. Maybe it’s an afternoon. Maybe you don’t get on social media until a certain time at night if you’re able to do that. So, highly recommend it. Take a break at least a couple times a year. And I promise you, you’ll be shocked at how much better you feel about things.
Beverly:
And I can even say from personal experience, I live in Washington, DC, I’ve met so many of my neighbors during COVID. We’re out more, working in our yards and we don’t usually talk because they’re so busy, but it’s quiet and people actually chat. It’s been wonderful. So I completely agree with you on that. But I am glad you’re getting back on Twitter because I do enjoy following your commentary. People should find you on Twitter. But we so appreciate you coming on, and not just sharing your insight on these issues, but also sharing your personal stories around it.
I think that’s always powerful when people can relate it to what’s going on day to day. So, Kira, thank you so much for joining us.
Kira:
It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Beverly:
And thank you for joining us. If you like what you’re hearing on She Thinks, then you won’t want to miss out on the latest news from Independent Women’s Forum. Sign up for mobile insight alerts and email updates by going to iwf.org. Last, if you enjoy this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, it does help. And we’d love it if you share this episode and let your friends know where they can find more She Thinks conversations. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.