On this episode of Bespoke Parenting Hour, host Julie Gunlock talks to investigative reporter Luke Rosiak about the increased politicalization of the PTA—an organization that’s supposed to represent all parents. Julie and Luke discuss his investigation into the lurch left by the National PTA and why the organization was and continues to be absent from the national conversation about school shutdowns.
Transcript
Julie Gunlock:
Hey, everyone. I’m Julie Gunlock, your host for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to the program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids. So, I’ve talked a bit about my own experience with parenting on this podcast, obviously. Mostly, though, I focused on education, but that’s only because this podcast launched in September 2020, which was the height of the pandemic shutdown and really, at that time, the main parenting issue was closed schools. I think it still is, frankly.
Since then, we’ve seen a lot of communities stand up grassroots advocacy organizations to pressure schools to open up. These groups are all over the country. Many exists in the Washington D.C. area. Some more successful than others, some more aggressive than others. But these groups are made up of parents and actually teachers who are angry that their kids are still at home or that from a teacher’s perspective that they can’t get back into the classroom to teach kids face-to-face. These parent-led groups have become powerful advocacy groups, representing kids, parents, and even a few teachers as they interface with school officials, the people who are actually keeping the schools closed, to try to push their school districts, too, in a particular direction.
If what I’ve just described sounds familiar, it should. I just described what the PTA is supposed to do. For those listening to this podcast who aren’t familiar with what a PTA is or does, the PTA is a membership organization that stands for Parent Teacher Association and it serves as a liaison between parents and teachers and school administrators, like superintendents and school boards. The PTA is supposed to advocate on behalf of both teachers and parents, but because it is a parent organization, they really are there to represent parents and the interests of the children being educated in the schools. Yet during the pandemic, PTAs have been oddly quiet. In fact, the National PTA has pretty much been absent from the conversation entirely. Why is that? Why the silence? Where are the PTAs?
So, here to talk to me about this is Luke Rosiak. He is a journalist with The Daily Wire’s new investigative reporting team, which is heavily focused on K through 12 Education and he also operates WhatAreTheyLearning.com. It is a website where parents can learn about indoctrination in schools, but can also report problems with their own school districts. He lives in Fairfax County, Virginia with his wife and two daughters. Recently, Luke wrote a piece for The Daily Wire called How the PTA Sold-Out Parents for Politics during School’s Biggest Crisis. Luke, thanks so much for coming on.
Luke Rosiak:
Thanks for having me.
Julie Gunlock:
So, I got to ask. You and I live very close to one another. I, of course, have mentioned on this podcast quite often. I live in Alexandria, Virginia, right outside of Washington. Do you actually have kids in the public school?
Luke Rosiak:
No, they’re too young to go.
Julie Gunlock:
Lucky you.
Luke Rosiak:
We have no one as kids in public school in Fairfax, really or hasn’t for a year, but my kids are too young, either way.
Julie Gunlock:
Good, good. Well, that is good because I think it has been trying on parents who had kids in the public school. Many parents are leaving the public schools. My husband and I have pulled our two remaining children out of public school. So, I think the answer to that question will increasingly be no, after this year. But let’s get into your article. Your article covers two issues, really. First, the PTA’s silence on the issue of opening schools and second, the PTA becoming more politically active, and I don’t think this is a recent thing. They have been becoming more and more politically active for years. And of course, when I say politically active, I don’t mean on both sides. It’s usually, it’s just leftist causes.
So, let’s cover the first point. In the article you say the PTA has essentially been absent from the public debate on reopening schools. Why is that? And if you want to summarize what you’ve found in that article.
Luke Rosiak:
Sure. I mean, if you think about all the outrage and all the discussion about getting kids back in school, you read these articles and you would think that there will be a quote from the PTA. You’ve never heard the PTA say anything and if you pour through their website, they’re talking about all kinds of unrelated stuff like, “We should pass a bill about dressers turning over, so they don’t tip over children.” They’re not talking about schools. We haven’t had them in a year. And so, you pour through their website and you can see they put out two statements that are like the first one said something like, “The PTA believes that the discussion about reopening schools should involve a variety of stakeholders and we should go back only when it’s safe and with enough funding.” So, it doesn’t really say anything, it’s just nonsense.
Julie Gunlock:
It’s word salad.
Luke Rosiak:
Yeah. I mean, obviously, there should be… yeah, it’s a waste of time. I mean, we should involve everyone in the discussions like, “Okay, [inaudible 00:05:49].” They eventually basically said they opposed reopening schools in July when President Trump was pressuring states to reopen. They said the President should not be brazenly making these decisions. So, they basically opposed reopening schools and then more recently, they said, “Only when it’s safe and with enough funding.” So, they never really defined what safe is and the one thing they know for sure is we need more funding, which is the same line as the Teachers Union.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, what… well, yeah, it’s an interesting… I was going to go in a different direction, but you mentioned the Teachers Unions, I have found also that the PTAs and I know you address this also in your article are parroting what the Teachers Unions are saying? Do the PTAs not see themselves as independent? I mean, it seems like they just see themselves as an almost an arm of the public school administration now. When did this start happening? What is the cause of this? What is the leadership of the PTA that now there’s no daylight between sort of what the official school and union, I mean, I repeat myself, position is and the PTA, do they not see themselves? I mean, where did the P go, right? Where did the P in PTA go?
Luke Rosiak:
Right and why is there a T in there? Again, I actually did three articles on the PTA part of the series. And the third one is called Teachers Union Honchos Infiltrate the PTA. And so, what I did there is take the tax filings of unions and the tax filings of PTAs and match them up. And there’s a ton of union officials who are board members on the PTA and vice versa. And so, they literally are the same people. There’s a lady and I have a picture in the article, and she’s like a board member of the National NEA board representing Colorado. She’s also Vice-President of the Colorado PTA. And so, she’s wearing her same red, union red blazer on the website of both of those organizations pushing the exact same message, which is give more money to schools.
And it’s just really a striking visual because you can’t tell, which groups he’s representing when and the article just goes through and I didn’t even put them all in there. There’s just a ton of examples, from big to small, national to local. And so, yeah, I mean, these are, I think that the pandemic, in a lot of ways, has woken up people to existing issues with schools. And I think that’s really important for people to understand. People who have never really thought about these issues before. And now, they’re really concerned and they really want to get their kids back in school.
This is really a symptom of what we saw in the last year, more than anything. And some of the causes that we’ve seen, some of the problems are long-term problems that have been in place for a long time and will be even after people get back in school. And I think the PTA has probably always functioned as an adjunct of not only teachers, but really to the school. And so, there’s like three interest groups around schools: Parents, teachers, and then school administrators and so, you’ve got the parents and the teachers in one group. You might think, “Well, okay. They’re advocating against the administrators in some way.” That’s not the case. They’ve actually got multiple people who are administrators on the National PTA board.
And so, if the PTA is representing teachers and administrators, what constituency are they advocating for? I mean, it really is just an adjunct of the school apparatus and basically, the P is in there, I think of it as controlled opposition. So, if you’re a parent that is wanting to get involved in your kids’ education, you have the initiative to kind of do something. You say, “Where should apply my energy?” They say, “Oh, well, come over here, we’ll tell you what to do.” And they give you a little mission that’s something like bake some cupcakes for the teachers or sell some wrapping paper. And that is not what involvement in what our children do for eight hours a day, that’s not what involvement in education is and it’s almost absurd to think that should be the extent of parents’ involvement in their kids’ education.
And that’s kind of what everyone knows about the PTA going back decades, right? You get involved in little bake sales. And there’s a lot of problems with the schools. Our educational… the test scores, the NAEP scores have been going down. The funding is going up, but without any measurable results to show for it. There’s a lot of big problems with schools and the idea that we would sit around just baking cupcakes and planning parties is frankly kind of striking.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, it’s so funny that you say that because I was in charge of a potluck dinner. That was my big thing in the PTA. I was a member of the PTA. And I was the one who sort of developed and organized this potluck. I helped with the bake sale. I helped with the Teacher Appreciation Lunch and the Teacher Appreciation dinners. I would drop off covered dishes. I mean, I was cooking all the time for the PTA. That was really the extent to-
Luke Rosiak:
It is super kind of demeaning when you put it that way.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah. It’s so funny that you say that. I never really thought about it, but literally, I was, I was in the kitchen, when I was helping with the PTA. And I will tell you when I complained, we had a couple of years ago, right after Trump was elected, there was a teacher walkout. It was all related to the recent Trump election and the teachers walked out and so many teachers walked out that the entire Alexandria School District had to close down. And it was very unexpected, so there wasn’t childcare available there wasn’t for parents. The parents were kind of scrambling trying to figure out what they were going to do. It was really awful.
And I remember when I objected to that, and I objected, by putting a sign for a fundraiser, for a school fundraiser in my garbage can because I was so mad. I was like, “You know what? I’m not going to raise money for this school that does a walkout at the last minute.” I got fired from my PTA position. Actually, I will tell you, being fired from the PTA from a voluntary position at the PTA is sort of a point of pride for me, but apparently I didn’t even realize I wasn’t allowed to do that. I didn’t know. And here, I mean, I had a definite reason to be angry about a teacher walkout that inconvenienced thousands of families and left kids vulnerable for the day and also, not learning. And so when I objected, they actually fired me, so I was kind of shocked at that and it was a real wake up call. It was sort of my, I think, it was my second or third year of having kids in the public schools. And it was a real wake up call to what I was dealing with that I was supposed to shut up and go along and bake cookies and make casseroles and not really object or get involved in any serious issues.
So, it is kind of interesting what the PTA has become, which is essentially a bake sale. And that’s upsetting because I think you make a good point that there are so many important issues and I think even more important issues now before schools and before public schools. But that’s sort of the reason why some of these grassroots groups have cropped up since the closures of schools. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that. When parents don’t have anywhere to go, in other words, the PTA was not talking about the continued school closures, so parents didn’t have anywhere to go. And I mean, I see that as the reason why these open school groups, these sort of grassroots groups cropped up. Do you see that as I mean, just sort of the dearth of advocacy for parents is why these, I mean, there are thousands of these groups all over the country.
Luke Rosiak:
Yeah, of course. They were completely abandoned by the PTA, which was a natural place for this kind of parent-led advocacy and that’s why you see this grassroots movement now. I mean, we have to hope that it sustains even after the Coronavirus passes, because clearly, I mean, this is in Washington. They have a trade association or an interest group for everything. You can see some of the most obscure examples of little industries that have their own presence in Washington. And here we, the parents of children, which is basically the biggest and broadest constituency you can think of, we literally don’t even have a singular advocacy group focused on our interests.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah, yeah. So, let’s talk about some of the volunteers who lead PTAs. I hate to sort of say because there is a National PTA, but then there are all these individual chapters. And one thing that really bothers me, too, is the lack… I mean, the willingness of sort of the local leadership, the local PTA leadership to sort of keep quiet. Right? Like, “Don’t look at the curriculum. Don’t talk about the testing scores or the scoring,” or “Are we passing the standards of learning? Are our teachers trained correctly? The problems with restorative justice,” you name it. The PTA isn’t going to talk about that stuff.
But I think about the local folks, what is the fear? Is it fear of retribution that their kids won’t do well if they speak up about these issues? The sort of local leadership also fascinates me, not just the national leadership. Did you talk to anybody, any local PTA presidents or leaders and did they talk about any reticence to speak out?
Luke Rosiak:
So, the National PTA didn’t even get back to me for this story. Later on, I went on to you to talk about it and they gave a statement to the [inaudible 00:15:59], which was the PTA continues to advocate for teachers and all families. And so, even in their denial that they were prioritizing teachers, they literally put teachers before parents and families. But the issue with getting involved locally. I go around and around on that issue a lot because on one hand, it may be past the point of salvaging and it could be really frustrating to try to get involved in a huge waste of time where you’re really spinning your wheels and exerting great energy kind of swimming upstream, just to accomplish very little. I wonder if it’s better just to start over with some of these organic groups.
But yeah, I mean, there is these are low turnout elections. It is conceivable that you could kind of run as a slate and really pack however, wherever they take these votes. Ensure that regular parents show up for once and vote for actual parents that actually want to watchdog the schools. Maybe you could kind of win like a full slate and then just kind of take over all at once. But I think it would be very frustrating dealing with these kind of people that, like who fired you. It’s a lot of drama and what we need to do. Like you said, there’s… it’s so crazy to me that we spend probably more than a trillion dollars a year this year with all the stimulus funding, but one with about 800 billion a year on schools, there’s a lot of scrutiny. What would any board do if you were in a corporate board? You’d be poring over all of the problems.
Julie Gunlock:
Of course.
Luke Rosiak:
You’d be auditing it and the idea that no one in the PTA would ever do such a thing is it needs a wholesale change that it’s never had before. And I don’t know that it can because of that T in the PTA. I mean, Teachers Unions have their own group and they say, “Well, the PTA thinks we’re natural allies. Parents and teachers are natural allies.” What they mean by that is parents’ job is to serve teachers.
Julie Gunlock:
That’s right.
Luke Rosiak:
If you or I were to show up at a Teachers Union event and say, “Well, I think we should get kids back in school.” And they said, “Well, what are you doing here?” “Well, I think parents and teachers are natural allies, so I showed up at the Teachers Union meeting.” They throw you out, they laugh at you.
Julie Gunlock:
They’d fire me. Yes, I know. So, let’s shift a little bit to the activist role of the PTA that they are now playing. It really is shocking. Your article is so thorough and I want you to talk a little bit about this legislative conference. I found this also amusing and frankly, this is something. I’m sort of in the field with you, like I also, I don’t… I cover K through 12. And as just sort of as my own experience with it and out of curiosity. It’s not actually the policy issue that I focus on full time, but it is amazing. Obviously, I have kids in school, so I’ve been watching this for a few years, but it really is shocking. You talk about this legislative conference at the National PTA held in March. Okay. So, what kind of issues, what topics were covered there? Was it school closures?
Luke Rosiak:
So, school closures are nowhere on the agenda. If you go through the first day, this session is empowering parents to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change. And then from there, they go onto their next session, which is supportive and inclusive practices for equity. And then after that is courageous conversations in diversity, where attendees will analyze the critical role of PTAs and developing diversity initiatives in your school buildings and PTA units and in communities.
And so, this is kind of how I first got into this and then as my first article in the three-part series was down in Florida, an elementary school was having the PTA was basically doing racial sessions on parents to try to make them believe in kind of some of these newest racial things where it’s very bad to be colorblind and you have to be thinking about the role of oppression in every interaction and even more radical things like that, you’re supposed to think that minorities will always be late all the time, because that’s part of their culture is one of the things that they said.
Really pretty crazy stuff. And so, the PTA was saying, “We’re going to gather all the parents together and we’re going to have an activist group that was paid by the school systems’ equity office to come change the beliefs of parents.” And so, this was really striking to a lot of parents, because they were like, “We thought the PTA represented us. Now, they’re like basically using, conducting an experiment on us.” And instead of getting to what you said earlier, which is I think the key point here is that the PTA is an adjunct of the school, it’s not a watchdog. So, the tax of the schools that we fund, we pay for this bureaucratic office called the Equity Office in this Florida school system. They were fund, they hired an activist group to basically manipulate the views of parents and at the contract where they paid for it and they said, “This is for you to operate on parents who just happen to live near our school.”
And so, they’ve been doing this, pushing these views. The schools have been pushing a lot of… they’re very obsessed with race in a way that I think is concerning, because you don’t want to kids to be anxious all the time. You don’t want kids to be happy and we really don’t need to highlight the negatives in every situation. The kids have a lot to learn about all kinds of different things. You don’t need to be focused on race all the time. And that’s kind of what schools have been doing recently. And now, the next step and I phrase it kind of cheekily in the headline, in my article, I said, “With children fully indoctrinated, schools have a new target: Parents.” And so, they’re moving on to the adults now and the teachers somehow think it’s their role to change our views about politics. And in this case, the PTA was serving as the vehicle for literally members of the school administration to conduct experiments on adults.
And so, after writing that article, I realized that they were very much, this local PTA in Florida, was very much executing on a mandate that has been given to them by the PTA nationally, and that conference kind of made that crystal clear. And they wrote a letter to the Biden administration right before we took office that said, basically, that’s one of the things that we’re going to do is use our PTAs to push for equity views on the parents, not just kids. So, that’s what the PTA has become is if you care about your kids’ education, show up here, we’re going to tell you, “Do not, whatever you do, do not look at the operations of the schools and we’re going to try to change your beliefs on behalf of the school administration.”
Julie Gunlock:
Well, you also were very good about sort of outlining some of their positions. The National PTA is anti-gun. They are anti-vouchers. They’re anti-charter school. They’re pro critical race theory. They’re for coed bathrooms and schools. I didn’t find anything on this, but I assume they’ll come out with some sort of statement being pro-biological men competing in women’s sports. And again, I don’t know for sure. Have they come out with a position on that?
Luke Rosiak:
I haven’t seen such a statement, but that, your prediction strikes me as correct. I think it’s important to say that there was polling done on all these issues before, right before they took these positions that shows pretty clearly that parents didn’t want boys in the girls’ locker rooms and things like that. And like overwhelming majorities of parents of schoolchildren, there’s polls specifically on this issue. And then right after that, the PTA goes to Congress and says, “Speaking on behalf of our parents group, we want you to do this things.”
The voucher is overwhelmingly, parents of both political parties and of all races, strong majorities want the option to go to charter schools or use that money earmarked right now for the kids’ education for private schools, in some cases. And the PTA advocates against that. They even advocate against little things like tax breaks for if you buy school supplies for your kids, some people will say, “Well, you should be able to write that off on their taxes.” And this is for public schools. If you want to write off their pencils and paper or whatever, the PTA is against that.
And it’s kind of inconceivable to think that parents approached the PTA and said, “Please make sure that I don’t get a small tax break.” That’s just not possible that actual parents asked for this and I think the same is for the racial stuff. I mean, if you go to the PTA’s website, it says that parents should read a book called Your Five-Year-Old is Racist. Let me get that title right. But it is something to that effect. Your five-year-old is already racist.
It is inconceivable that parents said, “You know, PTA, as a group that represents me, could you please berate my young child and tell him that he hates minorities?” No one ever said that. And frankly, some of this stuff is really damaging to kids. I think parents have projected interest where parents don’t very much don’t want their kids accused of things. Our eight-year-olds are now racist and they shouldn’t be told that by government institutions. And when you think of the concept-
Julie Gunlock:
And the other really important thing here though, is that the critical race theory, if we’re talking about Abraham, X Kennedy or if we’re talking about Beverly D’Angelo, who is really making a ton of money off her grift. The saddest part though, is that it conveys a message to children, to black and brown children that they’re living in a horrible racist country that there’s no chance of it ever changing. And that because by virtue of their skin color will forever be limited and they won’t have the ability to realize the American dream. That is, to me, the most horrible thing. Of course, I don’t want to a five-year-old white child told that he’s racist. But I think the most really tragic part of this is telling children of color that they live in a hopeless, helpless and they’re helpless that-
Luke Rosiak:
I think we all know that there are literally probably… it’s probably safe to use the word literally or close to it, no minorities go into the PTA and asking them to do this. This is entirely driven by rich white women, who in some cases pay black women. And let me pull up the quote from this one they hired in Florida, is it says, “I’m a national in performing Hindu lesbian.” And it’s just this kind of crazy person that makes a lot of money kind of go basically going saying, “My identity is who I am. My race and my gender and my sexual orientation. That is who I am as a person, there’s nothing more to it.”
Julie Gunlock:
Well, Luke, I was really grateful to WhatAreTheyLearning.com. I really urge people to check out WhatAreTheyLearning.com because it is really interesting. And I looked up Alexandria. Alexandria, Virginia, ACPS is listed there and there is a training manual that is absolutely terrifying. It’s pure critical race theory, telling people that they’re racist by virtue of immutable quality like that just that they’re white, they’re racist, no matter. And that, you should always, check your privilege when talking about these issues. And I love the bullet that says like, “Be willing to have uncomfortable conversations.” They don’t want to have conversations. They don’t want to have any conversations.
Luke Rosiak:
Yeah. They do want your children to be uncomfortable. And you’re right. I mean, it’s one of these things where when people hear us talk about it, they think we’re exaggerating. You’re not exaggerating. I’ve seen that document. It is absolutely shocking that anyone would think it was even legal to do the things that they have in that book. And that’s kind of why I made WhatAreTheyLearning.com is number one, to get parents involved. There’s this idea that hopefully someone else will come save me or “I’m not really an activist, I’m a normal person, and someone else is better positioned,” Or “I’ve got some reason.” And everyone has a reason. “Oh, I work for the federal government, so I’m not allowed,” which is total BS.
Everyone is trying to come up with some excuse why someone else, they’re very unhappy. They know what’s going on is bad for their kids and it’s wrong and it’s crazy. But they’re just hoping someone else is going to do it. No one else is going to do it. That’s the point. These districts are small and local. No national group can save you because it’s local, so if you don’t step up, no one is. And so, the way that this website functions is you can just upload stuff anonymously. And then of course, you can see what others in your community have uploaded. But I think taking that first step of at least underscoring we’re asking something of you. If you have an issue, you’ve got to play a role in the solution. That’s an important thing.
And then the other thing is just to see it with your own eyes, because the way they talk about these things, they’re very good at marketing. And it’s based on people’s apathy. And the fact that they’re busy and they don’t really… they trusted the schools, so they’ll say, “Oh, well, we want to make everyone care about inclusion and being tolerant of everyone and being nice.” And of course, we all support that. But then you’re like you read the actual documents that doesn’t remotely characterize what’s really going on. And so, you’ve got to drill down and see it for yourself because you cannot trust the schools. The marketing is just bad.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, you also can’t trust the PTA anymore. And I know that’s your point. It’s the deception is something that’s really bothered me. In my community, in Alexandria, the PTA leadership which is under a name called PTAC and it’s like the PTA Council. The people who run that. So, it’s a council if you think of an umbrella and then the individual school PTAs are beneath it. That PTA council leadership is drenched in liberal philosophy and they are all for, all of the policies there are being pushed by the National PTA.
And I want to just go back to the deception issue. Last year, my town PTA had a so-called safety conference, right? It was just to talk about school safety. It was co-hosted by Moms Demand Action. It was only focused on gun issues. It was only to push the idea that we need more restrictive gun laws, but this was what was so creepy. And I actually wrote about this for NRA magazine that they wanted… they actually did a role play activity where you as a mom, your child is invited over to someone’s house. And you first have to say, “Well, do you have any guns in the house? And are those guns proper?” Now, I am not against people asking that question, but it was a way really to convey to people in the community that if you do say yes to that, because nobody, they don’t really care about the safety, the guns being locked up. They want to know who has the guns and it’s a way that kind of-
Luke Rosiak:
Right. And it also has nothing to do with school.
Julie Gunlock:
It has nothing to do with school safety. And so, they want to kind of send a message to women that if you have guns in your house, your kids are going to suffer because they’re not going to have any playdates and their friends aren’t going to come over. And it’s really almost like a monitoring or a tracking. It was to me, it was very weird. And to see the PTA, again, partnering with a political, I mean, an extreme political organization like Moms [crosstalk 00:31:51].
Luke Rosiak:
Yeah. And the president elect of the National PTA is a woman named Anna King, whose background is Moms Demand Action and that’s why she got into her advocacy, that’s how she got this job. And so, the PTA supports the ban on assault rifles nationally. So, there isn’t anything school specific. It’s just full “ban on the [inaudible 00:32:14] style, semi-automatic assault weapons” for everyone. And so, this is a position that doesn’t really have much to do with schools. But then meanwhile, they’re not saying anything about the school closures, but they’re willing. Basically, you’re representing a pretty broad constituency, so if half the country is conservative and half of parents are, too, and they don’t care.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, and also-
Luke Rosiak:
And I mean, if you were on [crosstalk 00:32:41]-
Julie Gunlock:
And they care so much about safety and child safety. And yet, we know kids are committing suicide, we know kids are committing self-harm, we know kids are struggling psychologically, we know kids are falling behind, educationally which will lead to future harms. And nobody’s talking about that. So the idea that they’ll take these strong positions on things like gun control, but they won’t say, “Hey, Hey, Hey, could you open the schools?” Because it’s a child safety issue, too, is I think, what’s so galling to the parents who are watching this.
Luke Rosiak:
Yeah. And really, I mean, their big thing is just more funding for schools no matter what. And the truth is our schools are not underfunded. We spend about $16,000 a year per child. And so, if you think that, most people have about two kids, you’re basically talking about we’re spending the entire median income of a family just on their education. How could you even spend more? And I mean, where is the money going when you think about a class of 25 times $16,000? That’s a lot of money. It’s not just going to the teacher’s salary. And I think one of the reasons the PTA is always trying to make you sell wrapping paper and things like that, it’s not actually to raise the money. It’s to convey the message that the reason we have to do these degrading things is because schools are underfunded, which is the Teachers Union’s message.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I feel like I could go on for… I have so many more questions, but I don’t want to… I do have to cut this short at some point. But I have one other question. I live in Alexandria, Virginia. This is Alexandria City. It is a deep, deep dark blue town. Do you think to some degree part of the reason that the PTA has lurched so far to the left. And again this is not new, it’s been sort of lefty for a long time. But do you think that to some degree is that it’s location. I don’t think they should be here. They should be in like Wichita. Like what is your feelings on it? Because look, I live among a deep dark blue voters. I just feel like they probably just don’t understand where a whole half of segment of America, how they think.
Luke Rosiak:
I think that’s right. I mean, even I think that the president is from somewhere in the southwest and even when they find people in these conservative states, it’s the liberals that they choose. But yeah, the PTA National board is heavily loaded with people in the D.C. metropolitan area. I don’t think it should be based here. But I think another problem is for people that show up at the local level no matter what the political characteristics of your community are because there’s really no such thing as sort of radical centrism.
In other words, people who hold strong beliefs, they usually are the people who take the time to go to all these events and seek these positions are people who have some strong viewpoint. And in the past, there hasn’t been just a strong desire to make your school run well. So, there is some asymmetry there. I think they can make it uncomfortable for parents. I think parents need to kind of grow a spine and fight back because they’re getting bullied bad and it’s not working out well, for anyone. I think, clearly, normal parents outnumber these people. It’s just that we haven’t been showing up.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, I think a part of it, too, though, is that it’s what usually rises in the PTA structure. And I love this line in your article where you talk about that that parents have been relegated to the role of cheerleaders. I’m paraphrasing there, but you talk about how they’re not just bakers, and casserole makers, they’re cheerleaders that is all they’re allowed to be.
And that’s why when I complained about the teacher walkout and I sort of posted the picture on Twitter under my own. I didn’t say like, “Julie PTA member post this,” I just did it on my own. But that was, I mean, they were horrified that I did that, that I showed any sort of criticism or expressed any criticism towards the PTA.
Luke Rosiak:
Yeah. I mean, we can just never forget, again, that parents and teachers do not have the same interests at all. There’s just simply cannot be a group that is both parents and teachers, and that reports to do anything meaningful. We can’t be teachers’ lap dogs. And basically, in Fairfax County, Virginia, which has kind of made national news because the Teachers Union didn’t want to go back even after the teachers were vaccinated. Well, Kimberly Adams, the Union President, she was Union President a few years ago, and then she was Countywide PTA President and then she went back to being Teachers Union.
Julie Gunlock:
Good grief.
Luke Rosiak:
And it is because of the umbrella structure, how the activists are really good at infiltrating the little umbrella because normal parents are like, “I’m going to get involved in my specific school.” It’s usually activists that go to these umbrella nodes that can exert a lot of influence, but that most people don’t really care about. So, the idea that the Teachers Union President would be in charge of the countywide PT, the 10 biggest school system in the country. That’s kind of on us as parents. It’s a completely insane situation. And if we don’t want this kind of thing to happen again, we can never let that kind of thing happen again.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, listen, Luke. I’m so glad you’re out there reporting on this, I encourage everyone to go to The Daily Wire and check out Luke’s reporting. And also go to WhatAreTheyLearning.com because you will learn a lot. You’ll probably cry. You might cry a little because you learn about your school district won’t be that nice. But Luke, I can’t thank you enough. Is there anything, do you want to tell people your Twitter handle or any other way to sort of read your stuff?
Luke Rosiak:
I’m on Twitter with my name, Luke Rosiak. And yeah, do check out The Daily Wire. We’ve got a new investigative team, so we’re going to be doing, hopefully, a lot of this kind of work in the future.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, Luke, I don’t see a huge future for you with your local PTA. I’m sorry to say. I think you’re pre-fired. You can and I, we can be like the people that were fired from it, but I think you’ve been pre-fired. You’re like on a file, you’re in a file, “Do not let this guy anywhere near the PTA.” So, but I do wish you luck once your children start school. It is quite a ride. And again, I’m thrilled that you’re out there, I think you’re a real asset to parents, and I hope more people read your reporting. Thanks for coming on.
Luke Rosiak:
Thank you.
Julie Gunlock:
So, it was great talking to Luke. He certainly paints a sort of depressing picture of the National PTA. But I think it’s important also to say that some PTAs are pretty great and are probably voicing some, maybe a little bit of opposition to the continuation of closed schools or maybe some of sort of the activist or the advocacy they’re being pressured. Maybe some of these PTAs are just aren’t doing those things and really are going beyond the sort of bake sales. And I’m sure there are some that are trying to get involved in things like curriculum issues or ensuring that politics are kept out of school or some of the more divisive issues are kept away from children. And that’s great.
And so, I want to be sure to just say that there are good PTAs out there, but it’s important to know that the PTA organization, the national organization that really sets the agenda and sets the rules and says what PTAs are going to advocate for and what they’re going to stand for needs some reform, needs a lot of reform. And as Luke said, it might just be better to get rid of it altogether. I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that one thing that is going to happen after the Coronavirus has sort of left us and everyone’s vaccinated and we’re back to normal, people aren’t going to sit back as easily anymore.
These grassroots organizations that have cropped up all over the country and have really replaced the PTAs, in many cases, are still going to be there. And I think that is the future of parents advocating for their children in the schools. So, if you have an open schools organization, you might look to them rather than the PTAs going forward because I think they more are doing a better job of reflecting the concerns of local parents.
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