February 28, 2026 • 51 mins
What if the biggest education question isn’t “public vs. private”… but who is shaping your child’s worldview?
This week on The Homeschool How To Podcast, I’m joined by documentary filmmaker Spencer Taylor, creator of The Death of Recess (streaming on Angel Studios). Spencer shares what sparked the film—when his school eliminated recess—and how that change connected to a bigger story: the erosion of childhood, creativity, and parental authority in modern education.
We talk about:
- Why removing recess impacts behavior, mental health, and learning
- The rise of standardized testing (and what it’s costing kids)
- How education funding and influence shape curriculum decisions
- Why school choice and homeschooling are growing fast after COVID
- What Spencer discovered when he went undercover at an NEA leadership summit
- How parents can reclaim their role without fear
If you’re homeschooling, considering homeschooling, or trying to get your spouse on board, this episode will challenge your assumptions—and give you language for the conversations that matter.
🎥 Watch The Death of Recess on Angel Studios - click here!
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👉 Click here for a free 7-day trial and 50% off your yearly subscription.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How-To podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:24):
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Spencer Taylor.
Spencer, thank you so much forbeing here.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
Thanks so much, Cheryl.
It's an honor.
SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
So, all right, this was cool because we were
supposed to record two weeksago, and me and my whole family
had the flu.
So I had to reschedule, and thenlast week your schedule mixed
up, and then it gave me time toactually watch the documentary
that you put together, the filmthat you put together.
And I'm so glad it did.
Because, you know, a lot oftimes people come on and you
know they homeschool, but theyalso want to like talk about the
(00:53):
book that they did.
And I try to get to everything,but there's only so much time in
the day.
So I this happened purposefullybecause I watched the film that
you made in the last week andI'm floored.
And in fact, somebody messagedme the other day and they were
like, listen, I want tohomeschool.
I know that it's in my it's inmy bones.
I need to do this.
My husband is not on board.
What can I do?
(01:14):
And I was like, listen, you'vegot to purchase that Angel app
for$8.99 for 30 days and watchthis film called The Death of
Recess.
And your husband will be onboard because if there's
anything that got me really tobe like, I'm leaving my
government job and I'mhomeschooling the kids, it's
like knowing what the governmentand the people that have money,
(01:35):
knowing their true intentionsbehind what they're doing and
what they want to do to ourkids, that made me say, like the
biggest you, you're not gettinga hold of my kids.
And that is just what yourdocumentary does, but
beautifully, not grotesquelylike I just uh described it.
Okay, so you made you made afilm called The Death of Recess.
Where did this even come from?
(01:56):
Like, where did the idea of haveyou always been a filmmaker?
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
Yeah, I got into film when I was very young.
And it's the reason why I madethe film because I was going
through the traditional publicschool system.
I went to a traditional publicschool in Plainwell, Michigan,
and it was a constant battle forme to pursue my passion within
the confines of the traditionalsystem.
(02:20):
You know, it's always kind ofthe common core math, reading,
writing, science, and there wasvery little time for me to do
film and the arts, but I wasalways doing it at home.
My parents supported me, theygot me a camera, my dad bought
me my first editing software,and so we started sledding down
hills in Michigan and buildingjumps and making those those fun
(02:43):
kind of videos.
So that's where it all began.
Um, but you know, the the otherkind of how I got into
documentary film, documentarieshave changed my life.
You know, there's somethingabout it where you can sit down,
you you give yourself to a filmfor 90 minutes, and it can
completely, you know, the rightfilms can completely shift the
(03:03):
trajectory of your life like ithas for me.
And so I love that.
I love the idea of you knowbeing able to potentially change
somebody's life with a film.
And this all started over adecade ago.
When I was leaving college atMichigan State University, we
had a capstone project.
I went to school for adocumentary film specialty, and
(03:24):
our teacher finally asked us,hey, you know, the capstone
project is to make a film.
And the only thing that I could,you know, that came to me was
the death of recess.
And that was because when I wentfrom fifth to sixth grade, our
school eliminated recess.
So we no longer had any outdoortime.
And you know, as kids, that wasjust normal to us, but I
(03:45):
remember that was like themoment the wheels started to
fall off.
That was the moment wheremyself, all my friends, we
started getting in more trouble.
We had behavioral issues, asthey would say, and looking back
on it, it's because you have abunch of teenage boys that are
locked in school all day, six,seven plus hours with no time
(04:06):
outdoors.
Um, and then going into highschool, that's when kind of the
school shootings started tobecome a little bit more
frequent.
And so we had like the schoolshooter drills, our campus was
locked down during the day, sowe no longer were even able to
go out for lunch.
We had to stay in school and eatthe school lunch, we couldn't
even leave campus.
So just things be started tofeel more like a prison, then it
(04:28):
felt like you know, an enjoyablelearning experience.
So I always always questioningwhy it was that way.
Um, and I started just reachingout to people, interviewing
different people.
Carol Dweck was actually myfirst interview, surprisingly,
and that just blew my mind,everything she has to share.
And it just led me down thisrabbit hole of getting all the
(04:49):
way to where I am now, you know,exposing the NEA and the uh the
corrupt agendas that arecontrolling our public school
system.
SPEAKER_00 (04:57):
And it's funny that you say that because I guess
when I think about school, andI'm 42 now, I think about recess
in elementary school, and Idon't ever think about it being
in middle school or high school.
We never had it, but because Inever had it, I didn't know any
different.
It's not like I was there theyear that they took it away.
So I never knew they had it inthe first place.
But when, you know, as a family,we were always watching Little
(05:19):
House on the Prairie, and nowwe're we finished that.
Now we're watching the Waltons,and you see this kind of like
one room schoolhouse.
Of course, they all went outsidetogether.
It wasn't like, well, you're insixth grade now, you don't get
fresh air, you know.
So it's funny that somebody hadto make that executive decision
to be like, yeah, this is theage, we cut it off.
Like 10 years old, we don't needto exercise, we don't need to
(05:39):
let them loose anymore.
And then you talk about the NEA,which is something I being in
the homeschool space, I actuallystill had never even heard of.
But it's the National EducationAssociation, and you actually
snuck into their convention,which is amazing.
And you put this all in yourfilm, which is why you have to
watch this.
All I could think of was likeAlex Jones sneaking into
(06:01):
Bohemian Grove.
Like, what is this manuncovering in here?
Um, and it was probably just asbad, you know.
I mean, they're what they'rewhat their intention is with the
kids and what they are outrightdiscussing at that convention.
Um, so this is NationalEducation Association, and
they're getting grants from thefederal government, correct?
SPEAKER_01 (06:20):
Yeah, so I'm with you.
I had no idea what the NEA was,no clue.
And I absolutely had no ideathat they were as powerful as
they were.
So they have a federal charter.
They're the largest teacher,they're the largest labor union
in the United States.
It's the the largest teacherunion.
They have over three millionmembers, and their annual budget
is near half a billion dollars.
(06:42):
And the majority of that moneyis used for political activism,
and only a small fraction ofthat is actually representing
teachers.
So it's really a front for ateachers union, but it's a
political superpower.
And 98 plus percent of theircontributions go to Democrats,
even though 36-36% of teachersare conservative.
(07:05):
I don't really try to view thisfrom a political lens, but my
red flags were kind of goingoff.
Like, why is you know hundredsof millions of dollars going
towards political activism whenour our schools are suffering?
You know, we had the CDCreported, and I think it was
2021 or 2022, that one out offive kids consider killing
themselves within the past year.
(07:26):
I mean, it's so that aloneshould just open all of our eyes
that there's a catastrophiccrisis going on.
You have 30-year test score low.
So test scores are worse nowtoday than they were when the
Department of Education was evencreated in the 80s.
So we've had, you know, decadesto try to figure this out and
(07:46):
direct trillions over three theNEA has spent three trillion
dollars since its inception.
And you look at the results,it's like, well, where did all
this money go?
So that was the question I wasasking.
And then when I got in there andand looked under the hood, I
mean, I was stunned.
I my jaw hit the floor when whenI was recording that footage
because I just couldn't believehow they view parental rights as
(08:11):
a joke.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
It's it's really they view the state should be
the father of the child, not theparent.
And they literally spendhundreds of millions of dollars
fighting against parental rightsand against school of choice.
So if there is, you know, ifthere's one boogeyman that's
keeping education the way it is,because I've always asked this
question why is education theway it is?
(08:33):
Why is this continuing on?
We know better ways to doeducation.
Why are we doing this?
The answer to me is is prettysimple.
It's the NEA.
They have spent hundreds andhundreds of millions of dollars
opposing alternative educationand homeschooling.
But now the gig is up, andthat's what I'm here to do is to
help expose what's going on andeducate more parents about what
(08:56):
the NEA is, how they have aLoctite grip on what they're
teaching our kids in publicschools, and hopefully to awaken
parents to reclaim theirchildren from that system.
SPEAKER_00 (09:07):
Yes, and so your film is called The Death of
Recess, but it's not just abouthow we don't have recess
anymore, but that's kind of likeyour overlying like we're taking
away the one fun thing that theyactually had, and we're
replacing it with X, Y, and Z.
And so I um I watched this withmy kids who were three and
(09:27):
seven.
They didn't really pay attentionbecause you know, it's a
documentary, so they're on youknow, moving around the room and
not really paying attention.
But and it says right on it,it's for like age 13 and up.
So for people who want to watchthis with your kids, just know
that it's probably more into theteenage years because you do get
into you interview um a gaycouple from the program or uh
(09:49):
the organization gays againstgrooming, which, you know, I'm
very familiar with.
You know, my friend's gay, hewas over last night, and I was
talking to him about your film,and he's like, Yes, that is
amazing.
We need more films like this.
And I, you know, I was talkingto him about the gays against
groomers, and he's like, Yeah,they're grooming, they are
grooming children.
It is powered by Pfizer and allthese people that are using our
(10:12):
children literally as products.
We're not thought of as humans.
And I think people like parentsreally need to get that through
their heads.
Like this whole, like, will mychildren miss out on prom and
resent me because they're notpart of the Halloween parade or
the Valentine's Day party.
It doesn't matter.
Your children are being marketedto as young as four years old,
(10:33):
maybe even younger, um, andthey're being groomed.
And so you kind of go into likehow the funding works.
And so you talk about I'm rightwith you.
We probably align very well onour political views because I I
started out super liberal.
And then when I had my awakeningduring COVID, I was like on the
Trump train.
And then now that I've had thereal awakening, I'm like, oh my
(10:55):
God, they're the same people.
The same people are likepuppeteers of it all to make us
fight with each other, right?
And the end result is they justwant us as products to make
money off of.
The more money they can makefrom us, the better for them.
So, like, my thing now is like,how can I detach from that
system?
And homeschooling has been theway.
But can you get into a littlebit more about like those
(11:18):
funding streams for people thatjust aren't familiar with it?
Like how the Obama Foundationand probably the Bill Gates
Foundation and like Pfizer, whatthey're funding, where that
money goes.
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
Yeah, some of the footage that I haven't yet
exposed, I'll give a littleteaser.
I've also found heavy streams ofmoney coming from the George
Soros and the Open SocietyFoundation.
They're all spending, it's notjust the NEA's budget.
There is hundreds of millions ofdollars of dark money flowing
into education into education.
(11:50):
What that means is it's moneythat's untraceable.
So there's one organization thatI uncovered at the NEA
conference.
It's called the Pipeline Fund.
And they are responsible.
So they get their funding fromthe Open Society Foundation,
many other donors that we don'tknow.
They are 501c4 registered inWashington, DC.
Again, that means their donors,they do not have to disclose who
(12:13):
their donors are.
So, but we do know Open SocietyFoundation has given them very
large grants in the past, so wewe do know that they are one of
those donors.
So that gives a little bit of abreadcrumb of where some of this
money is coming from.
But what they're doing isthey're spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to studywhere the highly contested
school boards are across thecountry.
(12:34):
And I didn't really knowanything about school boards,
but basically a school board'scomprised of five individuals,
and if that majority leansconservative, if it leans
Democrat, then the school boardis really who decides which
curriculum is being taught,which politics are being infused
into the classroom.
So school boards are actuallythe most powerful way to impact
(12:56):
policy within education.
That's the beautiful thing aboutAmerican education is that it's
a localized process.
The issue is it's been capturedby large corporate interests
because and and most people haveno idea.
They don't have any clue thatyour local little school board
of five people is being targetedby the Open Society Foundation,
the Rockefellers.
(13:17):
Why?
Why are they doing that?
They're doing that because theyknow that what you start
teaching kids at a very youngage is, you know, you can start
planting those seeds, and thoseare going to grow and to mature,
and you can then have the nextgeneration of foot soldiers that
are going to be your customers,they're going to be your
(13:37):
political, you know, loyal footsoldiers.
So that's what's happening isyou you hit the nail on the
head.
It's we're commoditizing ourchildren.
And you know, the death ofrecess isn't like you said, it's
not just about recess.
I view recess as a metaphor forchildhood.
It's really the death ofcreativity and it's the it's the
death of childhood.
(13:58):
And I think what you're doing,why I support homeschooling so
much, is because it's a it's tome, it's a restoration.
I don't know if we need arevolution in this country.
I think we need a restoration.
I think we need to go back towhat what we were doing.
You know, if you look at thevery first education law in
America, it was this the 1647Old Diluter Satan Act.
(14:20):
Have you ever heard about this?
SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (14:22):
Okay, this is crazy.
So the very first education lawin America, it's called the Old
Diluter Satan Act in 1647.
I'm not even kidding.
And what happened was the earlycolonial settlers, they realized
that illiteracy was the numberone tool of Satan because if
kids couldn't read, theycouldn't read the Bible.
(14:44):
And so they couldn't have anymoral foundation without the
ability to read.
So that's the reason why westarted to prioritize literacy.
And we were a nation ofhomeschoolers.
This is the very first law thatestablished any form of
structured schooling.
So what it was is any village of50 or more people had to have a
grammar teacher, and then anyvillage or town or community of
(15:08):
a hundred or more people had tobuild a grammar school.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
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SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
So that was the beginning of the structure,
which is a beautiful structure.
It's about teaching morals andethics and values.
But moving into the 1700s, wegot into the common school
movement, and then once we kindof got into, you know, Horace
Mann and and the Prussian modelof education, and then we we
that model was captured by theindustrial model, and now we
(16:25):
have something totallydifferent, a couple centuries,
and we have something completelydifferent from what we started
with.
So that's another part of what Ihope the film can start to do is
help educate parents and educateteachers of the origins of
public school.
And we can get back to some ofthe things that worked.
Literacy rates were very high inthose early settler years.
(16:49):
The the caveat is slavery.
But following the emancipationof slavery, African American
literacy rates skyrocketed, orthey they really improved
quickly.
So this is all before anycompulsory education laws.
So I think there's this stigmathat you know the people before
our fancy school systems, theywere just dumb and you know,
(17:09):
look how much smarter we are.
But that might be anoversimplified, you know, way to
look at it.
I think the homeschoolingfoundation that we have was
quite strong.
SPEAKER_00 (17:18):
Yeah, and then you have to look at who measures
success, right?
Is it measured by money andthings, or is it measured by
just happiness in life?
And like you started out bysaying the suicide rate or or
kids that even think ofcommitting suicide is one in
five.
That's not normal.
I mean, even I know a girl Iwent to high school with a
(17:39):
woman, oh, she's a year youngerthan me, 40, 41, committed
suicide a couple weeks ago.
She had a husband and two kids.
It's like, where like, how is iteven in someone's realm of
thinking, right?
Like, I spend most of my timelike, oh my god, how am I gonna
prevent the cancer that I'mprobably brewing inside of me
from all the vaccines I've hadin my life?
And like here, people are justgrabbing it by the b- It's just
(18:01):
crazy.
So, okay, um, you get into I andI really want people to
understand this like how they'retrying to groom our kids in the
school system, not just readingand writing and math.
Okay, that's fine, try to dothat.
But like you said, they'refailing at that, and they have
our kids for longer and earlieron, and yet they're doing worse
than it was back when we werejust like, hey, Patty Sue lives
(18:23):
down the road and we like her,so let's have her teach our kids
grammar.
Like they did better back thenthan they do now.
But when we talk about like thesocial emotional learning and
how Pfizer is contributing moneywith the other Democrat Party,
you know, funding sources, andthey're actually targeting our
kids very young to even want tobe on these hormone blockers.
(18:46):
And that's that was kind of alarge part of a certain amount
of your documentary, too,because it I mean, I I think you
really want to drill intoparents, like this is real, this
is happening.
You don't you don't know itbecause you aren't there, and
your child probably doesn't comehome and verbatim, you know,
tell you what they heard, butthis is really happening.
I mean, you had a mother wholost her child because of the
(19:08):
suicide after, you know, andthen and then you've had you had
people on it.
And I've heard of people say howthey were groomed to start these
puberty blockers and hormoneblockers and get mutilated for
years later for them to be like,well, I never really wanted
that.
I mean, I think of myself.
I was I was married to my firsthusband at 25 and I was divorced
at 26.
So I'm like, I didn't even I I'mI'm still with my second husband
(19:29):
who I have my kids with now, butI didn't know what I was doing
at 25.
I I was just like, Yeah, awedding sounds fun.
Let's marry this guy.
You know, so like how do weexpect these children that are
10 years old to know that theywant to be the opposite gender
and and then they feed themthese drugs without telling the
parents about it.
Could you talk to us a littlebit about that, what you
(19:50):
discovered?
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
Yeah, I was I was stunned when I so I went
undercover at the 2025 NationalEducation Association Leadership
Summit in Detroit, Michigan.
And I went in just open-minded.
I wanted to learn what they'redoing.
I couldn't get an interview for,you know, multiple years, so
that's why I went undercover.
(20:12):
And so I went into thesebreakout sessions, and there was
multiple breakout sessions.
One of the ones that stood outto me was uh the SOGI breakout
session, which is sexualorientation, gender identity.
So that's something that wasinvented by the UN.
The UN actually is reallyresponsible for pushing it ever
(20:34):
since like 2019.
It does predate that, but umthere was this there was this
push to really bring it intoWestern countries.
And so the NEA is is you knowpumping money into this and
giving a lot of resources todifferent educators, but it was
it was very twisted for me.
I I started seeing, you know,they're pushing, and I've
(20:54):
interviewed parents like you sawin the you see in the film, Erin
from Colorado, who she reallyblew my mind.
I mean, there's LGBTQ plus SOGcurriculum getting pushed on
first graders, getting pushed onsecond, third, fourth, fifth
graders.
You know, we didn't when I wasgoing to school, we had a sex ed
class, but that wasn't untilprobably like I think like
(21:15):
eighth or ninth grade.
I think maybe, yeah, maybefreshman year of high school.
And at that, it was just basicbiology.
It's hey, this is how a baby'sborn, this is, you know, you
know, you know, standard safetypractices for having safe sex,
all that that type of thing.
But now what it's become is, youknow, hey, you can change your
gender.
You know, you can start takingthese pharmaceuticals to alter
(21:39):
your hormones, you know.
We we will accept your identity.
A big thing that's been reallyshocking for a lot of parents
that I don't think people knewhow bad it was, is teachers were
hiding all of this from parents.
So they were telling kids, hey,you can change your gender, you
can identify as whatever youwant.
I won't tell your parents.
And I cause.
(22:00):
them on film.
So you I mean you can call mecrazy.
You can call me a conspiracytheorist for saying this stuff's
happening, which some people do.
They think this is propaganda.
But I have them on film sayingthis.
That this is what they're doing.
They're talking about gettingconsent forms, how to get
consent forms without yourparents' knowledge, right?
Making sure that they don't tellyour parents if you come out as
(22:20):
gay to them.
And again, like I have nothingobviously I have nothing against
gay people.
I interviewed gays againstgroomers.
I sat down with a tr you know aa transgender individual who had
regretted that decision.
I gave I tried to give everyonea voice.
So I'm not against gay people oragainst trans people.
I'm against this stuff beingpushed onto kids at a highly
(22:42):
vulnerable age.
And the real question should behey parents do you want us to to
teach this?
That's not what they're asking.
They've just determined thatthat's what they're going to do
because they know best.
And that's what I I think moreparents need to realize is that
the NEA and the teachers unionsbelieve they know better than
(23:02):
you.
They think that they know how toparent your child better than
you.
And I I think our current schoolsystem is the greatest psyop
that we've ever been sold.
It's what we're we're sendingour kids to a government school.
This is a government school andwe're teaching we're trusting
that the government is going toraise our our child.
(23:22):
By the way K through 12 they'respending 1400 hours in that
system right 1400 hours of thegovernment deciding what your
child should think what theyshould believe who they should
listen to who should who theyshould confide in and now
they're bringing this sexualcurriculum into young ages.
(23:43):
I mean it I it every parent I'mbig on letting parents decide if
that's what you want if you're aparent and you think that that's
what you're okay with that thenokay.
But I'm just trying to letpeople know that this is going
on and then you get to make yourown decision.
SPEAKER_00 (23:57):
Exactly.
And it's the same about vaccinesright like I always in just my
story I did everything that thepediatrician said to do because
or my and my doctor when I waspregnant okay well you know best
you went to school I I don'thave time you have they they
make you so busy with working 40hours a week and commuting an
hour there and an hour back andyou know all the things you have
(24:19):
to take care of at home that bythe time or maybe you have a
second job.
You don't have time to researchwhere the vaccines came from and
then you know it was probablyduring COVID that I watched a
video or documentary and a fewof them lined up and I'm like
maybe I have to start looking atthis stuff myself.
And then it was like well Idon't I don't know enough to go
against the pediatrician.
(24:40):
I really need to start making awhole notebook and citing
sources and then finally once Idid all that I was like yeah
we're not doing this anymore.
And I'm in New York so I'm oneof the five states that you have
to do you have to takeeverything in order to send your
kids to school here.
So it was like well I guesswe're homeschooling I'm quitting
my government job which was thebest thing I ever did for my
life because that was horrible.
SPEAKER_01 (25:02):
But yeah in itself huh how how much the
pharmaceutical industry ismandating decisions instead of
yes letting they know betterthan the parent just like you
said.
And so I think that's thankfullyyou know one of the upsides of
COVID you know the positive isthat it brought education into
the home.
(25:22):
And so you know Corey D'Angelishe has this line that I I steal
it from him but he says theteachers union stepped on a rake
during COVID because what theydid is they were lobbying to
keep the schools closed becausethey could pull federal funds.
So they got billions of dollarsof federal funds.
So everyone got paid and theywere lobbying even though we
(25:44):
knew COVID wasn't affecting andimpacting kids anywhere near the
same they were lobbying to keepthe schools shut.
And so what that did here's thehere's the beautiful part about
that is it brought the classroominto the homes and so 1.5
million families during COVIDremoved their kids from schools
and that stayed so we'remultiple years out and that has
(26:06):
stayed so 1.5 million peoplewere removed from that system.
SPEAKER_00 (26:11):
That is so during COVID there were like there were
1.5 million parents that saidyeah you're not going we're just
going to remove you and teachyou at home like we could do
better than this.
SPEAKER_01 (26:21):
Yeah that that's just homeschooling and
microschooling you know you gotto think there's a lot of other
parents there's millions ofother parents that made a
decision like we're not going tosend our kids to to the this
school anymore we're going to gotry to find a private school
we're going to go try to find acharter school we're going to go
you know we're going to startsupporting school choice.
Now it's like you look you knowpolitics aside one thing that
(26:44):
the Trump administration isdoing very well that I think is
is highly beneficial to oureducation system is the school
of choice movement.
You know I think last time Ichecked there's over 36 states
those are red and blue statesthat are going along with this
school of choice program becausethey're recognizing that the
parents are speaking.
There needs to be competitionjust like the free market has
(27:05):
competition you know you're notforced to buy an Apple computer
you can eat there's competition.
You you you choose to buy itbecause it's a good product
right we shouldn't be forced tosend our kids to the public
school but that's how you knowcompulsory education laws have
worked for multiple centuries isyou have to send your kid to the
school and based on the districtyou live you have to send your
(27:28):
kids there.
And your property taxes you knowthis is like the next kind of
stage of this whole you knowawakening is people realizing
that our property taxes arefunding the school and you know
just attendance right the basichow this works is every kid in
the country is basically worthabout$20,000 on average.
(27:48):
I think in New York it's alittle bit more some states it's
a little bit less but for everykid that goes to the public
school it's$20,000 on averageacross the 50 states of the US
so the moment you pull your kidout of that school with these
school of choice laws and someof those funds are directed away
from the public school what doesthat do?
It creates competition.
And the teachers union doesn'twant that.
(28:10):
That's why they're lobbyingthat's why they've spent
hundreds of millions of dollarsthey've spent I think over 700
million dollars in the pastdecade just lobbying against
school of choice.
Think about that.
So they're fighting tooth andnail to prevent this from
happening but it's I think theawakening is too strong right
now and it's continuing to growevery single day.
More people are more parents aresaying no we're not gonna just
(28:32):
blindly you know trust thepublic school.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
Right.
And you know it's easy to kindof say like oh well I do have a
right to send my kid to privateschool but like you said you are
paying the school taxes if youown a house and even if you rent
your rent is part of your rentgoes to that from the landlord
you're what school choice isactually saying is that we're
gonna divert that money intowhat you choose to do to educate
(28:57):
your children.
So whether it's a private schoolor a homeschool you know that
the money gets diverted from theschool I don't think we have
school choice in New York.
SPEAKER_01 (29:06):
Yeah I was just gonna look that up no there so
there's actually last time Ichecked there was 11 states.
I'm gonna look that up butthere's 11 states at least I
think it's growing now.
Louisiana might have just joinedwhere it's it's called an ESA
Education Savings account.
Yeah and you can actually opt todivert the funds that are going
(29:27):
to the public school from yourproperty taxes.
SPEAKER_00 (29:30):
You can actually draw some of those funds to use
them for homeschooling oh I'llhave to look that up because I
know the Tuttle twins have theirwebsite has yes a information I
just never looked it up becauseI was like when I'm in New York
Hokel's not doing that for us.
SPEAKER_01 (29:43):
She did however she wants full control.
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
She did however make the Walgreens at the end of the
major road in my city a freestore so that everything in it
is free.
I mean I've never heard of sucha thing I've never heard but
it's gonna be a store newcomrade now if you're in New
York so we're like so people canjust go in take stuff and then
(30:06):
resell it for whatever that Imean that's what they should do.
SPEAKER_01 (30:10):
But um that's a wild I also thought of we looked it
up it's 15 states now 15 statesnow offer ESA programs.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
Okay cool.
SPEAKER_01 (30:18):
So roughly half of the US students right now live
in states with some form of ESAaccess.
So that's great.
It's Tennessee South CarolinaOklahoma North Carolina New
Hampshire Mississippi AlabamaWest Virginia Utah Iowa Indiana
Florida Arkansas and Arizona soFlorida's pretty good at all
(30:40):
that yeah Florida's been beenexcellent on uh parental rights
and school choice so thismovement's growing and to me
it's unstoppable I think themore every day the more people
that become aware of it and yeahsupport it and really push for
school of choice even if wedecide to educate our kids from
home like we're gonna behomeschooling our kids we should
(31:00):
all we all have a vestedinterest in our public education
system because we have roughly80 82% of the country goes to
public schools.
So these are the kids that aregoing to be growing up and being
adults with our kids so we stillwe don't want to just abandon
public schools.
SPEAKER_00 (31:16):
We want them to change but unfortunately they're
not gonna change unless they'reforced to yeah um you said in
your film 50,000 transgendersurgeries were in Colorado
alone.
I don't know if that was asingle year or or since they
started doing them but I thoughtthat was astounding.
And then you kind of talked andI hate to like beat a dead horse
(31:37):
or anything but you talked aboutthe bill like you mentioned
before people might say I'm aconspiracy theorist but how can
you be a conspiracy theoristwhen there's actually a house
bill 25 1312 that forced parentsto transition their kids or lose
them and they're telling thesechildren that by age 12 you can
make the decision.
It doesn't matter what yourparents say.
(31:59):
So I mean I guess for thereality of it for people
listening today that are like Iwant a homeschool but I don't
really know if I want to bitethe bullet you know I really
want my kid to be part of theprom.
That's huge.
SPEAKER_01 (32:11):
Yeah it's quite undeniable.
SPEAKER_00 (32:12):
Oh and I love that your film talked about how even
though the school board like youmentioned in the very beginning
of this the school board wasmade up of parents and people
who were against it.
The funding sources that came inwere the reasons that the bill
passed anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (32:27):
Yeah it had historic numbers of parents show up to
oppose the bill the problem isis you know I think the Senate I
I'm not fully familiar with thepolitical background I know that
the the Senate and the House inColorado is heavily Democrat so
they just bypassed what theparents were were wishing.
(32:48):
But yeah they you a couple yearsago I think maybe 2019 they gave
uh 12 year olds medical consentand what you know Colorado's
done so they're they'rerecognizing that there's a
mental health crisis but whatthey're doing is they're doing
affirming gender affirming care.
That's what they've viewed asyou know standard that's
(33:10):
actually state sanctionedstandard medical care or mental
health care.
So if a kid after they turn 12they have consent the over the
parent and if you know theschool has been kind of grooming
them with these different booksand this curriculum since first
grade and they get to the pointwhere they're having mental
health issues because of coursealmost every kid is going to
(33:34):
have some sort of mental healthissue in today's current system
because you know recess is downfrom 120 minutes in 1950 to 25
minutes today and you know youhave kids locked in for six
seven hours in fluorescentlights eating processed foods
you know the list goes on of allthe reasons why they're gonna
(33:54):
have mental health issues youdon't have to social media yep
the divorce social media exactlyall of it so you have you know a
recipe for disaster and thenwhat's the solution you have
mental health counselors thatare using gender affirming care.
So what they're doing is they'resaying hey you know you can have
you considered you know you'remaybe changing your gender or
(34:16):
associating with a differentgender or you know and they
start talking about how sex isfluid.
We live in a heterosexistenvironment that's one thing
that I that I heard for thefirst time in the NEA.
So they believe anything thataffirms gender norms is
heterosexist.
Like you know like there was acheerleading competition going
on at the conference and theysaid that that was heterosexist
(34:38):
because it's a bunch of littlegirls doing cheerleading and you
know so they're just trying toflip everything upside down and
what I call it as moralinversion.
It's it's just you've taken youknow the biblical order the
family structure the nuclearfamily and you've distorted it
you've flipped it upside downand you've put it under the
(34:58):
banner of inclusivity right thethe rainbow itself is this like
you have kids you know whenthey're young there's like
rainbows on toys and it was justthe rainbow is biblically it's
the covenant that God's notgoing to flood the earth again.
It's a very biblical symbol therainbow is a natural you know
occurring refraction of lightand what they've done is they've
(35:19):
sexualized that they'veperverted it.
And and we we are supposed toyou know be inclusive and you
know we're looked at as you knowhomophobic or transphobic if we
don't go along with that andthat's over.
It's it's like you know peoplecalling you know somebody who's
skeptical of a vaccine ananti-vaxxer.
We've woken up to thatbrainwashing uh you know we're
(35:40):
not in it anymore we're not anyof those things we are this
isn't right versus left it'sright versus wrong that's what I
I say it's it's right versuswrong this is wrong we should
not be pushing kids to beconfused about their gender.
SPEAKER_00 (35:54):
You know we should be recognizing they have so many
other things to be confusedabout in this world today like
the things that you werementioning and and just the
social media and the video gamesand I mean I just think about
even like what could my kid beviewing on a bus if they were on
a bus with like a fifth graderfourth grader third grader that
had a phone and they're swipingon Snapchat and then there was a
(36:17):
pornographic thing you know andit doesn't take much for a kid
to be like what was that andlike well you're a boy that was
a boy you must be gay and youmust want to change your j you
know what I mean like it doesn'thave to take much to get in
their head to think yeah maybekids are highly I mean you know
this my daughter's 15 monthsright now so she's not at that
(36:40):
age yet where she's able tostart really speaking and
communicating but you know I'msure when you're around kids
they they can one day identifyas like a dinosaur they can you
know be acting all funny actingsilly even you know I grew up
there was plenty of girls thatwent through a tomboy phase or
there's boys that go through afeminine phase and they grow out
(37:02):
of it.
SPEAKER_01 (37:02):
You know some people don't and that's fine.
But when you're pushing kidsinto hey check this like you
said you know there's all sortsof content that can pop up in
their feed and then at schoolthere's all these flags and
everything's just normalizedthen then it becomes this norm
of oh you haven't tried that andwow is that really what we want
(37:24):
to normalize for our kids youknow right after three years of
interviewing homeschoolingfamilies I realized how
overwhelming it can be to pieceeverything together.
SPEAKER_00 (37:33):
So I took the best advice tips questions and
resources that I've learnedalong the way and put them into
one practical ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point you'll find the
link in this show's descriptionyour film talks about 112
standardized tests by the timethey graduate and that's
(37:55):
something interesting too whenyou started talking about
colleges taking the informationthat they gather from the SAT
exams and using that againstyour children to sell products
to them basically a sell aneducation to them as if they are
just another product.
Do you want to talk about that alittle bit?
SPEAKER_01 (38:15):
Yeah that's another big component to the mental
health issue.
It's all tied together.
I know there's the film getsinto a lot of different you know
different uh rabbit holes but Ido believe it all ties together.
Yeah so basically under theGeorge Bush administration and
in the Obama administration aswell they put a heavy emphasis
on standardized testing.
So what was happening is theUnited States test scores were
(38:37):
starting to you know starting todecrease and so they thought
that oh well let's increase theamount of testing we're doing
let's let's shorten recess let'sget kids inside let's drill them
even harder with informationbecause we got to improve our
test scores and what that did isthe exact opposite no surprise
our test scores went down wayfurther and so administration
(39:00):
after administration keptraising the stakes on
standardized testing.
We increased more and more andmore tests and our results are
just continuing to decline.
And so in the film I went toFinland and I I learned that the
Finnish education system is oneof the best in the country and
what what I was shocked to findout is or sorry one of the best
(39:21):
in the world what I was shockedto learn is that they spend the
least amount of time in school.
So they have the most amount ofrecess time out of any nation in
the entire world and they onlytake one standardized test K
through 12.
They don't give kids homeworkuntil eighth grade.
They don't do any grades upuntil eighth grade.
Wow so it's a completelydifferent system.
(39:42):
They average I think it's liketwo to three hours a day of
outdoor time for kidsunstructured play.
And yet they score they score atsome of the highest test scores
in the world and they're ratedas the happiest country I think
now for like eight or nineconsecutive years Finland's
rated as the happiest country onearth.
And you compare that with the USwhere we're taking an average of
(40:03):
112.
I mean for me that's prettytough that causes me to to kind
of look at that and say hey whyaren't why aren't we trying
something like that?
And one thing I learned aboutFinland is they based their
system on American research onresearchers like Carol Dweck who
I also interviewed in the film.
They were like don't do any ofit do the opposite they just
applied exactly they applied theAmerican research and now they
(40:26):
have I would say it's the bestschool system in the world but
yeah this this uh focus onstandardized testing is just
absolutely killing creativityit's killing individuality and
you know it's it's putting alabel on a lot of kids like my
like for me those standardizedtests never asked me to submit a
video they never asked me toright you know show how good I
(40:49):
am working on a camera theynever asked me to draw a picture
paint a painting sing a songthey never asked you they never
asked anybody so thesestandardized tests are just
about these this narrow windowof academics that's what so many
kids are labeling themselves asoh I scored an 18 or I scored a
(41:11):
17 or a 15 or a 20 or you knowthat's what you think you are
and what we know now because ofall the brain research that's
come out that this is just notan efficient way to measure the
you know brilliance and thesuccess of children.
SPEAKER_00 (41:27):
Yeah and the happiness you know of them into
adulthood.
And when you think about it whodecides who knows or what is the
information that all childrenneed to know you know because
like I know when I married myhusband and he's from the
country and he'd talk about allthese different things like oh
yeah that deer is or or thatcoyote is in that parking lot.
There must be a deer in thewoods right nearby and I'm like
(41:48):
well how do you know that whatare you talking about?
Well there's no other reason tobe in a parking lot and then we
drive by and oh yeah there's thedeer in the behind the tree and
you know why how birds buildtheir nests and the caterpillars
I knew nothing none of that Ilearned more from homeschooling
my seven year old and readingchildren's books to him than I
ever learned in school and Ihave a bachelor's degree I can
(42:11):
learn anything.
I learn how to scam the systemyou also talked about the
college board the college board$98 per test but what is it
that's$177 billion?
SPEAKER_01 (42:22):
Is it the industry the college board is worth$177
billion maybe in that they sellthe student data like they're
making money from selling ourkids yeah they have$1.77 billion
in assets so the yeah thecollege board is yeah that's a
whole whole other expose in thefilm I mean they have an immense
(42:43):
amount of money and what theydid is I had a a whistleblower.
That's why I interviewed in thefilm I had somebody who worked
inside the college board come tome.
They were originally going togive their story to the
Washington Post the WashingtonPost just didn't run it for
whatever reason so he sharedshared yeah he revealed that
what they were doing is anytimeyou send your kid to take the
ACT or SAT you fill out a littlecheck mark that's the privacy
(43:06):
policy.
What that does is it gives themusage of your data.
And what they were doing is theywere selling that data to third
parties to inflate the amount ofapplications going out for
universities.
So it made it appear thatcollege entrance was highly
competitive at all thesemid-tier schools so all of the
(43:27):
colleges across the countrycould raise their tuition
because it looked it appearedmore exclusive and difficult to
get into all these differentuniversities.
So they started raising theirtheir cost of tuition and that
was yeah that was all tiedbecause the college board who's
responsible for you knowadministering the the SAT and
(43:48):
then or the the A C T right andthe SAT is education testing
services I believe.
But yeah they they feed all thisdata and this is it's a it's a
whole money making operation.
SPEAKER_00 (43:58):
So much of it is and And we just wouldn't think and
I've I've interviewed so manyteachers that either left the
school system to educate theirown kids at home or still teach
but homeschool their kids.
And so many of them say, like,yeah, the funding, you know,
their their teaching went fromwhen they first started to,
yeah, do you do creative thingsand you teach what you want and
(44:22):
what's important to you in a funway to now it is this is your
strict like script of what youhave to say and what you have to
teach and how you have to teach.
And you can't vary.
And when your children, yourstudents do bad on the test,
your review will reflect that.
And therefore, you will not getthe bonus that you maybe once
thought you were.
(44:42):
Or, you know, maybe it's 1%versus 5% of a raise.
It's it's tied to the teacher'spay, which I was shocked at
learning.
SPEAKER_01 (44:50):
Yeah, that's a great point.
I'm glad you brought that upbecause teachers are amazing.
You know, so many teachers areamazing.
Not every teacher is equal,obviously.
But I don't ever want to attackteachers because I had some
teachers that I absolutelyloved.
But yeah, I was I was shocked tolearn that as well.
Is that once they startedlinking test performance to your
(45:10):
pay, you know, and how you'rebeing, you know, rated, then uh
yeah, educators couldn't do any,you know, teachers couldn't do
anything but just follow orders.
And that's why there's so muchturnover with new teachers
because they get in, they'rereally excited, you know, and a
lot of a lot of these teachersare brilliant.
If we just let them teach andstayed out of the classroom from
(45:33):
a you know, like testingperspective, um, they they know
what they're doing.
They're they're reallybrilliant, but that's not what
we're doing.
We're forcing them to push allthese tests, and then so the the
incentive structure is justflipped upside down.
SPEAKER_00 (45:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, as we round out thehour, what else do you want
parents to know?
Parents that might be thinkingabout homeschooling, but are
still hanging on to like, how amI gonna make this work?
And you know, what would be yourdrive to push them?
Like I said, this is dire now.
SPEAKER_01 (46:06):
It you any parent has to ask the question do you
want the government to raiseyour children?
That's the question that you'reasking.
And if the answer is no, thenyou have to explore another
option.
So if you have the money to doprivate schooling, great, but
still make sure a lot of enougha lot of private schools still
(46:27):
push these curriculums andtesting.
A lot of it's even worse.
It's more competitive and it'smore exclusive, kind of elitist.
So you really what I would tellany parent is this is the most
important decision you're gonnamake for your kid, is where
you're sending them to school orif you're going to send them to
school, because this is howtheir worldview is formed.
(46:49):
So, do you as a parent want tohelp form your child's
worldview, or do you want thegovernment to do so?
And if you want the governmentto do so, if you trust them, if
you believe that they've got itfigured out, then go ahead.
No, no, no hate.
But if you want to raise yourchild to be a compassionate, a
(47:09):
passionate, creative individualthat's rooted and grounded into
the earth and into thecommunity, into their faith,
then that's something that youshould consider taking up
yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (47:22):
Yes, the government is never going to teach you how
the government can be dangerous.
From Caterboyak, the author ofthe Total Twins books.
When I had him on my podcast, Iwas like, ooh, that's right.
And I have watched enough 9-11documentaries to know I do not
trust the government.
We've been through COVID now.
I think we should know.
We can't trust these people.
So why are we thinking that theeducation system is anything
(47:44):
different than another leg ofthe government?
It's the same.
Exactly.
Spencer.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (47:48):
This is two wings of the same bird.
Yes.
Just like our political parties.
That's a whole other rabbithole.
Maybe we'll do that podcastnext.
We can talk about the wholefederal system and how that's
all.
SPEAKER_00 (48:00):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (48:00):
I mean, that was another rabbit hole.
Maybe another one.
SPEAKER_00 (48:02):
That was a big awakening for me.
And it and it feels very likealone.
Like, well, what the heck can Ido then?
It's too big for me.
But it's like, well, you couldhomeschool and you could just
try to like source your foodlocally and raise your kids with
a community of friends that youlike and family.
And um, yeah, like not need thegovernment.
(48:23):
Absolutely.
Not need the government for asmuch as possibly can not need
them for.
SPEAKER_01 (48:27):
That's why I started the film with that Aristotle
quote (48:30):
the fate of empires rests on the education of youth.
So the founding fathers ofWestern the Western world knew
this.
They knew that the fate of anyempire is going to rest on how
you educate youth.
So that's why they're fightinglike absolute hell to get
control of your children.
They want control of yourchildren because they know that
the fate of their control restsin how much control they have
(48:54):
over your kids.
SPEAKER_00 (48:55):
So true.
Okay, where can people find yourfilm?
SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
We are exclusive on Angel Studios right now, and you
can follow Death of Recess onsocial media where we just
started that social page, and mypersonal Instagram is Spencer
Vibes.
So we'll be posting a lot ofdifferent screenings.
We're still gonna do screenings.
We're working on one inWashington, DC, and uh, we're
gonna do screenings all over theplace and different events.
(49:20):
So stay tuned.
It's it's just the beginning.
SPEAKER_00 (49:22):
Oh, that's amazing.
So I'm gonna link everything inthe show's description.
Yeah, so like I did, you canjust sign up for Angel Studios.
You can do it for the month ifyou don't aren't into like
subscribing to TV stuff, butit's worth it.
There's other good things onthat program, um, on that
network.
They also have all the TuddleTwins, uh, Tuddle Twins TV.
So you're teaching your kid allabout civics and you know, um,
(49:44):
things that the governmentdoesn't want them to know.
So it's definitely you're notgonna waste that$8.99 at all.
Angel Studios, the Death ofRecess.
It was amazing.
So if you have that spouse thatis like, I don't we can't
homeschool, I don't want my kidto be weird.
You guys sit down together,watch this film, and it's gonna
be really hard to say I don'twant them to be weird after you
(50:04):
see what the government istrying to do to your children.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Amen.
And big, big shout out to you,Cheryl, for being bold and being
brave and homeschooling.
It's you know, it sounds likeyou've been doing it for a
while.
You were doing it before.
It's cool.
So I always like to give propsto my kids are young.
SPEAKER_00 (50:21):
No, I I just I just left my government job like two
years ago.
I worked for the government for16 years and I just like I don't
think I want to vaccinateanymore.
Should I interview somehomeschoolers and see how weird
they are?
Right.
So I started this three yearsago.
SPEAKER_01 (50:35):
You you woke up from the psyob.
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yes.
Absolutely.
Thank God.
Thank you so much, Spencer.
This has been awesome.
Thanks, Cheryl.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To Podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
thehomeschoolhow2.com and grabmy free 30-day homeschool quick
(50:58):
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How-To podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:24):
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Spencer Taylor.
Spencer, thank you so much forbeing here.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
Thanks so much, Cheryl.
It's an honor.
SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
So, all right, this was cool because we were
supposed to record two weeksago, and me and my whole family
had the flu.
So I had to reschedule, and thenlast week your schedule mixed
up, and then it gave me time toactually watch the documentary
that you put together, the filmthat you put together.
And I'm so glad it did.
Because, you know, a lot oftimes people come on and you
know they homeschool, but theyalso want to like talk about the
(00:53):
book that they did.
And I try to get to everything,but there's only so much time in
the day.
So I this happened purposefullybecause I watched the film that
you made in the last week andI'm floored.
And in fact, somebody messagedme the other day and they were
like, listen, I want tohomeschool.
I know that it's in my it's inmy bones.
I need to do this.
My husband is not on board.
What can I do?
(01:14):
And I was like, listen, you'vegot to purchase that Angel app
for$8.99 for 30 days and watchthis film called The Death of
Recess.
And your husband will be onboard because if there's
anything that got me really tobe like, I'm leaving my
government job and I'mhomeschooling the kids, it's
like knowing what the governmentand the people that have money,
(01:35):
knowing their true intentionsbehind what they're doing and
what they want to do to ourkids, that made me say, like the
biggest you, you're not gettinga hold of my kids.
And that is just what yourdocumentary does, but
beautifully, not grotesquelylike I just uh described it.
Okay, so you made you made afilm called The Death of Recess.
Where did this even come from?
(01:56):
Like, where did the idea of haveyou always been a filmmaker?
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
Yeah, I got into film when I was very young.
And it's the reason why I madethe film because I was going
through the traditional publicschool system.
I went to a traditional publicschool in Plainwell, Michigan,
and it was a constant battle forme to pursue my passion within
the confines of the traditionalsystem.
(02:20):
You know, it's always kind ofthe common core math, reading,
writing, science, and there wasvery little time for me to do
film and the arts, but I wasalways doing it at home.
My parents supported me, theygot me a camera, my dad bought
me my first editing software,and so we started sledding down
hills in Michigan and buildingjumps and making those those fun
(02:43):
kind of videos.
So that's where it all began.
Um, but you know, the the otherkind of how I got into
documentary film, documentarieshave changed my life.
You know, there's somethingabout it where you can sit down,
you you give yourself to a filmfor 90 minutes, and it can
completely, you know, the rightfilms can completely shift the
(03:03):
trajectory of your life like ithas for me.
And so I love that.
I love the idea of you knowbeing able to potentially change
somebody's life with a film.
And this all started over adecade ago.
When I was leaving college atMichigan State University, we
had a capstone project.
I went to school for adocumentary film specialty, and
(03:24):
our teacher finally asked us,hey, you know, the capstone
project is to make a film.
And the only thing that I could,you know, that came to me was
the death of recess.
And that was because when I wentfrom fifth to sixth grade, our
school eliminated recess.
So we no longer had any outdoortime.
And you know, as kids, that wasjust normal to us, but I
(03:45):
remember that was like themoment the wheels started to
fall off.
That was the moment wheremyself, all my friends, we
started getting in more trouble.
We had behavioral issues, asthey would say, and looking back
on it, it's because you have abunch of teenage boys that are
locked in school all day, six,seven plus hours with no time
(04:06):
outdoors.
Um, and then going into highschool, that's when kind of the
school shootings started tobecome a little bit more
frequent.
And so we had like the schoolshooter drills, our campus was
locked down during the day, sowe no longer were even able to
go out for lunch.
We had to stay in school and eatthe school lunch, we couldn't
even leave campus.
So just things be started tofeel more like a prison, then it
(04:28):
felt like you know, an enjoyablelearning experience.
So I always always questioningwhy it was that way.
Um, and I started just reachingout to people, interviewing
different people.
Carol Dweck was actually myfirst interview, surprisingly,
and that just blew my mind,everything she has to share.
And it just led me down thisrabbit hole of getting all the
(04:49):
way to where I am now, you know,exposing the NEA and the uh the
corrupt agendas that arecontrolling our public school
system.
SPEAKER_00 (04:57):
And it's funny that you say that because I guess
when I think about school, andI'm 42 now, I think about recess
in elementary school, and Idon't ever think about it being
in middle school or high school.
We never had it, but because Inever had it, I didn't know any
different.
It's not like I was there theyear that they took it away.
So I never knew they had it inthe first place.
But when, you know, as a family,we were always watching Little
(05:19):
House on the Prairie, and nowwe're we finished that.
Now we're watching the Waltons,and you see this kind of like
one room schoolhouse.
Of course, they all went outsidetogether.
It wasn't like, well, you're insixth grade now, you don't get
fresh air, you know.
So it's funny that somebody hadto make that executive decision
to be like, yeah, this is theage, we cut it off.
Like 10 years old, we don't needto exercise, we don't need to
(05:39):
let them loose anymore.
And then you talk about the NEA,which is something I being in
the homeschool space, I actuallystill had never even heard of.
But it's the National EducationAssociation, and you actually
snuck into their convention,which is amazing.
And you put this all in yourfilm, which is why you have to
watch this.
All I could think of was likeAlex Jones sneaking into
(06:01):
Bohemian Grove.
Like, what is this manuncovering in here?
Um, and it was probably just asbad, you know.
I mean, they're what they'rewhat their intention is with the
kids and what they are outrightdiscussing at that convention.
Um, so this is NationalEducation Association, and
they're getting grants from thefederal government, correct?
SPEAKER_01 (06:20):
Yeah, so I'm with you.
I had no idea what the NEA was,no clue.
And I absolutely had no ideathat they were as powerful as
they were.
So they have a federal charter.
They're the largest teacher,they're the largest labor union
in the United States.
It's the the largest teacherunion.
They have over three millionmembers, and their annual budget
is near half a billion dollars.
(06:42):
And the majority of that moneyis used for political activism,
and only a small fraction ofthat is actually representing
teachers.
So it's really a front for ateachers union, but it's a
political superpower.
And 98 plus percent of theircontributions go to Democrats,
even though 36-36% of teachersare conservative.
(07:05):
I don't really try to view thisfrom a political lens, but my
red flags were kind of goingoff.
Like, why is you know hundredsof millions of dollars going
towards political activism whenour our schools are suffering?
You know, we had the CDCreported, and I think it was
2021 or 2022, that one out offive kids consider killing
themselves within the past year.
(07:26):
I mean, it's so that aloneshould just open all of our eyes
that there's a catastrophiccrisis going on.
You have 30-year test score low.
So test scores are worse nowtoday than they were when the
Department of Education was evencreated in the 80s.
So we've had, you know, decadesto try to figure this out and
(07:46):
direct trillions over three theNEA has spent three trillion
dollars since its inception.
And you look at the results,it's like, well, where did all
this money go?
So that was the question I wasasking.
And then when I got in there andand looked under the hood, I
mean, I was stunned.
I my jaw hit the floor when whenI was recording that footage
because I just couldn't believehow they view parental rights as
(08:11):
a joke.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
It's it's really they view the state should be
the father of the child, not theparent.
And they literally spendhundreds of millions of dollars
fighting against parental rightsand against school of choice.
So if there is, you know, ifthere's one boogeyman that's
keeping education the way it is,because I've always asked this
question why is education theway it is?
(08:33):
Why is this continuing on?
We know better ways to doeducation.
Why are we doing this?
The answer to me is is prettysimple.
It's the NEA.
They have spent hundreds andhundreds of millions of dollars
opposing alternative educationand homeschooling.
But now the gig is up, andthat's what I'm here to do is to
help expose what's going on andeducate more parents about what
(08:56):
the NEA is, how they have aLoctite grip on what they're
teaching our kids in publicschools, and hopefully to awaken
parents to reclaim theirchildren from that system.
SPEAKER_00 (09:07):
Yes, and so your film is called The Death of
Recess, but it's not just abouthow we don't have recess
anymore, but that's kind of likeyour overlying like we're taking
away the one fun thing that theyactually had, and we're
replacing it with X, Y, and Z.
And so I um I watched this withmy kids who were three and
(09:27):
seven.
They didn't really pay attentionbecause you know, it's a
documentary, so they're on youknow, moving around the room and
not really paying attention.
But and it says right on it,it's for like age 13 and up.
So for people who want to watchthis with your kids, just know
that it's probably more into theteenage years because you do get
into you interview um a gaycouple from the program or uh
(09:49):
the organization gays againstgrooming, which, you know, I'm
very familiar with.
You know, my friend's gay, hewas over last night, and I was
talking to him about your film,and he's like, Yes, that is
amazing.
We need more films like this.
And I, you know, I was talkingto him about the gays against
groomers, and he's like, Yeah,they're grooming, they are
grooming children.
It is powered by Pfizer and allthese people that are using our
(10:12):
children literally as products.
We're not thought of as humans.
And I think people like parentsreally need to get that through
their heads.
Like this whole, like, will mychildren miss out on prom and
resent me because they're notpart of the Halloween parade or
the Valentine's Day party.
It doesn't matter.
Your children are being marketedto as young as four years old,
(10:33):
maybe even younger, um, andthey're being groomed.
And so you kind of go into likehow the funding works.
And so you talk about I'm rightwith you.
We probably align very well onour political views because I I
started out super liberal.
And then when I had my awakeningduring COVID, I was like on the
Trump train.
And then now that I've had thereal awakening, I'm like, oh my
(10:55):
God, they're the same people.
The same people are likepuppeteers of it all to make us
fight with each other, right?
And the end result is they justwant us as products to make
money off of.
The more money they can makefrom us, the better for them.
So, like, my thing now is like,how can I detach from that
system?
And homeschooling has been theway.
But can you get into a littlebit more about like those
(11:18):
funding streams for people thatjust aren't familiar with it?
Like how the Obama Foundationand probably the Bill Gates
Foundation and like Pfizer, whatthey're funding, where that
money goes.
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
Yeah, some of the footage that I haven't yet
exposed, I'll give a littleteaser.
I've also found heavy streams ofmoney coming from the George
Soros and the Open SocietyFoundation.
They're all spending, it's notjust the NEA's budget.
There is hundreds of millions ofdollars of dark money flowing
into education into education.
(11:50):
What that means is it's moneythat's untraceable.
So there's one organization thatI uncovered at the NEA
conference.
It's called the Pipeline Fund.
And they are responsible.
So they get their funding fromthe Open Society Foundation,
many other donors that we don'tknow.
They are 501c4 registered inWashington, DC.
Again, that means their donors,they do not have to disclose who
(12:13):
their donors are.
So, but we do know Open SocietyFoundation has given them very
large grants in the past, so wewe do know that they are one of
those donors.
So that gives a little bit of abreadcrumb of where some of this
money is coming from.
But what they're doing isthey're spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to studywhere the highly contested
school boards are across thecountry.
(12:34):
And I didn't really knowanything about school boards,
but basically a school board'scomprised of five individuals,
and if that majority leansconservative, if it leans
Democrat, then the school boardis really who decides which
curriculum is being taught,which politics are being infused
into the classroom.
So school boards are actuallythe most powerful way to impact
(12:56):
policy within education.
That's the beautiful thing aboutAmerican education is that it's
a localized process.
The issue is it's been capturedby large corporate interests
because and and most people haveno idea.
They don't have any clue thatyour local little school board
of five people is being targetedby the Open Society Foundation,
the Rockefellers.
(13:17):
Why?
Why are they doing that?
They're doing that because theyknow that what you start
teaching kids at a very youngage is, you know, you can start
planting those seeds, and thoseare going to grow and to mature,
and you can then have the nextgeneration of foot soldiers that
are going to be your customers,they're going to be your
(13:37):
political, you know, loyal footsoldiers.
So that's what's happening isyou you hit the nail on the
head.
It's we're commoditizing ourchildren.
And you know, the death ofrecess isn't like you said, it's
not just about recess.
I view recess as a metaphor forchildhood.
It's really the death ofcreativity and it's the it's the
death of childhood.
(13:58):
And I think what you're doing,why I support homeschooling so
much, is because it's a it's tome, it's a restoration.
I don't know if we need arevolution in this country.
I think we need a restoration.
I think we need to go back towhat what we were doing.
You know, if you look at thevery first education law in
America, it was this the 1647Old Diluter Satan Act.
(14:20):
Have you ever heard about this?
SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (14:22):
Okay, this is crazy.
So the very first education lawin America, it's called the Old
Diluter Satan Act in 1647.
I'm not even kidding.
And what happened was the earlycolonial settlers, they realized
that illiteracy was the numberone tool of Satan because if
kids couldn't read, theycouldn't read the Bible.
(14:44):
And so they couldn't have anymoral foundation without the
ability to read.
So that's the reason why westarted to prioritize literacy.
And we were a nation ofhomeschoolers.
This is the very first law thatestablished any form of
structured schooling.
So what it was is any village of50 or more people had to have a
grammar teacher, and then anyvillage or town or community of
(15:08):
a hundred or more people had tobuild a grammar school.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
If you're homeschooling or even just
thinking about it, language artscan feel like one of those big,
intimidating subjects.
Writing, grammar, spelling, allthe things.
That's why we have loved usingNight Zookeeper.
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just worksheets.
They're building characters,completing challenges, playing
(15:32):
games, but at the same time,they're covering spelling,
grammar, punctuation,vocabulary, all of it.
And if you're like me and youstill want to know what's
actually getting done, there's aparent dashboard where you can
see progress, set assignments,and even grab printable
resources.
It can work as your fulllanguage arts curriculum or just
something that you layer in tokeep writing fun.
If you've been nervous aboutteaching writing at home, this
(15:53):
might be the one thing thatmakes it click.
Click on the link in the show'sdescription for a free seven-day
trial and 50% off a yearlysubscription.
SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
So that was the beginning of the structure,
which is a beautiful structure.
It's about teaching morals andethics and values.
But moving into the 1700s, wegot into the common school
movement, and then once we kindof got into, you know, Horace
Mann and and the Prussian modelof education, and then we we
that model was captured by theindustrial model, and now we
(16:25):
have something totallydifferent, a couple centuries,
and we have something completelydifferent from what we started
with.
So that's another part of what Ihope the film can start to do is
help educate parents and educateteachers of the origins of
public school.
And we can get back to some ofthe things that worked.
Literacy rates were very high inthose early settler years.
(16:49):
The the caveat is slavery.
But following the emancipationof slavery, African American
literacy rates skyrocketed, orthey they really improved
quickly.
So this is all before anycompulsory education laws.
So I think there's this stigmathat you know the people before
our fancy school systems, theywere just dumb and you know,
(17:09):
look how much smarter we are.
But that might be anoversimplified, you know, way to
look at it.
I think the homeschoolingfoundation that we have was
quite strong.
SPEAKER_00 (17:18):
Yeah, and then you have to look at who measures
success, right?
Is it measured by money andthings, or is it measured by
just happiness in life?
And like you started out bysaying the suicide rate or or
kids that even think ofcommitting suicide is one in
five.
That's not normal.
I mean, even I know a girl Iwent to high school with a
(17:39):
woman, oh, she's a year youngerthan me, 40, 41, committed
suicide a couple weeks ago.
She had a husband and two kids.
It's like, where like, how is iteven in someone's realm of
thinking, right?
Like, I spend most of my timelike, oh my god, how am I gonna
prevent the cancer that I'mprobably brewing inside of me
from all the vaccines I've hadin my life?
And like here, people are justgrabbing it by the b- It's just
(18:01):
crazy.
So, okay, um, you get into I andI really want people to
understand this like how they'retrying to groom our kids in the
school system, not just readingand writing and math.
Okay, that's fine, try to dothat.
But like you said, they'refailing at that, and they have
our kids for longer and earlieron, and yet they're doing worse
than it was back when we werejust like, hey, Patty Sue lives
(18:23):
down the road and we like her,so let's have her teach our kids
grammar.
Like they did better back thenthan they do now.
But when we talk about like thesocial emotional learning and
how Pfizer is contributing moneywith the other Democrat Party,
you know, funding sources, andthey're actually targeting our
kids very young to even want tobe on these hormone blockers.
(18:46):
And that's that was kind of alarge part of a certain amount
of your documentary, too,because it I mean, I I think you
really want to drill intoparents, like this is real, this
is happening.
You don't you don't know itbecause you aren't there, and
your child probably doesn't comehome and verbatim, you know,
tell you what they heard, butthis is really happening.
I mean, you had a mother wholost her child because of the
(19:08):
suicide after, you know, andthen and then you've had you had
people on it.
And I've heard of people say howthey were groomed to start these
puberty blockers and hormoneblockers and get mutilated for
years later for them to be like,well, I never really wanted
that.
I mean, I think of myself.
I was I was married to my firsthusband at 25 and I was divorced
at 26.
So I'm like, I didn't even I I'mI'm still with my second husband
(19:29):
who I have my kids with now, butI didn't know what I was doing
at 25.
I I was just like, Yeah, awedding sounds fun.
Let's marry this guy.
You know, so like how do weexpect these children that are
10 years old to know that theywant to be the opposite gender
and and then they feed themthese drugs without telling the
parents about it.
Could you talk to us a littlebit about that, what you
(19:50):
discovered?
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
Yeah, I was I was stunned when I so I went
undercover at the 2025 NationalEducation Association Leadership
Summit in Detroit, Michigan.
And I went in just open-minded.
I wanted to learn what they'redoing.
I couldn't get an interview for,you know, multiple years, so
that's why I went undercover.
(20:12):
And so I went into thesebreakout sessions, and there was
multiple breakout sessions.
One of the ones that stood outto me was uh the SOGI breakout
session, which is sexualorientation, gender identity.
So that's something that wasinvented by the UN.
The UN actually is reallyresponsible for pushing it ever
(20:34):
since like 2019.
It does predate that, but umthere was this there was this
push to really bring it intoWestern countries.
And so the NEA is is you knowpumping money into this and
giving a lot of resources todifferent educators, but it was
it was very twisted for me.
I I started seeing, you know,they're pushing, and I've
(20:54):
interviewed parents like you sawin the you see in the film, Erin
from Colorado, who she reallyblew my mind.
I mean, there's LGBTQ plus SOGcurriculum getting pushed on
first graders, getting pushed onsecond, third, fourth, fifth
graders.
You know, we didn't when I wasgoing to school, we had a sex ed
class, but that wasn't untilprobably like I think like
(21:15):
eighth or ninth grade.
I think maybe, yeah, maybefreshman year of high school.
And at that, it was just basicbiology.
It's hey, this is how a baby'sborn, this is, you know, you
know, you know, standard safetypractices for having safe sex,
all that that type of thing.
But now what it's become is, youknow, hey, you can change your
gender.
You know, you can start takingthese pharmaceuticals to alter
(21:39):
your hormones, you know.
We we will accept your identity.
A big thing that's been reallyshocking for a lot of parents
that I don't think people knewhow bad it was, is teachers were
hiding all of this from parents.
So they were telling kids, hey,you can change your gender, you
can identify as whatever youwant.
I won't tell your parents.
And I cause.
(22:00):
them on film.
So you I mean you can call mecrazy.
You can call me a conspiracytheorist for saying this stuff's
happening, which some people do.
They think this is propaganda.
But I have them on film sayingthis.
That this is what they're doing.
They're talking about gettingconsent forms, how to get
consent forms without yourparents' knowledge, right?
Making sure that they don't tellyour parents if you come out as
(22:20):
gay to them.
And again, like I have nothingobviously I have nothing against
gay people.
I interviewed gays againstgroomers.
I sat down with a tr you know aa transgender individual who had
regretted that decision.
I gave I tried to give everyonea voice.
So I'm not against gay people oragainst trans people.
I'm against this stuff beingpushed onto kids at a highly
(22:42):
vulnerable age.
And the real question should behey parents do you want us to to
teach this?
That's not what they're asking.
They've just determined thatthat's what they're going to do
because they know best.
And that's what I I think moreparents need to realize is that
the NEA and the teachers unionsbelieve they know better than
(23:02):
you.
They think that they know how toparent your child better than
you.
And I I think our current schoolsystem is the greatest psyop
that we've ever been sold.
It's what we're we're sendingour kids to a government school.
This is a government school andwe're teaching we're trusting
that the government is going toraise our our child.
(23:22):
By the way K through 12 they'respending 1400 hours in that
system right 1400 hours of thegovernment deciding what your
child should think what theyshould believe who they should
listen to who should who theyshould confide in and now
they're bringing this sexualcurriculum into young ages.
(23:43):
I mean it I it every parent I'mbig on letting parents decide if
that's what you want if you're aparent and you think that that's
what you're okay with that thenokay.
But I'm just trying to letpeople know that this is going
on and then you get to make yourown decision.
SPEAKER_00 (23:57):
Exactly.
And it's the same about vaccinesright like I always in just my
story I did everything that thepediatrician said to do because
or my and my doctor when I waspregnant okay well you know best
you went to school I I don'thave time you have they they
make you so busy with working 40hours a week and commuting an
hour there and an hour back andyou know all the things you have
(24:19):
to take care of at home that bythe time or maybe you have a
second job.
You don't have time to researchwhere the vaccines came from and
then you know it was probablyduring COVID that I watched a
video or documentary and a fewof them lined up and I'm like
maybe I have to start looking atthis stuff myself.
And then it was like well Idon't I don't know enough to go
against the pediatrician.
(24:40):
I really need to start making awhole notebook and citing
sources and then finally once Idid all that I was like yeah
we're not doing this anymore.
And I'm in New York so I'm oneof the five states that you have
to do you have to takeeverything in order to send your
kids to school here.
So it was like well I guesswe're homeschooling I'm quitting
my government job which was thebest thing I ever did for my
life because that was horrible.
SPEAKER_01 (25:02):
But yeah in itself huh how how much the
pharmaceutical industry ismandating decisions instead of
yes letting they know betterthan the parent just like you
said.
And so I think that's thankfullyyou know one of the upsides of
COVID you know the positive isthat it brought education into
the home.
(25:22):
And so you know Corey D'Angelishe has this line that I I steal
it from him but he says theteachers union stepped on a rake
during COVID because what theydid is they were lobbying to
keep the schools closed becausethey could pull federal funds.
So they got billions of dollarsof federal funds.
So everyone got paid and theywere lobbying even though we
(25:44):
knew COVID wasn't affecting andimpacting kids anywhere near the
same they were lobbying to keepthe schools shut.
And so what that did here's thehere's the beautiful part about
that is it brought the classroominto the homes and so 1.5
million families during COVIDremoved their kids from schools
and that stayed so we'remultiple years out and that has
(26:06):
stayed so 1.5 million peoplewere removed from that system.
SPEAKER_00 (26:11):
That is so during COVID there were like there were
1.5 million parents that saidyeah you're not going we're just
going to remove you and teachyou at home like we could do
better than this.
SPEAKER_01 (26:21):
Yeah that that's just homeschooling and
microschooling you know you gotto think there's a lot of other
parents there's millions ofother parents that made a
decision like we're not going tosend our kids to to the this
school anymore we're going to gotry to find a private school
we're going to go try to find acharter school we're going to go
you know we're going to startsupporting school choice.
Now it's like you look you knowpolitics aside one thing that
(26:44):
the Trump administration isdoing very well that I think is
is highly beneficial to oureducation system is the school
of choice movement.
You know I think last time Ichecked there's over 36 states
those are red and blue statesthat are going along with this
school of choice program becausethey're recognizing that the
parents are speaking.
There needs to be competitionjust like the free market has
(27:05):
competition you know you're notforced to buy an Apple computer
you can eat there's competition.
You you you choose to buy itbecause it's a good product
right we shouldn't be forced tosend our kids to the public
school but that's how you knowcompulsory education laws have
worked for multiple centuries isyou have to send your kid to the
school and based on the districtyou live you have to send your
(27:28):
kids there.
And your property taxes you knowthis is like the next kind of
stage of this whole you knowawakening is people realizing
that our property taxes arefunding the school and you know
just attendance right the basichow this works is every kid in
the country is basically worthabout$20,000 on average.
(27:48):
I think in New York it's alittle bit more some states it's
a little bit less but for everykid that goes to the public
school it's$20,000 on averageacross the 50 states of the US
so the moment you pull your kidout of that school with these
school of choice laws and someof those funds are directed away
from the public school what doesthat do?
It creates competition.
And the teachers union doesn'twant that.
(28:10):
That's why they're lobbyingthat's why they've spent
hundreds of millions of dollarsthey've spent I think over 700
million dollars in the pastdecade just lobbying against
school of choice.
Think about that.
So they're fighting tooth andnail to prevent this from
happening but it's I think theawakening is too strong right
now and it's continuing to growevery single day.
More people are more parents aresaying no we're not gonna just
(28:32):
blindly you know trust thepublic school.
SPEAKER_00 (28:35):
Right.
And you know it's easy to kindof say like oh well I do have a
right to send my kid to privateschool but like you said you are
paying the school taxes if youown a house and even if you rent
your rent is part of your rentgoes to that from the landlord
you're what school choice isactually saying is that we're
gonna divert that money intowhat you choose to do to educate
(28:57):
your children.
So whether it's a private schoolor a homeschool you know that
the money gets diverted from theschool I don't think we have
school choice in New York.
SPEAKER_01 (29:06):
Yeah I was just gonna look that up no there so
there's actually last time Ichecked there was 11 states.
I'm gonna look that up butthere's 11 states at least I
think it's growing now.
Louisiana might have just joinedwhere it's it's called an ESA
Education Savings account.
Yeah and you can actually opt todivert the funds that are going
(29:27):
to the public school from yourproperty taxes.
SPEAKER_00 (29:30):
You can actually draw some of those funds to use
them for homeschooling oh I'llhave to look that up because I
know the Tuttle twins have theirwebsite has yes a information I
just never looked it up becauseI was like when I'm in New York
Hokel's not doing that for us.
SPEAKER_01 (29:43):
She did however she wants full control.
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
She did however make the Walgreens at the end of the
major road in my city a freestore so that everything in it
is free.
I mean I've never heard of sucha thing I've never heard but
it's gonna be a store newcomrade now if you're in New
York so we're like so people canjust go in take stuff and then
(30:06):
resell it for whatever that Imean that's what they should do.
SPEAKER_01 (30:10):
But um that's a wild I also thought of we looked it
up it's 15 states now 15 statesnow offer ESA programs.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
Okay cool.
SPEAKER_01 (30:18):
So roughly half of the US students right now live
in states with some form of ESAaccess.
So that's great.
It's Tennessee South CarolinaOklahoma North Carolina New
Hampshire Mississippi AlabamaWest Virginia Utah Iowa Indiana
Florida Arkansas and Arizona soFlorida's pretty good at all
(30:40):
that yeah Florida's been beenexcellent on uh parental rights
and school choice so thismovement's growing and to me
it's unstoppable I think themore every day the more people
that become aware of it and yeahsupport it and really push for
school of choice even if wedecide to educate our kids from
home like we're gonna behomeschooling our kids we should
(31:00):
all we all have a vestedinterest in our public education
system because we have roughly80 82% of the country goes to
public schools.
So these are the kids that aregoing to be growing up and being
adults with our kids so we stillwe don't want to just abandon
public schools.
SPEAKER_00 (31:16):
We want them to change but unfortunately they're
not gonna change unless they'reforced to yeah um you said in
your film 50,000 transgendersurgeries were in Colorado
alone.
I don't know if that was asingle year or or since they
started doing them but I thoughtthat was astounding.
And then you kind of talked andI hate to like beat a dead horse
(31:37):
or anything but you talked aboutthe bill like you mentioned
before people might say I'm aconspiracy theorist but how can
you be a conspiracy theoristwhen there's actually a house
bill 25 1312 that forced parentsto transition their kids or lose
them and they're telling thesechildren that by age 12 you can
make the decision.
It doesn't matter what yourparents say.
(31:59):
So I mean I guess for thereality of it for people
listening today that are like Iwant a homeschool but I don't
really know if I want to bitethe bullet you know I really
want my kid to be part of theprom.
That's huge.
SPEAKER_01 (32:11):
Yeah it's quite undeniable.
SPEAKER_00 (32:12):
Oh and I love that your film talked about how even
though the school board like youmentioned in the very beginning
of this the school board wasmade up of parents and people
who were against it.
The funding sources that came inwere the reasons that the bill
passed anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (32:27):
Yeah it had historic numbers of parents show up to
oppose the bill the problem isis you know I think the Senate I
I'm not fully familiar with thepolitical background I know that
the the Senate and the House inColorado is heavily Democrat so
they just bypassed what theparents were were wishing.
(32:48):
But yeah they you a couple yearsago I think maybe 2019 they gave
uh 12 year olds medical consentand what you know Colorado's
done so they're they'rerecognizing that there's a
mental health crisis but whatthey're doing is they're doing
affirming gender affirming care.
That's what they've viewed asyou know standard that's
(33:10):
actually state sanctionedstandard medical care or mental
health care.
So if a kid after they turn 12they have consent the over the
parent and if you know theschool has been kind of grooming
them with these different booksand this curriculum since first
grade and they get to the pointwhere they're having mental
health issues because of coursealmost every kid is going to
(33:34):
have some sort of mental healthissue in today's current system
because you know recess is downfrom 120 minutes in 1950 to 25
minutes today and you know youhave kids locked in for six
seven hours in fluorescentlights eating processed foods
you know the list goes on of allthe reasons why they're gonna
(33:54):
have mental health issues youdon't have to social media yep
the divorce social media exactlyall of it so you have you know a
recipe for disaster and thenwhat's the solution you have
mental health counselors thatare using gender affirming care.
So what they're doing is they'resaying hey you know you can have
you considered you know you'remaybe changing your gender or
(34:16):
associating with a differentgender or you know and they
start talking about how sex isfluid.
We live in a heterosexistenvironment that's one thing
that I that I heard for thefirst time in the NEA.
So they believe anything thataffirms gender norms is
heterosexist.
Like you know like there was acheerleading competition going
on at the conference and theysaid that that was heterosexist
(34:38):
because it's a bunch of littlegirls doing cheerleading and you
know so they're just trying toflip everything upside down and
what I call it as moralinversion.
It's it's just you've taken youknow the biblical order the
family structure the nuclearfamily and you've distorted it
you've flipped it upside downand you've put it under the
(34:58):
banner of inclusivity right thethe rainbow itself is this like
you have kids you know whenthey're young there's like
rainbows on toys and it was justthe rainbow is biblically it's
the covenant that God's notgoing to flood the earth again.
It's a very biblical symbol therainbow is a natural you know
occurring refraction of lightand what they've done is they've
(35:19):
sexualized that they'veperverted it.
And and we we are supposed toyou know be inclusive and you
know we're looked at as you knowhomophobic or transphobic if we
don't go along with that andthat's over.
It's it's like you know peoplecalling you know somebody who's
skeptical of a vaccine ananti-vaxxer.
We've woken up to thatbrainwashing uh you know we're
(35:40):
not in it anymore we're not anyof those things we are this
isn't right versus left it'sright versus wrong that's what I
I say it's it's right versuswrong this is wrong we should
not be pushing kids to beconfused about their gender.
SPEAKER_00 (35:54):
You know we should be recognizing they have so many
other things to be confusedabout in this world today like
the things that you werementioning and and just the
social media and the video gamesand I mean I just think about
even like what could my kid beviewing on a bus if they were on
a bus with like a fifth graderfourth grader third grader that
had a phone and they're swipingon Snapchat and then there was a
(36:17):
pornographic thing you know andit doesn't take much for a kid
to be like what was that andlike well you're a boy that was
a boy you must be gay and youmust want to change your j you
know what I mean like it doesn'thave to take much to get in
their head to think yeah maybekids are highly I mean you know
this my daughter's 15 monthsright now so she's not at that
(36:40):
age yet where she's able tostart really speaking and
communicating but you know I'msure when you're around kids
they they can one day identifyas like a dinosaur they can you
know be acting all funny actingsilly even you know I grew up
there was plenty of girls thatwent through a tomboy phase or
there's boys that go through afeminine phase and they grow out
(37:02):
of it.
SPEAKER_01 (37:02):
You know some people don't and that's fine.
But when you're pushing kidsinto hey check this like you
said you know there's all sortsof content that can pop up in
their feed and then at schoolthere's all these flags and
everything's just normalizedthen then it becomes this norm
of oh you haven't tried that andwow is that really what we want
(37:24):
to normalize for our kids youknow right after three years of
interviewing homeschoolingfamilies I realized how
overwhelming it can be to pieceeverything together.
SPEAKER_00 (37:33):
So I took the best advice tips questions and
resources that I've learnedalong the way and put them into
one practical ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point you'll find the
link in this show's descriptionyour film talks about 112
standardized tests by the timethey graduate and that's
(37:55):
something interesting too whenyou started talking about
colleges taking the informationthat they gather from the SAT
exams and using that againstyour children to sell products
to them basically a sell aneducation to them as if they are
just another product.
Do you want to talk about that alittle bit?
SPEAKER_01 (38:15):
Yeah that's another big component to the mental
health issue.
It's all tied together.
I know there's the film getsinto a lot of different you know
different uh rabbit holes but Ido believe it all ties together.
Yeah so basically under theGeorge Bush administration and
in the Obama administration aswell they put a heavy emphasis
on standardized testing.
So what was happening is theUnited States test scores were
(38:37):
starting to you know starting todecrease and so they thought
that oh well let's increase theamount of testing we're doing
let's let's shorten recess let'sget kids inside let's drill them
even harder with informationbecause we got to improve our
test scores and what that did isthe exact opposite no surprise
our test scores went down wayfurther and so administration
(39:00):
after administration keptraising the stakes on
standardized testing.
We increased more and more andmore tests and our results are
just continuing to decline.
And so in the film I went toFinland and I I learned that the
Finnish education system is oneof the best in the country and
what what I was shocked to findout is or sorry one of the best
(39:21):
in the world what I was shockedto learn is that they spend the
least amount of time in school.
So they have the most amount ofrecess time out of any nation in
the entire world and they onlytake one standardized test K
through 12.
They don't give kids homeworkuntil eighth grade.
They don't do any grades upuntil eighth grade.
Wow so it's a completelydifferent system.
(39:42):
They average I think it's liketwo to three hours a day of
outdoor time for kidsunstructured play.
And yet they score they score atsome of the highest test scores
in the world and they're ratedas the happiest country I think
now for like eight or nineconsecutive years Finland's
rated as the happiest country onearth.
And you compare that with the USwhere we're taking an average of
(40:03):
112.
I mean for me that's prettytough that causes me to to kind
of look at that and say hey whyaren't why aren't we trying
something like that?
And one thing I learned aboutFinland is they based their
system on American research onresearchers like Carol Dweck who
I also interviewed in the film.
They were like don't do any ofit do the opposite they just
applied exactly they applied theAmerican research and now they
(40:26):
have I would say it's the bestschool system in the world but
yeah this this uh focus onstandardized testing is just
absolutely killing creativityit's killing individuality and
you know it's it's putting alabel on a lot of kids like my
like for me those standardizedtests never asked me to submit a
video they never asked me toright you know show how good I
(40:49):
am working on a camera theynever asked me to draw a picture
paint a painting sing a songthey never asked you they never
asked anybody so thesestandardized tests are just
about these this narrow windowof academics that's what so many
kids are labeling themselves asoh I scored an 18 or I scored a
(41:11):
17 or a 15 or a 20 or you knowthat's what you think you are
and what we know now because ofall the brain research that's
come out that this is just notan efficient way to measure the
you know brilliance and thesuccess of children.
SPEAKER_00 (41:27):
Yeah and the happiness you know of them into
adulthood.
And when you think about it whodecides who knows or what is the
information that all childrenneed to know you know because
like I know when I married myhusband and he's from the
country and he'd talk about allthese different things like oh
yeah that deer is or or thatcoyote is in that parking lot.
There must be a deer in thewoods right nearby and I'm like
(41:48):
well how do you know that whatare you talking about?
Well there's no other reason tobe in a parking lot and then we
drive by and oh yeah there's thedeer in the behind the tree and
you know why how birds buildtheir nests and the caterpillars
I knew nothing none of that Ilearned more from homeschooling
my seven year old and readingchildren's books to him than I
ever learned in school and Ihave a bachelor's degree I can
(42:11):
learn anything.
I learn how to scam the systemyou also talked about the
college board the college board$98 per test but what is it
that's$177 billion?
SPEAKER_01 (42:22):
Is it the industry the college board is worth$177
billion maybe in that they sellthe student data like they're
making money from selling ourkids yeah they have$1.77 billion
in assets so the yeah thecollege board is yeah that's a
whole whole other expose in thefilm I mean they have an immense
(42:43):
amount of money and what theydid is I had a a whistleblower.
That's why I interviewed in thefilm I had somebody who worked
inside the college board come tome.
They were originally going togive their story to the
Washington Post the WashingtonPost just didn't run it for
whatever reason so he sharedshared yeah he revealed that
what they were doing is anytimeyou send your kid to take the
ACT or SAT you fill out a littlecheck mark that's the privacy
(43:06):
policy.
What that does is it gives themusage of your data.
And what they were doing is theywere selling that data to third
parties to inflate the amount ofapplications going out for
universities.
So it made it appear thatcollege entrance was highly
competitive at all thesemid-tier schools so all of the
(43:27):
colleges across the countrycould raise their tuition
because it looked it appearedmore exclusive and difficult to
get into all these differentuniversities.
So they started raising theirtheir cost of tuition and that
was yeah that was all tiedbecause the college board who's
responsible for you knowadministering the the SAT and
(43:48):
then or the the A C T right andthe SAT is education testing
services I believe.
But yeah they they feed all thisdata and this is it's a it's a
whole money making operation.
SPEAKER_00 (43:58):
So much of it is and And we just wouldn't think and
I've I've interviewed so manyteachers that either left the
school system to educate theirown kids at home or still teach
but homeschool their kids.
And so many of them say, like,yeah, the funding, you know,
their their teaching went fromwhen they first started to,
yeah, do you do creative thingsand you teach what you want and
(44:22):
what's important to you in a funway to now it is this is your
strict like script of what youhave to say and what you have to
teach and how you have to teach.
And you can't vary.
And when your children, yourstudents do bad on the test,
your review will reflect that.
And therefore, you will not getthe bonus that you maybe once
thought you were.
(44:42):
Or, you know, maybe it's 1%versus 5% of a raise.
It's it's tied to the teacher'spay, which I was shocked at
learning.
SPEAKER_01 (44:50):
Yeah, that's a great point.
I'm glad you brought that upbecause teachers are amazing.
You know, so many teachers areamazing.
Not every teacher is equal,obviously.
But I don't ever want to attackteachers because I had some
teachers that I absolutelyloved.
But yeah, I was I was shocked tolearn that as well.
Is that once they startedlinking test performance to your
(45:10):
pay, you know, and how you'rebeing, you know, rated, then uh
yeah, educators couldn't do any,you know, teachers couldn't do
anything but just follow orders.
And that's why there's so muchturnover with new teachers
because they get in, they'rereally excited, you know, and a
lot of a lot of these teachersare brilliant.
If we just let them teach andstayed out of the classroom from
(45:33):
a you know, like testingperspective, um, they they know
what they're doing.
They're they're reallybrilliant, but that's not what
we're doing.
We're forcing them to push allthese tests, and then so the the
incentive structure is justflipped upside down.
SPEAKER_00 (45:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, as we round out thehour, what else do you want
parents to know?
Parents that might be thinkingabout homeschooling, but are
still hanging on to like, how amI gonna make this work?
And you know, what would be yourdrive to push them?
Like I said, this is dire now.
SPEAKER_01 (46:06):
It you any parent has to ask the question do you
want the government to raiseyour children?
That's the question that you'reasking.
And if the answer is no, thenyou have to explore another
option.
So if you have the money to doprivate schooling, great, but
still make sure a lot of enougha lot of private schools still
(46:27):
push these curriculums andtesting.
A lot of it's even worse.
It's more competitive and it'smore exclusive, kind of elitist.
So you really what I would tellany parent is this is the most
important decision you're gonnamake for your kid, is where
you're sending them to school orif you're going to send them to
school, because this is howtheir worldview is formed.
(46:49):
So, do you as a parent want tohelp form your child's
worldview, or do you want thegovernment to do so?
And if you want the governmentto do so, if you trust them, if
you believe that they've got itfigured out, then go ahead.
No, no, no hate.
But if you want to raise yourchild to be a compassionate, a
(47:09):
passionate, creative individualthat's rooted and grounded into
the earth and into thecommunity, into their faith,
then that's something that youshould consider taking up
yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (47:22):
Yes, the government is never going to teach you how
the government can be dangerous.
From Caterboyak, the author ofthe Total Twins books.
When I had him on my podcast, Iwas like, ooh, that's right.
And I have watched enough 9-11documentaries to know I do not
trust the government.
We've been through COVID now.
I think we should know.
We can't trust these people.
So why are we thinking that theeducation system is anything
(47:44):
different than another leg ofthe government?
It's the same.
Exactly.
Spencer.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (47:48):
This is two wings of the same bird.
Yes.
Just like our political parties.
That's a whole other rabbithole.
Maybe we'll do that podcastnext.
We can talk about the wholefederal system and how that's
all.
SPEAKER_00 (48:00):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (48:00):
I mean, that was another rabbit hole.
Maybe another one.
SPEAKER_00 (48:02):
That was a big awakening for me.
And it and it feels very likealone.
Like, well, what the heck can Ido then?
It's too big for me.
But it's like, well, you couldhomeschool and you could just
try to like source your foodlocally and raise your kids with
a community of friends that youlike and family.
And um, yeah, like not need thegovernment.
(48:23):
Absolutely.
Not need the government for asmuch as possibly can not need
them for.
SPEAKER_01 (48:27):
That's why I started the film with that Aristotle
quote (48:30):
the fate of empires rests on the education of youth.
So the founding fathers ofWestern the Western world knew
this.
They knew that the fate of anyempire is going to rest on how
you educate youth.
So that's why they're fightinglike absolute hell to get
control of your children.
They want control of yourchildren because they know that
the fate of their control restsin how much control they have
(48:54):
over your kids.
SPEAKER_00 (48:55):
So true.
Okay, where can people find yourfilm?
SPEAKER_01 (48:58):
We are exclusive on Angel Studios right now, and you
can follow Death of Recess onsocial media where we just
started that social page, and mypersonal Instagram is Spencer
Vibes.
So we'll be posting a lot ofdifferent screenings.
We're still gonna do screenings.
We're working on one inWashington, DC, and uh, we're
gonna do screenings all over theplace and different events.
(49:20):
So stay tuned.
It's it's just the beginning.
SPEAKER_00 (49:22):
Oh, that's amazing.
So I'm gonna link everything inthe show's description.
Yeah, so like I did, you canjust sign up for Angel Studios.
You can do it for the month ifyou don't aren't into like
subscribing to TV stuff, butit's worth it.
There's other good things onthat program, um, on that
network.
They also have all the TuddleTwins, uh, Tuddle Twins TV.
So you're teaching your kid allabout civics and you know, um,
(49:44):
things that the governmentdoesn't want them to know.
So it's definitely you're notgonna waste that$8.99 at all.
Angel Studios, the Death ofRecess.
It was amazing.
So if you have that spouse thatis like, I don't we can't
homeschool, I don't want my kidto be weird.
You guys sit down together,watch this film, and it's gonna
be really hard to say I don'twant them to be weird after you
(50:04):
see what the government istrying to do to your children.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Amen.
And big, big shout out to you,Cheryl, for being bold and being
brave and homeschooling.
It's you know, it sounds likeyou've been doing it for a
while.
You were doing it before.
It's cool.
So I always like to give propsto my kids are young.
SPEAKER_00 (50:21):
No, I I just I just left my government job like two
years ago.
I worked for the government for16 years and I just like I don't
think I want to vaccinateanymore.
Should I interview somehomeschoolers and see how weird
they are?
Right.
So I started this three yearsago.
SPEAKER_01 (50:35):
You you woke up from the psyob.
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yes.
Absolutely.
Thank God.
Thank you so much, Spencer.
This has been awesome.
Thanks, Cheryl.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To Podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
thehomeschoolhow2.com and grabmy free 30-day homeschool quick
(50:58):
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
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