Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Capitol Resource Institute’s Executive Director Karen England in-studio to offer help to parents in districts with ineffective school board members and raise awareness for the Awakening the Voice of Truth event on October 27 at Gaylord Springs Golf Links.
Leahy: In the studio today, her name is Karen England. She’s with Capitol Resource Institute. You bring energy and we haven’t even given you coffee, and yet here we are, filled with energy.
England: Well, thank you. You could have said worse things about me, but our mutual friend Dave refers to me as a force to be reckoned with, which I like. I want to be a force and I want to keep California out of here.
Leahy: So back in the olden days when you were in California and were a guest on a radio show there, I guess it was Salem, part of the Salem [Radio Network], you were a guest, and you would confront male school board members in a way they found uncomfortable. So your introductory music was “Maneater.” (Laughs)
England: Yes, it was. That was my inside lingo, my bump music. And then I was going on once a week to talk about what was going on in Sacramento. And, yeah, it was “Maneater.”
We did a press release calling this board member and he was not parent-friendly, and he was trying to tell me how he was, and that hurt his feelings. So I said “I could send you flowers and apologize, but you’re still anti-family.” And so, yeah, that might have been why they chose that song.
Leahy: So we’ve got this thing going on with school board members. I talk with our original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael, about this all the time. And we have an ongoing discussion about kind of what happens to school board members when they get elected.
Because a lot of school board members will run to put together a pro-parent agenda. Then they get into the school board (“swoosh” sound) and all of a sudden they turn left. What happens?
England: I cannot tell you how often I’ve seen that. And usually, it’s the conservative Christians that are ending up being the worst. They get ushered into training all about kumbaya and not rocking the boat.
And just to give you an example, this happened in Clarksville over these books. And so he’s now telling me, this one school board member …
Leahy: A school board member.
England: A school board member and a conservative Christian pastor that got elected, he’s telling me, well, this book was never on the shelf, because that’s what the director of schools told me. So I had to say to him, well, then how come the staffer is emailing parents saying it’s been removed off the shelf?
Which is it? That it was never on the shelf or it was on the shelf? And they just start to believe everything. They become part of that culture. And it is so frustrating. Everybody thinks they’re going to be champions and they aren’t. And they’re like, oh, he’s on the board, we’re fine now. No, you’re not.
You need to be still addressing your school board and paying attention to what’s going on in schools. He’s wanting me to do the research and send him all the books. Again, they are lied to by the administration.
It usually takes them a few years to figure out that they aren’t their friends. They’re actually just using them as pawns in this whole game of theirs.
Leahy: Yes. And what’s interesting also is, the other phenomenon that I noted about, is the capture of school board members that happens, the institutional capture. I think actually it is a very lonely school board member who comes in as a conservative and sticks to that. I think they’ll be the lone voice of dissent sometimes.
England: Absolutely. And the great thing, though, about kind of the parent movement that’s going on – and again, this is a marathon, it’s not going to be a sprint – but there are resources and groups popping up to start to help them. We’re affiliated with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Right now we’ve worked with ADF on a policy that local school boards can pass about these library books that make it easy for a member of the community to get it out of the schools.
So there are a lot of parent-friendly things school boards can do, but of course, the school board associations are never giving them these good ideas or any sort of legal backup to do it.
And so that’s why we exist, to help conservative parents and conservative school board members to really make a difference, and we need to hold their feet to the fire. They ran on parental rights. They work for us, not the school district.
Leahy: You’re going to be speaking at another event here two weeks from this coming Thursday. It’s an event called Awakening the Voice of Truth. It’s at the Gaylord Springs Golf Links on October 27th in Nashville. And the group says its purpose is to encourage, equip, and motivate pastors, Christian university and ministry leaders, as well as spiritual influencers, to make a commitment to effectively address critical cultural issues that are dividing our church and our nation.
This is an event that will be held two weeks from Thursday. You can learn about it at atvot.com/events. Tell us about this group. You’re speaking there. This is not your group per se, but you are speaking there. What’s the problem that’s going to be addressed at this event?
England: Correct. So this is the third one that they’re hosting and this is the first one in Nashville. And it’s an event for pastors, lay leaders, to kind of wake the Church up, that the Church is kind of being deceived and intimidated when it comes to Critical Race Theory, transgenderism.
And that the Church needs to be waking up and speaking about these issues for the culture. So this event is free. It is for pastors. It’s from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There are several people that are going to be speaking there.
I don’t know if your listeners know Kevin McGary. He does All Black Lives Matter. We’ve got Brad Dacus, who’s with Pacific Justice Institute. They do a lot of religious liberty.
Leahy: Brad Dacus has been a guest on this program.
England: Well, okay. Funny thing, small world. His Pacific Justice Institute started underneath our 501(c)(3). And when I was a mom upset about something in school, I called Brad Dacus before I ever got politically active.
So he’s going to be there talking about what churches can and can’t do, just to speak on, and give them resources legally that they would need. We’re having, you know, several people. Dr. John Jackson, out of William Jessup University.
His church has gotten very active in standing up against the government closing down churches. So it’s really an educational time. And I encourage anyone that’s listening to get a hold of their pastor or their lay leader or Bible study leader. This is free. We’re putting it on for them, to equip them, giving them a really good lunch and some really good information.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Karen England” by Capitol Resource Institute. Background Photo “Classroom” by Wokandapix.
