Live from Music Row Thursday 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 Laurie Cardoza-Moore from Proclaiming Justice to the Nations to the newsmaker line to discuss her new campaign, Taking Back America’s Children where they are creating civic standards modeled after Florida by local state legislation across the country.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line now by our very good friend, Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president and founder of Proclaiming Justice to the Nation, on the web at pjtn.org. Good morning, Laurie.
Moore: Good morning, Michael. How are you?
Leahy: I want to hear about your Taking Back America’s Children campaign. Tell us what that is.
Moore: Michael, we started over a decade ago here in Williamson County. In Williamson County was the county across the country that ignited a torch in the community to expose the content.
We found anti-Semitic content, which actually led to us finding not just anti-Semitic, but anti-American, anti-Judeo Christian, pro-Marxist, pro-China content in the textbooks. That launched a nationwide campaign where parents and citizens were contacting us because they were finding similar content to what we found in Williamson County.
And now you see the outgrowth of what is happening in our county again and, of course, across the state, but also across the nation. So in answer to that, we have been forming groups across the country to start reviewing textbooks.
It all started with the review of textbooks. And as we looked at the content in the textbooks and we went to our state legislators, in fact, it was the legislature here in Tennessee under then-Senator Gresham, and, of course, our Senator Mike Bell, who was at the forefront of exposing the content.
That’s when we passed legislation in Tennessee that requires that textbooks are to be historically accurate, they have to be unbiased, and they must reflect the values of the community. And with the recent critical race theory law that was passed, we are finding that the textbooks are in violation of that very law.
And you are seeing the manifestation of the outcry of the parents, not just here, but across the country in the state of Florida, which is one of the states where we have been very active. Thank God for Governor DeSantis, because Governor DeSantis saw this problem.
We brought him the textbooks that we were using here in Tennessee when he was then, congressman. And these textbooks are not just being used in Tennessee. These publishers, like Pearson Publishers, who is the culprit for the majority of this garbage that our children are being introduced to or subjected to in the classroom, I brought these books to Governor DeSantis.
That time he was a congressman. He said I’m running for governor. If I get elected, we’re getting rid of Common Core, which is another culprit. And we’re getting rid of these textbooks. And sure enough, he got elected.
And the first thing he did was he revoked Common Core, and he called on his Department of Education to review the civic standards. He called for an emergency hearing. And that is what we’re getting ready to call for in January with our legislature here in Tennessee.
Leahy: What happened in Florida with that hearing?
Moore: What happened in Florida was Governor DeSantis mandated that civic standards would be reviewed. And of course, they did. We were involved in helping to draft new civic standards for the state of Florida.
The state of Florida now has the most comprehensive civic standards in the country. It is the model and as a result of what Governor DeSantis is doing there now, we’re going to be in Nebraska next week for 9-11 meeting with Governor Rickets about the civic standards that were adopted.
Florida also adopted the first most comprehensive Holocaust standards that we’re also going to be looking to introduce here because we see this anti-Americanism, anti-Judeo Christian values, and the Holocaust revisionism that is happening across the country is pervasive in our children’s education. And, of course, it’s being promoted and pedaled through the whole critical race theory.
Leahy: So the civic standards that were adopted in Florida, I’m going to say traditional pro-American, is that right?
Moore: Absolutely.
Leahy: When were they adopted and have they been implemented in schools?
Moore: They have been adopted. And, in fact, they were adopted last month. And so now the publishers will be receiving those new standards. These textbook publishers are now going to be required.
And this solves the problem that we’ve had because the textbooks are full of lies and disinformation and propaganda that our children are being exposed to.
This forces all of these publishers, you have to comply with these standards. And if the textbooks do not comply, then they don’t get the business from the state of Florida.
Leahy: So the standards will go into effect next academic year, this academic year in terms of the textbooks being used in Florida schools?
Moore: Well, they go into effect now. And now the publishers have to publish the textbooks by November, they will be introducing the curriculum, the new textbooks that they recommend to comply with these new civic standards. And they will hit the classrooms in the fall of 2022.
Leahy: Fantastic. Congratulations on that. And I’m guessing that if people go to your website, Pjtn.org they could probably get somewhere to a link to those standards. Am I right?
Moore: Absolutely. We’re actually rebuilding our website right now. But if people will go to info at pjtn.org and sign up to get on the mailing list, those standards will be accessible so that other states can also adopt them. We were asked by Larry Elder in California to send us what Florida did also.
And, of course, Lee Zeldin in New York, because these gentlemen are running for governor in both of these states. And now we have been asked to help provide the resources to help them.
Leahy: Will you introduce those standards here in Tennessee? And what’s the process in Tennessee?
Moore: In Tennessee, we’re going to ask the state legislature to call for an emergency hearing of civic standards, as Governor DeSantis did, review the state standards, refine them and make sure that they are accurate and that they’re going to teach a comprehensive view of America and our civics. And then, God willing we’ll get it passed in the next legislature and it’ll be adopted here. It’ll take a couple of years.
Unfortunately, the process is so long and tedious, but eventually, we’re going to have civic standards. But that doesn’t remove us as parents and even if you don’t have children in the school system.
If you have grandkids, we need to be studying about our history. We need to be reading about our founders because we need to be teaching the next generation. We have to teach what our schools are not teaching.
And I applaud the parents who are pulling their kids out of the public school system and homeschooling their kids because that is the only way we’re going to be able to preserve.
But in the interim, while they have their kids at home, they also need to give back to the community and help us in fighting these battles. We had 50 counties across the state back a decade ago in 2013 where parents and citizens were outraged when they found out how our children were being used as propaganda guinea pigs.
And now we are looking at the outgrowth of what’s happening to our country. It is time for us as Americans to rise up and take back local control. This is how we win the battle. The elections are coming up.
Our state legislatures are going to be reconvening again in January, most of them. And this is the time for us to rise up and hold these people accountable. 2022 is looming large on the horizon.
We need to make sure that we are involved and we are speaking to our elected officials. And we’re telling them, if you do not agree with this criteria, if you support putting critical race theory like wit and wisdom in our schools, guess what? Your days as an elected official are numbered.
Leahy: Is your focus, Laurie, primarily on state legislative races? Or are you also looking at school board races?
Moore: We are looking at educating elected officials from the school board all the way up to the state all the way up to the governor’s race. We’re not focused on the federal government because the responsibility of our government comes at the local level.
And if we have school board members who will not uphold the history of America and our Judeo Christian value that this country was founded upon then every one of those, just like we did a decade ago in 2014, when those school board members in Williamson County voted to keep an anti-Semitic Pearson published textbook in our schools, the parents went to work.
Four months later, this was the citizens, six school board members who were up for reelection were removed. Unfortunately, the six that were replaced didn’t have the courage to stand up in the face of the enemy right out of the gate.
Leahy: And Laurie Cardoza more the website. Pjtn.org. Hang on through the break.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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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 “Laurie Cardoza-Moore” by Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.
