>> presidential recordings. find them on the c-span now mobile app, or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> cox is committed to providing eligible families access to affordable internet. bridging the digital divide one engaged community at a time. cox, bringing us closer. >> cox supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: a conversation on the role

that parents play in their children's education. explain first what the center's mission is and how you got involved. guest: thank you for having me on. the center for renewing america and what we are trying to do is regain a consensus that i think we have lost about what keeps us as a country and a nation. our mission is to rinse store -- to restore a consensus that we are a nation under god and our enjoyment of liber ash liberty and freedom is from just laws. it is a corrective in some respects based on how we have understood ourselves, especially for those on the right. we think we have been too secular, imperialistic and individualistic, so we have not thought on the cultural issues that have been prevalent so the probe is the foundation has been

weak, and we look at a situation in virginia where parents have risen up and said we do not want critical race theory training taught in our schools, we do not want transgender ideology that is taking over to be taught in our schools, and they are standing up and saying we want to have a different result in a different type of curriculum and we are here to support efforts like that and have the agenda setting process in washington, d.c. lean into those issues in a way that the republican party has not for many decades. host: americarenewing.com is the website for the center. we have until the top of the hour to talk about the issues. the phone lines are split. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. much of the debate here centered around who determines school curriculums, how much of a veto

parent should have over the curriculums. in your view, what is the right balance? guest: the right balance is for parents to be incredibly involved to the extent that they are able to be responsible for their -- for the schooling of their students, whether that is in a home school setting or in a private school setting. the same principle should apply in a public school setting. it is important for school systems and districts to be able to have a lot of parental involvement in the debate in virginia was coming down to that where you had the former governor articulate that he did not want parents being involved in the curriculum and that is something that we need to change and change across the country in ensuring that there is transparency, not just transparency but a difference of opinion that parents have the ability to say these are concepts that we are just not going to either allow the school district to be teaching, or it is not age-appropriate for where they are as the student at that level. host: "it is not just virginia,

education and critical race theory on the ballot across the united states in 2022." your view on what this means for the midterm elections? guest: i think it will be a central issue. critical race theory, as it manifests in schools, for parents are increasingly waking up to it. they saw it as they were monitoring the zoom sessions. they see that -- vestiges of it in their own employment and they know it is there. i think this will be something that plays into a number of elections across the country and in general, cultural issues will dominate because the administration is very aggressive on these issues. and, state governments are as well. you see people and school boards that are resistant to parental involvement at the school board meetings and that just inflames people to be more involved in the political system.

you have a department of justice who says we will treat these people as domestic terrorism. what impact does it does? it ensures that people realizes that they are over the target and what they are fighting for is so critical to their kids' education and long-term development that they will stay the course. host: the administration argued when that issue had been brought up, the fda -- the fbi and the justice department's role is concerned about threats to educators, how should -- how should they treat that issue? guest: these educators have local police departments that are protecting the local populations, and there has been no evidence of actual violence against schoolteachers. when the school board association that sent a letter to the department of justice and had a long list of evidence that they thought supported their

claim, and all of it was baseless. none of it was something that a local police officer or police department would not handle. this is an effort to scare parents from being a part of the political process and i do not think it will serve the purposes of what it was intended to. host: what is your view on covid mandates? guest: i do not think there should be covid mandates in schools or anywhere else in this country. i commend the governor of florida for taking steps to make sure that covid mandates are not a part of their system. i hope that additional governors take steps along that path. it is critical that our schools remain open, that our kids can go to school and be able to receive the education. we probably lost an entire year and a half for development. you think about that, for watts. for no reason given the fact that covid does not impact kids

at that age. so, very troubling. we have a medical establishment that takes great risk on behalf of the people that they are meant to protect, often not relying on the science in making these critical decisions. host: americarenewing.com, the website for the center for renewing america. our guest is with us until the top of the hour. let us talk about that. plenty of calls. brad in kentucky is up first, an independent. good morning. caller: i would just like to second the gentleman on there should not be covid mandates anywhere in this country. but as far as our schools go, there is a bigger problem besides the crt thing or whatever, which i have yet to determine is -- if it is an

issue, i suppose it is. there is a bigger issue going on where we have deflated the teaching spirit of our nation's teachers. if you talk to teachers or if you have anybody -- these are some of the saddest people you can talk to because we have ruined the school life for them and they -- and we are doing this for the kids with covid. everybody knows that, and we know what is happening, we can see it happening. we do not understand the hurt we are doing to our kids. there is an article in a kentucky paper talking for example, this is not kids but it goes with what we are talking about, of an adult learning center that had to cut back on the days that it served the community because of covid. so, one of the parents was

talking about how their developmentally disabled adult that was their child had regressed and they had once been verbal, and because of these days canceled that they were not attending this learning center or whatever that the individual will regress from being verbal to nonverbal. ok, and that is a good representation. that hurts to even think of, but we are doing this to our nation's kids. guest: i think that covid has had a tremendous impact on our society, and that we are still reeling from many of the policies that were put in place that do not encourage people to live their life and take the precautions that they need to on an individual basis and a family basis, to the extent that there are lockdown policies or locked

down like policies that are still prevalent, that is a problem and something that our center exists to push back on these things and encourage people to live their life and take adequate precautions, but to be able to push past this and be able to get people back into the workforce and schools, and bring back the joy of teaching or whatever the particular work that someone does. not back into play. host: california, democrat. good morning. caller: i want to first state about the last caller's and your commentary back to him. it is not individual liberty to not take the vaccine, or to close schools during covid, it was a collective act to save us. i have as much right to be

protected and there are many acts that we do like that to protect each other and come together. as far as critical race theory in school, i am sorry to say that it is not taught in elementary school and not in high school. it was a curriculum that was made for specifically law schools to teach their law students about how race and affirmative action are different -- and different things are represented by black and brown people, mostly black people to set policies for how we move forward to make equality and justice. yes, i agree, i live in the bay area and many school boards get lively around discussions about how we should teach our kids and what curriculum should. first and foremost let me explain something to you. the first americans are late of

-- our native americans and the curriculum should be taught about the genocide that happened. i am sorry if more anglo-saxon and white people feel that every time we ask to be represented in a book or have our stories and our histories told as either lack and brown people -- black or brown people, white people feel offended and cannot handle the truth. host: you bring up a lot of issues. guest: let me take a crack of the central argument that you made which is that this is not being taught in the school and emanated from the law school. it started in the law schools in the sense that there is a view that racism is embedded in the minds of the critical race theory into the law and the law cannot be colorblind because it up self upholds white supremacy. and that is a rejection of the civil rights movement, which was

purporting to move towards a colorblind society. so, that is where it started. where it had begun to be a paradigm to allow teachers to be able to think through and have all of the curriculum based on this. we see that with third-graders being asked to plot themselves on the oppression matrix, or high schoolers being taught that they need to rank their privilege. that is what we are opposed to. when we say we are opposed to critical race theory, we are not articulating that some classes replace social studies, what we are saying is we are opposed to the concept that say that one race is in harriet lee more superior than inherently more superior than the other or more responsible for the ill that we see in society, or the country itself, public education is meant to provide a basis for strong civic engagement, the country itself is inherently

racist when we know that the declaration of independence set the broad trajectory of dignity for this country. so, that is why we argue that this is in the schools. and then you see the department school system in detroit say absolutely critical race theory is being used. it is in the schools, parents know that it is in the schools and it has an undistinguished history that emanates in legal schools and universities across the country and that is one of the reasons we are trying to make sure that it is not taught. host: from the online conversation on twitter. on this issue of crt. elaine saying "i took a required state class and crt was there. i got a lesson in my own bigotry . i do not mind being where dust made aware of stuff but no one has the right to tell me i have to retrain my brain. preconceived notions are not necessarily racial." "what people are calling crt is

just civil rights. it is not being talk it." -- taught in schools or you can call and like bob did from columbus, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: a quick comment. are you there? host: yes. caller: critical race theory is a made up issue designed to stir people's emotions and challenge their common sense. it is not being taught, per se, anywhere in grades k-12. as a matter of fact the state of texas not too long ago had high school history textbooks that referenced african slaves as guestworkers. we need to be teaching history as to what actually happened. i am well past 60, and what i learned in school and what i found out later on were quite

different, and we should just be teaching -- teaching what actually happened. guest: let me find some commonality with the very last thing he said, let us have a real history that teaches about what happened. when i grew up i learned about civil rights and i learned about the history that led to our civil war and about our founding documents and what our country was built and intended for and the fact that it is the greatest country that the world has ever seen because of the freedom it was founded upon. i am all for teaching history and ensuring that our curriculum shows the strong points of our country and where we have struggled. and so i think that should be a part of the curriculum, and in the bills that have been moving in state legislatures have in fact allowed for that. all they are doing is prohibiting the types of concepts that i mentioned on the previous caller. host: about 10 minutes left. if you want to call in on the

issues, the phone lines are split by republic by political party. he has a president for the center for renewing america. if i can draw on your experience for a second as budget director during the trump administration. we saw another continuing lezz -- resolution pass last week in the wake of a previous continuing resolution. what does this mean from a budgeting protect -- perspective for federal agencies, how are they able to plan ahead when they do these things just a couple of months at a time. guest: the budgeting process is completely broken. congress does not budget, the administration continues to budget >> today it is possible lawmakers will work on a 2022 defense authorization bill, to limit