Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Ron. She’s a master educator and author, leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome. Come on in. Welcome to Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Ron, and I’m so excited that you decided to join the conversation today. You know, on my show, we talk all things education, and every now and again, I get to talk to an Uber mom, and I’m excited to bring my good friend, Kira Davis, to the stage. Hi, Kira. Hi, Kira. Hi, Priscilla. It’s good to see you. It’s always good to see you. It’s always great to have a conversation with you and to see all of the amazing work you’re doing. Your story is amazing. But before we go any further, in case there’s someone who may be living under a rock and doesn’t know who you are, I’m going to share a little bit of your bio. So Mrs. Kira Davis is an accomplished writer, culture critic, and political pundit. Her former podcast, Just Listen to Yourself, is a Communicator Award winner in podcasting, and she continues her mission of critical thinking on her latest show, Just Kira Davis. She has appeared in outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, The Blaze, and The First TV. Kira is also a regular guest host for radio, including shows like The Dan Bongino Show, Tony Katz Today, The Will Cow Majority, and Stacey on the Right. Her first book, Drawing Lines, Why Conservatives Must Begin to Battle Fiercely in the Arena of Ideas, was released in 2022 and provides a blueprint for conservatives to compete effectively in the cultural space while holding their lines politically. Kira ran for her school board as an advocate for fellow parents in South Orange County in 2022. But although the bid was unsuccessful, Kira learned a lot about the battle for education and the strategy needed for Republicans to win elections in the future. And she believes the education platform is the key to winning elections on both a local and federal level. Kira lives in Orange County with her amazing husband, her two amazing children, and her blind dog. named Lola.
SPEAKER 02 :
She’s fine now.
SPEAKER 03 :
She’s good? Yeah, she’s just blind. Does she follow the smell and follow the sounds? Is that what she does?
SPEAKER 02 :
She follows the sounds and now she’s really good at being under your feet all the time now. Don’t feel sorry for her. She’s fine. She’s still being an annoying dog. She’s still begging for food. Everything about her is just fine. She’s just blind.
SPEAKER 03 :
She’s living her best life.
SPEAKER 02 :
She’s… This is a suburban dog. She is living her best life. I want to come back as a suburban dog in my next life. Right? Yeah. She’s absolutely fine.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. So my Zoe, every year we take Christmas pictures and we’re trying to figure out like what we’re going to wear. And several years ago, we did the whole Broncos jersey thing. Kind of outdated. So we went and got new broncos jerseys and of course zoe had to get a new bronco jersey so you’ll be getting the the ron christmas card with the updated broncos jersey but we only have a limited amount of time and we talk every now and again but i want to get into it with you because your book Drawing Lines. Okay, you guys, go out and get it. Go out and get her book, Drawing Lines. You decided to run for school board, but in your book on page 43, it says, what can you do in a world full of Randy Weingarten’s Be a Loudoun County parent. I love that. I was cracking up. Okay. So even the first line, what parents in Loudoun County, Virginia have done for the battle to reform education is nothing short of a miracle. Their battle against their school board and critical race theory has not only been illuminating, but inspiring. Okay. So for those people who are listening to radio, Kira and I are black conservative women and we, I’m going to go out on a limb and say, you’re pretty sick and tired of the CRT conversation. I’ve got race fatigue. I’m just so over it. And I’ve seen it in our schools. It’s just not working. Talk a little bit about this chapter and why you were inspired to name names here.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I think the broader concept of the whole book even is how we have let so much get away from us, so many of our institutions. And education is one. A lot of people felt like it’s just for moms. It’s just for the PTA moms. Nobody really knew what’s been going on in the PTA. What are the moms doing when they go to their meetings? We don’t take education and school boards seriously. And so all of this stuff crept in while we weren’t looking. Some of us were, but it was really hard to sound the alarm 10, 15 years ago when people didn’t even have a concept of what this was. So it was hard and we lost those battles when we were fighting it then. But now… when you look at people like the parents of Loudoun County, what you’re seeing is people being forced into the conversation, right? COVID hit and we were all forced to sit in our kids’ classroom virtually and suddenly things change. So what we understood then was that, um, we didn’t know all of what was being taught to our kids in school. And a lot of it was, um, Personal. A lot of it, it wasn’t math. It wasn’t just common core math, which I railed against. Common core has just been a scourge on American public education, but it wasn’t just that. This was something different. This was re-educating our children on how they feel about themselves, right? Teaching our children to place themselves in a dynamic, in a power dynamic, victim or oppressor, it’s social engineering and we got to see it. So, The reason why I bring up the Loudoun County parents is because they said to themselves, we no longer have to be a third party in this equation. And we have trained ourselves to believe that parents are somehow outside the public education system, that this is a transaction between your students and the teachers. And suddenly the Loudoun County parents said, no, that can’t possibly be true because what we are seeing is, as a result of us being separated from this function is complete dysfunction. We want to be back in there. We want to be a part of it. So, and then what they ended up doing is they inspired such controversy that that the whole country started talking about it. And then other parents went, wait a minute. Yeah, that’s going on in my district too. And I’m not crazy for thinking that’s crazy. Let’s get out there. And then the rest is history. We’re still fighting this battle today, but we still have the Loudoun County parents to thank for it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s amazing. Even watching all of this conversation from 2020 to even now, recently how people say, oh, this stuff’s not happening in our schools. And I’m like, oh, excuse me. I’ve got the receipts. I am a classroom teacher. I have the emails and They would pull kids into these private counseling sessions and shut the door and close the blinds. You don’t know what these counselors were saying to students and parents didn’t know, but I literally still have years and years worth of emails where I started seeing the slow boil. I’m so sad that Winsome Sears did not win. I would have thought that this conversation would have continued into her election. I’m surprised at what happened because I thought for sure, The parents in Virginia would continue to say, no, we don’t want boys and girls sports. Right. That became the hot topics. Like, why are we even debating the safety of our minor children in public school? I don’t know what’s happening with the landscape politically in this conversation, because, as you said, like we saw the shift in 2022. Yeah. Of parents saying, wait, what are you teaching my kids? Maybe this is why my kids can’t read and write at grade level. To, hey, now we have unsafe situations where young minor girls are being harassed or they’re seeing male body parts. And we have… Even college and high school age young women in sports losing out on scholarships and awards because they’re competing against biological boys. You would have thought that would have been enough to help win some. I just I’m not sure what’s going to happen next year with governor races across the nation. I don’t know if you have any any ideas. Well, I think so.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I have to say with Winsome, you know, I talked to some good friends who live in Virginia and who are conservatives. And they said, you know, Winsome, they actually felt she wasn’t a great candidate from the start. So I think she wasn’t as good of a candidate as we from outside of the state think. And when I say good candidate, I don’t mean good person or that she wouldn’t have been a great governor. I just mean the campaign aspect of it. I don’t think she ran a good campaign. That’s what my friends were saying. So there were a few unforced errors. So there’s that. Virginia is the seat of government workers. So in a state like Virginia, you’ve got 3 million plus government workers, federal workers voting there. They’re all going to vote blue. They’re always going to vote for more government. Trump wasn’t on the ballot. That was a big deal. What’s going to happen with governor’s races next year? I don’t know, but here is what I do know. When Trump’s not on the ballot, Republicans don’t do as well. And so Republican, he can’t get on another ballot. So Republicans need to figure out how do you get Trump on the ballot without getting Trump on the ballot? What is it that’s working? That’s what it is. What is it that’s working? And when I talk about education, One of the things that I talk about is how at the federal level, if we want to win and keep winning, Congress, the executive offices, even your state offices, education is a platform Republicans need to run on and need to take over for several reasons. Number one, education speaks to all across the class spectrum and education spectrum. Everyone cares about education. Number two, poor parents care about education and they’re getting left behind and no one is fighting for them. So that is an untapped voter market that people really aren’t fighting for them yet. Number three, the Democrats have been educating our voters for 75 years. So no, it’s no wonder that you have Zoran Mamdani in New York and this little girl in Tennessee who looks like she might you know, could squeak out a win and you have socialists in Minnesota. Where did these people come from? They came from our education system. We gave up the public education system and the vacuum was filled with socialists. So they have that. You are just seeing you’re just seeing the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, right? So you see these protesters out there, you see all this chaos. This is just people doing what they’ve been trained to do. So if we want different voters, we need to start educating patriots again. That means we’ve got to wrestle back the public school system, not just for the kids who are in there now, but for the voters that are going to come out in 20, 30, 40 years. They need to be educated patriots. Right now they are educated socialists. So education is the platform, I think, that is the key to winning back your local governments, but also winning back the country at large.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you’re just tuning in, my guest today is Kira Davis. She is a mega mom. That’s what I call you. I mean, there’s just too many things you do that are amazing, but you got fired up. And Kira and I met several years ago when we were doing the Red and Black show together when you were still working at Red State. And that was a really fun time for me. I think at the time I was still the vice chair of the… Colorado GOP and learning media. But I even then I had so much respect for you and your voice. I was like, wow, she’s a mom. And you were running for school board at that time. And your story is amazing. You’re you’re born in Canada. My husband’s Canadian. Yes. Your mom is Canadian. Your dad is American. You have this wonderful story. But how did you become a conservative? Because you weren’t always a conservative, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, no. I was sort of a, well, being Canadian, you’re sort of raised as a socialist. And then I was just a default Democrat as a Black person. And yeah, but always politically passionate. I was raised by godless hippies. You know, they really cared about political issues. We were always having political discussions in the house, but yeah, again, kind of just a default liberal. And then I got married, moved to Gary, Indiana with my husband. That’s where he was born and raised. And his father is a pastor and his father was the first black man I ever met who called himself a Republican openly. And my husband’s conservative, but he’s very apolitical. So we just never really had these discussions. But his father-in-law is very politically active. Even as a pastor, he very much so believes that Christians… You know, part of your kingdom ministry and being fruitful and multiplying is also, you know, multiplying your values to politics. So we would have all these interesting conversations. He would challenge me on my preconceived notions. And I always thought about it. But then we went into ministry. We opened an after school program for the city’s children. And Gary, Indiana is largely black and largely poor. And I got to see we worked with kids in and out of the education system. And I got to see how all of the policies that I had supported my whole life, how they worked up close and personal because I was in City Hall. I was in the schools. I was like advocating for these kids in their classrooms. And with their teachers. And I saw that they don’t they don’t work. And so it was that combined with the process of having these conversations, these ongoing conversations with my father in law, where I began to develop my political sensibilities. And then I realized I actually am not a Democrat. And I don’t think any of these solutions have ever been working for my community and they don’t work now. And in fact, they’re making things worse. And the more that I saw Democrats coming through and handing out all this stuff that was crippling our community, the angrier I got. And so I just finally left the Democrat Party for good, I think. Right in Obama’s first election cycle. So right when Obama was elected, that when I was like, well, this guy’s we’re going to like this guy. I’m done. So I haven’t gone back. And yeah. Now I’m a conservative. Now I’m like a right-wing nut job. Like, I’m the kind of conservative you don’t invite to your Thanksgiving dinner, you know, because she’s going to cause a big argument. That’s me.
SPEAKER 03 :
I love it. It’s like, you know, we talk a lot about social media and how to get your voice and your viewpoint out. And it’s just fascinating to watch you share your opinion because you are no nonsense. And you almost have to be these days as a Black conservative because as we all know, we get put into a box. And you even talk about this in your book on page 141. Again, I had a lot of LOLs reading your book.
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I love to hear that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, here we go. Page 141, folks. Do people hate critical race theory because they hate Black history? look deep into my eyes pretend you can see them in the words on this page and imagine they are the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen yes kira you have very beautiful eyes breathe in deeply and inhale this important and assailable truth listen closely and let the words be etched in your likely racist heart oh my goodness she went there critical race theory is not black history And, you know, talking about, you know, public education, there was so much I didn’t learn about my own history. I am a descendant of enslaved Africans. Okay. I used to call myself, I’m a descendant of slaves. I’m a descendant of slaves because that’s what they, how they would teach us. I’m like, wait a minute. My ancestors were educators and tribal leaders and scientists and inventors and business owners. They were not slaves. I need to stop saying. So now I say I’m a descendant of enslaved Africans who came to this country and they did amazing things. But then the more I learned about my history and the more I learned about Marxism and why am I being taught to think a certain way, I started to rise up and speak back. Was that part of your epiphany to getting into the political space, going from I’m a mom, now I’m an American, I was a Democrat, but Now I’m becoming a political activist. Like, what was it that really outside of just seeing Obama, you know, become our president? Was there something else that really motivated you to become activated? Obamacare.
SPEAKER 02 :
Obamacare, because that’s that’s what it was. That was the Obama thing that was bothering me was the universal health care, the idea of that, because I’m Canadian and I know the horrors of that system. And I didn’t want anything to do with it. I didn’t want anything to do with it. And so that’s when I mean, I already knew I wasn’t a Democrat at that point. I just wouldn’t have called myself a conservative. But I knew I wasn’t going to vote for Obama. But then when he was like running on this Obamacare idea, this universal health plan idea, I thought this is terrible. And then when he won, that was right when we moved to California. And California is looking to become a universal health care state and has always done so. And so I definitely was feeling concerned. And so the Tea Party movement had just kicked off. And there were all kinds of reports about how violent these people were and how racist they were. And my kids were really young. So one day they went to school and I heard there was a tea party rally down the road. And I went to it to check it out for myself. And it was really nice. And the people were really nice. And they were talking about things like taxation and the problems with universal health care. And so that’s when I became an activist. I started writing. I started a blog because I can do that from home while I was raising my kids. I was a stay-at-home mom. But it was free to start a blog. I started writing about things. And then people started noticing. And then that’s how I became a writer. People started inviting me places and inviting me to come talk and write. So that’s how it got started. But it was Obamacare that made me go, oh, I’m an activist now. I don’t want this.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you’re just tuning in, my guest today is Kira Davis. I remember the Obamacare conversation and I got angry too because I’m a public school teacher. I felt like my healthcare options were pretty good at the time. And then we said, oh, you can keep your doctor. You don’t need to change anything. And then next thing I know, My premiums went up. My copay went up. And I was like, this is not, quote unquote, affordable health care. And it’s just gotten worse and worse. And now if you look at big sanctuary cities like Denver, where, you know, we got like 40,000 migrants from the Texas border already. So quickly overnight flooded our schools. The mayor of Denver purchased the embassy suites hotel yards away from my middle school. And we just got in our, in my, my school alone, we got like a hundred kids, like almost overnight. We were getting like some days, seven new kids a day. to our schools, but who’s paying for their housing, their healthcare, their food, we the taxpayers, to the point where the city had cut hours of government employees. They cut the hours at the rec centers for our citizens. Our kids could not go to the rec center because the hours were cut. And so services were being cut. People were being laid off in order to, you know- invasion really yeah you know so so this is unfortunately the repercussions of you know a socialist democrat mindset dare i say marxist mindset and all of the things that you know the left says they’re not they’re not doing you know this is good for everybody but it’s this is not the right way anybody no so you know yeah most of our kids go to public school but now there’s this big movement kira of um Parents pulling their kids out, going to private school, homeschool, micro school, classical, charter, Christian. I mean, they’re pulling their kids out at larger rates. We’re seeing this movement. But I am also worried about the students who are in our public school system because those are the ones that, as you say, are going to grow up to be educated like socialists that don’t learn. But how do you feel about school choice?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I’m a proponent of school choice. It’s always been a motivating topic for me. I’m an advocate for it. I don’t think the federal, I don’t think your zip code should determine where you go to school. I think parents should determine it. And I think you should get to choose where your tax dollars go to what school they go to. I absolutely do think that. I am an advocate for homeschooling or charter schools or private schools. I’m an advocate for it all. What I’m an advocate for is choice, that you as a parent understand the best way your child can learn. as a society have decided your child should learn. And so we have allocated tax dollars for that. And so if you have access to that money, I think you should be allowed to use that money in the way you think your child learns. So I’m an advocate for, School choice for that reason, however, I am not an advocate for fully abandoning the public school system. I actually do think the public school system needs to go. I think it should be burned all down. We don’t need a public school system. However, we have 1. So, if we have 1, I think it’s completely unrealistic to imagine that it’s going to disappear tomorrow. So if it’s not going to disappear tomorrow, then we better own it because it’s still educating the majority of our citizens. So we better own it. It is not enough to simply encourage parents to pull their kids out in homeschool. You should do that if you can. Great. I think that’s the ideal. You know, unless you’re a terrible person, then maybe don’t. But you should do that if you can. But you should also still go to your school district school board meetings because even you might not understand it, but they even affect how you can homeschool. Here in California, what happens at the State Department of Education absolutely affects you as a homeschooler. You’re not allowed to… educate your homeschooler in religious practices here. You’re not supposed to be doing it. People do it anyway, but you’re under the same standards as a public school system. You know what I mean? Like you should know where people, that’s why you homeschool. So you can’t ignore it. But technically if the government wanted to come in and ping you about it, they could. And there’s a lot that homeschoolers don’t know that are controlled by the state. So you should still be going to your school board meetings, even if you don’t have kids in school.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, we need great parents like you to run for school board because this is, you know, it’s different from state to state. I am watching closely with President Trump’s executive order to end the Department of Education, what that’s going to mean at the local level, at the state level, because they’re We can have a whole show on the proper role of government when it comes to education. You know, we can debate all day long, should the government force you to have a public education and should you be forced to pay for it? But I think that’s the big ongoing debate right now. How does your faith, Kira, impact how you view politics and education and how you go about having these conversations?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I don’t believe they’re separate things. I think just when you’re a believing Christian, that permeates every part of your life. So whether I’m serving my community or whether I’m on a podcast talking about a policy or a crazy story, whether I’m marching in the streets against Obamacare or going to the ballot box or just raising my kids, I feel like it’s all part of… you know, my calling. It’s all part of what I’m called to do. Some people are called to minister the word. I feel like my activism for liberty, I feel like liberty in politics and liberty in Christ are one in the same thing. It’s all liberty basically is, is, what I mean. And so I feel it’s a very natural. And this is what my father-in-law would always frame it to from the pulpit. He would just say, you know, I’m not here to talk to you about parties, but I am here to talk to you about your duty as a Christian and how we care for each other. And politics is a big part in how we care for each other. I talk to my kids all the time about what it means to give, you know, and what it means to take. You know, somebody will tell you, well, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, you’re a good person because you’re advocating for this new tax, but is that charity? Is that giving, you know? Is it giving for the government to force you to give your money to people at pains of prison, a prison sentence, you know, all of that. So my faith to me is the reason I do anything, really. I don’t think there’s any part of my life that is separate from my faith in Christ. It is always just what is the calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
And with that, we’ve got to land our plane, Kira. I’ve enjoyed this conversation with you, my friend, and to be continued. To my listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue, and speak truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Ron. Visit PriscillaRon.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.
