Private, Separate, and Unequal

It's late 2022, a group of students gather in an auditorium at Hillsdale College. It's a small Christian conservative school in Michigan. They're here to listen to a speech from a big right-wing activist, Chris Rufo. He's one of the most influential political strategists on the right and has a lot to say about reshaping public education. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Rufo. Rufo takes the stage to thunderous applause. He lays out his game plan for the future of the conservative movement. Conservatives are really realizing now we like what our institutions were and now that we are seeing what they are, we don't like them as much. The best strategy in the immediate term is the siege of the institutions. And nowhere is the strategy of disruption more apparent than when it comes to education. To get universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust. Now universal school choice is a euphemism for privatization. It allows parents to take their kids out of public school and send them to private ones using taxpayer money. As Rufo says, the far right movement will have to convince people that public schools are not to be trusted. And they're doing it using anti-transhate. I'm Amara Jones and this is the anti-transhate machine, a plot against equality. Throughout the series, we've shown how anti-transhate is being used to undermine faith and public education. But the goal here is not to reshape who controls these institutions, it's about dissolving public education in its entirety. This is all an essential step towards destroying democracy from the ground up. To understand how those opposed to public education and democratic ideals are accomplishing this, we'll be traveling to Arizona, a political wild west, where this connection between anti-transhate information and school privatization has never been more successful. It's a sunny day in the Phoenix metro area, it's springtime, and the high temperature is expected to reach past 90 degrees. I love these, these are some of my favorite things. Tammy Stoss is teaching fourth grade here in the Mesa School District, the largest in the state. Thank you for getting up so early, but you're a teacher, so early is. This is normal. Not early for you. This is my normal day. Tammy is the kind of teacher who loves watching her students think critically about the world. You start out with like a topic and you kind of give them a question and then you let them run with it. And you just kind of guide them along, but man, you can get to some of the coolest places. She remembers one moment in particular, where students started to draw connections to racial segregation, a time when students were separated based on who they were. I said, "Well, back in the day, things were separated, it was called segregation." And they're asking questions like, "Do you mean to tell me that my friend would not have been in my class?" I'm like, "No, they would not have been in your class." That's insane. What? That's so messed up. That's so messed up. My kind of is. And one of the students raises their hands and she says, "I've heard my parents say, "If you don't learn about history, that you're destined to repeat it." I said, "Why do you think they say that, you know, if you don't learn about it, you're meant to repeat it?" And they just sat there and thought for a minute and another student raises their hand. They don't want us to learn about it because they want to do it again. For her, that's what makes teaching so meaningful, seeing how young people are able to make connections based on things, they're seeing all around them. But Tammy isn't just a good teacher. She's also a fierce ally for trans students across her district. And it's personal for her. See, about 15 years ago before Tammy became a teacher, her son told her that he was trans. He's now in his late 20s. He is living his best life. He's an amazing human being. And so the fact that, sorry, you get emotional when I talk about him, the fact that he is able to live and be happy and be his best self, I feel like that's a dad. I have to pay back every single day. Tammy noticed that across the district, parents, teachers, and school leaders were struggling to support trans students. So she starts working with the administration to help kids like her son. But then, something shifts. Six stories tonight. Controversy at the State Capitol. Arizona's are seeing yet another year of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state legislature. And anti-trans sentiment starts picking up all across the state. This is 2022. And trans kids and their families feel increasingly isolated and under attack. So Tammy redoubles her efforts to make schools more welcoming. That's when we saw a lot of this, you know, like we need to support trans kids in schools more. We need more inclusive policies. Because of her commitment, she ends up meeting with US Senator Mark Kelly. He has questions about making schools safe learning environments. What does it mean to have a trans kid in schools? What does it mean to have a trans kid in Arizona? And so he wanted to find out more about the issues. And it was just basically a information session where he picked our brains. And during the meeting with Senator Kelly, a picture is taken of the group. We're working, you know, to support LGBTQ+ rights, specifically trans kids. And it got published on social media, even ended up on his site. And somehow that's how Charlie Kirk found out who I was. Charlie Kirk, the tragically assassinated founder of Turning Point, USA. He was the key organizer of young people in the Christian nationalist movement with millions of followers. He was also a huge proponent of so-called parental rights, especially in the context of gender identity. Do not give your kids over to the state. Do not act as if they have your best interests that heart instead. We need parents to do what you're doing, homeschooling and contesting for parental rights and parental choice in education. It makes society better and it's better for your children. Turning Point recruits high school and college students directly as foot soldiers to advance a far-right agenda. Many Republicans credit Kirk in helping with Donald Trump's victory. Kirk shares with his massive audience not only Tammy's name, but also the fact that both her kids are trans, along with an article describing which school she teaches at. Suddenly, right-wing commentators are using Tammy as an example of some kind of out-of-control problem in schools. They say, you know, teaching gender politics in third grade. I'm not teaching gender politics in third grade. Is it third graders? Kirk's spotlight on Tammy leads people in her community to target her because of supposed indoctrination. People find out through public records where I live and I started receiving hate mail. I definitely got threats. You know, I walk my kids outside. There's a chain link fence between me and the parking lot and in my brain every single day. I'm like, maybe this is the day somebody shows up. Maybe this is the day. I've had friends advise me maybe I should wear a bulletproof vest. I don't know if that's extreme or not or I'm just being too flippant. I don't know. But it's a little scary. I do hold my breath every time I go outside the building. The upper around Tammy draws the attention of Marisol Garcia. The head of the Arizona Educators Association is the state's largest teachers union. Marisol seeing teachers like Tammy get targeted across the state. We had multiple of our members being threatened on social media. They were being docs. They were being spit on. We had the police. Now we're very common to be at almost every school board meeting. 2022 is a tough year for Arizona schools for another reason. Lawmakers are debating the passage of a universal school voucher bill. It would allow families to use public money to let their children attend private school. Marisol has this voucher bill on her mind as she's watching these attacks on public school teachers. And so it was a difficult thing to separate. There also was the shift which is now an accepted narrative that teachers are not on the same side as parents and students. To Marisol the message was clear. Public school teachers are the enemy. They're indoctrinating kids. And conservatives are saying that the solution is school vouchers. Here's Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman in the state capital. I don't have any problem with our public schools except when they go down the woke agenda that they have been recently. I want every child to have a choice with their family where they get to go to school. Senator Hoffman framed school choice as a way to deal with the recent development of wokeness. But school choice is actually an idea that's seven decades in the making rooted in one of the darkest chapters in American history. It's 1954 and the Supreme Court has just ruled on the landmark case of Brown vs. Board of Education. For the first time all public schools in the U.S. are required to admit any student regardless of the color of their scan. White parents around the country, especially in the south, protested. These parents are ready to do anything to oppose integration and to prevent their kids from learning side by side with black children, even if it means destroying public schools. One year later an up-and-coming economist gives them a tool to do just that. His name is Milton Friedman. He proposes giving parents vouchers. These vouchers would pay for students to attend private schools using tax payer dollars. And these schools wouldn't have to integrate. They would come to be known as segregation academies. And parents flocked to the idea. It was the birth of the parental rights movement. I'm speaking as a taxpayer of the city of the state of Georgia and the part of a school-aged child. I am rather than see the children of the white people of Georgia surrendered to the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, conservative groups advocated for limited voucher programs throughout the country. But over time voters reject vouchers because they drain resources away from public schools. And the Supreme Court rules that segregation is illegal in private schools as well, expanding the original Brown versus Board of Education decision. So the voucher movement runs out of steam. But it finds new life in Arizona, where there is a clear link between the segregationist roots of vouchers and the school choice movement of today. Arizona is home to the Goldwater Institute, a free market think tank named after the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. He was the first major far-right candidate in modern American history, and is credited with laying the groundwork for the Republican Party shift towards the far-right. Here he is, in 1964, speaking at the Republican National Convention during his failed campaign for president. Goldwater famously opposed national legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1964. When it came to schools, he was extremely critical of government-ordered desegregation. The Goldwater Institute lobbied the Arizona legislature for years to implement a school voucher program. At first, they made arguments focused on free market ideas and capitalism that every parent should have the right to choose a private school for their children, and that competition between private schools will create better educational outcomes. People like public schools, so those arguments didn't have staying power. They needed something to really capture the emotions and outrage of parents. That's where the current anti-trans movement comes in. Suddenly, vouchers weren't just about improving education outcomes. They were the way to protect children from things like so-called gender ideology. Here's the Goldwater Institute's education director laying out the strategy. We have universal school choice, and now we have governors and lawmakers across the country who are all lining up to make sure that every kid has the access to the best school of their choice, and that every parent knows what's being taught in their public schools so that things like radical gender theory are not slipping into lesson plans and curricula while parents are left in the dark. And the strategy works. Now to our big story at 6th, Governor Ducey has signed what's being called the most aggressive school choice measure in the country, a universal voucher program for private schools. Universal vouchers become the law of the land in Arizona. It's the first program of its kind in the nation. We reached out to a member of the Arizona legislature who is trying to take the fight for vouchers even further. Senator J.D. Messnerd helped pass the universal program in Arizona, but he doesn't want to stop there. He wants to enshrine vouchers in the state's constitution with Arizona's historic program. Why did he feel the need to go the extra mile? I'm wondering if you could just tell us why you think that empowerment scholarship accounts widely known as vouchers in the rest of the country are really important in Arizona, and why you think it's important that they be enshrined in the state constitution? I think it comes down to just the fundamental right of parents to direct the education of their child, whether that be a private option or a public option or charter or homeschool or whatever option they feel is best for their child that meets their needs, etc. So it really just comes down to that basic philosophical belief, it's the right of parents to direct the education of the kids. If Messnerd gets his way, it will be extremely difficult to change or eliminate the school voucher program. But Marisol Garcia, the head of Arizona's largest teachers union says that vouchers are already harming students and teachers. It's allocating almost $800 million up to $1 billion that we will be giving to this program. I equate it to leaving your faucet on at home, right? There's no ending in sight. There is no restrictions to how many kids can be on this program. So we are constantly trying to figure out how much we can ask for to fund public schools under the circumstances where they just have an unlimited amount. What does this like billion dollars mean for kids? Like how is it showing up in classrooms and in public education? Most importantly is that teacher salaries have not changed, so you're seeing teachers leave the profession forever. You are seeing student class sizes getting larger. The bottom line, universal school vouchers kick off a death spiral for public education, and that's the goal. Amanda Marcotte is a political reporter at Salon who covers far-right groups. The end game here is to basically shut down as many public schools as possible so that the only options for parents are no school or private Christian school. How long it's going to take them to get there? I don't think that they have a like a time span on that, but I think that's what they're always pushing towards it. And Arizona is a really good example of how that can spiral out of control pretty quickly. When it comes to the modern push for school vouchers, there's no one more influential than Betsy DeVos. I think that states that are considering policies that will expand education freedom need to go as far as they possibly can today while that window is open in ways that has never been before. That's actually DeVos talking in Arizona at the Goldwater Institute right after the state of Arizona adopted its universal school voucher program. Now she's talking as if the idea of taking school vouchers nationwide is new, but it's been a personal goal of hers for decades. In fact, what happened in Arizona wouldn't have happened without her. Because when it comes to the modern push for school vouchers, DeVos is not only driving the bus, she built it. And she's been calling on fellow billionaires to get on board. Here she is in 2001 at a Christian National Fundraising Event. The original audio was obtained by Politico. Our desire is to confront the culture in which we all live today in ways which will continue to help advance God's Kingdom to impact our culture in ways that are not the traditional funding the Christian organization route by changing the way we approach things in this case, the system of education in the country. The primary way that Betsy DeVos is building her vision is by expanding private Christian schools with public money. Given her family's background, this makes total sense. They have always had ambitious goals for remaking America. She and members of her family are a dominionist, a sect of Christian thought which calls on the wealthy to spread their specific brand of Christianity around the world. Her fortune comes from the vast Amway empire and she's used it for three decades to push for more taxpayer-funded private schools. DeVos's crusade began in her home state of Michigan. In 2000, she bank rolled a school choice referendum, it failed, so she turned to the national stage. And eventually she's nominated to be Secretary of Education in the first Trump administration. After 2017 Senate confirmation hearing does not go smoothly. So can you commit to us tonight that you will not work to privatize public schools or cut a single penny from public education? Senator, thanks for that question. I look forward if confirmed to working with you to talk about how we address the needs of all parents and all students. And I'm hopeful that we can work together to find common ground in ways that we can solve those issues and empower parents to make choices on behalf of their children that are right for them. I take that as not being willing to commit to not privatizing public schools or cutting money from education. Well, I guess I wouldn't characterize it in that way. Well, okay. The Senate splits 50/50 over her confirmation. Vice President Mike Pence cast a historic tie-breaking vote to get her over the finish line. And deterred by barely squeaking through, she pushes a plan that would establish national school vouchers. During a 2018 House Appropriations Committee meeting over the measure, Representative Catherine Clark of Massachusetts decides to grill divorce. Clark asks her if federal money used in a private school voucher program would come with protections from discrimination. So you would not be able to send federal dollars to a private school that did not adhere to the full panoply of civil rights laws in this country. Federal law must be allowed. Is that a yes or no, just say yes or no, yes or no. Federal law must be followed when federal money is involved. Is there some problem, yes or no? Will you guarantee, I think I've been clear. Congress ultimately squashes DeVos's proposal and it goes nowhere. But within her power as secretary, DeVos carries out her Christian nationalist vision. She issues a ruling that rolls back protections for trans students and education. Under her leadership, schools no longer have to allow trans kids to use bathrooms which align with their gender identity. The department also pushes for anti-trans policies in sports. This controversial term, though, comes to an end when President Biden is elected. But she isn't finished. She continues to campaign against trans athletes and sports. Here she is on Fox News. There is no reason for men to be in women's private spaces or taking places on women's sports teams. You know, there's a quote from transgender athlete who won a NCAA title, vowing to take all the records and indoor competitions. How do you react to it and what do you think this is going? It is being driven by a bunch of radicals who are trying to make the case that biological males can and should compete on women's teams simply because they have decided they are female. But media appearances are just a small part of Rebetsy DeVos puts her energy. Most of her time is spent re-energizing and expanding an organization she founded years before to advocate for vouchers. The American Federation for Children. It's been lobbying states to pass school voucher laws like Arizona's for years and it funds politicians who fight for school choice. In 2024 alone, the American Federation for Children spent more than $10 million on hundreds of state legislative races across the country. We reached out to Betsy DeVos directly and the American Federation for Children but have yet to receive a response. Despite all of this power and activity, DeVos is just one member of a far-reaching clan that has had outsized influence on American politics since the early 1980s. DeVos is one of the major funders of a shadowy steering committee that directs the agenda and a lot of the resources of the right. The Council for National Policy. We discussed them back in season one and their influence on education is hard to understate. The Council for National Policy initially came together because powerful Christian nationalist thought that America was headed in the wrong direction. In the 1980s, the civil rights, women's and LGBTQ+ movements were all beginning to reshape the country in ways that they fundamentally disagreed with. These Christian nationalists believe that the world was changing fast and that they had to act or lose power. They determined that creating a coalition would be their way to turn the clock back. So the Council for National Policy brought together the most powerful forces on the right, not just Christian nationalists, but business conservatives too, to build a coalition to change the course of history. Today this group helps choose which causes our important, the organizations that will take the lead in driving them, who funds them, and in some cases, who leads them. According to one of the founders, the Council brings together the doers with the donors. Not surprisingly, nearly every organization we've talked about throughout this series is connected to it. Groups like the Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA, the American Federation for Children, and the Goldwater Institute. Ann Nelson is a journalist who has spent years investigating the Council. She's an expert on the vast network of funders and organizers, which are the backbone of the modern conservative movement. It's efficient, right? I mean, coordination is efficient. It's highly coordinated, it's highly unified, and I have to say that the Democrats and either the left nor the centrist have anything like it. The Council for National Policy stated goal, when it comes to American education, is to establish free market private schools, church schools, and home schools as the normative American practice. In other words, replace public schools with private ones. What people have to remember is that public schools in the United States are absolutely fundamental to democracy and our concept of civic life. That's what they're for. That's what they do. So if you destroy public schools and public education, and you remove the protections for students and teachers under the civil rights laws and what was implemented by the Department of Education, you create a population that is much easier to lie to and to manipulate and to indoctrinate. And the strategy is working. Groups backed by the Council for National Policy have kept the dream of school vouchers alive throughout the United States. Now those dreams are becoming law. Florida created a universal voucher program modeled off Arizona's in 2023. Texas followed suit, passing theirs in 2025. And more than 30 states now have voucher programs in some capacity opening the door for even more public funds to go to private schools. And this agenda is now moving swiftly through the federal government too. We're stopping the radical indoctrination in our schools and supporting school choice. And we're going to be moving our education department and various educational departments down to the states where they belong. All of this combined is a lot. It feels like the far right is on the cusp of achieving some of their longest held education ambitions with severe consequences on the future of democracy. To get a better sense of what the answers might be to the anti-education onslaught, I decided to speak with Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. That's the largest labor union in the country, which represents most of the nation's teachers. When I met her over the summer, I asked her what she sees as the hope in this moment. These are still the most trusted voice in every community. We need them to be courageous to stand up for their students in a way that they know they're not alone. Unfortunately, we have had to defend more and more educators who are standing up for their students, right, to be their authentic selves. But she knows that being courageous comes at a cost. I've seen a lot of sleepless nights worrying about those educators who are being brave in this moment and not knowing whether they'll have a job or not knowing if they'll be attacked and ridiculed, harassed, threatened, but they're doing it anyway. And as I worry, I always operate from a place of hope, that belief in the plausibility of the possible, always I am steeped in that every day. It's because I know that collectively, Amara, we have what we need, we have what we need to win for our students in our communities and this country. As Becky tells it, teachers, students, and communities are the best way to protect public education and democracy, but it's not easy. And this takes me back to the experience of Tammy Stas, the teacher from Arizona who is herself an NEA member. Her life will never be the same after the attacks on her. But as far as giving up, I'm not giving up. You know, it's darkest before the dawn. I have said for years that this fight against trans kids is a death rattle. This is the last dying grasp of a mindset that is anchored in the past. I think now is the last time to give up. I'm not ready to, I'm going to continue to stand up at those board meetings because if I don't, what does that say to the kids that I've served? What does it say to my own children? I can't give up. We're too close. These kids need allies. They need us. My trans friends, my gender non-conforming community, they need somebody who can walk in those spaces safely and talk for them when they can't. If I walk away, I walk away from them, I can't do that. The grid displayed by Tammy has to be shown by everyone who's invested in an open society for the nation's schools and its citizens. We all know that the idea of America, as most people in the country have come to understand it, is in great peril. But very few of us think about the role that public schools have played in shaping a confident, pluralist nation open to all. I mean, even now, public schools remain one of the last things that almost all Americans have in common. 90% of the nation goes to public schools. If these schools don't just shape the idea of a common nationhood, they are actually where democracy is preserved. In fact, the 13,000 school districts represent the most common touchpoint for American democracy. There are perhaps millions of people who will go to a school board meeting, not to mention a PTA meeting, who may never attend a congressional town hall or even vote. These gatherings are where people of different backgrounds must come together, hear each other, and decide collectively what's in the best interest of their children. It is these types of community meetings that are the foundation of American democracy. And anti-trans hate is being used successfully to poison this institution. But rescuing, improving, and expanding high quality education for everyone is still possible. As we have seen throughout this series, the future is not ordained. It's the efforts of people throughout this series to show what's actually possible when communities come together. Parents who organize, like Laura and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, moms who decide to run for school board, like Liz and Sarasota, Florida. And teachers who fight for the well-being of all of their students, like Tammy and Arizona, show that authoritarian attacks on democracy can be stopped. But it's up to everyone listening to believe that change is possible and to show the courage required to bring it about. Because the current situation requires everyone to step up and walk the country back from the edge of a dark future. I'm Amara Jones, the host and executive producer of the anti-trans hate machine. Thank you for listening to this series. We know it hasn't been easy, but hope that you feel that it was worth your time. You can support our journalism by making a tax deductible donation to Translash Media, and you can help get the word out by leaving a review on Apple Podcast or a comment on Spotify. To learn more about our investigation and the work we're doing, you can visit Translash.org. Follow us on social media at Translash Media on all major platforms. Not surprisingly, a series like this takes an entire team of dedicated people to make it happen. And they've been working incredibly hard to get this season to your ears. Josephine M. is the producer for this series. And Rebecca R. is the associate producer. Oliver Kay is our deputy editor. Every editing for this episode is by Audrey Q. Grayson R. is our project manager. A special thanks goes to Nicole Kay for her contributions to this series. Original music and sound design, our courtesy of Erika H. Our theme music was created by Bendy. Fact checking for this season was done by Henry C. AJJ is our rough cut editor. They've all been doing extraordinary work to bring this crucial investigation to the world.