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One Thing: Understanding “The Assignment” with Audie Cornish
CNN 5 Things
Nov 27, 2022
Over the past few years, once-sleepy local school board meetings have become passionate and occasionally rowdy venues for debate over issues like the pandemic, race, gender and more. We’ve also seen school board elections become more partisan than ever. We hear from two parents about why they decided to run for office and what changes they hope to make while in power.
Listen to “The Assignment” here.
Guest: Audie Cornish, CNN Anchor & Correspondent
Episode Transcript
David Rind (host)
00:00:01
Hey there. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Maybe you got a few days off work as well. If you're a parent, you may be more than ready at this point for your kids to go back to school after their holiday break. And that's what I want to talk about today. Schools and who decides how they're run?
Schoolboard meeting nats
00:00:19
You're stepping over your line.
Schoolboard meeting nats
00:00:21
You don't need to breathe for me.
Schoolboard meeting nats
00:00:25
Diversity is a code word for anti-white.
Parent
00:00:28
We are pulling our son today from this school district. Who will be taking responsibility?
Schoolboard meeting nats
00:00:33
Let's take a recess. The board will take a recess.
David Rind (host)
00:00:36
Over the past few years. Local school board meetings have become ground zero for intense debates over so-called culture war issues, the pandemic, gender, race, just to name a few.
School Board moderator
00:00:47
Alright, Thank you, your time is up.
Parent
00:00:48
We failed we have no one .
School Board moderator
00:00:49
your time is up.
Parent
00:00:51
My time is never up because I am a parent.
School Board moderator
00:00:53
Your time is up.
David Rind (host)
00:00:55
And that frustration has motivated some parents to get off the sidelines and run for school board positions themselves in races that have become more overtly partizan than ever. My guest this week is CNN correspondent Audie Cornish. She's the host of the new podcast, The Assignment. She spoke to two such parents about what motivated them to run for office and what they hope to do now that they're in power. From CNN, this is one thing. I'm David Rind. Hey, Audie. So your new podcast is called The Assignment, and after I heard the first episode, I knew I wanted to talk to you because you covered something that I've been wanting to talk about on the show for a while, how school boards and school board meetings have gotten so politically charged, and what motivates a parent to run for a position on the board. But what I find really fascinating about your reporting was that this is not necessarily a new phenomenon, right?
Audie Cornish
00:01:55
No, no. We ended up focusing on the kind of mid to late seventies. But instead of, for instance, the Boston busing crisis. Right. Which was over an integration program in that school system, we heard about this little story out of Kanawha County.
Speaker
00:02:17
We feel that in no way can this type of literature benefit and further our children's education.
Audie Cornish
00:02:23
It was in West Virginia and it became nationally known in around 1974 for this kind of massive controversy over textbooks.
Parent
00:02:35
We do not want any teacher to assign any of this material at any time for any of our children to read.
Audie Cornish
00:02:44
Just like a couple hundred textbooks that the school board was going to approve for the school library and for use. And at the time, these were books that were by black and brown authors.
Parent
00:02:56
We absolutely refused to have the liberal point of view pushed upon our children.
Newscaster
00:03:01
In Kanawha County, West Virginia, there was violence today and the continuing demonstrations against the use of controversial textbooks in the schools. The Charleston Gazette said in an editorial today the county is near anarchy.
Audie Cornish
00:03:13
And it ended with actually some bombings of some school structures.
Newscaster
00:03:19
Shattered windows, chairs scattered about what was left of Mrs. Catherine Albright's first grade room at Midway Elementary School at Campbell's Creek, West Virginia.
Audie Cornish
00:03:34
And it's good to remember sometimes that even when we think things are pretty bad, they can be worse. And the goal is not to repeat history.
David Rind (host)
00:03:43
Right. And so today, over the past few years that we've been kind of seeing these videos, you know, parents at a local community center shouting into like kind of low budget microphones. But what what kind of is behind this wave of anger and frustration that we've been seeing?
Audie Cornish
00:03:59
Well, this is an instance where I wanted to follow up on a story that you would have seen in the headlines a lot. And I think they were very captivating and sort of tense images that we all saw of these school board members just yelling. But a lot of times, you know, in the heat of the moment, we had sort of reduced them to only the yelling. One of the things we heard in the reporting is the idea that education and public schools in particular are kind of America's dinner table. And it is a place where we all eventually, in one way or another, kind of have to sit down and eat. And it's where we share values. It's where we bump up against each other. It's where our values bump up against each other. And so I think that what we wanted to do was find some school board members who had kind of gotten on board with the politics of this moment.
Amy Cahvey
00:04:57
I actually think we had one of our best starts to the school year yet. So I'm very happy with that.
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:05:07
And April, what about you?
April Carney
00:05:09
I have to agree. I think that we are off to a great start.
Audie Cornish
00:05:12
And I came at this thinking, I want to know who these people are. What is it that they want? How do they hear how they've been received? And now that they're seeking power and in some cases winning it, what do they want to do with that power?
David Rind (host)
00:05:37
Audie, before the break, you said you wanted to talk to school board members who had gotten on board with the politics of this moment. Who did you find and what did they tell you?
Audie Cornish
00:05:47
So we spoke to in this case two school board members. One was April Carney. She's from Duval County in Florida. And the other one was Amy Cahvey of Lansing, Kansas. You know, one of the things we wanted to do was really hone in on the people who were expressly political in their desire for change.
April Carney
00:06:08
This is April, I have to say. You know, we were we were only closed for a short period of time here in Florida from March till the end of that school year. And I have to say, that was just enough for me to get a tidbit of how hard it is to be an educator.
Audie Cornish
00:06:25
So April is interesting because she's from Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has really made education and so-called parents rights a core part of his public agenda.
GovernorRon Desantis
00:06:38
Florida is the state where woke goes to die.
Audie Cornish
00:06:42
And he's gone as far as to actually back candidates at the school board level.
David Rind (host)
00:06:47
Oh, like he's getting involved?
Audie Cornish
00:06:48
Yeah, he's actually getting involved.
April Carney
00:06:50
Well, I think that, you know, the reason why he and the first lady decided to do this is because people just simply weren't paying attention to down ballot races.
Audie Cornish
00:07:00
But it's not that it's apolitical. Like we are looking at a political movement.
April Carney
00:07:04
Yeah. I mean. Well, I think it's it's a parent movement is what it is.
Audie Cornish
00:07:08
And it's not that there's never been politics right at the school board level. It's that, you know, in this hyper-partisan moment, it's like witnessing that transition happening where people were, you know, in this case, signing a pledge to be part of his agenda, to be a candidate that also represents the governor.
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:07:27
Amy, can I ask you about this as well? You ran explicitly as a conservative.
Amy Cahvey
00:07:32
Yeah. The idea that politics were not already in that and that it's bringing it in. I would disagree with because it has already been in there. The NEA, the teachers unions across the country are highly political.
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:07:48
Right. This is the National Education Association. So to you, it is about bringing I mean, you have an ideology as well. You're not you're saying that you're not pretending you don't.
Amy Cahvey
00:07:58
No, I'm not I'm not pretending. I don't. But what I would like in that ideology is a conservative viewpoint of that is to keep the politics out of schools.
GovernorRon Desantis
00:08:13
We also drew a line in the sand and said, you know, in the state of Florida, a parent should be able to send their kid to kindergarten without having woke gender ideology shoved down their throat. We're not going to have some first grader be told that, you know. Yeah, your parents named you Johnny. You were born a boy, but maybe you're really a girl.
David Rind (host)
00:08:38
So in Florida earlier this year, we kind of saw this so-called "don't say gay bill," which is what the critics call it. And, you know, Governor Ron DeSantis very involved in pushing that. So what did the parents, especially the one who's in Florida, have to say about that, that legislation and how they kind of approach those subjects being brought up in class?
Audie Cornish
00:08:57
Yeah, that's a great example. It's known colloquially as the don't say gay bill. It's language aims to kind of put limits and give guidance on how and when and if at all gender ideology is taught about in classrooms.
April Carney
00:09:13
I think that a five year old who still believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny doesn't need to be taught about gender ideology.
Audie Cornish
00:09:22
When I talked about this with these parents, this was an area where they felt quite strongly the idea that gender identity was being focused on too much.
April Carney
00:09:33
All we want to do is have school, be a place where you're focused on reading, writing, arithmetic. We're focusing on all of these other issues that could be addressed at home with the parents.
Audie Cornish
00:09:49
And you get the sense that they don't necessarily believe that certain kinds of values should come from schools and should be taught by schools, which in some ways is ironic because so much of what public education is, is socialization and the sharing of values and teaching people communal values. So I think this gets at some of the fractures there. And I want to add one more thing, which is that, you know, you'll hear the voice of a student who we kept anonymous because because they're a minor, because they're trans, and because we know, you know, how difficult life can be for that community.
Student
00:10:31
How is it that my existence is a threat to other people? Because my existence, my identity, my sexuality, my gender, that's me. And the same goes for everybody else in this world.
Audie Cornish
00:10:48
But what this person said was, you know, I don't feel safe hearing this kind of language. I don't feel safe hearing this kind of rhetoric. Who's going to represent me? And even though the way our show is structured, you know, we weren't spending a lot of time with that voice. We were focused on these parents. It's like I wanted them to hear it and I wanted them to respond to it.
Student
00:11:14
And I think the fact that we can't even express that in schools where we're supposed to be safe, where we are encouraged to grow and be ourselves, I just think that that is completely unacceptable.
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:11:26
What do you hear in the voice of a student like that?
April Carney
00:11:29
I think that we're putting these kids under a microscope. And I actually think that by drawing more attention to the struggles they're going through, it's actually putting more pressure on them. I have a friend of mine who whose son is gay and has come home and said, Mom. It's all day. Every day. It's nonstop. I feel like I'm being singled out and I really just want to be with my peers and go about my school day. And so I think there's a way to be inclusive without making it a spectacle. And I think that's what it's become. And in turn, it's actually having a negative effect on these on these kids that are struggling with their gender identity. And I think if there was less focus on it during the school day and more focus on academics and just being a kid, I think it might lessen lessen the pressure for her. I feel I feel for her. I do empathize with her.
David Rind (host)
00:12:35
So in the end, do these parents, they see themselves as political candidates, as parents running for school board, something in between? Where did they kind of fall on that?
Audie Cornish
00:12:46
I asked both the parents this question, and it's pretty clear that they felt like they somehow had no choice, that the atmosphere in public education to them is political to them has a liberal bent, and therefore they needed to be explicitly conservative in the way they presented themselves to voters to kind of signal, hey, over here, kind of I'm...I understand your concerns.
David Rind (host)
00:13:14
And this is what I'm for.
Audie Cornish
00:13:16
Yeah, but you can hear them wrestling with that about whether or not that is a good thing.
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:13:21
I mean, I've got kids under the age of five and I turn on the news and I look out in the world and I do see like conflicts and history. And they need a bunch of critical thinking skills, which I very much hope to give them. But it sounds like you guys are saying, like, don't do that in school.
April Carney
00:13:39
Oh, no, I'm a I'm a hug...
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:13:41
That's kind of sending them out in the world, being like, wait, do we talk about LGBT issues? Like, what do you think about racism?
April Carney
00:13:47
I ran on having more critical thinking in the classroom? I think that's where we're lacking. We need more critical thinking and we need to be teaching our kids to think for themselves and to have their own opinions. And we need to be supportive of that.
Audie Cornish (interview)
00:13:57
Unless a parent thinks it's inappropriate, then they can make a phone call to a tip line. Right, and say, I didn't like the way that went down.
April Carney
00:14:05
Well, and that's a discussion to be had between the school board and the parent. But we need to be having these discussions and it needs to happen and it's uncomfortable, but we need to be having discussions. I welcome parents commentary. We have to be able to listen to one another so that we can come together. It's the only way it's ever going to happen.
Audie Cornish
00:14:28
You know, I want to add one more thing, which is that in a way, this is the beginning of the assignment meaning. We want to hear from people. We want to hear from listeners. If you have a story, if you're listening and it's you're like, I have a story. It affects my community. There's something I'm talking about in my WhatsApp groups. We also want you to call us. You know, I want you to call me and tell me we've actually set up a voicemail box so you can leave a message at 202-854-8802. But you also can record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at the assignmentCNN@gmail.com. We're going to be going through those, you know, looking for more stories going forward.
David Rind (host)
00:15:10
All right. You have your assignment, folks.
Audie Cornish
00:15:12
See, it works.
David Rind (host)
00:15:15
It's fascinating stuff. Audie Cornish, thanks so much.
Audie Cornish
00:15:17
Thank you.
David Rind (host)
00:15:25
One thing is a production of CNN audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Faiz Jamil is our senior producer. Greg Peppers is our supervising producer and Abbie Fentress Swanson is the executive producer of CNN Audio. Special thanks this week to Hayley Thomas Dan Dzula and Alex Manasseri. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next Sunday. Talk to you then.