On a private call with Christian millionaires, home-schooling pioneer Michael Farris pushed for a strategy aimed at siphoning billions of tax dollars from public schools

https://archive.is/kFEUu

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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    “We’ve got to recognize that we’re swinging for the fences here, that any time you try to take down a giant of this nature, it’s an uphill battle,” Farris said on the previously undisclosed July 2021 call, a recording of which was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with The Washington Post.

    The 50-minute recording, whose details Farris did not dispute in a series of interviews with The Post, is a remarkable demonstration of how the ideology he has long championed has moved from the partisan fringe to the center of the nation’s bitter debates over public education.

    When former president Donald Trump called for a federal parental bill of rights in a 2023 campaign video, saying secular public school instruction had become a “new religion,” he was invoking arguments Farris first made 40 years ago.

    Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty, which has become a powerful force in the parental rights movement since its launch less than three years ago, said it would be a mistake to overemphasize the impact of conservative Christian home-schoolers on the battles now playing out across the country.

    Farris was approached after the speech by Peter Bohlinger, a Southern California real estate magnate who helps lead Ziklag, a group devoted to expanding Christian influence over American culture and government.

    Bohlinger laid out the plan on the donor call: ADF lawyers would file lawsuits they hoped would lead to a Supreme Court ruling that declared a constitutional right to vouchers for private and home schools.


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