When America’s students brought the classroom to their living rooms, everything changed. The incredible wave of parental involvement collected momentum and formed a grassroots army. If you want to take part in education reform, it’ll never be a better time to dig in and fight. That’s what Josiah Gaiter tells our host, Melvin Adams, in today’s episode. It may feel like a giant weight, but with a little self-education, parents can, together, become the strongest advocates and protectors of our nation’s kids.

Did you miss last week’s episode featuring Josiah? Catch up here.

“[Education] doesn’t have to happen in any particular building. It can be in a church basement, it can be in a house with other kids from across the cul de sac and a retired science teacher or just one parent who happens to know that subject well. There’s nothing about a building that is inherently valuable. It’s what happens in the building and that can happen in any building. When we trust parents to come to that perspective, I know there’s a ton of untapped opportunities there.” — Josiah Gaitor, Deputy Director of Programs at FreedomWorks

Here are a few of the topics Josiah talks about in today’s episode:

• The resources available to parents and grandparents who want to protect their children from the public school
• Parents are the only ones who are able to truly stand up for children and make a change
• The “grassroots army” that is already pressuring legislators and educators to change their stance on public education issues, and why the present moment is the perfect time to stand up for education
• Engaging with your state and local leaders to let them know your opinions and the power of your vote in changing education 
• Becoming self-educated and focusing on small, do-able steps to engage with and influence the school system
• Educators are not experts on raising children; rather, parents are the experts and have the responsibility of educating their child— a teacher’s role is simply to supplement a child’s education 

Listen to part one of Melvin’s conversation with Josiah, or check out more of our previous episodes on The State of Education with Melvin Adams.

If you’d rather watch the video version of our podcast episodes, subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notified every week when a new episode drops. Here is today’s conversation with Josiah:

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE:

• Visit Josiah Gaiter at FreedomWorks, https://www.freedomworks.org/