Welcome to the Freedom to Learn podcast.

I'm your host, Ginny Gentles.

This season, we're diving into what it means to return education to states, communities, and families.

And we're exploring what becomes possible when education is freed from union dominance and federal control.

Sarah Poshal Perry joins the podcast today to discuss the legal, cultural, and policy battles shaping American education.

We cover the mission of defending education's new Center for Litigation and Legal Policy.

We talk about the outsized influence of accrediting bodies like the American Bar Association.

We cover teachers' unions,

political spending, and activism, as well as gender secrecy plans and the ongoing battle for parental rights and education. We added a new rapid fire component to today's episode, so please

let us know what you think. Sarah Perry is Vice President and Legal Fellow at Defending Education and a former

senior council at the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. She's also the chair

of the Federalist Society's Education Law Executive Committee. Sarah Parishol-Perry,

welcome to Freedom to Learn. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

You're one of the most energetic, dedicated, and determined people I've had the pleasure to work with in recent years, and it is a crowded field.

What drew you to our particular public policy arena? You know, I think, Ginny, it's probably your exact same

skin in the game, right? Once you have kids, your perspective on the value of American public

education completely changes. For many people, and I think the majority of American parents,

public schools, the necessity for their kids. And once I realized that I was having to walk this

path with my children, and I was really

sort of radicalized during the COVID era. In fact, I was serving at the U.S. Department of Education

is one of the senior attorneys at the civil rights office at the time. And it was surreal because

I was working for the government sitting at my kitchen table because the entire government

...