Well, hey, everybody. You guys know that I've been talking about what's been happening in our public schools for decades and the last eight years for sure here at the show.

And today I have a giant in the movement on the show with me. I am a super fan of today's guest Rebecca Friedrichs is part of a movement to restore the voices of authority and parents and teachers in America's public schools. This is going to be a powerful conversation. Stick around. I think you're going to be encouraged.

Well, welcome back to the off the bench podcast. This is Heidi St. John. I'm glad you guys have joined me. If you haven't yet become a subscriber to the show, you're going to want to do it because after the show today, Rebecca is going to come back for happy hour and we're going to do a deep dive and find out a little bit more about Rebecca Friedrichs kind of what the passion is that drives her. You guys are going to love this years ago. I was introduced to Rebecca's work when someone gave me her book standing up to go live.

And I was on my way to a conference where I was speaking on education, sitting at, you know, next to my husband on an airplane and I'm telling you what I was so fired up. You guys, I'm reading this book. I'm underlining. I'm earmarking. I'm highlighting and I mean, I'm hiding like crazy woman. And my husband was like, I do what are you reading? I'm like, fuck it. We know we're sitting in like probably business class or something. And I'm pulling on my husband's jacket. I'm like, you got to read this right now. And I finally got so upset. I had to put the book down because this woman is straight fire. And she understood.

Understand what is happening in our schools because she was a teacher for 28 years in the public schools. She was forced to fund unions,

she's politics and divisive tactics, degraded her profession, our schools and our national character. And she ended up filing a lawsuit.

Friedrichs versus the California Teachers Association. She went with 10 other teachers. And it was argued before the Supreme Court in January of 2016. This is a fantastic story.

I'm sure you're going to love her as much as I do Rebecca. Welcome to the show. It is an honor to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Well, the honor is truly mine. I want to jump right into this because like you just heard me say when I introduced you, I read your book and I was like, this is straight fire.

Like, why aren't you on Fox News every single and never mind. Why aren't you on MSNBC every single night of the week talking about what's happening in our schools because it really is tragic.

So, so let's let's start right there because I want to find out about what, you know, what drove you to to file a lawsuit and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. That's a story in and of itself.

Well, what drove me is I was forced to fund so called teacher unions, who by the way are neither teachers nor are they you, they claim to represent teachers, but they don't.

And they're not a traditional union. They're really an education mafia. And here I was forced as a condition of employment to fund them.

I watched as bad teachers would abuse children and they wouldn't lose their jobs because the union would defend them. I watched as good teachers would be falsely accused and lose their jobs or be harassed.

I watched as children were being, you know, we went from having this incredible American educational system with phonics and the classics and we had the 10 commandments on the wall in every classroom.

We were we were great because we were good as Alexis the Tocaville said and it started in our schools and I watched as this education mafia literally plowed through our educational system using my name teacher using my profession using money they forced me to pay them to literally destroy educational system our children attack our families and our faith and everything else.

So, you know, through my entire career, I knew they were a problem and I kept trying to push back in different ways. But about halfway into my career, I realized my goodness since I have to pay them as a condition of employment, I'm going to step up and become a union representative.

I'm going to get on the inside and I'm going to try to change things from the inside because none of my friends agreed with the nonsense that was going on. They couldn't figure out that it was the union behind it all they knew there was a problem.

So I become a union rep. I did that for three years and I served in the on the executive board in my local and I'd go to state level leadership meetings and that's when I saw the demonic agenda inside the National Education Association, the California Teacher Association, all the government.

I quote teacher unions, the education mafia, everything they were doing was pushing the LGBTQ agenda, transgenderizing our kids.

They're for open borders, defunding police, they're for abolishing ice, they hate Trump, they hate anything good, they hate charter schools.

You name it. If it's something that's good for our kids in our country, the unions are literally attacking it. So I saw that from the inside, I also got bullied on the inside as did my friends who had the courage to stand up.

...