The World and Everything in It - June 1, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

President Biden says universal preschool will make for better educational outcomes. But what’s the evidence for that?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also a legal challenge to bans on so-called conversion therapy.

Plus a Gold Star mom speaks her heart.

And WORLD’s editor in chief says there’s a better way to educate young people.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, June 1st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: As Russia tensions simmer, NATO conducts massive war games » AUDIO: [Sound of F-35]

An F-35 fighter jet launched from the deck of a British aircraft carrier over the weekend as NATO allies conducted war games across Europe.

Some 9,000 troops, several warships, and dozens of aircraft took part in the exercises against the backdrop of rising tensions with Russia.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the drills are not a response to Russia’s recent troop buildup on its western border. He said these drills were planned a long time ago, but it sends an important message.

STOLTENBERG: That NATO is ready. NATO is there to defend all our allies. And this exercise sends a message about our ability to transport a large number of troops and equipment across the Atlantic, across Europe, and also to project maritime power.

Moscow responded to the drills by saying it will send at least 20 military units to its western border.

Russia’s decision last month to send thousands of troops to its border with Ukraine alarmed many in Europe. In 2014, NATO launched one of its biggest ever defense spending initiatives after Russian troops annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

China easing birth limits to cope with aging society » China’s ruling Communist Party said Monday it will ease birth limits to allow all couples to have three children instead of two. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: China has enforced birth limits since 1980 to restrain population growth. But now, the communist party wants to slow the rapid aging of its population.

The government worries that the number of working-age people is falling too fast while the share of citizens over age 65 is rising. That threatens China’s ambitions to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant economy.

With that in mind, Chinese ruler Xi Jinping decided to loosen restrictions to allow couples to have three children.

But simply loosening restrictions may not reverse the aging trend. In 2015, China eased restrictions that limited most couples to one child, allowing two children. But even after that change, the total number of births continued to fall.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Texas Democrats scuttle new GOP election bill » Texas Democrats staged a walkout of the state House of Representatives over the weekend to block new Republican-authored voting rules.

Democratic Representative Chris Turner told reporters on Monday...

TURNER: Democrats used the last tool available to us. We denied them the quorum that they need to pass this bill and we killed that bill.

The bill would, among other things, tighten rules on mail-in voting and block local officials from sending ballot applications to anyone who didn’t request one. It would also eliminate drive-thru voting and 24-hour polling centers—both of which were introduced in the Houston area last year.

Republicans called the scuttled rules changes reforms designed to protect the integrity of future elections.

Democrats charged that they were restrictions designed to discourage minorities from voting.

But their victory may be fleeting: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott quickly announced he would order a special session to finish the job.

New COVID-19 cases hit 14-month low » New cases of COVID-19 have fallen to a 14-month low. WORLD’s Paul Butler has that story.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: A rolling 7-day average showed daily cases drop below 20,000. It was the first time that has happened since March of last year.

Deaths associated with COVID-19 have also hit a 14-month low.

That comes as more than half of all Americans have now received at least one vaccine dose. Above the age of 12, nearly 60 percent of Americans have had a least one jab.

And a new poll suggests the number of Americans who say they will never get a COVID-19 vaccine has dropped.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released on Friday surveyed about 1,600 U.S. adults. Just 18 percent of respondents said they definitely won’t get the shot.

Health experts say to halt the spread of the virus 70 to 85 percent of the population will have to develop immunity, either through a vaccine or infection.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

Tulsa marks centennial of race massacre » Mourners will gather in Tulsa, Oklahoma today to remember those killed in a race massacre 100 years ago.

They’ll walk the same path on which black residents of Tulsa fled an attack by an armed mob a century earlier.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit today for a ceremony with local leaders.

On May 31, 1921, a mob of white people gathered outside the Tulsa jail, where police held a black 19-year-old accused of assaulting a white teenage girl. Concerned the crowd would kidnap and lynch the suspect, two dozen armed black men went to the jail, too. The groups clashed, and the violence spread. Over 18 hours, white rioters burned and destroyed Greenwood, Tulsa’s affluent black neighborhood. The estimated number of people killed ranges from dozens to 300.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the push to expand public schooling.

Plus, Biblical basics for poverty-fighting.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 1st day of June, 2021. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: universal pre-k.

During his address to Congress last month, President Biden unveiled a massive expansion of public education. He says more schooling for increasingly younger students will lead to better social and educational outcomes. And he says. And he also says parents want more access to it.

But are either of those things true? WORLD’s Leigh Jones reports.

AUDIO: [Classroom ambi]

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The 3-year-olds in this classroom are getting ready for another fun day of learning. Their parents pay nearly $600 a month to send them to this small Christian school—not something every family can afford.

President Biden wants to fix that affordability problem by making pre-K part of the government-funded school system.

BIDEN: Low- and middle-income families will pay no more than 7 percent of their income for high-quality care for children up to the age of 5. The most hard-pressed working families won't have to spend a dime.

And the president’s not proposing just any kind of childcare. He wants every 3 and 4 year old in the country in a classroom.

BIDEN: The research shows when a young child goes to school—not daycare—they are far more likely to graduate from high school and go to college or something after high school.

But is that true?

STEVENS: Pre-K attendance is telling us something about the kind of parents that children have.

Katharine B. Stevens researches education and early childhood development. She says studies showing the educational benefits of early schooling have more to do with the families those children come from.

STEVENS: Which is not to say that all parents who care deeply about education are sending their children to pre K. We know that those are the parents who especially care about education. And we see the evidence of that throughout the rest of children's school experience.

Stevens says the president’s proposal is looking to the wrong solution for a legitimate problem.

STEVENS: In our society, we've come to conflate human development with schooling. And so now, when we're thinking about early development, we're mistakenly thinking that means early schooling. But early schooling is not what young children need for optimal development.

That misconception isn’t new. Educators had the same idea back when school started in first grade. Then they decided children needed kindergarten to improve outcomes. But it didn’t work.

STEVENS: We've seen zero improvement in children's K-12 performance, later school performance. So in other words, this idea that kindergarten was going to be this game changer was proved not to be the case.

The president’s plan involves letting parents choose the best program for their preschoolers. It’s essentially a voucher system. But Stevens says anywhere policymakers have implemented similar programs at the state or local level, public schools usually become the primary option.

And they don’t have the best track record, especially with the students who need the most help.

STEVENS: We've been working on school reform for decades, and there are still substantial proportions of disadvantaged children who are not being served well by the public schools. I fail to see what would make us think that that phenomenon would not be replicated in a massively scaled up pre-K program.

But what about the president’s claim that families really want to send their 3 and 4 year olds to school?

Jenet Erickson is a senior fellow with the Institute for Family Studies. She says that’s not what surveys show.

ERICKSON: Parents feel strongly, even if they're putting their children in daycare, they'll still say the ideal is children, young children being cared for by their own parents.

That’s especially true for lower and middle income families, who are more likely to have one parent stay home. Erickson says that’s because they don’t view work the same way higher-earning parents often do.

ERICKSON: There's an identity with work that's different. There's this sense that my life and the fulfillment of my life is going to be found in my professional work. And that's not this sentiment that seems to carry in the lower and middle income families and it's probably because the work is different.

The president’s plan essentially incentivizes work. If the kids are in school, there’s no reason for parents to stay home. And that emphasis on work is something conservatives can support.

But Erickson is one of a growing number of pro-family voices advocating for a more nuanced policy approach.

ERICKSON: Those relationships of mothers and fathers with young children are really important, and that our orientation should be if we're really caring about children, it should be about doing all we can to strengthen the success of those dynamics in the home.

And that may mean helping parents who otherwise could not afford it, to care for their young children themselves.

ERICKSON: Policies that would say direct income to those families or direct payment to those families, who then get to decide how they're going to, whether that's childcare, or that's someone staying at home, how they're going to make that work best for them.

Several Republican senators, including Mitt Romney, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee, have voiced support for some form of flexible payment. Usually in the form of an expanded child tax credit.

But that gets tricky when applied to single-parent families. Then it starts sounding too much like the broken welfare system we reformed in the 1990s.

Katharine Stevens says no matter what the ultimate solution, the focus of public policy should be on what’s best for children.

STEVENS: That's the conversation that we should be starting with is what is best for the development of young children. And then take it from there. And that is not, that's not the conversation I see us having.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: conversion therapy.

Twenty states now have laws that ban counselors from doing or saying anything to help patients with gender identity or sexual orientation problems. That puts Christian therapists in a difficult position. Even mentioning the Biblical view of sexuality and gender could get them in trouble.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A licensed family therapist in Washington state is challenging one of these so-called conversion therapy bans. He says his state’s 2018 law violates his right to free speech.

Joining us now with more details on the case is Steve West. He’s an attorney and WORLD correspondent who writes the Liberties newsletter for WORLD Digital. Good morning, Steve!

STEVE WEST, GUEST: Good morning, Mary.

REICHARD: Let’s start by defining some terms here. What is conversion therapy, according to Washington state law?

WEST: It defines conversion therapy rather ominously as “a regime that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity” and it encompasses any efforts to “change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” That’s very broad, and very similar to the laws in other states, which is not surprising given the similar groups promoting them.

REICHARD: Activists who push these bans usually focus on barbaric treatments like shock therapy, right? Are those even being used or promoted by reputable therapists?

WEST: That’s not happening. Mainstream professional counseling organizations disavow intrusive treatments. So does the 50,000-member American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC), though it does allow for talk. I’m sure isolated examples can be paraded from the distant past, but that’s not what’s happening.

REICHARD: Ok, so tell us about this case. Who’s filed suit, and what is he alleging?

WEST: This lawsuit is brought by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys on behalf of Brad Tingley, a licensed family counselor and therapist in Tacoma, WA with 20 years of experience. Tingley wants to be able to talk with teens who come to him because they have unwanted same-sex attraction or struggle with their sexual identity. That’s key: These are teenagers who want help but under this law can’t get it. Interestingly enough, the law would allow Tingley to counsel a teen to accept same-sex attraction or a gender different than his biological sex.

REICHARD: What’s the legal precedent in cases like this?

WEST: Two 2014 rulings by federal courts of appeal upheld similarly broad New Jersey and California laws. So did a 2019 ruling by a district court judge in Maryland. But in November 2020 the 11th Circuit of Appeals that covers Florida, Georgia, and Alabama ruled against twin Florida bans on so-called conversion therapy.

REICHARD: Have previous challenges taken the same approach in terms of focusing on the free speech issue, or have they used different legal strategies?

WEST: The strategy is pretty much the same. Defenders of the law cast them as focused on conduct, not speech, meaning the First Amendment free speech guarantee is not applicable. Yet the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t buy that. The panel there said, “People have intense moral, religious, and spiritual views about these matters—on all sides. And that is exactly why the First Amendment does not allow communities to determine how their neighbors may be counseled about matters of sexual orientation or gender.”

REICHARD: Seems likely one of these cases will end up at the Supreme Court, right?

WEST: I think so, particularly as we see circuit courts of appeal split on the issue. And I think most parents, and many judges who are parents, would identify with a teenager who just wants to talk with someone who can offer them help. What’s so wrong with that? And it’s also ironic that a world that wants to tell kids that they can be whoever they want to be is telling them that they can’t change, that these unwanted feelings are who they are and they have to accept it.

REICHARD: Steve West is an attorney and WORLD correspondent. He writes on issues related to religious liberty for WORLD Digital. You can read more of Steve’s work and sign up for the weekly Liberties newsletter at WNG.org. Thanks so much, Steve!

WEST: Always a pleasure, Mary.

NICK EICHER, HOST: NASA aims to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024. And once they’re there, the agency is seeking a new way for them to get around on the lunar surface—something different from what we have to call that 1970s equivalent of a Model T.

So NASA seeks proposals for something more up to date. Didn’t take long for General Motors and Lockheed Martin to heed the call. Last week, they announced their vision for a sport utility for the moon—the newfangled Lunar Terrain Vehicle.

REICHARD: So not an SU-V, L-T-V. I like it!

EICHER: It’ll have cutting edge technology to let them go farther and faster than ever before.

These moon jeeps won’t be pressurized, meaning the drivers will have to wear space suits while driving. I wonder whether the moon has a seatbelt law up there.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, June 1st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. 

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

During World War I, many military families flew service flags on their homes. A blue star represented active-duty soldiers, sailors, or airmen from each family.

If the family lost a loved one in the war, a gold star replaced the blue one.

EICHER: Yesterday, many Americans gathered at grave sites and monuments to remember fallen service men and women. Among them were Gold Star families who are committed to helping others get through the grief of losing a loved one in war.

2021 World Journalism Institute graduate Lillian Hamman visited one Gold Star Mom and brings her story.

LEUSINK: You can remember every aspect of that day. You are told that if they're injured, you'll get a phone call. If they show up at your door, they're killed.

LILLIAN HAMMAN, CORRESPONDENT: It’s been 15 years since two Marines knocked on Elaine Leusink’s door with news every military family dreads.

LEUSINK: And then they read you this official notice. And your brain just goes to please let them have the wrong house, let them have made a mistake.

Eventually she’d receive a keepsake she hadn’t sought - but that has become a treasured possession: an American flag, folded in honor of her son, killed in Iraq a week before Memorial Day 2006. On Memorial Day 2021, the pain of loss remains.

LEUSINK: It still hurts, and it always will. And when it's one of your children, it's supposed to, it's not just supposed to go away, and it won't.

William Leusink—his friends call him B.Jay. He was a junior at Sioux Center High on 9-11 two decades ago. B.Jay reacted to the terror attack on his country with a sense of calling to be a protector. His mother recalls those early conversations.

LEUSINK: He came home that night. And he said to me, “Mom, I just really want to help.” And my answer was, “of course you do, you're going to go to college, become an upstanding citizen, and you're going to be able to help the world that way.” And he kind of let it rest at that point. And then it was the next summer. He called me at work and said, “Hey, Mom, we've got someone coming to talk to us tonight.” I was like, “talk to us.” Well, it was a marine recruiter.

Then things happened fast. He took early enlistment. He graduated high school. He trained. He got married. Just two weeks after taking his first post at a Marine Corps base in Hawaii, he deployed to Afghanistan.

LEUSINK: And after he got back from Afghanistan, and was home for those seven months, that is when he got his orders for Iraq. And he actually had his choice of duties, and he chose to go to Iraq.

Elaine Leusink says her son understood the importance of hearts and minds in war. BJay asked his family to keep him stocked with hard candy to keep in his pockets. When he encountered children he tried to demonstrate goodwill.

LEUSINK: And he said, “if we can get these kids to understand we're not the bad guys. That's the next generation. And he said if me giving them candy is going to do it. I need you to send me candy mom. And I was like: “Got it! I’ll send you candy.”

But it’s war. B.Jay served as a radioman. To his fellow Marines, the heart of the squad. To the enemy, a prime target. It was May of 2006 Iraqi fighters had hidden an IED—improvised explosive device. It triggered and mortally wounded 21-year-old B.Jay. On May 22nd, he died from his injuries.

LEUSINK: You know, God knew what he was doing. He was even on the battlefield. And he was with him the whole time. And we're aware of that. And we hear stories and we hear things and we hear other military boys that he was touching. And, and it, it's all part of it. It's all part of that plan.

The journey now is to bear this searing hole in the Leusink family and it has required depending solely on faith in God and in His plan.

LEUSINK: We can't fathom going through this walk without God in the picture. And, and it helps us at least know your children are a gift from God. And when he says it's time for them to come home, it's time for them to go home. And so we don't live our lives bitterly. BJ wouldn't want that he would want us to enjoy this life. And that's what he believed in. And that's why he did what he did.

Elaine Leusink has since become a member of National Gold Star Mothers. Sharing the story of her son and supporting veterans allows her to continue healing. And at the same time, she’s a voice for the mothers of soldiers who never made it home.

LEUSINK: And so we will do our duty, just like he did his duty. And so a part of that is doing interviews and making sure people understand. Your life gets to be normal, ours never will be again. And that's okay. There's a lot of sacrifices made.

Around this Memorial Day, Elaine Leusink remembers feeling God’s presence in the warm sunshine and blue sky during the first days after B.Jay’s death. She can feel God with her now as she continues serving others, as her son would want.

LEUSINK: He would want people to know that we're okay. We are okay. And there's a lot of families out there that are still struggling and still hurting and are just starting their journey. And for us to be an example of you do survive. It's different and you need to move forward. And they would want you to because that's our job.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lillian Hamman in Sioux Center, Iowa.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, June 1st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Quick reminder to send us your feedback ahead of Friday’s program. That’s the time we set aside to confess our mistakes and also to hear what you like and what you don’t like.

REICHARD: You can call it in to 202-709-9595 or email it to feedback@worldandeverything.com. Better yet, record your message on your voice memo app on your iPhone and email it to us.

EICHER: We love to hear from you. 202-709-9595. feedback@worldandeverything.com. Or use your voice memo app and create a little file and send your comments in that way.

Alright, it’s time for editor in chief Marvin Olasky on a better way to educate young people.

MARVIN OLASKY, EDITOR IN CHIEF: As some Washington think tanks turn their attention to poverty fighting, I’m thinking about three biblical basics that should underlie discussions. First, God worked six days before resting, and made man in His own image. Second, God created us male and female: Marriage is God’s way for us. Third, parents have the opportunity and obligation to raise children to become independent.

From those I derive three fundamentals in fighting poverty: Give each child the advantage of growing up with a father and a mother. Let children learn the value of work. Prepare academically-inclined children for college, and non-academically inclined for a career that will glorify God.

The liberal public policy plans I’ve been reading are full of assumptions, calculations, permutations, and combinations. Pictorially, they require climbing to the top branches of a tall tree. Meanwhile, we have not plucked the low-hanging fruit many street-level observers, including me, spotted 25 years ago.

Here are some low-hanging ways to fight poverty. Let people run small businesses out of their homes, and rent out extra rooms. Change zoning rules so residential and small commercial properties can coexist. Offer poor children and parents charter school and affordable private school options. Pour fewer billions into the higher education industrial complex. Instead, give low-income students vouchers that help them gain the job skills industry wants.

On that last point Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia professor, notes that “current federal and state funding for higher education totals about $150 billion. But only $1.9 billion in funding is devoted to vocational education in high schools and community colleges…. Too many of our schools discount the potential of less academically minded children…. Far too many high school students — especially young men — spend critical years of their development struggling in classes that bore or overwhelm them and fail to offer them a path to a stable career—much less a clear sense of vocation and direction.”

That’s a tragedy for young adults who “move in and out of dead-end jobs without accumulating the self-confidence and salary that would make them good candidates for marriage. Others drift out of the workforce entirely. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly seven million prime-age men were not looking for work.”

Liberal Washingtonians talk about climbing to the high branches. They want to create a “universal basic income” that everyone gets. They hope 18-year-olds will use it well. Much better to pluck fruit from the low-hanging branches. One way is to create career academies that offer apprenticeships to academically-struggling teens. It’s part of following God’s creation ordinances rather than our own egotistical inventions.

I’m Marvin Olasky.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: infrastructure compromise. Republicans have made a counter-offer to the president’s plan to fix our roads and bridges—and a lot more besides. We’ll tell you what’s on the GOP wish list. Plus our classic book of the month for June.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Whoever gives thought to the Word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.

Go now in grace and peace.

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