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Common Sense Is Coming Back to Schools And Policy
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Common sense is showing up in places we did not expect, and that’s exactly why we love Good News Friday. We kick things off with a story that hits close to home for parents and educators: states across the political spectrum are moving to bring recess back and prioritize physical activity in public schools. We talk about why movement matters for kids’ health, focus, and long term development, and why this shift feels like a quiet win for families who want schools to support the whole child.
Then we dig into a major education policy update: new Department of Education guidance saying schools should neither favor nor disfavor students by race when it comes to discipline. We unpack what race based discipline quotas and “restorative justice” pressures have looked like in practice, why they can undermine safety and fairness, and why accountability should be applied consistently to every student.
From there, we pivot to immigration policy details most people never hear about, including B1 business and B2 tourist visas, visa overstays, and how asylum is meant to be a narrow safeguard rather than a loophole. We also highlight a potential FDA leader, Dr. Heidi Overton, and why her medical credentials and clarity on the science of unborn human life matter. Finally, we test climate catastrophe claims against long term data and end with encouraging news of large prayer gatherings in the UK that point to spiritual hunger beyond the US.
If you found this encouraging, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find Good News Friday.
Good News Friday Kickoff
SPEAKER_02It's good news Friday. Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us today on the Wall Builder Show. Taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And Fridays, we get a lot of good news. So we're just going to jump right in. Oh, by the way, websites wallbuilders.show and wallboilders.com. We give those out every day. But we're also encouraging you to go to all the different podcast apps. Make sure you're listening to Wall Builder Show and sharing it with your friends and family. Check that out at all your favorite podcast apps today. Okay, guys, let's jump in. I'm looking forward to some good news today. David, what's our first piece of
The Push To Bring Back Recess
SPEAKER_02good news?
SPEAKER_00Guys, this one has kind of a personal bias of worldview in here. In my worldview, uh just growing up, scripture study, et cetera, I'm a firm believer in physical exercise just because of all the Bible verses that talk about how it's good. Um our body's the temple of the Holy Spirit is probably one that I go to most often, and I want that temple to be in shape. I don't want it to be in um you know, sloppy out of shape. So I I think a degree of of physical fitness is is good and exercise is good, and and I just I think that's a healthy thing. And for in my case, it seems to have um it seems to kind of help sharpness of mind, at least for me, when I'm when my body's feeling pretty good, m my mind feels good as well. So all that to say, based on my personal experience, I really like this story. Now I know the story is based on more of my experience because nobody talked to me about this, but it's it it's called the push to bring recess time back in public schools. And so what has happened is in the the last two years there's been a surge of both blue states and red states having these medical studies to say, hey, this is not good uh to to not have physical activity with the kids in schools. And so there's uh I uh now the HHS has come out with guidance that says, look, you need PE classes every day, and you need you need sixty to ninety minutes of exercise uh a a day kind of thing. Just stuff that keeps your body stimulated and going. And so I was looking at the states that have done this, and so back in 2024, California, Connecticut, Washington, which all of those are blue states, enacted laws. Then last year, Illinois, Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia enacted laws. Uh South Carolina just enacted the law, so we're talking definite blue and definite red. It's it kind of crosses the spectrum. And in South Carolina, they said, look, twenty minutes of recess a day in addition to 90 minutes of physical education class per week. So there's this growing, growing movement to get hold of that. I I thought it was interesting. They had a at Heritage they had a a kind of a seminar think tank kind of thing on this. And they talk about how that we've lost recess over recent years because teachers were looking for every opportunity to indoctrinate and and having twenty to sixty minutes more a day gets them more social indoctrination in and and they called it social engineering in the conference. And so there's a turn away from that. I just think that's a real good thing for kids, it's a real good thing for everything across the board. I think it helps thinking skills. I I think there's so many things that go with this. So for me, that's a piece of good news. Um, it's even a better piece of good news because of my worldview that thinks that some degree of physical fitness is definitely worthwhile. So I that's that's what I'm starting with for today, guys, is the push to bring recess time back to public schools. And that's something that red and blue seem to agree on right now, which is good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it used to almost just be common sense, right? That that was good for the kids, and uh, you know, you got away from that. And I had not heard that that was part of the reason, was they just wanted more more indoctrination time. So here's a good lesson. At recess, run, run from the indoctrination. All right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Ending Race Based Discipline Policies
SPEAKER_01Tim, what's your first piece of good news, man? Well, this one is coming from the Department of Education, and guys, uh, this title really caught me off guard. I I had to read through, I thought I knew where this article was going. The good news is uh it's solving some of this problem, but the title says Department of Education to no longer require school discipline policies that discriminate on the basis of race. And I thought, wait a second, discipline based on race? What does this mean? And again, I I had some ideas of how that might work, but it did it too caught me off guard. So this was last week. The Department of Education issued guidance Tuesday urging schools to neither favor nor disfavor students based on race when it comes to discipline, reversing Obama-era guidelines. Now, what in the world could that have been? Uh, and as the article points out, you go back in 2018, there was a report from the Federal Commission on School Safety uh due to a 2014 letter. This is the Obama letter, uh, that schools ignored or covered up rather than disciplined student misconduct in order to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers. Okay, catch that for a second. They they covered it up or they ignored when there should have been discipline because they didn't want there to be a disparity of the outcome, regardless of who was doing bad behavior. So if one white kid gets in trouble, then one brown kid gets in trouble, and one black kid gets in trouble, whatever it might be. But we have to make sure there's equity of distribution. And so we can't have too many kids of one segment or one identity, however, this intersectionality uh kind of chart might work. And that was what was encouraged apparently from the Obama in the federal government. The article points out that as a result, uh, students who should have been suspended or expelled for dangerous behavior remained in the classroom, making all students left safe. And this is actually now going into Trump's order, uh, that they need to adopt racial quotas, or it concluded, sorry, uh, this is a 2020 Heritage Foundation report concluded that adopting the racial quotas in school discipline is not only illegal and unjustified, it is counterproductive. And part of this goes back to um Title VI, which I could not even remember exactly what all was in Title VI. Title VI is part of the um the civil rights. We know Title Vine was about protecting girls' sports, and now there's confusion of what girls' sports is. Uh, and this might be at some point, this might be a Good News Friday program talking about Innis Cantor Freedom playing in the WNBA. I don't think he will, but I think he's the one that's gonna maybe actually challenge them to define what a woman is. That's Title IX is protecting women's sports. Well, Title VI dealt with civil rights issues, and the Department of Education, uh, their Office for Civil Rights also opened two Title VI investigations into school districts that allegedly required personnel to consider race when making disciplinary decisions. Now, these are two examples they're identifying. It's not the only ones, but they're using this to point out why it's wrong and you can't do this. One of them is in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and we got a lot of friends up in that Fayetteville area, but there was a directive from the administration to teachers to take students' racial identities into account. And this is the order coming down from administration to teachers. Take students' racial identities into account when issuing discipline as part of an effort to bring about restorative justice to add the disproportionality of discipline of students of color. Now, when you're getting a note from your administrator telling you to make sure that you're considering racial identities to bring about restorative justice, that is woke nonsense saying that we don't care how a student behaves, we care more what the color of their skin is, right? This is again along the lines, we care more about what somebody's identity is, where they are on this intersectionality chart, whatever that might be. Uh, there's also an example they gave from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when the teachers, a school district, uh reportedly derided school policies. This is for the teachers, uh, that appear to be neutral as reflecting systemic whiteness, seemingly encouraging school officials to consider race and disciplinary practice. So in Wisconsin, uh, you need to consider whiteness uh and how you operate and function in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Make sure that you take their racial identities into account for restorative justice, et cetera. So these are examples they gave. Now, guys, the good news is the Department of Education said that, yeah, we're not gonna let schools discriminate and discipline based on race. We're not gonna let somebody say that because a kid is white, you can discipline them, and if they're not white, you can't discipline them. That's crazy. You need to uphold a standard of morality, a standard of right and wrong. And it doesn't matter who violates it, if it's a boy or a girl, if they're 14, 16, or 18, if they violate it, regardless of their gender, their ethnicity, the their race, the color of their skin, however you want to label it, they need to be held accountable. So, guys, it's really good news that there is now pressure from the administration to remove this racial quota, this uh restorative justice, the the whatever kind of woke nonsense was going on. That's really good news. It boggles my mind a little bit that that's what public schools were doing. And yet again, guys, it's one more example where so often we talk about the problem inside of so many public school systems. And this is not a slight on some amazing public school teachers that are out there. It's recognizing again the system. There are so many not good people and not good motives that are in the public school system. If you have an option, look for other options than having your kid in public school. And this is just one more example why. But the good news here is that the Trump Department of Education has come out and said, Yeah, we're not gonna do that anymore, and that is good news.
SPEAKER_02Well, Tim, I'm gonna sound a lot like David here. Your problem is you've been reading the Bible too much. See, you you just haven't listened to the social justice warriors and stuff, because you actually think that we should have neither Jew nor Greek and that we should treat rich and poor the same in court. I mean, clearly you've just been reading the Bible way too much because it's it's all about color skin and whether or not, you know, you're part of some previously discriminated against group. So as a country boy, I think that, you know, we country boys have been made fun of for too long, and that I should be treated different than everybody else. And therefore, if I commit the crime or the infraction in school or whatever it might be, it should be looked over. And uh anybody that went to Yale or any fancy school, they should be prosecuted. Okay, all right. Obviously, I'm trying to be sarcastic like your dad would be, but it really is a complete difference in worldview. These people actually think that's real justice. That, oh, you don't have enough white kids going to the principal's office, gotta send more. You don't have enough brown kids, you don't have enough, like you said, age or whatever. So thank the good lord we've got some common sense at the DOJ now saying that's wrong, it's evil, it shouldn't be allowed. But I think you're right, man. Too many schools still doing doing that. All right, David, back over to you.
SPEAKER_00I think I I think I said what you were probably thinking. Well, you're you're in the the right spot of what I was thinking is how how is it that common sense is now good news? You know, it's like that are are we so crazy that when we see an instance of common sense we we have to call it out as something special?
Visa Loopholes And Asylum Abuse
SPEAKER_00And I get I guess that's part of where we are. So I've got another one that goes with it. Now this one I I I will admit that this is good news to me in an area that I had never considered. And and I'm gonna hit illegal immigration for just a minute. Well, we know there's tens of millions of illegal immigrants here uh uh here not according to the law. But I've got to admit till I read this article, I haven't thought I hadn't thought about the different classifications of immigration and and the different ways you can come to the United States and the different reasons. And I'll just ask you guys, do you know what a B1 or a B2 visa is? Either one of you. I'm not getting a response. I'm gonna take that as probably not.
SPEAKER_01So I Yeah, all I could think of was uh it seems like um there's some kind of bomber we use back in the day. Yeah. Something similar to that.
SPEAKER_00Tim. That was going to be my joke too. B1 is stealth, B2 is stealth, so this must be stealth visas. I that was exactly where I was going. So B1, B2. My only response would be there's too many of them. Well, there are, and I didn't know there were any of them. Um but a B one visa is if you're here for a short-term business activity, um, uh you're you're you're not here for labor, and it's you can't seek employment while you're here, but you're here for short-term business activities. And a B2 visa is for tourists. Those who want to come visit US or visit friends or relatives, or if you come here to take a vacation, or if you have to get sp special medical treatment, that's a B-2 visa. Now, as it turns out, there's millions and millions and millions of these. Uh just in in Biden's last year, uh, the number of those in in Biden's last year, there were six point five million temporary visitor visas, and those six point five million, uh, some of them now go back over look I'm looking at some of these that were issued twenty-five years ago, they're still here in the United States. So you're here for temporary, for a vacation or for medical treatment or whatever, and and we're talking millions and millions who and and see the deal with the B-1B2 is it's less scrutiny to get in because you're not planning to be here long. We know you're not gonna be a citizen, or we used to know that, we used to think that. So we don't do all the same background checks that that we normally do. It's a less stringent requirement, which is why it appears that many people use the B-1B2. I'm I'm just coming for the weekend and got to visit parents or whoever, and I stay 25 years. So it it's interesting that they are now shutting that down. They've said this is not going to be used. Um here here's their statement. Asylum isn't supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration laws, rather, it's supposed to provide a narrow, safe harbor for persons persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. But the system has been swamped by frivolous asylum claims, and it takes years to adjudicate this stuff. So here's another way of of going at getting illegal immigrants out and you following the law. We we believe in the rule of law. If we're not gonna do that, let's get rid of the laws. But as long as we got the law, enforce the law, and we've not been enforcing this law, and now we're seeing enforcement come back to that law. And to me, that's good news. So when you start enforcing look, if you don't want to enforce the law, that's fine. Get it off the books. But don't leave it there for selective prosecution later on when you find somebody you don't like and you dig out a law that nobody else uses where you're gonna use it against them. That's why you don't want those laws on the books that don't get enforced. If you're not gonna enforce it, get it off the books. If you have it, enforce it. And that's the good news. And I I've got to admit, I had no idea there were so many levels of layers of immigration where you can get different kinds of visas and different types of immigration, asylum, etc. Uh, but it's just it's good to see that they're looking into all that, starting to close the loopholes and close the doors. I I think it's really good to go back to being a nation that enforces the laws it has.
SPEAKER_02What a difference it makes to have a good administration. Quick break,
Jefferson Declaration Draft Resource
SPEAKER_02everybody. We'll be back. We've got more good news for you when we return. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.
SPEAKER_01Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from Wall Builders. I want to let you know about a new resource that should be a tool in your toolbox. This is the reprint of Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Now, there's lots of reasons it would be cool to own a reprint like this, but one of the things that I want to highlight is not only is this a reprint that is in Thomas Jefferson's own hand in cursive, it shows some of its edits along the way, which is really fun, but it also shows what Thomas Jefferson thought was the most significant grievance in the original draft. It's the longest grievance, it's the last grievance. It was a grievance against the slave trade, arguing actually also against slavery, and arguing for the humanity of all that were in slaves. Thomas Jefferson thought that was the most important. Now, it didn't make it in the final draft, and we will explain why in the resource packet you get when you order one of these copies. But friends, this is something that you want in your collection. Go to wallbrother.com and look for Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Wall Booter Show.
Potential FDA Pick And Pro Life Science
SPEAKER_02Thanks for staying with us. Good news Friday today, and it's back over to Tim.
SPEAKER_01Well, guys, this is good news coming again from the Trump administration. This is dealing with uh somebody who could be the next commissioner of the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. It's Dr. Heidi Overton. Now, President Trump is uh they're expecting he is going to nominate her. Actually, that that could be really any day, any moment. Uh, this article is from last week, but Overton currently serves as deputy director for the White House Domestic Policy Council. She advises the president on health policy. Uh, she served as chief policy officer for the American First Policy Institute. She led the Center for Healthy America, and she was also a fellow in the first Trump White House from 2019 to 2020. Uh, if that's not enough, she's also board certified in public health and general preventative medicine. She trained in general surgery or as a general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and she earned a doctorate and clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. So all of us to say she's got phenomenal credentials when it comes to anything from the medical side. And I say this because the left often likes to pretend like that if you nominate a conservative, because they're conservative, they're not qualified, they don't warrant it, et cetera, et cetera. Well, this person is clearly a qualified medical personnel, a physician and White House health policy advisor. But here's what's more interesting. She did an article uh where she was interviewed by Life News, and she confirmed that the science is clear. Unborn babies are human beings. Now, guys, this is huge. Uh, you know, the things that sometimes have become controversial that you never would have thought were controversial or that we should be so excited to have somebody who holds basic scientific views on something. But this is that moment when the left continually goes on about following the science, and and then they completely ignore the science and and matters that don't really uh benefit their argument. They don't want to talk about the science of gender. And in this case, they don't want to talk about the science of the unborn. The fact that a woman could see uh the baby inside her womb, watch it move and breathe, uh, they they can take home a picture, share with friends on social media, all these are things that happen. The article points out that new ultrasound technology allows doctors and parents to see a baby's development in incredible detail. Uh, there's a medical review that states this encourages maternal fetal bonding, which of course makes sense. Uh, when that mom sees that unborn child in her womb being uh developed, growing inside of her, obviously there's a greater connection. Um, there are now improved treatments for extremely preterm infants uh who have improved survival with a 2020 academic study finding that 78% of infants born at 22 to 28 gestational weeks survive to go home with their parents. Incredible stuff. All of us to say, the science is becoming more and more and more clear. I mean, really, I we would argue it wasn't confusing at the beginning uh what an unborn child was or there was value for that unborn child. But the good news now is that President Trump is about to nominate someone to lead the FDA who actually holds pro-life views as a highly credentialed medical doctor. It seems that those two things have become contradictory in recent years or decades, but it's really encouraging to have more pro-life people serving at high levels of our nation's government.
SPEAKER_02It's uh very, very good news. Uh, let's see. Okay, we're back over to do it.
SPEAKER_00What's your next piece of good news?
130 Years Of Climate Claims Tested
SPEAKER_00Well, guys, this piece of good news is something that has been a big deal with me for a long time. Um, you guys recall back 20 years ago, uh, or 18 or whatever, testified at the U.S. Senate on all the global warming stuff that was going on, the climate change. And so this has been a real big deal. I've been right in there with all those other climate change deniers, and I don't deny that climate changes. I just don't think it's going in the catastrophic direction they've been predicting for all these years, which is giving them license to impose new regulations, new restrictions, new everything. It just gives the government more control to run every aspect of your life, uh to have auto-kill switches on on your cars to tell what kind of gasoline you can it's just it's crazy nonsense for regulation. And lo and behold, it's interesting. Um on the on the Biden um the Biden EPA, they had 80 web pages up there showing all these uh I I I guess the way you you describe it is what they see as evidence that they were right. So it it it lists all these heat waves that come and coastal floodings that occur and wildfires and snowfall and droughts and all the things that they predicted was gonna shut. They give you all the examples where this happened. Well, interesting, the American Enterprise Institute said, yeah, this stuff happens. We've known that. It's happened from the beginning of time. The question is, does it happen with more frequency? Because that's the argument. It's global warming that's gonna drive us to more and more frequency. Uh back to the time I was testifying, they said, hey, within four to six years, we think that the East Coast will be underwater, Washington, D.C. You'll be able to launch a boat from the Lincoln Memorial and Washington, D.C. There'll be massive drowning. They predicted one to two billion would drown as a result of the coastal flooding from the melting of the polar ice caps. The the polar ice caps are going to melt because the climate's etc. So finally somebody said, why don't we look at it over time? So the American Enterprise Institute went back and and looked at a hundred and thirty years of data. And what they found was that if you take all the climate prediction stuff that was going to happen, uh more floods, they can't find any rise in floods over the last hundred and thirty years. Floods happen now, they happen then, but there's been no increase or uptick in the frequency of floods, nor have they been more severe. The same thing with tornadoes, we're supposed to have more severe weather. The amount of tornadoes per year goes up and down from year to year, but over 130 years it's been pretty straight across the deck. And then if you look at um things like drought, that was going to be the other thing was we're all going to burn up and we won't be able to supply food because the drought that has 130 years, the same frequency it happens, it doesn't happen, cycles, but no no change. The same thing with wildfires. Now this is kind of personal for us because we had a wildfire right around our ranch this weekend. We had to load the stock up, move it out to get away from the fire. But that's the only fire we've had around our ranch in maybe a hundred years, but when they looked at 130 years there's no more overall wildfires now than there have been same with hurricanes. So all this catastrophic stuff they've been saying is going to get worse and worse and worse and therefore every time we have one they highlight it. When you go back and look at the chart for 130 years, it just doesn't hold up. There hasn't been an uptick in that activity which is I think part of the reason why that we we talked good news earlier this year, but over in Europe, uh they've just dropped it over there. That is it's not what it used to be. Even five years ago they were so phobic on on climate change stuff and now that's no longer part of their agendas for the governments in Europe, which is a real big change and that's a great acknowledgement that they don't believe in anymore. And now we got some scientific data to go with that.
SPEAKER_02Hopefully we're moving away from worshiping the creation instead of the creator. Tim I think we got time for a final one man.
SPEAKER_01Uh we absolutely do this is uh dealing with what's known as the Battle of Britain.
Britain Turns To Prayer Again
SPEAKER_01Now when I saw the title Battle of Britain I was only thinking of like World War II. I I I don't know what else we're talking about, but no the headline says Christian leaders call church to prayer as thousands prepare to gather they're talking actually about a spiritual battle the spiritual battle for Britain and they had an event uh last weekend I think it was maybe two weekend uh yeah about two weekends ago and uh they had one last year this is the the second time they've done this last year they had around 5,000 people in attendance uh at this point they're not releasing any numbers uh yet and they're the reports coming out they're saying it was at least as large as last year they think it could have been larger but it was people that are crying out and asking for God to intervene and intercede in Great Britain in the UK and guys one of the things we've talked about here in the States is as as we have the opportunity and privilege to travel all over the nation to work with so many pastors amazing leaders to meet moms and dads the grandmas and grandpa just just the normal everyday Americans we are seeing God on the move in this nation we are seeing a revival uh arguably and hopefully prayerfully maybe another great awakening that will bring some some reformation or restoration in this culture but what is cool is to see that God is literally moving all over the place and there are Christians over in the UK that as we see so many problems they're dealing with that there are Christians recognizing that one of the things they actively need to do is go to God in prayer. So this is really encouraging to me to see what they are doing over in the UK uh and actually Lou Ingle I mean just this some some of our our friends connections were over there. Just again a lot of great stuff that's gone on there'll be more details coming out from it but really cool to see stories that around the world God is on the move.
SPEAKER_02Well guys that's a lot of good news for one day we'll have more next week of
Why Sharing Good News Matters
SPEAKER_02course uh you know it's just uh it it for those people that that want to disengage because they don't get everything they want or because we might lose a battle here and there they need to hear good news friday on the Wall Builder show because there's so many victories happening right now. They just don't get covered by the major media and too often even from our own media in the in the conservative blogosphere and and and everywhere else. So this is just a really important part of the week we really encourage you to share it with your friends and family we're on all the podcast apps. You can go to wallboulders.show you can hear us on bot radio and lots of stations across the country but it's the kind of program you have to share with your friends and family. That's how you can be a force multiplier. Have a fantastic weekend and thank you for listening to the Wall Builder Show.
