Kali Fontanilla repeated the lesson title to herself one last time — “‘A Com-plete History of Slavery in America’” — sipped her peppermint tea and hit record. “Hello, Exodus students,” she said, addressing the group of 90 fifth- through 12th-graders who would eventually watch the video as part of their lessons from the Exodus Institute, an online Christian K-12 school Kali and her husband founded in 2021 with the motto “Exit Public Education.” The video, which Kali was recording in her guest bedroom-turned-office, was the latest in a special enrichment program dubbed the “Young Patriots Academy,” which aims to “debunk the ‘woke’ lies taught in most public schools,” per the Exodus website. Kali, who is half Black and half White, had a particular target that Friday: what she calls the left’s unquestioning advocacy of reparations, the theory that the government should pay restitution to descendants of enslaved Americans. She told her virtual class they were about to learn of the Quakers, and how White members of that religion helped fight slavery. She said that, throughout American history, there were good people and bad people. But focusing only on the bad, like she believes many public school teachers do, would be wrong. “Whenever you learn history,” she said, “it’s important to learn the full context of it.”

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