By now, we have observed that the Koch-Walton-DeVos oligarchs take every opportunity to undermine public confidence in public schools. Wherever there is an organized attack on public schools and their teachers, it’s a safe bet that there’s dark money from libertarian billionaires.
John Merrow wrote recently about the new “parents rights” groups that have led the fight against public schools. His post was condensed by the blog of the Network for Public Education. Read the full post here on John Merrow’s blog..
Opportunistic politicians are also attempting to limit classroom discussion of other controversial topics. In late February Florida’s House of Representatives passed a bill to ban “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in the state’s primary schools. Governor DeSantis has indicated that he will sign the bill if the Senate passes it. [The legislature passed the bill and DeSantis will sign it.]
Of course, the GOP maintains that it’s doing this for parents “Speaking to legislators on the House floor, Rep. Joe Harding, the Republican who introduced the bill, said the measure is about “empowering parents” and improving the quality of life for the state’s children.” Florida isn’t alone. According to the highly regarded publication Chalkbeat, at least 36 states have adopted or introduced laws or policies that restrict teaching about race and racism.
As New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote recently, “Defenders of this push for censorship say they are simply working to protect the nation’s children from prejudice, psychological distress and inappropriate material. ‘To say there were slaves is one thing, but to talk in detail about how slaves were treated, and with photos, is another,’ said Tina Descovich, a leader of (a Florida chapter of) Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that seeks to enshrine ‘parental rights’ into law.”
Ms. Descovich, who lost her seat on a local school board in 2020, is a parent, but many of the adults who have been disrupting local school board meetings not only do not have children enrolled in those schools; they are classic outside agitators, perhaps even from neighboring states.
Simply reviewing curricula and banning discussion aren’t enough for some. Legislators in Florida, Iowa, and Mississippi want cameras installed in classrooms so parents can watch what’s going on. “The Iowa bill, H.F. 2177, would require that cameras be placed in every public school classroom in the state, except for physical education and special education classes. The cameras would feed to livestreams that could be viewed on the internet by parents, guardians and others.” Educators who fail to keep the cameras operational would lose 5% of their salary, per infraction. The bill died in Committee, but its supporters haven’t given up.
The pandemic has created opportunities for opponents of public education. Twenty-two states created or enlarged school voucher programs in 2021, and more are in the offing. “School voucher proponents in statehouses across the country have spent much of the past year working to pass legislation that transfers critical public school funding to the private sector. Framing these debates around education “reform” and the inauthentic culture wars surrounding public schools, voucher proponents have been steadily working to undermine public education on the state level.” That’s from the publication of the National Education Association, which explains the loaded language.
But the NEA numbers are correct, as others have reported. ”Nearly half of all state legislatures last year increased funding for school choice programs in their state budgets or passed laws to expand or create new Education Savings Accounts or scholarship programs. They also notably expanded eligibility requirements to include home-schooling, charter schools and private schools. Four states created entirely new programs; three created new and expanded programs, and Ohio created the most improved programs of them all, according to the analysis. The majority, 14, either expanded or improved their existing school choice programs.”
While this isn’t the time or place to debate vouchers, let’s stipulate that money dedicated to vouchers would otherwise have gone to public schools.
COVID and the ensuing closure of most public schools frustrated many parents, some of whom felt that teachers cared more about their own health than their students’ learning. Teacher unions, a favorite whipping boy of the right, may have hurt their own cause by defending members who did not want to risk contracting COVID–but defending their members is what unions are supposed to do.
But what’s happening now has very little to do with education and far more to do with politics. Republicans feel that being ‘pro-parent’ is a winning position, even though barely 20% of households have school age children. I don’t think most Republican politicians really care whether parents dig deeply into curriculum. What they hope is that the other 80%–those without children–will be outraged at the idea of meddling teachers indoctrinating America’s children. Their goal is for the other 80% to go to the polls and vote Republican.
So maybe McCauliffe should have given the matter a bit of nuance, but he was correct. We do not want stupid parents dictating the educational needs of all of our students.
How, for example, can anyone argue that we should mention slavery without mentioning the terror tactics used to enforce it on the slaves? How can any rational human being argue that students do not need to about lynchings and similar fascist tactics in American history that have led us to a day when an American president (Trump 2018) can suggest that those White Supremacists are good people too? The only people who can argue for allowing ignorance to lead curriculum are the militantly stupid.
Actually, he did give it more than a bit of nuance. But since the media only took a single sentence out of context from the rest of what he said before and after, it was mischaracterized by the media. And to add insult to injury, then the people blamed McAuliffe for not being more nuanced and not the media!
Imagine if someone “accurately quoted” from the above paragraph that Roy Turrentine said “students do not need to about lynchings” and there were dozens of articles about how parents all over the country were outraged that Roy said that students did not need to know about lynchings. And when you tried to explain that was NOT what you said, their answer was “well, Roy should have used more nuance when he said that students didn’t need to know about lynchings and it’s really his fault that he wrote that students did not need to know about lynchings without providing more nuance when he said that students didn’t know about lynchings.”
McAuliffe’s statement got huge applause from all the parents in the audience because they heard what he said right before it and the nuance was clear. But only later, when a phrase was presented out of context by people who wanted to demonize McAuliffe with a false narrative, he got blamed and then in an Orwellian fashion,he also got blamed for not providing more nuance!
I am only using the analogy above to see how impossible it is to fight this when those who would defend public education are actually complicit in legitimizing the propaganda!
We need to call it out, not be complicit. McAuliife did nothing wrong. He made a statement that got huge applause from all the parents who heard it but that got condemned when only a phrase of it was repeated ad nauseam by the media.
Roy, you wrote an excellent and admirable comment. If the media chose to mischaracterize it because the media always legitimizes the right wing narrative and the right wing decided to turn you into someone untrustworthy and suspect, that isn’t your fault. It isn’t because you failed to provide enough nuance.
The fault is in the media amplifying and legitimizing the right wing narrative – they do it so often that we don’t even notice. And even you believed that it was partly McAuliffe’s fault because he didn’t say something “the right way”. There is never “a right way” if we always blame the victim when a phrase from what he says or writes is intentionally presented to mislead folks about what he really said.
NYC good points
I like that phrase “the militantly stupid”
That one’s a keeper!
I have to give an old friend and horrible libertarian credit for that one. He would be horrified it was used in the direction of his own.
The aspect of the Florida bill that has received the most attention deals with matters of sexuality being discussed in grades K-3. I favor comprehensive sex education – the whole nine yards – at times when young people are able to understand the material. Come on, folks: K-3 is too young for kids to have any meaningful understanding of human sexuality. Insisting otherwise destroys your credibility and makes reasonable people believe that you are cultural extremists and further decreases support for public schools.
Are class in sexuallity in k-3 schools in Florida coming before or after their classes in CRT?
Or are the Republicans just seeking to outlaw something that never will be so parents can identify the real guys with the white hats?
Florida GOP likes to outlaw things that don’t exist. Next they will outlaw the Devil.
Diane, the mayor of the city of Inglis, Florida, wrote a proclamation banning Satan from the town. So, it’s all done.
It’s rumored that not being able to hang in Inglis anymore, he’s moved to Tallahassee.
Our local district used to have a sex education unit (which covered basic human reproduction) as part of the fifth-grade health curriculum. It was removed and replaced with a unit on expressing emotions with emojis.
If K-3 instruction in sexuality matters doesn’t actually exist in Florida, then what harm will this law do? There are people who have pushed for this kind of instruction – that’s why the law was proposed. Before the personal attacks begin, I repeat: I favor comprehensive sex education at ages when kids will understand it.
The law is a gesture whose purpose is to insult everyone who is gay
Nailed it, Diane!
There is no discussion of sex in primary grades anywhere. Period. I respect and appreciate the idea that sex should not be discussed at all before adolescence. I understand the idea that we should never use school to indoctrinate children into believing anything at all about sex or politics.
That said, I indoctrinate students. I indoctrinate them into being patriotic citizens of the United States. Even in the primary grades, we teach the young to appreciate the living in our country. We teach them to appreciate and understand the police officers in their neighborhoods, the grandparents, the divorced parents, the same sex parents, the firefighters, the doctors, the people of every race, the people of every creed, even the cows that moo and the birds that cuckoo. We indoctrinate them into being good Americans.
If anyone has a problem with my indoctrination of children into appreciation of everyone in the country, I will be happy to teach the students your face and to hate you. Ha.
The religious right agenda and its origin explained-
“The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs”, 3-3-2021, at the Scielo site.
Kelly….I agree with you, but you won’t find many others on this blog who will agree. Be prepared for the big “pile on”. You will be called nasty names and have your moral character demonized.
Lisa, that’s ridiculous. I don’t know anyone on this blog who has supported sex education in K-3
LisaM, I’m putting a reply down under general comments to get more margin space.
When does a child get the autonomy to gender identify, and be recognized for that by their school, autonomous of what their parents may say? 10? , 12? I’ll wait for the Supreme Court on that one. When does a child have the autonomy to use health insurance for gender change treatments? These are tough questions in uncharted territory.
They are NOT tough questions and have already been decided. Children do not have autonomy to use their health insurance for gender change treatments. Stop lying about that.
Is it possible that a teen could take their parent to court to declare his independence to get treatment without his parents’ consent? Of course, which can happen with EVERY medical treatment where the court decides.
So there are no tough questions to decide.
What there are is liars pretending that a new law that is designed to make sure 5, 6 and 7 year olds who are in gay families or whose cousins are in gay families are told by their schools that there is something very nasty and wrong about their family. If you support that, Ted, then just own it. Ted, your extreme homophobia has plenty of company in the Republican party who passes those laws.
But demonizing young children’s families and claiming you have to do it because of reasons that don’t exist is truly reprehensible.
My apologies if you are saying that you know these new laws are as terrible as I do. But if you are trying to defend them, then that speaks to your own beliefs.
I don’t know the answer, Ted, and I hope the Supreme Court does not decide. I hope the decision will be left with parents and doctors.
Gender reassignment surgery is restricted almost universally to people 18 and over. Doctors won’t even think about doing it before then.
ban “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” That seems impossible when gay marriage is the law of the land, and there are girls and boys bathrooms, and hopefully non gender specific bathrooms in Florida schools. When does health insurance kick in? Age 5? My question is when does a child no they are assigned the wrong gender at birth?
Thanks Bob. Doesn’t that leave people twisting in the wind until they’re 18? Seems cruel.
Diane, you want parents and doctors to determine which gender a teacher will refer to them at school and which bathroom to use from 5 to 18? I, being a libertarian, think the child should have determination at some age, probably 10 or 12.
No. One hopes that in this new birth of freedom, people will be free to express their preferred identity at any age. Sexual reassignment surgery is another matter. It’s too important a decision to be made young. And that’s why doctors won’t do such surgery with people under 18.
I’m with you on this Ted. By 11 or 12 at least.
Hormones and puberty blockers are given to children under 18. These may have long-term health consequences for children, and there is serious debate about whether it’s appropriate.
This is an exact quote from the NYT article linked to above:
“state legislatures across the country are trying to ban gender-affirming medical care for adolescents. According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, 21 states introduced such bills last year. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has described gender surgeries as “genital mutilation” and “child abuse.”
Professional medical groups and transgender health specialists have overwhelmingly condemned these legal attempts as dangerous…”
In other words, someone above linked to an article that made it absolutely clear that professional medical groups and transgender health specialized agree on one thing absolutely:
laws that ban gender-affirming medical care for adolescents are wrong.
And yet we still have folks posting here trying to argue that there is some justification for passing laws that would do seriously harm to transgender adolescents.
The medical establishment is still discussing the specifics of how best to treat transgender teens, but they AGREE that those teens should have access to treatment. That fact is not in dispute, as the article makes clear.
What kind of hateful person would justify banning medical care for teens — whether those teens have cancer or COVID or are transgender — just because the medical establishment is having ongoing conversations about what the best treatment should be?
I can’t imagine.
Something we know won’t happen- GOP ideologues who want to make the decisions won’t spend time listening, hearing and putting themselves in other people’s shoes because Republicans lack empathy. Some like Sen. Rob Portman only develop the characteristic partially when the situation hits their home. And, for some Republicans, sadly, sometimes not even then.
There are those trying to confuse medical debate about various treatments for transgender teens – which happens all the time in medicine and is not exclusive to treatment for teens who are transgender – with the attempts to ban all treatment for transgender teens.
For the record, there is ALSO discussion and debate about various medications for teens for ADHD and depression and even cancer. That doesn’t mean that the legislature would be “correct” in passing laws to ban any teen from being treated for ADHD or cancer. That doesn’t mean the legislatures are right to ban parents from seeking medical help for their teens with ADHD or depression or cancer.
The NYT article makes it clear that laws banning trans teens from getting any medical treatment are strongly opposed by the medical establishment and there is no debate about that.
Bringing up a debate about treatment – which happens with treatment for ADHD, cancer, depression, etc., – and using that to pass laws that intentionally targets trans teens by banning them from seeking medical treatment – is about pushing an agenda to harm those children that is opposed by the medical establishment.
Anyone who unwilling to criticize those Republican laws is using those kids as pawns since they are ignoring what the entire medical establishment supports. But some folks here seem to support right wing ideologues controlling what parents and doctors can do.
ADHD medication is given to children under 18. These may have long-term health consequences for children, and there is serious debate about whether it’s appropriate.
I have no idea why this would be relevant to the discussion but maybe some folks think that teens with ADHD should be banned from having any medical treatment and their parents banned from having the right to make decisions about their children’s treatment because of “debate”? Maybe some folks support laws banning teens from ADHD from seeking medical help at all because there is “serious debate”?
nycpsp @3/12 10:56am– IMHO, as a parent who went through the mill with eldest child who had both autoimmune disease causing chronic joint pain starting age 3, plus ‘something wrong’ early on that affected schoolwork from PreK on [with docs recommending Ritalin as early as 5yon], but didn’t show up until age 16 as a severe sort of bipolar I disease: in our country, Big Pharma gets FDA approval without even a quorum of well-designed studies. They get by with a few 6-wk studies with tiny cohorts, yet lead the public narrative via marketing re: “appropriate” treatments for you name it, well ahead of the law [which is basically left to pick up the pieces of Big Pharma for-profit overreach by applying bandaids like black-box warnings and lists of adverse affects].
You need to remember we live in a broken for-profit health-delivery system. The “debates” over treatments stateside are totally dominated by paid-off politicos, media regurgitating med center/ pharma press releases, and direct marketing by those peddling for-profit treatments. Anyone with serious health questions [such as whether to allow their trans-oriented kids to be administered hormones & at what age] is advised by me to do diligent research on what other countries have learned.
Universal Medicare is the way to lower the cost of medical care and prescription drugs.
bethree5,
I agree that it is important to do research. It is also important to be able to seek out medical care. If you ban adolescents from being treated at all, there is no need to do any research.
Presumably you would have been appalled if you were told that the medical profession was banned from considering how to address your kid’s problems because there has been a lot of disagreement about how to treat your kid’s problems.
Imagine if the medical profession couldn’t treat your kid at all? Do you think you would have had a better outcome?
Your portrayal of doctors who need to be regulated or censored because of the harm they do to kids reminds me a lot of the arguments citing teachers who need to be regulated or censored because of the harm they do to kids.
Watching the medical professionals during the COVID crisis and hearing this rhetoric that portrays them as all being in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry is disheartening.
Doctors do make mistakes. Some overprescribe and some underprescribe. Just like teachers make mistakes. And while there are some greedy or inept doctors just like there are some greedy or inept teachers, that is no excuse for helping reinforce the right wing narratives that paint them as so dangerous.
FYI – I also warn parents not to believe everything their teachers tell them and I give an example of some teachers that were clueless and harmful about my own kid. That did happen. I trusted my own judgement.
In a discussion about whether Republicans are doing a wonderful thing by passing these laws regulating how teachers can teach, if I kept posting my example of the bad teachers who didn’t know xxx or made xxx mistake with my kid, with the clear innuendo that regulating teachers is a good idea, you might object.
If I kept citing the corrupt and greedy union as being too influential in how teachers practiced, citing an example of the union putting teachers’ interests ahead of kids (that union teacher abused that kid!”) you might understand why I object to discussing issues this way.
I participate in discussions about public schools without constantly citing all the flaws teachers have that I have directly witnessed. I could spend my time constantly posting something bad I saw a teacher once do, but I don’t. I don’t because I understand that this isn’t about one particular bad teacher or bad doctors and that there are better ways of addressing the “bad teachers” and “bad doctors” that aren’t feeding into the right wing narrative. I want those bad teachers and bad doctors gone, too, but I know that helping legitimize the right wing’s desire to end public schools or destroy the union will make things much worse.
Most doctors try to do their best, and they aren’t controlled by the pharmaceutical industry. And passing laws as if the problem is doctors is extremely concerning. Your example notwithstanding.
I am sorry your kid was mistakenly diagnosed and had a bad doctor who was too heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. I don’t think that describes most doctors. But certainly a parent has to take advice from doctors the same way they take advice from teachers. I can tell you for a fact that some teachers get it wrong. Neither teachers nor doctors should be seen as gods who are always right about what is best for a particular child. I have perspective about that. Which is why I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about every “bad” action by a union teacher that my kid had on this blog whenever the discussion is about whether unions or bad or regulations restricting what teachers can teach are bad.
nycpsp– no, actually what I said and think is that Big Pharma needs to be regulated. [Ideally, of course, made part of a single-payer universal health system.] The best doctors, like the best teachers, use their training and experience and professional judgment to weed through the fire-hose of Big Pharma marketing/ self-serving med-study-funding and arrive at appropriate advice/ treatment. Over-regulation/ censorship of doctors (or teachers) is counterproductive.
Although there was much frustration in our case, there were many devoted doctors along the way, you just had to keep looking for them. I never felt like suing anybody, they did the best they knew how. For example, the doc who wanted to hand out Ritalin at 5yo was in fact a fabulous pediatrician in every other respect. I decided he was outside of his lane & consulted psychiatrists instead [and my mother! 😉].
The mistakes that were made by psychiatrists (and there were a few) were more nuanced and understandable– and the worst one made was traceable directly to Big Pharma actually falsifying results of European studies [the law/ profession caught up with them the following year as I learned via our son’s shrink’s full apology].
Dumbing down public schools in hopes to increase support has not been working out for us since the mid 80’s.
Children have already started constructing understandings of sexuality long before K-3. Is it the same understanding as a 5th grader, high school student, or medical student? No. But, they have been observing the world they are born into, taking note of all kinds of relationships and interactions they encounter on a daily basis. Once in school, they are well aware of the family pictures on teachers’ desks and what kinds of relationships receive dignified treatment and which ones don’t.
No one is arguing in favor of teaching K-3 students biology 101 lessons, or stressing the importance of using water based lubrication as opposed to oil based. But, we are arguing that all consensual relationships and family structures have access to a respected, protected, and dignified existence.
But, we are arguing that all consensual relationships and family structures have access to a respected, protected, and dignified existence.
YES!!!
“No one is arguing in favor of teaching K-3 students biology”
Don’t say “no one.” There are advocacy groups who are arguing in favor of that.
The most meaningful aspect of the Florida law is the ability of parents to sue everyone involved if the school does not follow their directions exactly. Of course, if will not take long for a left of center activist to sue when a K-3 teacher reads a story that talks about a mother and a father since that is related to sexual identity.
I agree. These laws have the logical brilliance of witch trials.
I seriously doubt that anyon teaches sexuality in K-3 in Florida
The very notion that anyone does is ridiculous. Scare mongering and groundless moral panic on the right. You know, the typical MO.
The Republicans define talking about gay families as “teaching sexuality”. If you mention a family with two dads in a Kindergarten class or read a book about a family with two moms, that would be “teaching sexuality” and that is absolutely what the Republicans want to ban.
The fact that they invoke ridiculous things to justify their desire to censor any reference to a family with 2 moms or dads in K-3 by invoking some “danger” that has never existed is reprehensible.
The problem is that if you put them on the spot, they would have to acknowledge this. But since they are never put on the spot by the media, they get to have their cake and eat it too.
The war on public education is a right wing political tool as Merrow notes. It is a fabrication designed to undermine the credibility of public schools and teachers. K-3 teachers do not discuss sexuality with young children. If children ask, some teachers may state that some families have two moms or dads without any further elaboration. That is a social comment, not a sexual one.
Hi Kelly. I’m putting a reply way down under general comments to get more margin space.
Unfortunately, when Florida sneezes, red states catch the cold. Florida appears to have an unlimited capacity for ignorance and bias under the leadership of DeSantis. Floridian ignorance spreads like Covid to other authoritarian leaning states. In today’s paper there is an excellent opinion piece on Ron DeSantis’ version of “freedom.” https://www.gainesville.com/story/opinion/2022/03/08/bill-radunovich-what-does-freedom-mean-gov-ron-desantis/9414247002/
“free” to be manipulated
“To say there were slaves is one thing, but to talk in detail about how slaves were treated, and with photos, is another”
Of course. Don’t want to be too graphic about this. Students might start thinking that slavery was, like, a bad thing.
It might become vivid and real for them rather than some dry vagueries in a textbook.
That caught my attention too. Should Students know that many slave owners in Saint Domingue deliberately worked their slaves to death to keep rebellion at a minimum? I agree that they should also learn that there was great variety with slavery as practiced i different places throughout history. But students should know that White Supremacy advocates in the later 1800s and early 1900s pushed a tame slave narrative as a part of their agenda. History is constantly being interpreted. The devil is in the details, especially the ones we leaveout.
amen
Bob,
Republicans have always embraced histories that talk about how slaves are treated as long as those histories talk about the NICE way slaves were treated. It’s only talking about the bad ways that they want to censor.
Yes! Well said! One has only to look at the Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum to see how things are prettied up.
Hillsdale, where conservative Catholics, evangelicals and wealthy libertarians align. (In every country, in every nation, the priest aligns with the despot- Jefferson.). Georgetown Catholic University recently hired the Koch’s Ilya Shapiro, a right winger made famous by his quote- lesser Black woman.
Women, regardless of race, who expect political rights and then, vote Republican are stupid.
What’s the definition of gender identity? Girls go to the girls’ bathroom, boys to the boys’. I would say gender identity freedom, the notion that one can choose the gender that they feel in their mind superceding the chromosone that assigned them physical gender at birth.
YES!
I keep hoping public school parents and others will sift through all the political rhetoric and look at what any of these people or groups have actually accomplished for public schools or public school students.
They add no value for our students- zilch. Not a single positive, practical accomplishment that benefits any public school or public school student anywhere since this political campaign was launched. Hundreds of full time, paid operatives, tens of millions of dollars, and how did public school students benefit? No one can point to anything. Because there is nothing.
exactly. Well said, Chiara!
Rah rah for charter schools, boo hiss for public schools!
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-nyc-lift-charter-cap-20220310-d6zequ36jjebtglqgdef3fjlka-story.html
This is the work they do- and it’s the only work they do.
I think they’re contractually obligated to churn out the identical article promoting charter schools and bashing public schools every 90 days. Makes one wonder why there needs to be more than one ed reform group. Couldn’t just one lavishly funded think tank handle this work load?
Hi, Kelly and LisaM, re: your 11:45am & 12:30pm posts. I think the right approach to standards is what the state wants to be learned by a certain age, not trying to think up everything that should not be discussed. NJ’s 2020 Comprehensive Health and Phys Ed stds are probably the most ‘out there.’ Here are the ones that are controversial.
To be learned by end of grade 2:
2.1.2.SSH.2: Discuss the range of ways people express their gender and how gender-role
stereotypes may limit behavior
This one has been misdescribed as K learning about gay and trans. The overall standard makes it clear the intention is teach respect/ inclusion/ everyone expresses themselves differently. I get it, and the intention is perfect. But kids this age are differentiation machines & I think it’s a mistake to raise certain insults above others. Just curb this kind of harassment (like any other) based on the general principle involved.
By end of grade 5:
2.1.5.SSH.2: Differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity. [A detail under “all individuals should feel welcome and included regardless of their gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation”] Again: too early; 7thgr feels right to me. I’m less sure about this one, as my PreK/K teaching over last 20yrs shows many kids are developing mature bodies much faster than they used to.
By end of grade 8:
2.1.8.SSH.9: Define vaginal, oral, and anal sex. [A detail under healthy decisions about sex—includes details about safe sex; emphasis on abstinence = safety] And this one I’m even less sure of. Kids really need to know about HIV/ STD dangers before they hit 15. Again, just looks about 2 yrs too early to me.
bethree5,
Do I misunderstand you, or are you really saying that end of 8th grade is “too early”?
My kid got sex ed in 7th or 8th grade. This says “by end of grade 8”.
Why do you think it is “too early”? From what I can see, kids who get good education early are far LESS likely to be sexually active and engage in sexually risky behavior.
What makes 8th grade “too early”? Because it’s going to make a kid gay or trans or sexually active before they are ready?
nycpsp, I guess I didn’t come across clearly, by citing just the 3 controversial snippets out of context. I agree sex ed is not too early then at all. For ‘by end of 8thgr,’ I took issue with when to approach just that little bit excerpted from the 3rd one. NJ takes a scaffold approach; by well before 8thgr they will have had a lot of sex ed already. https://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/2020/2020%20NJSLS-CHPE.pdf (Scroll to p.27 to see the detailed stds)
bethree5,
If you are quoting what is “controversial”, but it isn’t controversial at all, then it is clear this is yet another manufactured crisis.
So why are the two people you are replying to so upset about something that isn’t upsetting?
Aren’t there real problems in this world instead of pretending that sex ed for 8th graders is a danger to children?
Reproductive age for women- 12 and up.
On another matter, would someone please wake up AG Garland?
Nobody has said anything about cameras in the classroom. I am laughing about it. First of all, it would probably not be funded. If it were actually funded, it probably wouldn’t work- glitches are the norm in school technology. Finally, it would be worse for (some? many?) students and parents. Parents could see their kids acting up, sleeping, playing on their cell phones, taking 20 minutes to use the restroom, etc. For those parents whose kids actually want to learn, they’d be irate to see students who are allowed to be disruptive. Discipline is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, but it is the reason many teachers leave the profession.
As Diane has stated, most parents would probably not request to view the video. Some that do watch would likely not ask to see it again.
I seriously doubt that many parents would have the interest or time to sit down and watch 5-6 hours of instruction. Those who would find it mostly uninteresting and get bored. Or they might learn something.
What they won’t see: the teacher indoctrinating students. CRT.
Merrow’s post begins with a reference to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Media reported on 2-15-2022, “Today, Gov. Kim Reynolds shared…her plan to give parents more choice…during a press conference at St. Teresa Catholic school…”
America’s weakness in the fight against right wing authoritarianism is omission of the significant role of a politicized conservative Catholic Church in creating theocracy with the aid of wealthy libertarians like Charles Koch.
From the news-
Former ICE Director, Tom Homan, “was scheduled to appear at (this year’s) AFPAC.” Critics label it as a “nazi conference”. Hoban claims it was a mistake, he thought he was going to the CPAC convention.
A Catholic H.S. (Fla.) featured Hoban at a school event in 2020.
“The leader of the Catholic diocese in Cleveland Ohio accepted an invitation to bless a crowd at an anti-abortion confab that starred Milo Yiannopoulos” (3-12-2022)
What lies at the bottom of the hatred for everything sexual?
It’s the Abrahamic religions that have relegated anything dealing with sexuality to the realm of “dirty, disgusting and diabolical.”
Those pushing to keep sexuality in the closet (no matter what type of sexuality) almost always think they have their Abrahamic Sky-Daddy’s support and disgust with his/her/its own creation. . . at least in their minds.
I went through that brainwashing in K-12 Catholic schools. What a mess they made of gender/sexuality understanding. And these regressive reactionary fundie types can’t seem to stay out of others business. Mind your own effin business is what I say. Keep your perverted, sick thinking to yourself. Leave the rest of us alone.
But no, they feel a need to proselytize others, to make laws that demand that others follow their absurdities and perversities.
Duane, I usually stay out of religious disputes, but you give me the opportunity to comment here about abortion and religion. I understand why many people hate abortion. They should not have an abortion. But where do they get the right to impose their views on people who don’t agree with them?
Been out on the river for a week. They don’t have that right to “impose their views”. Sadly they think they do.
Thank you Duane for your comment. The intentional divorce of issues like LGBTQ, school choice, women’s rights and abortion from their direct connection to conservative religion, is a strategy used by propagandists like Pat Buchanan. It makes for a deflection that hides a grave danger. Each of us, like you Duane, have an obligation to point out the true origin of the issues. IMO, racism is also linked to American Christian nationalism.
My pleasure! Thanks for the kind words.