When are lefty California school districts going to learn?
It’s wrong to promote radical gender ideology in schools.
And it’s unconscionable to hide such efforts from parents.
As The California Post reported exclusively, the US Department of Education on Friday announced investigations into three school districts — North Monterey County, Palo Alto and San Francisco Unified — over claims that educators probed students’ sexuality, gender identity and more without parental knowledge or consent.
If true, that’s egregious.
Educators should focus on getting kids proficient in English, math and other basics — and not on ideological indulgences that distract students from academics, squander valuable class time and trample parents’ rights.
They must also obey the law.
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Schools are barred by the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment from surveying students on certain protected information without first obtaining parental consent. And, as US Education Secretary Linda McMahon told The Post, parents have the right to opt their kids out.
That’s as it should be. Parents, and not schools, are responsible for raising their children. And parents, and not schools, may be left to grapple with years of fallout from a kid’s “exploration” of gender dysphoria.
Schools have no place asking kids such intrusive questions without parental knowledge.
Educators have no business quizzing students about their sexuality, what they think about their gender, or any other personally provocative questions.
And parents have every right to be informed about any and all aspects of what their kids are learning on campus.
That goes for not just for how (and how well) kids are taught to read, write, add and subtract.
It also goes for ideological exercises such as the “Wheel of Power/Privilege” and “Mapping My Identities” — both of which the three implicated school districts reportedly required students to complete as part of “ethnic studies.”
Instead of stressing divisions among people, why not emphasize the civic ideals that unite us as Americans? And why not use the class time to better teach the basics, starting with English and math?
Per California’s latest round of official student test scores, released this month:
In North Monterey Unified, 29% of students were proficient in English, and just 17% were proficient in math.
In San Francisco United, only 53% showed proficiency in English, with 46% proficient math.
In Palo Alto Unified, the numbers were better: 82% and 80%, respectively. Even so, would parents in Silicon Valley rather their kids explore gender identity — or learn to code for AI?
The feds are right to press the point, and the investigations are the latest in a string of federal actions meant to hold schools accountable for obeying the law and respecting parental rights.
In January, the feds found the California Department of Education had violated federal law by pressuring schools to conceal students’ gender transitions from their parents.
The state, and the school officials who agreed to deceive parents, could not have been more in the wrong.
Their rationale — that some parents would abuse their own kids if they came out as trans, and therefore it’s fine to mislead all parents — doesn’t wash. In the rare cases where abuse might be an issue, there are better ways to protect kids.
Lying to parents, by omission or otherwise, is unacceptable.
When are lefty California school districts going to learn?
The post Feds put California school districts’ ‘TMI’ student questionnaires on notice appeared first on New York Post.
