Pilot Test Briefing Scheduled
The members of the citizens advisory committee that evaluated the new sex-ed curriculum received an email yesterday, inviting us to meet for an "an information briefing by school system staff on the superintendent’s recommendations to the Board of Education regarding the revised health education curriculum on family life and human sexuality."
In January, the superintendent's office recommended the new curriculum to the school board. This is a kind of bureaucratic formality that means everybody's gone through it, it's ready to try, and if any school board members wanted to shoot it down, that was their chance. The board unanimously agreed to go forward.
That meant that they would start pilot-testing in six schools: three middle schools and three high schools. Some rules were written up about how that would happen -- announcements to the school community, meetings with parents, some deadlines.
In March, the classes were tested. They implemented the classes as they were outlined, and then collected some kinds of data -- what questions were asked in class, how'd it go, things like that.
After that, the school district went back to their burrow and chewed on the data (sorry, I keep picturing that gopher that you get when you hit a dead-end at MCPS). We hear rumors about how it went, but they have the data, so we don't know what they're looking at. We hear that the "scripting" aspect was not well received, that students had questions that teachers were not allowed to answer. We hope that that information did get back to the school district. Other than that, there did not seem to be anything upsetting or controversial.
There have still been no reports of any students turning gay as a result of the pilot-testing.
Look, what can there be, after two months? My guess: there are some things that will need to be tuned up, and the school district has to decide whether they are willing to ride through the Wall of Fiery Death to make the improvements. Their lawyers will have scrutinized the change suggestions; in my experience lawyers advise you to hold your cards close to your chest and don't do anything. The higher-ups at MCPS will have tested the political waters and realized that they have the public's support, and the school board's support, for making improvements. They will also be aware that the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum have threatened to sue; some people will advise them to give in to the threat in order to minimize publicity and legal expenses, others will note that there is no basis for a lawsuit, CRC will lose, so MCPS might as well do what's right. We can't guess which way they'll go.
From the start, there has been a push from the citizens committee, the public, and members of the school board to include statements by leading medical and mental-health organizations into the curriculum. These statements come from documents which should be made available to teachers so they can answer students' questions in a forthright and well-informed way.
The question will be whether the Superintendent's office will propose adding those statements, and/or the documents they came from, to the curriculum materials.
Why wouldn't they? There is only one reason, and that is fear of the CRC. Those guys have said they're going to sue anyway, but the school district might just worry that they will inflame them even more by giving mainstream medical and scientific judgments to teachers. (The materials will not affect the outcome of any judgment -- how can a judge find it unconstitutional to teach the American Medical Association's, the American Psychological Association's, and the American Academy of Pediatrics' official opinions on health matters?)
Why should they give teachers this information? There are two main reasons. First, teachers and students alike are frustrated by the fact that no questions-and-answers are allowed in these classes. A kid raises his hand and says, "Is homosexuality a disease?" and the teacher is supposed to tell them to go ask a health professional, which is of course a way of saying that yes, it is a disease -- why else would you ask a doctor about it? If she had the information, she could easily answer this simple question without making a big deal out of it.
Second, it's the right thing to do educationally and morally. Students in these classes deserve to know that the medical and mental-health professionals do not consider it a disease or disorder, that experts agree that gay people can live perfectly happy and normal lives, that doctors and scientists who study the topic agree that gays and lesbians can be perfectly good parents. For one thing, some students in these classes are gay; they're looking ahead to their lives, and it's not too much to give them a clear and honest idea what to expect. For another thing, this is knowledge that even the straight students can carry forward to help them interpret the world around them, to understand the public debate, to know better how to react to their gay friends and neighbors throughout their lives.
There is another aspect to this scenario that people are watching out for: the political aspect. This is a situation where the Superintendent's office recommends to the Board of Education, who vote on it. It could be embarrassing, for instance, if the Superintendent caved in to the CRC and the school board didn't. That is, there is a possibility that the proposal does not include the AMA, APA, and AAP materials, and that the school board will vote to add them. This will not reflect well on the Superintendent, who is known to be, shall we say, a political creature. The recently-restructured school board wants to establish that it has the fortitude and independence to insist on things, but at the same time they want to establish a good working relationship with the Superintendent, and may choose to avoid embarrassing him in this situation. So it is also possible that the Superintendent's office fails to include the medical professionals' statements and the school board fails to ask for them.
I'm not political enough to know which way anybody's going to go on this, I don't know (or care, really) who's taking whose side on what, or how this fits with the other controversies the school district has to struggle with. It is clear though that there is a right thing to do -- include the materials that were strongly recommended by the citizens advisory committee, and there is a wrong thing to do -- give in to the CRC's threats.
We will find out next Wednesday how the testing went, and how the district intends to handle the situation.
The world is watching.
In January, the superintendent's office recommended the new curriculum to the school board. This is a kind of bureaucratic formality that means everybody's gone through it, it's ready to try, and if any school board members wanted to shoot it down, that was their chance. The board unanimously agreed to go forward.
That meant that they would start pilot-testing in six schools: three middle schools and three high schools. Some rules were written up about how that would happen -- announcements to the school community, meetings with parents, some deadlines.
In March, the classes were tested. They implemented the classes as they were outlined, and then collected some kinds of data -- what questions were asked in class, how'd it go, things like that.
After that, the school district went back to their burrow and chewed on the data (sorry, I keep picturing that gopher that you get when you hit a dead-end at MCPS). We hear rumors about how it went, but they have the data, so we don't know what they're looking at. We hear that the "scripting" aspect was not well received, that students had questions that teachers were not allowed to answer. We hope that that information did get back to the school district. Other than that, there did not seem to be anything upsetting or controversial.
There have still been no reports of any students turning gay as a result of the pilot-testing.
Look, what can there be, after two months? My guess: there are some things that will need to be tuned up, and the school district has to decide whether they are willing to ride through the Wall of Fiery Death to make the improvements. Their lawyers will have scrutinized the change suggestions; in my experience lawyers advise you to hold your cards close to your chest and don't do anything. The higher-ups at MCPS will have tested the political waters and realized that they have the public's support, and the school board's support, for making improvements. They will also be aware that the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum have threatened to sue; some people will advise them to give in to the threat in order to minimize publicity and legal expenses, others will note that there is no basis for a lawsuit, CRC will lose, so MCPS might as well do what's right. We can't guess which way they'll go.
From the start, there has been a push from the citizens committee, the public, and members of the school board to include statements by leading medical and mental-health organizations into the curriculum. These statements come from documents which should be made available to teachers so they can answer students' questions in a forthright and well-informed way.
The question will be whether the Superintendent's office will propose adding those statements, and/or the documents they came from, to the curriculum materials.
Why wouldn't they? There is only one reason, and that is fear of the CRC. Those guys have said they're going to sue anyway, but the school district might just worry that they will inflame them even more by giving mainstream medical and scientific judgments to teachers. (The materials will not affect the outcome of any judgment -- how can a judge find it unconstitutional to teach the American Medical Association's, the American Psychological Association's, and the American Academy of Pediatrics' official opinions on health matters?)
Why should they give teachers this information? There are two main reasons. First, teachers and students alike are frustrated by the fact that no questions-and-answers are allowed in these classes. A kid raises his hand and says, "Is homosexuality a disease?" and the teacher is supposed to tell them to go ask a health professional, which is of course a way of saying that yes, it is a disease -- why else would you ask a doctor about it? If she had the information, she could easily answer this simple question without making a big deal out of it.
Second, it's the right thing to do educationally and morally. Students in these classes deserve to know that the medical and mental-health professionals do not consider it a disease or disorder, that experts agree that gay people can live perfectly happy and normal lives, that doctors and scientists who study the topic agree that gays and lesbians can be perfectly good parents. For one thing, some students in these classes are gay; they're looking ahead to their lives, and it's not too much to give them a clear and honest idea what to expect. For another thing, this is knowledge that even the straight students can carry forward to help them interpret the world around them, to understand the public debate, to know better how to react to their gay friends and neighbors throughout their lives.
There is another aspect to this scenario that people are watching out for: the political aspect. This is a situation where the Superintendent's office recommends to the Board of Education, who vote on it. It could be embarrassing, for instance, if the Superintendent caved in to the CRC and the school board didn't. That is, there is a possibility that the proposal does not include the AMA, APA, and AAP materials, and that the school board will vote to add them. This will not reflect well on the Superintendent, who is known to be, shall we say, a political creature. The recently-restructured school board wants to establish that it has the fortitude and independence to insist on things, but at the same time they want to establish a good working relationship with the Superintendent, and may choose to avoid embarrassing him in this situation. So it is also possible that the Superintendent's office fails to include the medical professionals' statements and the school board fails to ask for them.
I'm not political enough to know which way anybody's going to go on this, I don't know (or care, really) who's taking whose side on what, or how this fits with the other controversies the school district has to struggle with. It is clear though that there is a right thing to do -- include the materials that were strongly recommended by the citizens advisory committee, and there is a wrong thing to do -- give in to the CRC's threats.
We will find out next Wednesday how the testing went, and how the district intends to handle the situation.
The world is watching.
posted by JimK at 11:49 AM
7 Comments:
"From the start, there has been a push from the citizens committee, the public, and members of the school board to include statements by leading medical and mental-health organizations into the curriculum."
Untrue. The public never made any push for any education at all on homosexuality much less have they asked the school board to misrepresent science research to help advance the gay agenda.
This has been true from the "start".
Your statements are untrue.
I've attended almost every MCPS BOE meeting over the last two years, most of which you must not have bothered to attend. At many of these meetings, there have been numerous PUBLIC COMMENTS calling for the curriculum "to include statements by leading medical and mental-health organizations."
Anonymous speaks not from knowledge, or even from opinion, but from a deep-seated desire to irritate people.
Andrea- not anon
Wyatt- go away!
"I've attended almost every MCPS BOE meeting over the last two years, most of which you must not have bothered to attend. At many of these meetings, there have been numerous PUBLIC COMMENTS calling for the curriculum "to include statements by leading medical and mental-health organizations.""
All from the small cabal of TTFers. No clamor from the public has been heard at the start, the end or anywhere in the middle for this sexual ed indoctrination and certainly not for replacing the teaching of scientific research with statements from associations.
Andrea- not anon
The cabal of TTFers- so much better than the gaggle of CRCers.
Anonymous' careless use of scare-laden language and CRC trigger words make his weak arguments even more transparent: "misrepresent science research to help advance the gay agenda", "small cabal of TTFers", "this sex ed indoctrination". It's sad that his life is so scary; people who see nothing but "cabals" and conspiracies and threats to their lives need to seek professional help from one those "associations" for which he has such obvious disdain.
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