Back to School – in August
Republicans wasted little time this week jumping on the latest news about public education in New Jersey.
No need to be surprised at that. This is a big rallying point for conservatives.
The impetus was a 6-5 vote by the New Jersey State Board of Education adopting new rules, some of which apply to – you guessed it – gender identity.
More specifically, the rules replace references to men and women with “persons” and require schools that segregate sex ed classes to do so based on a student’s gender identity. There is no mandate, however, to segregate such classes.
Another change was replacing “equality” with “equity.”
Supporters said this was just a periodic review and that the changes are quite technical.
The change to “equity” from “equality” is meant to take into account the particular needs of students.
However, nothing about public education these days is merely technical or routine.
Anthony M. Bucco, the Senate Republican leader, dished out a statement saying the state board was “driving a wedge” between parents and teachers. Fellow Republican Sen. Mike Testa also criticized the board’s action.
Bucco said, “Parents are rightfully concerned about what’s being taught to their children and deserve to have a voice in their local school communities. We do not need government bureaucrats substituting on their behalf.”
Bucco added that many in the audience were upset when the vote took place. Fair point, but there are two sides to every story.
Later that evening, the “other side” in this evolving battle gathered in Summit to discuss ways to combat “extremism’s impact on public education.” One of the organizers of the discussion was the New Jersey Public Education Coalition, which was formed in May, 2022, to do exactly that.
Michael Gottesman, the group’s creator, spoke approvingly of what the state board did earlier in the day.
Nothing happens in a vacuum and there are school board elections this fall. That was a big topic Wednesday evening in Summit.
Gottesman and other speakers, including Darcy Draeger, the executive director of Districts for Democracy, a group formed by former Rep. Tom Malinowski, alarmingly spoke about attempts to ban books and rewrite curriculum from a conservative perspective.
Before we move on, one must mention the “small world” of Jersey politics. Draeger unsuccessfully ran against Bucco in 2019 in LD-25.
Back to the present, both Gottesman and Draeger urged the audience of about 70 to get involved in school board races this year. That’s important advice, and also quite the challenge.
School board races, traditionally, do not draw widespread public interest.
Draeger, in fact, offered a sobering tidbit – for both sides. She said that when she went door-to-door last year for school board candidates in Chester, nobody even knew there was a contested race going on.
That’s where an engaged campaign comes in.
With the filing deadline for school board candidates earlier this week, the scene is set for November.
Gottesman said he thinks his conservative opponents are in the minority. But there’s no time to relax.
That’s because in many cases, he said philosophical control of school boards is “hanging by a thread.”
Two (2) words jump out in this piece by Fred Snowflack–“segregation” and “equity”. These are Marxist-Communist terms being inculcated by our Democrat-Communist run State BOE. They are forcing these narratives through faux education programs on the subjects of gender identity and anti-white race-baiting CRT programs. Gender identity, transgender and racist programs are not part of the NJ SYSTEM of Thorough and Efficient Education. The SYSTEM requires that students are able to read, write, do math, know the sciences and U.S. and World History to graduate at a competent level when they leave high school, so they can compete in the modern labor force and be able to cope in the real world. By “segregating” certain people in sex ed classes from the rest of the schools is tantamount saying you’re not worthy because you need to be placed into a special situation. This does not help those with certain gender identity issues assimilate into society and the work force. It essentially ostracizes them because they are different.
As for the moniker “equity” vs. “equality”, there is a major disconnect that school students are being deprived of being the best they can be. The objective of “equality of outcome” is not equality or justice but rather equity and social justice. It looks to set right inequities and bring balance in the representation of outcomes in a society, where all social groups are equally represented without giving much weight to merit.
Even though the idea of “equality of outcomes” has good intentions, it does not consider the natural order of dominance hierarchies that exists in nature. It looks to force unnatural outcomes that often lead to unintended consciousness. If a group of people are penalized due to historical privileges and new privileges are bestowed upon previously marginalized groups, you do not create a balanced outcome, but rather a new paradigm of privileged and disadvantaged groups. The only way to ensure justice for all is to give everyone an equal opportunities that is accessible to everyone.
This is what is known in the real world as Socialism and Communism–both are historically failed types of societies.
The term “equality” is based on EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY that looks at equality from the view point that people are not equal and that desired outcomes for all groups cannot be justly produced. Equality of opportunity looks to control that which can be controlled which is to provide all people without arbitrariness or prejudices the same opportunities based on merit.
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY does not take into consideration quotas or giving preferential treatment to minority or historically marginalized groups within a society. Rather, it seeks to offer everyone a fair chance and to fill each position with the most qualified candidate available.
This is what is known as the free market and American exceptionalism. This is what keeps our country, economy and society strong. Equity is being used to break down our economy and society, and will fail like it did in Communist and Socialist countries of the past and present.
Obviously, based on equality of outcome in our failing public school system, New Jersey property taxpayers are obviously NOT getting their monies’ worth with these LGBTQ/Transgender and CRT indoctrination programs. It’s time to re-think education taxes being paid through property taxes, and make education taxes rely on income and sales taxes instead.
So, the right wing national agenda push to inject right partisanship and region mores into historically non partisan public education and their elections has elicited a Republican knee jerk response?
Curiouser and curiouser?
Schools must cease all this garbage.
Focus on reading, writing, mathematics, science, computer science, economics, home economics, civics. Perhaps some shop skills are needed as well.
Students at all levels must turn off the phone for classes and focus on the curriculums. Parents and teachers must be involved, communicate and follow the progress of the students. All parties should be involved in establishing a learning curriculum.
Discipline on all sides is required, for the sake of the students. All the periferal nonsense needs to stop.
NoMoreMarxistsInDC is an uneducated, bigoted, cowardly troll who spreads hate in every one of his posts. Until he identifies him/herself any opinions are meaningless. I dare you to reveal your identity.
Right-wing bigots just don’t get it.
Neither do Republican legislators, who should know better.
As for Christian Nationalists, the less said the better.
The New Jersey Department of Education has passed the proposed revisions to “Managing for Equality and Equity in Education”, as discussed in a column in this space earlier this week.
The changes, as adopted, replace references to equality with those of equity. For example, schools have the option–it is NOT a mandate, as the wackadoodles would have you believe–to separate sex education classes, but if they choose to do so, the separation must be by gender identity, not by biological sex. This modifies the old policy that would require transgender students to either hide their gender identity or out themselves against their wishes.
Conservatives are taking issue with this change by claiming it violates the “religious rights” of staff and students who identify as persons of faith. When will these obtuse jackasses understand that religion is NOT PRACTICED IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, and that their religious freedom, which they are entitled to, ends at the schoolhouse entrance? The Constitutional right to freedom of religion DOES NOT extend to imposing their religious beliefs on those who do not agree with those beliefs. That’s why we don’t have prayer in the schools, and why it doesn’t belong there.
Of course, leading the band of transphobic bigots are two Republican state senators: the retiring–and not soon enough–Steve Oroho of Sussex County, and the totally irrelevant, unqualified right-wing do-nothing, 18-Wheeler Ed Durr of Gloucester County, who in a letter to the DOE, said “Deleting ‘equality’ and replacing it with ‘equity,’ and placing the focus on to the social causes of a few, does the opposite”, which dovetails with their intent to totally marginalize the LGBTQ community–a primary aim of the Republican Cult.
Then there two more GOP bigots, Assemblymen Michael Torrissi Jr. (Atlantic County) and Brandon Umba (Burlington County), who erroneously claim that these changes require legislative approval, despite the fact that the state Constitution clearly gives the DOE the authority to amend the administrative code and set rules for public schools. Once again, just like their counterparts in Washington, DC, the Republican Party is trying to assert an authority that they do not possess.
Such as two other members of the lunatic fringe in the state Senate, Anthony Bucco (Morris County) and Michael Testa (Cumberland County), who issued a statement criticizing the Board of Education for being “focused more on advancing identity politics than building stronger relationships between parents and teachers.”
Right, because the well-being of students mean nothing to these two right-wing hacks.
Finally, there’s Victoria Jakelsky, director of New Jersey Parental Rights, another misnomer for a group that barely hides its homophobia and transphobia behind a do-gooder name. As I’ve stated before, there is nothing in either the United States or New Jersey constitutions that specify that parents have any particular rights that supersede those of anyone else–including children. Of course, parents are responsible for the care and well-being of their offspring, but that right cannot interfere with the basic right to privacy–and that means a child’s right to reveal or conceal a gender identity change is not subject to parental interference, and schools should respect that right.
Jakelsky, with the typical bombast of a Christian Nationalist, has threatened a lawsuit, claiming that the adopted revisions are “designed to force one ideology into every single aspect of the NJ public school system” and mandated “that they all succumb to this new false doctrine and dogma to glorify the LGBT lifestyle.” You can practically see the bigotry dripping from those words. No one is asking that the LGBTQ community be glorified and more or less than those who are not LGBTQ. In fact, that’s the point–we’re all equal–gay, straight, lesbian, non-binary, queer. EVERYONE IS EQUAL. Isn’t that what the Constitution says? THAT’S the law of the land–not the bible or any other religious text. And it’s time these people learned that.
And Jakelsky thinks the state is going to cower because she’s going to enlist “Alliance Defending Freedom” to file a lawsuit? Bring it on! New Jersey is on solid ground here, and she might want to understand that the New Jersey Supreme Court does not have six bigoted perjurers on it like the dimwits in DC that got hoodwinked by a web designer who never had an actual case to begin with.
It’s time for these whiny conservatives to be taught a lesson. Their hatred doesn’t play in the Garden State.
Why should I respond to Schnackenberg’s inane comments and request that I should identify myself. He’s already doxxed Sussex County Republican politicians causing them and their families to be harassed and threatened at their homes and out in public. So, NO, Michael Schnackenberg, you don’t get to call out people who you’re going to threaten and harass, as is your history and modus operandi.
So, if anyone is a coward, and a fake, phoney and fraud, it is you, Schnackenberg. And, Kevin Holden says you’re still a coward and a fraud.
Democrat-Communists are the ones who created the culture wars and censorship in the public schools. Democrats and the Government are attempting to shut down parents who want to protect their children from sexually abusive LGBTQ and divisive CRT programs being used to indoctrinate, not educate, our children.
The LGBTQ “curriculum” is being used to abuse our children sexually, emotionally and physically. The frontal lobe of the brain–which is the “decision-making” & “reasoning” part of the brain isn’t fully developed until age 25. Children up to college graduation level ARE NOT TO BE SUBJECTED TO DEVIANT SEXUAL PROGRAMS and BEHAVIORS being forced on them in school. Same goes for CRT programs being used to divide whites and blacks like they do in South Africa by the Communist African National Congress against the whites there.
The LGBTQ sexual deviant programs are nothing more than child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, and child emotional abuse. This is felony criminal behavior against our children that anyone pushing these programs needs to be immediately be arrested, charged, tried and sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison. And, that includes school teachers and school administrators, as well as boards of education members.
The CRT programs are anti-white racist programs seeking to cause division between the whites and blacks living in the same communities. This is felony bias crimes and emotional & psychological child abuse also. Those promoting these anti-American programs in our schools need to be criminally charged, tried and sentenced to the maximum sentences of at least 10 years in jail.