8/25/2018 - Mary Rice Hasson Townhall.com
Editor's note: This
column was co-authored by Theresa Farnan, an adjunct professor of philosophy at
the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
As the new school year
begins, many parents of children in public schools are deeply concerned,
wondering if they should keep their kids in public school or just get
out now.
For these parents, the
transgender agenda is the game-changer. Under pressure from transgender
activists, progressive politicians, teacher unions, and the education
establishment, and despite parents’ opposition, America’s public schools are
capitulating to ideologues and implementing the radical transgender agenda with
full force. Parents were put on notice by “bathroom policies” that opened
private spaces to anyone who asserts that “gender identity,” regardless of
biological sex, but those policies are only the tip of the iceberg. New
transgender policies or “gender identity” protections are fast redefining what
it means to be a person, male or female. Activists want every child,
from kindergarten on, to learn that “sex” is something “assigned at birth” rather
than a biological reality. They want children to think that individuals get to
choose their own “gender identity” (not limited to male or female), and that
everyone else must affirm that “gender identity” as true. Even worse, if
a child claims a transgender identity, the school will keep that identity
hidden from parents unless that child allows the parents to know.
There are no “safe
spaces” in public schools now for children (or teachers) who reject the gender
revolution. In the name of inclusion, all “gender identities” are affirmed as
normal and good.
Where does this leave
parents? Even in a school with good teachers and staff, they cannot trust their
public school. Teachers and administrators must comply with the
transgender agenda or risk losing their jobs – despite their own convictions.
Even more troubling is the shocking realization that there is almost nothing that
parents (or teachers) can do to prevent the schools from imposing policies
designed to indoctrinate children with gender ideology.
In Fairfax County,
Virginia, for example, dedicated parents fought back hard against the
transgender agenda. The school board’s proposed policy replaced references to
“biological sex” with the politically charged term “gender assigned at birth.”
Parents organized themselves, reviewed curriculum materials, attended school
board meetings, wrote letters, publicized their positions, and presented
evidence against the proposed “gender identity” policies. But after three years
of fighting, these dedicated parents got nowhere. Their concerns were ignored;
their proposals dismissed.
The deck was stacked
against the parents from the start. According to Fairfax County School
Board member Elizabeth Schultz, the board
“reverse-engineered” the process, by ensuring that policy recommendations
were “made first and already forwarded to the board before any public input was
sought.” Parents’ supposed input was meaningless, just a sham. “That’s not
authentic public engagement,” complained Schultz. “That’s not how you build
effective policy.”
Meg Kilgannon,
executive director of Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County, also
noted that parent input was disregarded. “In Fairfax, ten citizens per meeting
may address the school board during public comments. The person addressing the
board must confine his or her remarks to the agenda topics slated for
discussion and votes that evening. So not only is the public engagement very limited,
the die is cast. By the time a topic is on the agenda, the school board members
have already made a decision about how they will vote.” Despite many emails from parents
opposing the new policy, Fairfax County School Board still imposed it.
Similarly, Clark County
School Board in Nevada steamrolled over parental opposition, implementing
transgender regulations that pushed trans-affirming curricular materials into
the classroom, allowed transgender-identified students to use bathrooms
reserved for the opposite sex, and compelled students and staff to use the preferred
pronouns of transgender or gender non-conforming students. The policy was
pushed through over parents’ objections, despite surveys demonstrating that a
clear majority of residents opposed
the changes. The Las Vegas Review-Journal noted, “Parents who oppose the policy
repeatedly told the board they felt their suggestions and concerns were not
being heard by the board, as evident by the draft policy.”
These examples
illustrate the kind of tactics school districts employ to implement significant
changes over the objections of parents. Parents who set out to counter
these policies run into a formidable bureaucracy, a left-wing education
establishment that functions something like a deep state. As one Politico writer notes,
“political scientists and foreign policy experts have used the term deep state for years to describe
individuals and institutions who exercise power independent of—and sometimes
over—civilian political leaders.” In public education, the “deep state”
describes a coalition of various groups – including teachers’ unions,
progressive advocacy groups, major corporations, and philanthropists --that
work together to promote the progressive worldview in public education. School
districts use an array of progressive “experts,” who serve as authorities on controversial
issues, to write policies, conduct staff training, give workshops for students
and supplement curricula. These authorities then are invoked to squelch
parents’ concerns – after all, parents are not the “experts.”
Even worse, parents
don’t have much to fall back on legally or politically. Courts long ago
ruled that parents have
no say
about the curricula used in their child’s public school. School boards,
despite being elected and therefore in theory answerable to
constituents, are susceptible to pressure from well-funded advocacy groups
rather than parents. According to Kilgannon, “School board members in Fairfax
are accountable to the voting public. But because they are reelected time and
time again, they are not responsive to parents whose views and beliefs differ
from their own.” In the few instances where school boards have listened
to parents and have resisted the imposition of transgender ideology, radical
progressive left groups use litigation to bring them into compliance.
Over the years,
conservative and Christian parents have attempted to work within the system to
reform public education. The swift capitulation of public school
districts to transgender ideology, however, illustrates that parents are
powerless to protect their children from the transgender agenda as long as
their children attend public schools. It’s time to get out now.
Hasson and Farnan are
the co-authors of "Get
Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child From Public School Before It's Too Late."
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