This Cool School

SACRAMENTO – California lawmakers on Tuesday sent the governor a bill that would make the state the first requiring public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum.

The bill, passed on a party-line vote, adds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as people with disabilities to the list of groups that schools must include in the lessons. It also would prohibit material that reflects adversely on gays.

Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco says SB48 is crucial because of the bullying that happens to gay students. Republicans called it a well-intentioned but ill-conceived bill and raised concerns that it would indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality.

“This bill will require California schools to present a more accurate and nuanced view of American history in our social science curriculum by recognizing the accomplishments of groups that are not often recognized,” said Assembly Speaker John Perez, the first openly gay speaker of the California Assembly.

The bill now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who has not said whether he would sign it. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2006.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican from Twin Peaks, said he was offended as a Christian that the bill was being used to promote a “homosexual agenda” in public schools.

“I think it’s one thing to say that we should be tolerant,” Donnelly said. “It is something else altogether to say that my children are going to be taught that this lifestyle is good.”

California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor. The Legislature over the years also has prescribed specific lessons about the Irish potato famine and the Holocaust, among other topics.

SB48 would require, as soon as the 2013-2014 school year, the California Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other teaching materials that cover the contributions and roles of sexual minorities.

The legislation leaves it to local school boards to decide how to implement the requirement. It does not specify a grade level for the instruction to begin.

Opponents argued that such instruction would further burden an already crowded curriculum and expose students to a subject that some parents find objectionable. Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, said the bill micromanages the classroom.

“Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves,” Donnelly said.

The bill’s author, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said he hopes Brown will sign his bill. He dismissed arguments that the bill promotes certain sexual behaviors and said it removes censorship in textbooks.

“Bottom line, it’s only beneficial to share with students the broad diversity of the human experience and that our democracy protects everyone,” he said.

Before the Assembly vote, Perez pointed to a few contributions of gay people, including Friedrich von Steuben, one of George Washington’s military advisers who fled Prussia after he was hounded as a homosexual.

Von Steuben is credited with being one of the fathers of the Continental Army and teaching essential military drills.

He also cited Alan Turing, a mathematician who helped crack Nazi Germany’s secret codes by creating the “Turing bombe,” a forerunner of modern computers.

Some churches and conservative family groups warned the bill will drive more parents to take their children out of public schools.

“This sexual brainwashing bill would mandate that children as young as 6 years old be told falsehoods – that homosexuality is biological, when it isn’t, or healthy, when it’s not,” said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com.

The Assembly passed the bill on a 49-25 vote.

While several states have recently limited the ability for teacher unions to collectively bargain for their members, teachers will continue to flex their political muscle in a way scholars of policymaking have overlooked: through their pocketbooks, says a Baylor University political scientist.

Traditionally, the influence of teacher unions has been measured by the size of their membership or how active unions are in collective bargaining, said Patrick Flavin, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science at Baylor. But in a recent study, he found that teachers’ unions — even in many Southern right-to-work states with weak or non-existent collective bargaining laws — have increased their political power by ratcheting up campaign contributions to candidates for state office.

“You don’t often think of teachers as having a lot of money to throw around to campaigns. But when you have a lot of people each giving a little, it adds up,” Flavin said. “Combine that with the fact that teachers vote at much higher rates than the general public, and you have a potent political force.

“It will be very interesting to see how state legislators who opposed collective bargaining rights for teachers fare when the next round of statewide elections roll around. It’s likely that teacher unions will actively seek incumbents’ defeat by mobilizing teachers to get to the polls to support opposing candidates and by contributing to their campaigns.”

His study, which has been presented to the National Council on Teacher Quality in Washington, D.C., will be published in the fall issue of State Politics & Policy Quarterly. It is titled “From the Schoolhouse to the Statehouse: Teacher Union Political Activism and U.S. State Education Reform Policy.”

On June 1, Tennessee added its name to the list of state governments that have recently sought to limit the power of organized labor in public schools. Others states that have taken action in recent months are Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Idaho and Michigan.

While teacher activism has been well chronicled, only a handful of scholars have actually examined the effect organized teacher interests have on education policymaking in the states, Flavin said. He found that the usual measures of political influence were not significant in predicting state education reform policy, mainly because collective bargaining and political activism are different.

“Just because the collective bargaining powers of teacher unions has been curbed doesn’t mean they don’t have power to influence teacher pay and evaluation policies as well as policies regarding charter schools and voucher programs for private schools,” he said.

One example is Alabama, where state law does not explicitly require that school districts empower teachers with collective bargaining rights, Flavin said.

“Although this may lead some to conclude that Alabama teachers are politically weak, it would be a serious mistake to assume that the state’s largest teachers’ union — the Alabama Education Association — plays an insignificant role in state politics,” he said. “The AEA is considered one of the state’s most powerful interest groups by Alabama policymakers because it contributes a larger percentage of campaign contributions to state candidates than any other organized interest in the state.”

The study uses data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics to measure teacher union giving in each state from 1998 to 2006. The top five states for teacher union political contributions as a percentage of total giving are Oregon, Indiana, Nebraska, Wyoming and Illinois. The bottom five states are Alaska, South Carolina, Maine, Mississippi and Vermont. The study finds that in states where teacher unions contribute at a greater rate to campaigns, teacher unions have been more successful in opposing greater public school choice and reforms for teacher pay and evaluation.

Besides their influence in state politics, teacher unions have a strong advantage in local education politics because the policies they seek to influence are decided largely by public officials in low-turnout, low-interest elections, Flavin said. For example, local school board elections typically report voter turnout of no more than 15 percent of eligible voters. Even in states that elect chief state school officers and a state board of education, teacher union interest groups typically expect little public awareness. Consequently, teachers make up a disproportionately large segment of voters in these elections and exert considerable influence on the direction of policy, Flavin said.

“My prediction is that in upcoming state elections, teacher unions will be very active in getting their members out to vote against legislators who have supported these recent reforms curbing the ability of teacher unions to collectively bargain,” he said. “The bottom line is that teachers will remain politically powerful.”

Flavin’s co-researcher was Michael Hartney, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

One freedom I particularly wish to talk about today is the freedom to homeschool. It’s a freedom we’ve had to fight for, and I’m sure the battle will never really be over. In some states, the laws are more restrictive than where I live, and every so often, additional homeschool issues are brought before the legislators. We need to be aware of the laws in our state and be prepared to stand up to defend them if they are called into question. I have to say, though, that I’m so grateful that we can do homeschool at all, even with the restrictions we may or may not face.

When I look at my children and I consider their unique personalities and their unique trials, I have a hard time picturing how they would cope in a public school setting. One son is currently battling an illness that requires him to take pills regularly and to only eat certain foods, and I don’t know how we would ever bring that about in a public school situation. It’s not just him, though-there are at least thirty reasons why I’m so grateful that we have the ability to choose the best schooling options for our children.

Freedom means being able to choose, and it’s a wonderful thing that we as parents can choose homeschool, public school, or private school. I love that we can determine how we carry out each of those choices. I appreciate so much the lawmakers and lobbyists who work hard to protect those choices.

As I sit and watch the fireworks on Monday, with my family huddled nearby, I’m going to give an extra dose of gratitude. We truly are blessed.

LENNOX

School board official attends reception with president: Lennox School Board member Marisol Cruz recently returned to the South Bay from a trip to Washington, D.C., where she and others in a group of young elected officials met with members of the Obama administration and attended a reception with the president himself.

Cruz and several other members of the People For the American Way Foundation’s Young Elected Officials Network – a network of young progressives in elected office – made the White House trip on June 17 to discuss issues facing states and localities.

The Young Elected Officials Network, a project of People For the American Way Foundation, provides support and training for more than 600 progressive state, county and city elected officials from all 50 states.