Arizona is making Culture War news once again, earning us negative press from, among others, the New York Times and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. This time the news comes from the Gilbert School District school board, where a 3-2 majority wants to black out or cut out a few pages from a high school biology book. The reason: The pages give information about contraception and morning after pills. According to the board majority, that’s illegal.
A law passed two years ago in Arizona requires schools to teach “preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption” over abortion, and the school board decided that those pages were in violation of this law — even though the Arizona Education Department, which examined the book for compliance, found that they were not.
The situation is in flux. In the November elections, Gilbert voters replaced one of the board members who voted in favor of the cutting or blacking out of the pages with a new member who will most likely vote the other way. If the district can just hold off until after January when the new board convenes, the pages will probably stay.
But a bit of crystal ball gazing tells me we’re going to see more of this over the next four years of the Douglas-Ducey educational regime. The two may not agree on Common Core, but Ducey has kissed the ring of Cathi Herrod over at the religious-far-right Center for Arizona Policy, and Douglas is pure, uncut, unfiltered Tea Party, so they should find lots of common ground on the ways religion and sexuality should be dealt with in the classroom.
Douglas’ powers as Ed Supe may be limited in lots of ways, but a look back at John Huppenthal’s decision on Mexican American Studies, that it was illegal and had to be squashed, gives a hint of what she can do. The next time a situation like the one in Gilbert comes up, her Dept. of Ed. could read the law the same way as the “Just say no to sex and abortion” crowd and demand all Arizona school districts using the textbook remove the offending pages or face a loss of state funds until they comply.
Meanwhile, the ultra-conservative triangle of Cathi Herrod, Republican legislators and Doug Ducey could strengthen the anti-contraceptive, anti-abortion education laws, giving Douglas a stronger hand, just like the legislature created an anti-MAS law to allow Huppenthal to dismantle the program.
Stay tuned.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2014.
Maybe they are trying to save the lives of black babies.
I sure hear a lot of talk about “ring kissing.”
Why so much knowledge of the aforementioned act?
The primary issue here is that this kind of stuff shouldn’t be taught by the schools. Parents need to be the ones responsible enough to teach their children. If they can’t, they shouldn’t be parents!
Yeah Rick, facts about biology definitely shouldn’t be taught in a biology class. (that’s sarcasm)
I strongly disagree that reproductive health shouldn’t be taught in school. They should be taught more. Treating these young adults like sheltered babies is counterproductive.
If the schools don’t teach them, they will just get mostly wrong information from peers and off the internet. Parents of course will model (hopefully) and encourage the behavior they want to see from their children regarding contraception and sex, but teaching the biological facts in school is a no-brainer.
I live in Gilbert, and you should know that for two years, the board has had a self-identified Tea Party majority. The textbook circus is only the latest of a string of embarrassing actions. And in that one, the district was told by attorneys from the AG’s office and one they hired that the textbook complied with state law and nothing needed to be done. But the Tea Party majority invited an attorney from Alliance for Defending Freedom to present her view, which was that the book was out of compliance. Unsurprisingly, the majority went with that view, even though it carried zilch weight. Initially, two of them wanted to rip the page out of the text; cooler heads prevailed, and now they want to simply “redact” the so-called offending passage, which defines what an abortion is. Ironically, the kids can get the text online, something the board can’t “redact.” The board is a microcosm of what happens when the Tea Party runs the show. Kind of like the House of Representatives.
Isn’t this why we have a dedicated health course? Maybe I don’t have a teacher’s wherewithall but as a parent I am very sensitive to what the schools teach that are the domain of the family.
I believe it is in the state law that parents can opt out of the health course with no loss of credit. There are likely other parents who feel the same as I do and would prefer a biology book that is not antagonistic of their beliefs. Just as you advocate strongly, David for inclusiveness you may want to consider unqualified inclusiveness.
By the looks of the number of dislikes, you guys hate black babies.
Is that right?
If reproductive health had been taught in schools some of these people wouldn’t be parents. Don’t blame the tea party, some of these same people were ignorant before the tea party. Now get serious, get the US out of the United Nations while elected local school boards still have a say over schools.