Schools Matter

First published on Robert D. Skeels for School Board on November 27, 2012.

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"Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We've been tarred and we've been brushed with the picture of pornography." — Harvey Milk

The current crop of teacher-bashing political opportunists including Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Peter C. Cook, Gloria Romero, and Andy Smarick, are nothing new. While it's always been in vogue to attack the female dominated profession, teachers have really been in the crosshairs of reactionaries ever since they won the modicum of protections that unions provide.

San Francisco's Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated 34 years ago today. Milk, who had been a teacher early in his career, was a man who always spoke truth to power. When right-wing extremist John Briggs coined Proposition 6, he relied on the same bigoted thinking that we've seen in recent times with Proposition 32, and other anti-teacher, anti-student, anti-worker initiatives. While the defeat of the Briggs Initiative was clearly a watershed victory for the Gay Rights Movement, it was also victory for labor and public employees, especially school employees.

Milk was no stranger to supporting and partnering with organized labor. His successful partnership with the Teamsters was an excellent example of what today's activists need to be emulating. Milk was savvy to realize that oppressed groups need to work together in order to overcome their oppressions. The fight for gay rights, women's rights, workers' rights, immigrant rights, and all our struggles are one in the same. The other side counts on us being divided.

The corporate and neoliberal forces pushing education reform rely on divide and conquer strategies. They pit parents against educators, students against other students via standardized tests, "lucky" lottery winners against families with special needs children, and we can increase this list ad infinitum. Using deceptive language about "choice," they've begun to destroy one of the great things in our country—universal public education. We need to call out the reformers' false dichotomies for what they are. We need to strengthen the natural alliances between students, educators, parents, and community. We need to tell the privatizers that the only "choices" we want are those that assure equity for all students!

We get there by emulating Harvey Milk's coalition building. We get there by exposing billionaire funded astroturf 501c3s for having the narrow interests of their funders, not our communities. We get there by pushing all unions—especially those in our schools—into social justice unionism. We get there by electing school board members who will be activists and advocates on behalf of their communities.

The struggle continues.

The California Senate recently approved a bill that would require schools to teach LGBT history. That's a big win in most books, but not if you're Tennessee State Representative Stacey Campfield. Since the California Senate passed this pro-gay bill, it's only a matter of time before the fine state of Tennessee follow suit - sort of like how there are certain Middle Eastern countries that follow Sharia Law, which logically means it's only a matter of time before Sharia Law comes to the United States (obvious sarcasm pointing out the absurdity of Rep. Campfield's actions).

Actually, Tennessee already blazed some trails by being the first state to effectively ban Sharia Law in 2010.

Well, Rep. Campfield is carrying that torch and standing up against even the threat future pro-gay legislation (or any teachers currently teaching about homosexuality). Below is the video of discussion of the bill:


Rep. Campfield makes it pretty darn obvious that this is about prohibiting the teaching of homosexuality - you can skip to the 1:30 mark to see his line of questioning that makes this abundantly clear.

But here's where this starts to get even wackier: the legal counsel of the TN Organization of School Superintendents, Chuck Cagel, testifies just after the 1:32:00 mark. He cites the case of Garcetti vs. Ceballos and explained that teachers do not have first amendment rights when it comes to curriculum issues. On top of that, TN state law already puts limits on what can be taught through curriculum adoptions, and both the state board of education and local boards have to approve of that curriculum. From counsel Cagel:

"The theory that a teacher can just walk in and address any subject that they wish is not supported either in federal law or in our state law. In fact, our state law says that if you wander off that curriculum and address the subjects Senator Campfield makes reference here today, then you are subject criminal prosecution. And you are also subject to dismissal as a teacher in a local school system. So I don't know what bigger hammers we can have in the code..."

So there's nothing about homosexuality in the curriculum; TN teachers cannot wander from that homosexual-free curriculum; and, if they do wander from that homosexual-free curriculum, teachers (even tenured teachers) can lose their job. When asked by Rep Campfield about any specific bans on teaching homosexuality, Cagel makes it clear that teachers cannot teach about homosexuality given the current law. But keep in mind this bill would also potentially cause problems for school employees looking to curb anti-gay bullying and students looking to form LGBT clubs (see the ACLU link below).

The TN branch of the ACLU wrote about the bill here. Current TN standards for K-8 health education are available here. You can read the actual bill and an amendment here.

A few days ago, Jim wrote about Billionaire Bill's refusal to address the Uganda "Kill the Gays" bill, a piece of legislation that has most definitely received support from stateside fundamentalists. In a Seattle Times interview, Bill says this: