August 19, 2016 Radio Commentary

LGBT Grades 2 – 12

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, August 19, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

No doubt, many parents of school-age children were alarmed when California passed S.B. 48 in 2011 and became the first state requiring a homosexual curriculum for grades 2 – 12. So, regardless of community attitudes, California schools became cultural change agents for alternate lifestyles through enhanced classroom instruction.

To accommodate multiculturalism, handicapped individuals, and sexuality activists, two California code sections now require history and social science courses to focus on three additional groups: (a) hyphenated Americans, (b) persons with disabilities, and the (c) ever-expanding list of alternate lifestyles – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups. Also when S.B. 48 became law, California gave “sexual orientation” civil rights status.

As for textbooks and instructional materials, “sexual orientation” and “occupation” were added to the list of designated groups teachers must present in a positive light, always. To get it done immediately, California’s Board of Education adopted updated guidelines to integrate changes into current instruction, because the next scheduled adoption of teaching materials is 2017.

Meantime, California’s second-grade teachers are encouraged to read students stories about “a very diverse collection of families,” including “families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender parents and their children.”Now, before you remind me that the LGBT curriculum is mandatory in California, but not in Georgia, let me remind you that Pride School opened in Atlanta this week, specifically, to accommodate alternate lifestyle students from Georgia and elsewhere. Also, before you remind me that Pride School is a high-cost private school, let me remind you that by 2009 the National Association of Education for Young Children, already, had accredited eight-percent of Georgia daycare facilities (public or private), and, probably, many more by now.

In 1989 NAEYC reported having accredited 1,500 early childhood programs with its value-based Anti-Bias Curriculum (A-BC) that “requires critical thinking and problem-solving by both children and adults … [while acknowledging this:] at heart anti-bias curriculum is about social change.”

To accomplish the NAEYC brand of social change, teachers are required to “read preschoolers books about boys and girls that contradict gender stereotypes,” and stories about “blended families; gay or lesbian families (two daddies or two mommies).”

NAEYC’s A-BC says this on page 49: “[Young children] also need adult encouragement to go beyond stereotypic gender role constraints and try out new behaviors.” So, long before California mandated its LGBT curriculum, NAEYC was training Georgia toddlers to question their sexual identity. For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.