Education EO and Local Control
Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, July 14, 2017 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler
When President Trump issued his April 26th Executive Order “Enforcing Statutory Prohibitions on Federal Control of Education,” it became the policy of the executive branch through the Secretary of Education to examine whether regulations and guidance documents uphold local control for curriculum, instruction programs, textbooks, library books, and other instructional material.
That order empowered the Secretary of Education to rescind or revise regulations and guidance documents that are inconsistent with federal law and propose replacement regulations within 300 days after the executive order was issued in April 2017.
On the basis of that order, the U.S. Secretary of Education should investigate the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) “Welcoming Schools Program,” that’s dedicated to utilizing LGBTQ-inclusive programs in Pre-K – 12 schools throughout the country. To accomplish that, the HRC provides instruction through HRC-trained and HRC-certified facilitators, one of whom trained some of Georgia’s school nurses earlier this year.Under the subject “Gender-Expansive and Transgender Children,” the Welcoming Schools Program lists 17 reading books that introduce alternate lifestyles and gender-change to all children, beginning before kindergarten. Two of the books for pre – K kids are entitled “Jacob’s New Dress,” and “My Princess Boy.” The title of another book for grades five – seven is “The Boy in the Dress.” Obviously, all of the books are designed to cause very young children to question whether they are a boy or a girl.
The Welcoming Schools website explains that over 3,000 schools have gay-straight alliance (GSA) clubs that discuss LGBTQ issues, homophobia and trans-phobia, while augmenting student studies with information about the life, history, and culture of LGBTQ people. GSAs can get school funding for their events and are allowed to publicly announce club meetings and activities. On GSA forms the terms “mother and father” are changed to “parent/guardian,” to accommodate the notion that mother and father are not inclusive of LGBTQ families.
Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke during a gay-pride-flag-raising ceremony on Parliament Hill, and in mid-June Canada passed a bill to insert “gender identity” and “gender expression” into the Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code of Canada. Critics of the law claim that anyone using the wrong gender pronoun could be charged with hate crimes, jailed, fined, and forced to take anti-bias training. If Canada’s governor general approves the bill, it becomes law.
And just think, there’s only a border between us and them. If that bill becomes law, how would a U.S. citizen be treated for using the wrong pronoun in Canada? For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.