Public schools are trouble. Trust is low. Enrollment is falling. Parents are embracing new alternatives.
Is transgender policy the hill public education is willing to die on? asks Robert Pondiscio, a Fordham Institute and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow. Really? Because that could happen.
Most Americans -- 57 percent in a recent poll -- don’t think a person can be a gender other than the one “assigned at birth,” he writes.
In another poll, he adds, "69 percent oppose transgender females competing against biological females in youth sports," and more than three-fourths say it’s “inappropriate for teachers to discuss trans identity in elementary schools.”
"Strong majorities of parents think transgender students should use bathrooms and locker rooms to match their sex rather than their chosen gender identity" in other surveys.
Yet many school districts are promoting transgender policies that lack community support, Pondiscio writes. The worst example is encouraging teachers and staff to "allow students to 'socially transition' — change their name, pronouns, or gender expression — without parental consent or notification."
It is not possible to overstate the level of distrust, even contempt, reflected in the practice of excluding parents from discussions about their child’s gender preference, even deceiving them if students claim their parents are unsupportive.
If teachers think a student is unsafe at home, they are required to report that to child protective services, Pondiscio notes. Without a reportable suspicion of abuse, there's "no justification for excluding parents from profoundly life-altering decisions about their own children."
Keeping critical information from parents probably violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which "gives parents virtually unlimited rights to review their child’s school records," Pondiscio writes. There are 20 lawsuits challenging these policies.
“It’s hard to imagine a faster way to destroy the public education system than to tell parents that one of the conditions of sending their children to public school is ceding their parental role to teachers,” says Luke Berg, a lawyer at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, who is litigating three of these cases.
What happens if school employees know a child is suicidal, but don't tell the parents because the suicidal impulses are linked to gender dysphoria? And then the child commits suicide?
Writing on Liberal Patriot, Ruy Teixeira urges Democrats to embrace the "common sense" ideas of normie voters. Among these:
Equality of opportunity is a fundamental American principle; equality of outcome is not. (73 percent agree/13 percent disagree)
There are basically two genders, but people who want to live as a gender different from their biological sex should have that right and not be discriminated against. However, there are issues around child consent to transitioning and participation in women’s sports that are complicated and far from settled. (73 percent agree/17 percent disagree)
Racial achievement gaps are bad and we should seek to close them. However, they are not due just to racism and standards of high achievement should be maintained for people of all races. (74 percent agree/16 percent disagree)
Telling the normies that they're "haters" is a losing proposition, Teixeira writes.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta "will not tolerate districts compromising the safety and privacy of transgender and gender nonconforming students" by informing parents their child is "out" at school, reports EdSource. He has opened a civil rights investigation into Chino Valley Unified School District's policy.