21 Woke Mandates Reveal California’s Radical Education BenderCalifornia funds leftist interest groups to transform schools, while requiring all districts to follow mandates pushed by said interest groups.BY: ANNA MILLER AND SCOTT YENOR
SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
In less than 12 years, California has passed more than 20 education mandates with the goal of sowing radical gender theory and critical race theory into the state’s education practices.
It is easy to get numb to California’s single-minded pursuit of wokeness in K-12 education. When all of California’s actions are collected in one place (as we show in a recent report from the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life and the Idaho Freedom Foundation), the ambitions are truly breathtaking. Since 2011, California has gone on a social justice bender.
Each of these 21 mandates aims to remedy either (1) homophobia, (2) transphobia, or (3) racial inequity, or (4) establish manipulative teaching techniques to shape children’s affections toward the first three categories. California laws, it seems, are focused on promoting gay pride and transgenderism among students. At least eight mandates concern combatting homophobia or incorporating gender identity into school policy, classroom instruction, or teacher training. In addition, California emphasizes developing manipulative teaching techniques called “transformative-social and emotional” learning and culturally responsive teaching so that its woke agenda can be ever more successfully implemented. Let’s look at some of these specific mandates.
Combating HomophobiaSeth’s Law, enacted in 2011, mandates schools to adopt anti-bullying policies that include sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression. The state also enacted the FAIR Education Act in 2011 which mandates that examples of LGBT people be incorporated into social science instruction for all K–12 students.
In 2015, California enacted the Healthy Youth Act which mandated “LGBTQ+ inclusive” Comprehensive Sex Education for grades 7–12. The next year, the state adopted a suicide prevention policy requiring public schools to adopt suicide prevention policies for grades K–12 that specifically mention and incorporate LGBT students. Two years later, the adoption of the Online Anti-Bullying Training for Teachers and School Staff required schools to provide teachers and staff with annual online training on bullying.
The Safe and Supportive Schools Act of 2019 required the California Department of Education (CDE) to provide LGBT resources for school districts. The CDE then adopted the Health Education Framework in 2019 which includes training teachers to affirm and perhaps cultivate LGBT identities in students. Kindergarten students must learn about challenging gender stereotypes, gender identity, transgenderism, and gender nonconformity. None of this, however, is enough for the CDE to rectify supposed homophobia in the system. This year the superintendent of public instruction created a task force on inclusive education to pressure curriculum providers to diversify their materials and be LGBT inclusive.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/12/21-woke-mandates-revealing-californias-radical-education-bender/
