Susannah Luthi writes for the Washington Free Beacon about another piece of bad news from the left coast.
California governor Gavin Newsom often rails against Republican “book bans” and touts his state as an alternative model of educational “freedom.” But the Golden State forces students and parents to study the same far-left materials that some “red states” restrict.
Newsom claims his policies differentiate California from states like Florida and Texas, where “education is under assault in ways that I’ve never experienced in my lifetime.” He urges residents of the conservative states to “join us in California, where we still believe in freedom.”
Under Newsom, however, California requires schools to teach progressive takes about gender, sexuality, and race—sometimes in graphic ways. The governor this week warned school district officials not to remove materials they deem inappropriate no matter what parents say. Violators, he warned, face investigation by the state justice department.
Explained Lance Izumi, the senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute: “When you mandate something, you also ban other points of view, especially when schools adopt very radical types of curriculum.” …
… In 2011, California became the first state to legally require schools to feature gay, bisexual, and transgender role models in history-social science courses. The state guidelines call for second-grade lessons on family to include LGBT parents and 11th-grade World War II studies to emphasize discrimination against gay soldiers. High schoolers should also learn about Gay Liberation Front activists, drag icon Jose Sarria and sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who conducted friendly research with pedophiles and dismissed the harms of rape, according to the state of California. …
… A 2016 California law requires the state’s public middle and high schools to provide “comprehensive” sexual education, including instruction on gender identity and homosexuality.
“Students will explore and discover their identities, gender expression, and sexuality throughout their education and into and beyond their high school years,” the state guidelines say.