So, California is making it a law for school textbooks to include the accomplishments of LGBT. The new law, SB48, requires the California Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other teaching materials that cover the contributions and roles of sexual minorities, as soon as the 2013-2014 school year. Brown issued a statement in which he called the legislation an “important step forward for our state.’’
“History should be honest,’’ Brown said. “This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books.’’
Why does this even have to be a law? Textbooks need to balanced off-the-top when telling the history of America period. The root of the problem is history books are whitewashed and it contains unbalanced representations of U.S. minority achievements. Shouldn’t achievements be noted as achievements, no matter what race or sexual orientation? It’s written in our 15th Amendment already – common knowledge since 1870. Textbooks should be balanced representations of the U.S. people – this should be the real law. Making bills for each U.S. minority is clearly a waste of legislative time and money. Instead, amend and consolidate all the previous “affirmative action school textbooks” bills and make ONE all-inclusive requirement of the teaching of historically important U.S. minority achievements.
I find this bill passing to be a masked attempt to make Gov. Brown look like he’s helping educational efforts – but in reality he isn’t. First of all, it doesn’t cost the government or schools anything extra. The textbooks are updated each year anyway under its own fixed budget – this is not a win at all.
I disagree with Republicans saying this teaches homosexuality. That’s like saying Mexican textbooks are teaching Mexican supremacy. That’s just plain ignorance and it ignores the real issues at-hand. Benjamin Lopez of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, is critical of the the bill’s passing, feeling that Gov. Brown lost focus of the urgent matters at-hand in California education.
“It’s a sad day for the state of California,’’ Lopez said, legislative analyst and advocate for the group. “We have failed at our core educational mission and yet we are now going to inject gay studies into the classrooms. It’s absurd and offensive.’’
The governor’s decision was criticized by Benjamin Lopez of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, who said the schools should be focusing on doing better on important skills such as reading, writing and math.
And I agree with Lopez, a real win for our children would be passing laws that guarantee: nutritious balanced school meals; books for each child; increased reading and math efforts; after-school programs that keep kids out of trouble. These are tangible and attainable bills but, it will cost the government – and they don’t care to spend money on our kids – to me this just says, “fuck kids and their education.” It certainly falls short.
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