WA: Sex ed mandate sparks bitter state ballot fight

Democrats in the Washington state Legislature thought they had passed a routine sex education requirement for public schools earlier this year. But a coalition of Republicans and religious conservatives launched a swift, historic backlash that’s led to a bitter partisan fight and an effort to overturn the measure on the November ballot.

Democrats in the famously liberal state say they want to protect young people from sexual abuse, diseases and infections. But the increasingly outnumbered and aggrieved Republicans have taken issue with the content of the standards as they rally for local control.

The resulting referendum on the November ballot marks the first time in the country that such a decision on sex ed will be decided by voters.

Under the wide-ranging bill, kindergarteners would be taught how to manage feelings and make friends, while older kids will learn about consent and how to respond to violence. The curriculum must also address issues faced by LGBTQ students.

At least 29 states plus Washington, D.C., require public schools to teach sex education, but the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Education Commission of the States — two organizations that track policy trends — said it has never appeared on a statewide ballot. Instead, the curriculum has been debated at school boards and statehouses.

A Washington state group funded by Republican leaders called Parents for Safe Schools forced the issue onto the ballot by submitting over 264,000 signatures, the most gathered for a referendum to overturn an existing bill or law in the past four decades, according to the secretary of state. It was double the minimum number needed to make the ballot, with two-thirds coming from church sites.

The group helmed by Mindie Wirth, a tech company manager who lives in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, was aided by Catholic church parishes that served as signature-gathering locations while the pandemic limited traditional petitioning activities.

“It feels like we’re just not being listened to and I think this is a very large part of what this represents,” said Wirth, a one-time Republican candidate who lost a bid for state Senate in 2016.

Courtney Normand, director of a Planned Parenthood-affiliated political group in the state, is leading the campaign in support of the sex ed bill. She said her coalition didn’t mobilize during the referendum petition because of the pandemic and was dismayed that the opposition’s in-person signature-gathering took place despite Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order.

“It seems to be a political, partisan turn-out goal rather than really an intention about student safety,” Normand said of the Republican-led efforts.

As of Sept. 24, almost half of the $1.1 million raised for Safe & Healthy Youth Washington, the campaign in support of sex ed, has come from Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Parents for Safe Schools — the campaign against the sex ed bill — has amassed $245,000 in contributions. Most came from the Reagan Fund, the political action committee of the Washington State House Republican Leadership.

Republicans have slammed the mandate as an affront to local and parental control of education. Though school boards have the authority to create or adopt their own curriculum, opponents said the bill would still dictate what must be covered in classes. Opposition leaders say they aren’t necessarily opposed to sex education but see the statewide mandate as heavy-handed.

The Washington State Catholic Conference, the policy arm of church leadership in the state, is especially opposed to the affirmative consent aspect of the curriculum because the church opposes premarital sex.

“When you get into the issues of how do you say ‘yes’ or how do you say ‘no,’ that can easily open the door to that ‘It’s OK. It’s OK to say yes and no,’ and that steps on our teaching that sexual activity is to be reserved for the sacrament of marriage,” said Mario Villanueva, executive director of the conference.

The fiercely partisan fight has carried over into the non-partisan race for state schools chief.

Maia Espinoza, who was a single mother after having her first child at 19 years old, said she decided to run against incumbent Superintendent Chris Reykdal because she is horrified by the sex ed mandate that his administration requested. Two years ago, Espinoza ran as a Republican in a losing bid for a seat in the state House.

Those in support of comprehensive sex ed say it’s a health and safety measure needed to protect children, and that there is a wide disparity among the nearly 300 public school districts in the state, a small number of which do not teach any sex education.

Reykdal, who previously served three terms as a Democrat in the state House, said the state education department routinely reviews content standards. He said the Legislature was mindful of the sensitivity of the sex ed topic, issuing age-appropriate concepts by grade level and allowing families to opt out of the lessons. Families also have a say when their local school district adopts curriculum.

State Sen. Claire Wilson, a Democrat from the Seattle suburbs, said she was moved to sponsor the bill based on her experience as an educator working with pre-teen mothers and also by hearing from men and women who said they didn’t even know the words needed to describe sexual abuse they endured as children.

“This is not about teaching sex. It never has been and it never will be,” Wilson said.

SOURCE

Feds to ship millions of tests in push to reopen K-12 schools
President Donald Trump announced Monday that the federal government will begin distributing millions of rapid coronavirus tests to states this week and urged governors to use them to reopen schools for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The move to vastly expand U.S. testing comes as confirmed new COVID-19 cases remain elevated at more than 40,000 per day and experts warn of a likely surge in infections during the colder months ahead. It also comes just five weeks before the November election, with Trump facing continued criticism for his handling of the crisis.

The tests will go out to states based on their population and can be used as governors see fit, but the Trump administration is encouraging states to place a priority on schools. White House officials said at a Rose Garden event that 6.5 million tests will go out this week and that a total of 100 million tests will be distributed to governors over the next several weeks.

Officials said the administration is emphasizing testing in schools because it’s important to the physical, social and emotional development of students to be back in classrooms to the degree that’s possible. The Abbott Laboratories tests would allow parents to know whether their symptomatic child has COVID-19. In some cases, states could undertake some baseline surveillance, like testing a proportion of students per week or per month to make sure that the incidence of COVID-19 is low.

“You have too many states that are locked down right now,” Trump said. “The governors are … nobody knows what the governors are doing actually.”

The tests will come from a previously announced supply of 150 million ordered from Abbott. The company’s rapid test, the size of a credit card, is the first that does not require specialty computer equipment to process. It delivers results in about 15 minutes.

Rapid, convenient testing is considered essential to reopening the U.S. economy. But the effort has been plagued by problems since the earliest days of the outbreak.

First, the government lost pivotal weeks distributing, then correcting a flawed test developed by U.S. scientists. Then, for months private labs and hospitals struggled to ramp up testing capacity due to shortages of key supplies, including testing chemicals.

The issue is politically sensitive for Trump as he grapples with the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans. For months, Trump has prodded state and local leaders to open schools this fall.

Only in the last two months has U.S. testing capacity generally exceeded demand. The government’s top testing official, Adm. Brett Giroir, told Congress last week that the nation will soon have the capacity to run 3 million tests per day, on average. The U.S. has been averaging about 900,000 tests per day, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.

Giroir demonstrated the ease with which the test is given, self-administering the nasal swab then placing it on a piece of paper that contained six drops of liquid.

“This is a very sophisticated little piece of cardboard with lots of antibodies and incredible technology,” he said.

Abbott’s test is an important advance because of its low cost and easy-to-use format. Until now, the vast majority of coronavirus tests had to be sent to high-grade medical laboratories for processing that typically took several days. Backlogs led to repeated delays in reporting results, especially during a summer spike in cases.

But rapid, point-of-care tests like Abbott’s have their own downsides. They are less accurate, and positive results often need to be confirmed with higher-grade lab tests. Additionally, because the tests are often performed outside the health care system, state officials have warned that many tests are going unreported. That could lead to undercounts of new cases, skewing government data needed to track the virus.

“What we’re hearing from the states is that they don’t know where these tests are being done,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, in a recent interview. He warned that schools generally do not have the capacity or expertise to report mass testing results, which could artificially lower infection counts sent to state and federal officials.

Trump warned that with an increase in testing, there would “automatically” be an increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

“It’s important to remember that as younger and healthier people return to work and as we massively increase testing capacity, we will identify more cases in asymptomatic individuals in low-risk populations,” Trump said. “This should not cause undue alarm.”

The tests from Abbott are being made in two factories, one in Illinois and one in Maine. The company is in a ramping-up phase. The federal government bought the first 150 million, and it will take the rest of the year to completely fill that order. After that, the administration will decide whether the government should purchase more or whether the free market can determine adequate distribution.

The nonprofit Rockefeller Foundation says the U.S. will need roughly 200 million tests per month to safely reopen schools as part of a broader phased approach to easing restrictions, according to a paper issued earlier this month. The report authors noted that the U.S. is currently averaging fewer than 30 million tests per month.

Despite the gap, Rockefeller’s director, Dr. Jonathan Quick, called Monday’s announcement “an exciting and very significant step.” He added that states will need sustained funding and testing supplies “for the foreseeable future.”

The Trump administration announced earlier this month that the Abbott tests would also go to assisted-living facilities, moving to fill a testing gap for older adults who do not need the constant attention of a nursing home. Senior day care centers and home health agencies are getting the tests too.

Long-term care facilities, including nursing homes and assisted living, account for a sliver of the U.S. population but more than 40% of deaths from COVID-19.

SOURCE

It’s the Elites vs. the Underdogs in the Battle for Education Choice

If there is one unifying strand that runs through the character of our nation, it is that America loves an underdog. From the Revolution, to Roosevelt, to Rocky, our country has always embraced the fighting spirit of those who triumph against difficult odds to achieve a worthy cause.

Conversely we hold far less affection for those in authority who wield power with abandon, entrenched elites who write the rules to keep everyone in their place. The story of our nation is an ongoing tale of these opposing forces; the elites who thrive on power and demand allegiance to their dictates, and individual Americans struggling for the right to be free from control. And nowhere today do we see this battle in such stark contrast as in the fight for education choice.

As the digital age is opening up endless possibilities and empowering people with opportunities like never before, it is a stone-age anomaly that education today remains largely a government monopoly for all but the wealthy and privileged. Democrats have firmly planted their flag on the monopoly hill, fiercely opposed to even the smallest empowering gestures such as charter schools or vouchers for public education.

This battle is no less pronounced in higher education, where Democrats have spent the last decade firing torpedoes at a whole industry of innovative career-oriented colleges and universities that are not part of the public university system or the elitist ivory tower establishment. For Democrat lawmakers in Washington and their deep-pocketed allies in the non-profit education racket, nothing would please them more than to regulate or legislate these schools out of business.

Special-interest money flows to fund the left’s assault on career-oriented education even beyond the halls of Capitol Hill. Ivy League “consultants” like Bob Shireman and David Halperin, former advisors to Presidents Obama and Clinton respectively, make a good living doing the dirty work of the education establishment, setting up foundations filled with left-wing journalists, politicians, and former administration officials to tear down for-profit and non-profit private colleges.

It is no surprise these activists are silent concerning the many problems at public universities or elite private institutions; admissions scandals, alarming graduation rates, student debt scandals, issues of tenure, or the festering environment of political intolerance. Nor do they scrutinize the multi-billion dollar endowments or outrageous compensation packages of professors and administrators of their alma maters. Their sole purpose is to hurt the working class by targeting the schools attended by the academic underdogs who lack their own elitist credentials.

The people they aim to hurt include students at Monroe College in the Bronx, a family-run for-profit institution with a track record of placing its almost all minority nursing graduates into jobs that would be the envy of any school in the country. Under Shireman and Halperin’s master plan, this school likely closes and its contribution to our nation, our economy, and the disadvantaged students it serves disappears.

Democrat activists threaten the mostly working-adult student body of ECPI University, one of the top technical schools in the country that is playing a significant role in helping America fill our economy’s rapacious need for skilled workers in the computing and IT field. If the entrenched education establishment gets its way, tens of thousands of other adult, minority and military students would be affected at schools such as University of Phoenix, Full Sail University, Grand Canyon University, and hundreds of others.

The elitist left’s tactics are despicable and dishonest, and have included lobbying the IRS to deny schools’ non-profit status, pressuring the Department of Veterans Affairs to disqualify universities for GI Bill funding, and launching a broadside against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who refused to enforce punishing Obama-era regulations.

Every day that the elites work to eliminate these valued universities, enlisted men and women in active duty military are pursuing degrees to accelerate their graduation dates. Every day that these schools face the threat of closure from an elitist educational CABAL, single mothers and financially disadvantaged women are signing-up for classes that will launch them into new careers for a better future.

The truth is that career-oriented schools fill a critical need for non-traditional adult learners, students with jobs and families, military personnel, and minority students. We know this because thousands are making the choice every day to pursue their dreams by enrolling at career-oriented schools whose innovative programs fast-track them to a better life. Education choice should be every person’s right, not just the wealthy and connected. In this battle against the elites it should be our duty to fight for the underdog.

SOURCE

Religion on Campus: A Marketable Skill, or a Diversity & Inclusion Fight?

Across higher education, campuses have changed how they deal with religion. It used to be seen as something at odds with academic freedom and science. Now, however, some campus administrators and advocates want students to learn more about religion, and to see policy changes on the institutional level.

One argument is for colleges to teach religious literacy because it’s a vital career skill. Another sees religion as an equity issue like race and gender, and colleges need to make religious accommodations for students to create an inclusive campus. The influence of both arguments isn’t likely to go away soon, either.

One camp has an eye toward student earnings. Religious literacy pays off in the marketplace, advocates argue, because students will work with all sorts of people. Graduates will be better coworkers and managers when they know something about different Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists. And employers will pay better wages.

Whether students develop those career skills through religious literacy activities, though, isn’t so clear.

The other camp is interested in religion at the institutional level, as part of diversity and inclusion on campus. Colleges, they say, have a duty to welcome religion on campus and make students comfortable. On one level, it means accommodations such as prayer spaces, excused class absences, and meal options that respect religious restrictions. Another level is social change to fight what they call Christian supremacy and systemic oppression.

The economic argument is pushed by the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a nonprofit organization that works with religious and secular colleges, doing research, offering program grants, and running events and training for students and campus staff. It boasts on its website that it’s “building a network of over 100,000 aspiring interfaith leaders on more than 600 U.S. college and university campuses.”

In its Interfaith Diversity Experiences & Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), IFYC explained why religious literacy matters:

The changing demographics of our nation require nearly every American adult to possess skills to bridge religious divides. Research from the Public Religion Research Institute specifically underscores the relevance of religious diversity in the workplace, indicating that most Americans encounter religious diversity at work far more frequently than in other facets of their lives. Employers are therefore emphasizing the need for a workforce that possesses strong civic knowledge and intercultural skills, and whose members are equipped to solve problems with people whose views differ from their own.

Advocates such as IFYC and interfaith workers want more institutional investment in their efforts, citing a lack of knowledge among students, even compared to a generation ago. In IFYC’s IDEALS report, the group suggests colleges:

Hire staff responsible for supporting diverse religious groups and dedicate space on campus for religious groups

Create formal accommodations and add religion to campus diversity statements

Require students to participate in interfaith activities
Inroads are being made with the argument that religious literacy is a job skill.

“This is the argument that is so essential,” said Ellie Thompson, the Reflection Center coordinator at Utah Valley University, an area where students can pray, meditate, and gather for interfaith events. Tying educational gains to economic gains matters to boosters and campus staff alike.

If college leaders aren’t persuaded by the job skills argument, they might come around to keep international students happy. “How do you get administrative buy-in?” Thompson said. “There’s lots of different tactics to take, but administration always pays attention to the money.” It’s essential to make international students feel like they belong on campus if colleges want them to stay. “We want every single person who walks on our campus to feel like there is a place they feel like they belong,” she said.

More and more colleges are taking action, either by required courses or extracurricular activities.

The University of Michigan, for example, is developing virtual training modules on interfaith cooperation. Utah Valley University offers interreligious, interfaith, and worldview workshops to faculty and staff. More than 120 campuses included interfaith themes as a part of a required course, according to an IFYC survey, 21 of which were public universities.

In a classroom setting, these courses can be more meaningful than a one-off session. “It’s a lot more robust when it’s part of the required curriculum,” said Michelle Lelwica, a professor of religion at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. “Students are going to be required to gain some knowledge about religions other than Christianity, but they’re going to have to engage with each other.”

“This would be something that public colleges would do well to do something about—to have some kind of required engagement with religious diversity,” Lelwica said.

Outside the classroom experiences can still benefit students, Lelwica noted, but it’s easier to avoid issues of real difference and fall into platitudes like “all religions believe the same thing.”

The economic argument for religious literacy may not be that strong, though. Employer surveys do show that they want students who can work in teams and communicate well. Listening skills, attention to detail, and effective communication topped one survey, and a ZipRecruiter analysis of entry-level job listings emphasized customer service, sales and marketing, and consulting experience as well. Employers want to hire college graduates who communicate well, solve problems, and work well with others. However, they aren’t yet demanding graduates have interfaith experiences. Knowing how to avoid offending someone in the workplace is a good skill to have, but it might not get workers a hiring bonus.

Religious literacy classes and interfaith activities aren’t necessarily how students develop those skills, either. The official, structured events may do less than informal socializing that gets students to learn about what their friends believe. Left alone, students already show high regard for religious differences.

Interfaith Youth Core’s IDEALS report noted that 90 percent of students said they “feel a sense of goodwill toward people of other religious or nonreligious perspectives.” Another 70 percent said they were “highly committed to bridging religious divides” by their senior year. Students may not understand precisely what their Shia or Baptist coworkers believe in, but they try to treat them well.

A better knowledge of religion in America is a laudable goal, but students lag in their religious knowledge just as they lag in their knowledge of history. It’s an open question whether more religion classes would develop job-friendly communication skills better than more history, English, or public speaking classes.

When religion on campus is an equity issue instead of an economic one, the focus shifts from student learning to identities and minority groups. Students deserve the chance to keep their grades up without violating their religious beliefs, but the advocacy can be polarizing and move beyond academic concerns.

“To foster a well-rounded and global student, you can’t just ignore these identities,” said J. Cody Nielsen. Nielsen is the executive director of Convergence on Campus, a nonprofit organization that supports religious, secular, and spiritual diversity on campus.

“Administrators in higher education have been seemingly let off the hook and not held responsible for fostering campus climates that are equitable, inclusive, and are structurally designed and built” for all students regardless of belief, Nielsen said.

Convergence on Campus was designed as a social change organization, Nielsen said, to look at institutional practices and create an equitable environment.

“We have said from the beginning that marginalization of religious minorities and non-religious identities in higher education is always and always has been systemically racist and colonialist,” Nielsen said.

When Convergence on Campus works with diversity and inclusion staff on campus, Nielsen noted that they explain that diversity and inclusion work is intersectional, and the culture of higher education has shied away from talking about religion.

“It [comes] back to sort of religious literacy and understanding that secularization and claims around separation of church and state are inherently optical illusions of white Christian supremacy and white Christian privilege that exists,” Nielsen said. “And then, once we cross those barriers, working with diversity and inclusion officers, if they can grasp at that…then we start working on institutional policy changes.”

Some of those policy changes are relatively simple, such as

Make accommodations for religious holidays,

Educate faculty about student rights to those accommodations,
Offer kosher, halal, vegetarian, and other dietary options in food halls, and

Designate one staff person as responsible for handling these issues.

Students have Constitutional rights to practice their religion without interference or penalties from their college. Those rights apply to Catholics as much as Hindus, agnostics, and all other spiritual identities.

“We’re not talking about religious practice. We’re talking about religious oversight in the same way that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on Greek life,” Nielsen said.

“Claims around separation of church and state are inherently optical illusions of white Christian supremacy and white Christian privilege that exists,” Nielsen said.

Convergence on Campus has made notable progress. Nielsen pointed to a 2019 law in Washington state that mandated a religious accommodation policy be added to all syllabi at colleges and universities. They are tracking similar bills and, were it not for COVID-19, a few more states would have passed similar laws, he estimated.

Their work goes beyond ensuring religious accommodations.

“We’re about promoting equity,” Nielsen said. “We want to foster an area of what we see as very transformational, or at least aspirationally transformational possibilities in society. We want to turn that field of higher education into a vessel that on every corner of the campus any student…knows that their identity is valued and seen on campus.”

People who are not politically progressive may be less excited to use higher ed as a vessel to fight all social ills, however. Making religion a part of diversity and inclusion would mean expanding the power of campus administrators, who are overwhelmingly on the political left. If religion becomes another diversity checkbox on campus, it may be something a progressive Lutheran would enjoy more than a conservative Evangelical, though both would appreciate religious accommodations for all.

The model followed by Convergence on Campus and, to an extent, by Interfaith Youth Core sees colleges and universities as places for social change. It’s a place to create leaders for the future and to power “transformative social movements.” But students are generally more interested in getting a good job or learning something about the world, rather than serving as the activist vanguard for campus administrators.

SOURCE