California is the first state to adopt the LGBT rights agenda formally into its public schools, as part of a new history and social studies curriculum that will reach children as young as the second grade.
“This is a big win for our students,” said California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in a statement. “This document will improve the teaching and learning of history and social science. It will give our students access to the latest historical research and help them learn about the diversity of our state and the contributions of people and groups who may not have received the appropriate recognition in the past.”
However, Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), tells Breitbart News the new framework is the height of political correctness.
“The whole idea that social science or history could be taught in a manner that does not reflect adversely on groups of people is absurd,” he observes, adding:
People acting as groups or as members of groups often do discreditable things, and even more often do things that later generations condemn even if those actions seemed right at the time. Any accurate account of history or social science has to reflect that reality and it is a deep disservice to students to give them a whitewashed story. The California framework is identity politics leaning so far left that it has fallen in the Pacific Ocean of educational incompetence.
The new framework comes in response to a 2011 state law requiring the inclusion of LGBT history in the content of what students are taught in history and social studies classes.
The California Department of Education (CDE) states that information was added to the framework “about financial literacy; voter education; genocide; and the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans and people with disabilities to the history of California and the United States.”
The CDE names the information added regarding the LGBT agenda as a topic that “sparked spirited debate.”
In the new framework, second graders will learn that some families have two moms or two dads, a concept that is presented as part of normal diversity among people. The revised draft reads:
In Standard 2.1, students develop a beginning sense of history through the study of the family, a topic that is understandable and interesting to them…Through studying the stories of a very diverse collection of families, such as immigrant families, families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender parents and their children, families of color, step- and blended families, families headed by single parents, extended families…families with disabled members, families from different religious traditions, and adoptive families, students can both locate themselves and their own families in history and learn about the lives and historical struggles of their peers. In developing these activities, teachers should not assume any particular family structure and ask questions in a way that will easily include children from diverse family backgrounds. They need be sensitive to family diversity and privacy, and to protect the wishes of students and parents who prefer not to participate.
In grade four, students will learn about Harvey Milk, “a New Yorker who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 as California’s first openly gay public official.”
In an Education Week interview last September, Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), said teachers will require training in how to educate students about the significance of LGBT history.
“The average textbook used in America has next to no — if any at all — mention of LGBT material,” Jennings said, adding:
The average teacher-training program does nothing to prepare teachers to address LGBT material. So in the absence of curriculum materials that are inclusive and in the absence of training, I think it’s unrealistic to think that teachers who are not trained and who have no knowledge or expertise of a subject are suddenly, magically going to start teaching it.
Jennings is a former Obama administration “Safe Schools Czar” who currently serves as executive director of the Arcus Foundation, a powerful LGBT activist organization. Arcus is led by billionaire Jon Stryker, heir of the Stryker medical technology company, who aided President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign as a top bundler. Arcus provides “social justice grants” to “support emerging LGBT leaders.”
In September of 2014, Catholic San Francisco reported “abundant evidence” that the campaign against San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for his decision to speak during the March for Marriage in Washington, D.C., was orchestrated by the leftist Faithful America, which was funded by Stryker’s Arcus Foundation, LGBT activist Tim Gill of Colorado’s Gill Foundation, billionaire George Soros, and the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund.
As Christian News reports, Jennings and a “coalition of Massachusetts school teachers who supported advocacy for homosexual issues” formed GLSEN in 1990.
According to its website, the group says its goal is to “ensure that every member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” The activist organization also states it seeks to build a “global movement.”
“Learn how we leverage our 25+ years of leadership and expertise in the U.S. to engage and support our partners abroad,” GLSEN states.
The group creates printed resources for teachers to use in the K-12 classrooms and urges schools to celebrate LGBT History Month and LGBT Pride Month. Reading materials and lesson plans for children include the books Heather Has Two Mommies, It’s OK to Be Different, and Tango Makes Three. A lesson plan on “ThinkB4YouSpeak,” a guide to LGBT politically correct language, is also promoted by GLSEN.
A history and English Language Arts lesson – reportedly aligned with the Common Core standards – is offered at GLSEN on the story of Matthew Shepard, a gay young man who was murdered years ago and who is an icon for militant LGBT groups. The story of Shepard’s murder, however, was debunked several years ago by investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez, who discovered that Shepard was not murdered by a stranger because he was gay, but rather by a fellow drug dealer with whom he often had sex.
GLSEN’s website provides K-12 “educator resources” that include an “LGBT-inclusive curriculum” and lesson plans on topics such as how to celebrate LGBT History Month in classrooms.
Each year, GLSEN sponsors its Day of Silence, when it encourages thousands of public high school and middle school students to remain silent throughout an entire school day to promote the militant LGBT agenda among young people.
GLSEN has also joined with Planned Parenthood to promote sex-related curricula in schools.
Pacific Justice Institute senior staff attorney Matthew McReynolds heads a legal defense group that attempted to repeal the 2011 state law requiring the addition of LGBT history in the public school curriculum.
“Certainly some families will be concerned about their second-graders learning about two-mom families, but I think parents would be much more alarmed if they knew that LGBT History Month, in the last few years, has promoted the notion that ‘America the Beautiful’ is a source of lesbian pride,” McReynolds said, reports the Associated Press.
The revised draft of the new framework curriculum ties its foundation to the Common Core standards. The introduction states:
It is the obligation of the state of California to impart upon all students an engaging and relevant history–social science education that will shape how they participate in their world. This framework aims to highlight the most recent shifts in instructional practices that will make it possible to meet this obligation, while retaining the best practices currently employed. As the CA Common Core for ELA/Literacy and California’s English Language Development Standards emphasize, in order to be successful in most content areas, students must develop essential reading, writing, and analysis skills. Studying disciplines like history and the related social sciences require students to employ complex vocabulary, understand discipline-specific patterns of language, and exercise analytical thinking skills.
Jane Robbins, attorney and senior fellow at American Principles Project, reacts to Breitbart News about the forced LGBT history curriculum for students.
“California has decided to include people in the curriculum and celebrate them (no criticism allowed, apparently) based solely on their sexual behavior,” she asserts. “Especially after the Obergefell decision, it’s only a matter of time until this propaganda spreads to the public schools of other states.”
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