FAQs - on Jefferson County School Board issues now in the headlines Question 1: What is the issue stirring up things in Jefferson County? A: There are actually two issues, not one, but the two have become intertwined through misinformation spread by the teachers union. At its September 18 meeting, the Jefferson County Board of Education considered but did not vote on one resolution dealing with curriculum and then considered and passed a new policy on teacher salaries. (1) The curriculum committee proposal that was considered but not voted on would set up a committee of parents to review and make recommendations about the district’s adoption of all new curricula, the first case being the Advance Placement US History “Framework.” (2) The proposal that passed was to adopt teacher pay increases and a merit pay salary plan based on performance evaluations completed last year. (3) The next day, Friday, Sept. 19, teachers at two schools conducted a “sick-out” and over 100 students walked out in several high schools. (4) The student protests have continued since then, and on Monday the 29th, 79 of 102 teachers at two schools, Golden and Jefferson, conducted a sick-out. Question 2: Is it within the school board’s authority to set up curriculum committees and make changes in curriculum after a thorough debate and community input from parents and concerned citizens—or is curriculum solely the responsibility of classroom teachers? A. Article IX, Section 15 of the Colorado state Constitution clearly assigns responsibility for “control of instruction” to elected local school boards. There is long history of the district using curriculum committees to examine and then modify new curriculum and instructional materials. This can be called “censorship” only if all citizen control of education through elected bodies is also censorship. Question 3: Is the criticism of APUSH coming only from “right-wing talk radio”? A. No. Criticism of the new “APUSH” has come from diverse places, including the National Association of Scholars, think tanks like Massachusetts’ Pioneer Institute, respected American historians like James Madison biographer Ralph Ketcham at Syracuse University, NEWSWEEK magazine, and recently the Republican National Committee. The state board of education in Texas rejected it outright, and several other states like Utah and Tennessee are reviewing it for added balance and completeness. (Since AP courses are electives, decisions on AP courses normally are made at the local district level.) Question 4: Is it mere coincidence that the student protests erupted the day following the September 18 school board decision to adopt a merit pay plan opposed by the teachers union, a plan that gives all teachers a pay raise but rewards highly effective teachers more than ineffective teachers? A. It is possible that is only a coincidence, but it is also possible the students’ natural admiration and sympathy for their teachers is being manipulated through misinformation. Question 5: Have the news reporters writing about the protests asked students about their knowledge of American history, civil disobedience, censorship, and Colorado education law? A. Such questions have been as infrequent as elephants on a donkey farm. One possible explanation is that the journalists themselves do not know enough to ask such questions. Another possibility is that they fear the answers might undercut the adopted “David versus Goliath” narrative. Question 6: Some protesters and teachers are calling the student protests “a lesson in civil disobedience.” But is it civil disobedience when students cut class to wave signs on street corners? A. It is not civil disobedience in the classic sense of that term. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” which by the way is NOT included in the new AP US History Framework, Rev. King spells out several steps prior to direct action in protest of an unjust law, steps the organizers of the protest either have not learned or chose to ignore. Rev. Kings says, “In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: (1) Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; (2) Negotiation; (3) Self-purification; and (4) Direct action. Student protesters appear to have skipped the fact-gathering step. Anyone suggesting that students be excused from truancy laws and suffer no consequences for cutting class, and teachers who engage in illegal walkouts, are not advocating or practicing civil disobedience; they are implicitly advocating a privileged status above the law. Question 7: Should students be punished for cutting class to engage in a political protest? A. The Superintendent would be within his rights to do so, but that is a prudential matter to be decided in consultation with the school board. Another option would be to extend the school year a few days to make up for lost classroom hours or to simply require students to make up all missed classes in some reasonable manner. Or students who missed classes could be required to write a 500-word essay on the question, “Should citizens get all the facts and listen to all sides of an issue before engaging in street protests?” Question 8: A student’s “Letter to the Editor” published in the Denver Post on September 27 called the elected school board “a temporary majority.” Are students being taught that an elected majority you disagree with is “temporary” and presumably lacks legitimacy? A. Some news reporter should ask the protesting students that question. Question 9: Have the hundreds of teachers who were absent from classes broken the law? A. Yes, if it was an organized action. It is a violation of their contract to be absent from class for other than reasons allowed in the bargaining unit contract. Question 10: Should the teachers who broke the law be disciplined for their illegal walkout? A. That is a decision for the Superintendent and the school board. Question 11: Should the board set up a curriculum committee to review the AP US History Framework? A. That is a decision for the board to make, but new curriculum has been reviewed in this manner many times in previous years and the board is well within its authority to do so in this case. Question 12: What should Coloradans conclude from this union-inspired controversy? A. It’s really quite simple and transparent once all the facts are known. (1) Less than a year ago, Jeffco citizens elected a new school board. The teachers union’s candidates lost, and now there is a new majority of reform-minded education leaders. (2) The union is especially unhappy with the new merit pay plan and is determined to defeat it. In fact, in July they received a special National Education Association grant to hire a fulltime “community organizer” to help fight the school board’s policies. (3) Teachers opposed to the board’s policies have enlisted students to join their attacks on the board using the phony issue of “censorship.” (4) The solution? Let the board do its job and let the parents and citizens of Jefferson County judge the results at the next regular school board election. That’s called accountability.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 05:17:03 +0000
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