LA Times Editorial: Alameda Unified School District Turns Curriculum "Into A Primer On Sexual Identity For Kindergartners Through Fifth-Graders"

The Los Angeles Times, in an editorial entitled "The ABC's of LGBT," has taken aim at the Alameda Unified School District for turning "what should be a basic Golden Rule lesson into a primer on sexual identity for kindergartners through fifth-graders."

The Alameda Sun reports that "students from kindergarten through the fifth grade will learn about bullying that focuses on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in six 45-minute lessons over the course of their elementary school years." An opt-out provision is not even included. Such a provision would allow parents to pull their children out of classes they find objectionable, as is currently the case in California when it comes sex education classes.

The Los Angeles Times wrote that an anti-bullying curriculum is critical as "childhood cruelty can make school a matter of daily dread for its victims, and gay and lesbian students, along with the children of same-sex couples, have been particularly singled out." However, "lessons become more fraught when hotly disputed values are involved, such as sexuality." The L.A. Times writes that the school board has gone "too far in adopting a curriculum that introduces topics involving sexuality at an age when most children are ill-equipped to consider them. The new curriculum familiarizes second-graders with the concept of same-sex couples and teaches fourth-graders the words 'gay' and 'lesbian.' A year later, it calls on the teacher to write the acronym LGBT on the board and ask students the meaning of each letter (it stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, the four main forms of alternative sexual identity)."

If you do not believe that the Los Angeles Times would write such an editorial, visit http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-alameda19-2009jun19,0,4762424.story.

District Superintendent Kirsten Vital has acknowledged that her office has received complaints from the African American and Muslim communities that their children are being harassed. Yet for some reason they are not included in this curriculum.

"If one of us went to our child's school principal because one of our girls was being bullied because of her head scarf, do you think that the Alameda Unified School District would hire a consultant to advocate for our beliefs to be imposed on every child and every elementary school in Alameda?" said parent Aisha Balde.

"The proposed curriculum does not address race," Pastor Dion Evans of the Chosen Vessels Christian Church in Alameda said. School Board member Trish Spencer, who voted against the measure, agrees with Evans. She said that she believes the new curriculum will only increase harassment against other groups of children.
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