In yesterday’s post I wondered if taxpayers are getting what we all pay for from the public education system. Today I’d like to talk about a situation where families in Wisconsin got way more than they bargained for from their local school when a middle school teacher chose to announce to her 125 students that she is gay.

“Rather than wait for the question she decided she’d announce it so her students knew and they could move on,” Wallace said Tuesday. “Knowing her as I do, I knew she’d handle it well.”

Many schools give warning to parents that a controversial subject is going to be a part of a classroom discussion. I recall taking home a permission slip when I was in the 6th grade so that my teacher could read a passage from the Bible to the class. This was done in case someone objected, and if that happened, the child could leave or the class content would be altered. In health class, there were permission slips to opt in for certain discussions. Children without the slip did not participate in those discussions.

My parents signed my slips. I heard it all and survived. But my parents knew that something out of the ordinary–something more than they bargained for–was coming, and they had the right to decide if the topic was appropriate for me at that point in my development.

Too often, schools intentionally take away that right from parents.

Regarding the Wisconsin case,

Some parents believe Rowe’s announcement, along with a question-and-answer session involving questions about sex collected from students over the years, was not handled appropriately. Critics said the questions were too graphic for seventh-graders. They also complained that homosexuality isn’t part of the health curriculum and that they weren’t notified of Rowe’s intention to tell her students she was gay. Some complained to school officials.

Parents who had reviewed the expected content of the class were apparently fine with the course description. But that description changed without notice, and that is not fair to the parents or to the students.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.