I had thought this post was going to be about spotting the fascists, but I think I will post that Tuesday on the main blog. Maybe this other post fits better here.
This week I listened to a clip of one of the Hillsboro school board candidates, Bart Rask, speaking.
I first noticed some similar talking points to someone else; that's no surprise.
Then there was a section on the sex education curriculum. I was pretty sure that was a mix of lies and exaggeration, but again, that is old news. Every couple of years someone is up in arms over kids in elementary school being taught how to have sex (like positions), and it is never true.
Then, almost at the end of the clip (which was only seven minutes but felt longer), I realized he was talking about The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks and not describing it accurately.
However, he kept saying you could check the web site; I did.
It's not that I didn't know he was wrong. It's just, are you taking a piece of information and misinterpreting it? How willfully? Are you repeating something you heard from someone else?
I decided to transcribe it. It was a really annoying experience, but I did it and the link to the video clip and the transcription are at the bottom of this post.
So, you can check for yourself, but I think as many times as he repeated it, there may have been a defensiveness there. Sure, you can check it, but you don't need to. You can trust me.
First of all, here are some of the inaccuracies that can be easily determined. Yes, you can view the Hillsboro School District's Comprehensive Sex Education curriculum breakdown by grade level at https://sites.google.com/hsd.k12.or.us/hsdcshe/lessons-by-grade-level#h.p_KgsAA-PINJnz.
You may also notice a link to Erin's Law. I know I went over this last time, but there are laws about what children need to know because of things that happened to other children. To remove some of these things from the curriculum you would need to change the law, and I would be very interested in your justifications.
However, there is still nothing about teaching fifth graders how to have sex.
Because it does mention sexually transmitted disease, there may indeed be something about condoms.
I cannot find anywhere recommendations for high schoolers to read about Samantha Bee's sexual fantasies as a Catholic school girl (I am not sure that such a book exists). For the gay transvestite book, I think he means Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness (transvestite is a stretch, but okay). I still don't see anything close on the reading list. They may very well be available in the school library.
Now, My Princess Boy. by Cheryl Kilodavis, is in fact on the 1st grade curriculum. They seem to be more specific when they say something true, logically enough. You can tell that the audience finds that objectionable enough, but what is the point of the book? From the Goodreads description:
as a community, we can accept and support youth for whoever they are and however they wish to look.
Well, they hate stuff like that.
The big thing for me was when we got to Henrietta Lacks. Again, that name was not said, because that would be too specific when lying. However, when he said died of cervical cancer in 1951, I was like, wait a minute! So I did a search and found a syllabus for Health Sciences 1:
As represented by Bart Rask, the students spent seven weeks just reading a biography written by a woman who experienced racism when she was being treated for cancer in the time of segregation (with no anatomy or physiology like you should have for a health class) thus part of the race-baiting of students.
First of all, this class is Health Sciences 1, part of college prep series for a career in health services. It combines with Health Sciences 2 and Anatomy and Physiology.
Health Sciences 1 focuses on treating people and animals, and what it takes to become an informed, professional caregiver. The book is the primary course text, but there are also movies, job shadowing, and many other aspects. It sounds like a great class.
He lied not just about the role the book plays in the class, but about the book itself.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is not an autobiography, and not really about her experiences. Her cancer cells became an important part of medical research, but also causing some problems in medical research (for their ability to take over other cells). There is a lot of information not only about the whats and hows of medical research, but also research ethics and access to health care.
Furthermore, author Rebecca Skloot first got the idea when she was a student at Portland Community College, taking the class because high school was boring her and she wasn't applying herself. Therefore, there is the local connection, and a kinship for these high school students taking college prep courses.
This is also an award-winning book that got a fair amount of press -- perhaps more in Oregon -- and my first thought was how could a medical professional not know?
Except, he probably does know.
Because they do lie. They may not always know that they are lying, but sometimes they do, and they do not care. They are sure enough that they are right that they can justify some lying or unethical practices, but... if you are willing to do those things, how will you know if you stop being right?
Anyway, I know I will post more on sporkful.blogspot.com on Tuesday, and after that I may be done with this round of the school board elections, but I will probably not be done with fascism.
To view Bart Rask's clip:
(transcription below)
<start of segment> ... my grandmother's cousin was Victor Atiyeh. I'm a third generation Syrian Lebanese, like Victor Atiyeh. I'm an orthopedic surgeon. My office twenty-five years in the same location in downtown Hillsboro. I have six kids, three out of school, three still in school and that is my source of information. That's why I know how wacky the school system is I know it from my own research and my kids' homework, looking at the web site.
The Hillsboro school district is a golden source to find out what is going on and there is also an app called Google Chrome I believe where you can look up schools' assignments in different classes and as a parent I have access to most of what they're taught. So over the years I've actually taken notes, believe it or not, of what's been being taught and have a whole library of the silliness of really it boils down to a re-education camp, especially recently with what's going on. I'll give you some examples. For the sex ed starting in kindergarten, and this is on the Hillsboro web site, this is not secret, you can look it up yourself, starting in kindergarten children are taught that gender is an identity, it is not based on biology and that you are what you think you are.
First grade there is a recommended book called My Princess Boy. On the cover of that book is a little boy dressed as a girl. Fifth grade, kids are taught how to use a condom and ten year olds are taught different ways of having sex. Higher grades it gets even more disgusting. Reading assignments in high school they one book that's recommended called, by this woman called Samantha Bee, I think she's a comedian, and it's about her sexual fantasies while she was a high school Catholic girl, and there's another book by a scholar called Jonathan Ness who is a gay transvestite and it is about the civilian life of a gay transvestite and has on the cover this fella dressed as a girl in high heels and a long beard and prancing around in a girl's type way. So those are the types of things they are being taught and it's all there out in the open. If you don't believe me you can look it up yourself.
The other thing is poor student quality, poor education quality. Last poll I saw was Oregon was number six from the bottom. Hillsboro is below average in a below in our below average state. Seven years ago Hillsboro was average for the state of Oregon. In the last seven years, almost correlating with the increase in per capita spending there's been a corresponding decrease in the school quality based upon their test scores for math and English. So the last data on a year ago year 21-22, where Hillsboro used to be average for math and English. It was math and English scores are 9 and 17% below state average. The state average. While in the same, this is over 7 years, 2014 - 2022, the same 7 year period , per capita spending went up 33%. More spending, poorer quality.
Why is it poorer? What is so bad about schools now, comparative? When we were in school, I was in school back in the 60s and 70s, and one thing I noticed, I think the one theme, if I can summarize in one sentence is poor expectations. And they stretch three weeks of work into three months.
For example, and I know this for money, ask my kid what they do, We're reading a couple of short stories. What are you doing now? We're reading the same short stories. We're writing a paper from these two or three short stories. When's the paper due? It's at the end of the quarter. So after two or three months. After three months we're reading three stories and writing a two page paper. Yes Dad, that's what we're doing. How did you do on the paper? I got an A. Did the teacher make any marks on it? No, there's no marks on it. There's just an A there.
So they go through three months reading two short stories and they don't they get very little feedback on the papers they write. And the other low expectation they make is that they have multiple chances to do tests take the test over. I don't mean a different test; I mean the exact same test with the exact same questions. So if they get D on the test, or a C on the test they have an option to take the test over again. Same with many classroom assignments. If you get a C on a classroom paper or on a math test or a science test, you have the option of taking the exact same test over. So there's no incentive to study hard to do right the right way the first time.
There's also very little enforcement of tardiness. You have to be... It's very subjective on when a teacher declares a kid as tardy. I know this because I do lectures in some of the health sciences classes my kids. Oftentimes kids will show up five or ten minutes late, they're not counted as tardy. And the teacher, this is when I was giving a lecture at Liberty High School just about a month ago, kids were just strolling in.late, "Oh we didn't count 'em, we're just happy that they're there." How do I know? Because I was there and I seen it and I heard it. It's how I know.
Other poor expectations. The race-baiting the Balkanization and tribalization of kids. This is kind of indoctrinating. These are classroom assignments that are integrated and inserted in multiple different subjects. For example, my daughter's health science class, you would think that there's a part about anatomy and physiology and medicine and dentistry and that sort of thing. Well they spent seven weeks talking on the topic of racism in science. How do I know? I know because I saw it in the curriculum. Racism in science. And what is there example? There example of it is one book written by a woman who was treated for cancer in 1951 in Baltimore.And it's essentially a biography of her, it's not really a science book it's a biography of a woman of how she had some experiences with racism in the early 1950s in the time of segregation. (disbelief in audience) Yeah, the 1950s. She died in 1951 of cervical cancer. So that's their racism in science.
In my son's - this is last year - my son's <end of segment>
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