HB 1134
The incumbent State Representative from District 33, the seat I am challenging, is one of the co-authors of HB 1134. This is, quite simply, the most destructive bill ever to education in the state of Indiana that the General Assembly has ever considered. It will set Hoosier youth back decades in learning and put them at an extreme disadvantage when competing on the global market. The provisions in the bill will hamper the development of problem solving and critical thinking skills which are crucial to Hoosier youth growing into the workforce as leaders.
Some of the “highlights” of this bill:
· It requires that teachers have detailed lesson plans for the entire next school year submitted in June prior to the start of the next school year.
· It requires the creation of a tribunal made up of 60% less-educated parents and only 40% professional educators to establish acceptable curriculum and materials to be used in educating our youth.
· It allows for parents to opt out of any curriculum with which they do not agree keeping their children from being exposed to ideas and concepts they will encounter in the real world.
· It requires “good citizenship instruction” which teaches certain philosophies are “good” and others “bad” while limiting the judgement of certain inherently bad philosophies.
· It prevents anyone at the school from talking to a child for psychological reasons without written permission from the parents.
I have many teachers in my family. My mother taught early elementary at Albany and Desoto, my sister is librarian at Blackford, and several cousins are teaching locally and in some other states. Summers are spent developing, revising, and updating curriculum. The requirement that this be one by the end of June is ridiculous. And then to hold to any sort of notion that the curriculum will not change through the year is ludicrous. Schedules and materials change through the year because of the dynamics of any particular set of students.
The tribunal makeup of parents to educators is heavily weighted to people who have no background in education. They have no idea of the different strategies that must be used to convey understanding to different types of students. They also have probably not read, nor will they have the opportunity to read, all or much of the material they will have the power to decide to be included in coursework. How is this body supposed to function with any sort of authority? Additionally, the tribunal sets limits on materials which can sit on library shelves. If the tribunal decides that “Harry Potter” can’t be on the shelf, the penalties to the school and its employees are harsh. All for banning books that a group of people have not read for themselves.
Opting a kid out of a class because the parent disagrees with a concept is completely the wrong thing to do. If you truly believe something is wrong and want to influence your child to also think it is wrong, the most effective method of doing that is to teach them the concept THOROUGHLY. “He who knows not evil, knows not good.” You must understand evil if you are to recognize good. If you do not know and fully understand ideas you are arguing against, your position means nothing. Keeping children from understanding the concepts you do not agree with does not give them the tools they will need to argue their own positions.
History is full of high points and low points. We must learn how to deal with both of these and understand how we move forward. I do my family genealogy. One of my lines settled near Albany in 1836 moving here from Virginia. In the wills and property records, we have discovered that the family owned a few slaves there and left them behind. Another line moved into southern Randolph and northern Wayne counties in the 1840s. They were Quakers, who came here from North Carolina in large part because they opposed slavery that existed there. Quakers were among the main abolitionists who influenced the coming of the Civil War. So for me, I celebrate my Quaker ancestors for their contributions to ending slavery. But, I must also acknowledge that other ancestors were slave owners, not make excuses for them, not own their horrific behavior, and I PLEDGE TO DO BETTER. This is what we must do in our education system. We celebrate the high points and acknowledge, NOT OWN, the low points, but pledge to do better.
HB 1134’s requirement of “good citizenship instruction” is incompatible with any sort of rounded education. The bill requires the teaching of political and economic systems which are “incompatible with western principles” must be taught in a negative light. This essentially is referring to communism and socialism as “eastern principles” and, therefore, must be taught to be negative to our country. In a committee meeting on the Senate version of this bill earlier this session, a teacher testified that he was teaching about the horrors of Nazism and fascism. For this, he was chastised by the senator from Noblesville because he should just “teach the facts” about fascism and “allow the kids to make their own judgements.” This essentially means that the horrors of the extreme left are to be taught with emphatic judgement while prohibiting the teaching that exterminating 10 million Jews, Gypsies, and other groups is wrong. Add to that the fact the relentless mislabeling of centrist Democratic Party policies as socialist or communist in right wing media, and we get to the real meat of the problem. The authors of the bill want to outlaw their political opposition.
Possibly the most disturbing portion of HB 1134 is the section requiring written parental permission for a school employee from providing any sort of psychological counseling to students. Why this is so disturbing is because children often look to their teachers as parental figures. If a child is abused at home, they may come to trust their teacher enough to reveal that abuse to them. To expect a teacher to just say to the child who told this, “Oh, that’s nice. Go back to your desk and do your assignment,” without any sort of comments of comfort, understanding, or reassurance to the child is insane. Parents in abusive households are going to sign over permission for their kids to receive psychological counseling at the school? This bill actually provides protection for child abusers. This one provision alone should prove that the authors do not care at all for children.
All in all HB 1134 is the worst attack Hoosiers have ever seen on their education system. It tries to limit access to ideas and concepts which children will need to be competitive in the future. It dumbs down what our children are exposed to because it enables a group of non-experts to bury ideas they don’t believe in rather than give children the ability to refute a logical argument. It advances the idea that political opposition can be prohibited. And it protects child abusers. Ironically, the incumbent from District 33, JD Prescott, co-author of this horrific bill, has stated that even after he “improves” Hoosier schools by passing this into law, he won’t be affected by it, because he and his wife intend to home school their own children. That is his right, but torch the education system in Indiana that you aren’t even going to use?
The bill is now being considered in the Senate. Their phone is constantly busy because of people calling to oppose it. CONTINUE TO BLOW UP THEIR PHONE LINES!!!! Call the Indiana Senate and leave your message!!! (800) 382-9467
And PLEASE consider donating to my campaign to oust Mr. Prescott so this is never introduced again!!! https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bartlett-for-indiana-1
