California Gov. Gavin Newsom defended the state’s record on local control and parental engagement at a news conference at an Elk Grove school Monday, the same day parents’ rights activists rallied at the Capitol.
“There is no state in America that supports local control and parental engagement like the state of California,” Newsom said from the school library at Miwok Village Elementary. “No one comes close.”
The protesters at the Capitol are opposed to proposed legislation that would make it more difficult for school districts to ban textbooks and other instructional materials. If passed, districts could be fined if they do not provide books and materials that accurately reflect the diversity of the state’s students.
The governor and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom were at the school to talk about California education policies, including implementation of universal transitional kindergarten, mental health programs, community schools, investments in literacy, free summer school and universal free lunches.
“While states across our country attack academic freedom, California is leading on parental choice and participation, creating a place where every student has a chance to thrive and every family has access to an education system that fosters opportunity,” Newsom said.
“In California, parents have the right to actively participate in their child’s learning, and we’re transforming education so all students can learn on a safe campus where they can receive quality education, healthy meals, mental health care, and have the freedom to learn without political censorship,” he said.
California requires parental engagement as part of each school district’s Local Control Accountability Plan, Newsom said. The plans require parental involvement, including onsite parental advisory committees.
Protesters who want to ban a social studies curriculum that includes references to gay rights, are actually protesting parental engagement, he said, citing the effort to ban textbooks in Temecula Valley Unified.
“They’re protesting the fact that for one year, 1,300 families engaged in the new social studies curriculum and 98.8% of them approved or were neutral about the adaptation of that curriculum,” he said. “And they wanted to throw that all out at the last minute and change it. They came up to oppose parental engagement while we’re here celebrating it.”
The Temecula Valley Unified School Board voted in July to reject textbooks recommended by a committee of its teachers and reviewed by parents because it included “sexualized” issues in elementary grades and mentioned gay activist Harvey Milk in supplemental materials. The board later reversed its decision and approved the textbooks, while voting to exclude a chapter that highlights civil rights, including the gay rights movement.
Newsom also talked about Republican efforts to eliminate free school lunches nationally, as well as the transformation of libraries in a Texas school district to discipline centers for students.
”The governor of Texas and the governor of Florida, in particular folks out there in Florida, did worse in every category in terms of learning loss in the state of California during the pandemic, which is an interesting fact that, again, I don’t think is present out there in our public discourse, nor is parental engagement,” he said.
—Diana Lambert
