By Chris Powell
Public education in Connecticut — education that is accountable to the public — would be diminished by legislation introduced by four Democratic members of the state House of Representatives.
Bill 6192 would exempt from disclosure under the state’s right-to-know law “any communication between a teacher and a student regarding sensitive subjects, such as sexual orientation, gender identity, and race, that occurs during school-sponsored activities.”
But federal law already requires confidentiality for student records in school, even as it also requires that such records be available to a student’s parents. The proposed state legislation is about concealing something else: what teachers tell students about “sensitive subjects.” That is, job performance. Is a teacher encouraging a student to change genders? Is a teacher propagandizing students? Is a teacher berating students about their politics, as two teachers in Idaho recently got caught doing?
The public has a right to know about a teacher’s job performance, [ITALICS] especially [END ITALICS] when it involves “sensitive subjects.”
Students often turn to a trusted teacher for counseling, and teachers often provide sympathy and good advice. But such advice may not always be good or appropriate.
Since anything can be construed as “sensitive,” the legislation would deny the public access to records of [ITALICS] anything [END ITALICS] a teacher might say to a student, including improper things. Of course teachers would use the proposed law not to protect students but to protect themselves against accountability.
Indeed, some school systems in Connecticut are already concealing from parents how the schools are dealing with the sexual dysphoria of their child. This is a sort of kidnapping.
The proposed legislation would license unaccountability and worse.
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Not long ago racial and economic class integration was the country’s objective in education and commerce. Progress was made. But lately segregation in schools is making a comeback, being portrayed as politically correct, especially in New Haven, the capital of political correctness.
The city again is being urged to start a public middle school for Black and Hispanic boys, partly on the silly premise that having whites and girls around impedes the boys’ education, though researchers say integrated schools cause minority students to do better.
Of course the biggest impediment to any child’s education is not racial and gender integration but parental neglect, which is chronic in New Haven and other cities.
A middle school based on another form of segregation is already scheduled to open in New Haven this year — a school for students of unusual sexual orientations. The school will be based on the premise that regular schools will never act decisively against bullying of such students and that they can never be safe in regular schools.
In approving these schools, the state Board of Education, a playpen of the far left, will be proclaiming that children will learn better if they never run into anyone different. So much for integration, and education itself.
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WHO LET HIM LOOSE?: At last Connecticut knows the identity of one of the two juveniles who, operating a stolen car, ran down and killed Henryk Gudelski, 53, as he jogged along a street in New Britain two years ago.
The known perpetrator is Luis Pagan-Gonzalez, now 19, then 17, who the other day pleaded guilty in New Britain Superior Court to first-degree assault and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Because of Connecticut’s juvenile court secrecy law, Pagan-Gonzalez’s identity was withheld until he recently began to be prosecuted as an adult.
But Connecticut still doesn’t know what is most important about the case: How, when he killed Gudelski, had Pagan-Gonzalez managed to remain free despite having been arrested 13 times in the previous 2½ years on charges including assault, drugs, reckless driving, evading responsibility, car theft, robbery, and violation of probation?
Which court officials handled his cases? Which of them kept letting him loose despite his chronic criminality?
Sentencing Pagan-Gonzalez, the court offered no explanation, and the governor and General Assembly have not inquired.
No, Connecticut is supposed to be content that its prison population is down even as repeat offenders rampage through the state.
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Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Connecticut. (CPowell@JournalInquirer.com)
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Chris Powell column 