EdAction
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June 1, 2005
Education Conference Committee Thursday, June 2nd

        Thursday, June 2nd, the education conference committee for this special session meets again. Please come if you can. You do not need to testify. Be there just to show support. (We will have buttons for you to wear.) Senator Stumpf will be the Chairman tomorrow, and he is bringing Senator Hottinger back to address some of the Early Childhood issues again. Sen. Hottinger (DFL - St. Peter) Chairs the Senate Early Childhood Committee. He is responsible for the elements that we oppose in the Senate omnibus education legislation. Your calls and e-mails are making a difference. Please keep them coming.

Education conference committee
Room 112
State Capitol Building
12:30 p.m.

        EdWatch has identified the curriculum standards, called "Early Learning Indicators," as the lynch pin of the Nanny State. The language of the curriculum standards is sometimes difficult for parents to decipher. For example, one of Minnesota's curriculum standards identifies the teacher's role as, Support childrens developing understanding of their gender and cultural identity. (p.15) Senator Hottinger

        What is "gender identity?" The May 23, 2005 issue of US News & World Report reports that a judge in Maryland has put a restraining order on a sex-ed curriculum because he believes it indoctrinates, and that it is state entanglement in religion  ("Sex for Dummies"). The article describes gender identity in the curriculum this way:
The strangest aspect of the Montgomery curriculum is the insistence that students should ponder their gender identity. In plain English, this means boys should examine whether they really want to be boys, and girls should wonder if they should be girls. This is a current obsession in the world of sex ed, apparently inserted here to accommodate transvestites and transsexuals.
        This should give us some idea of what gender identity means. Aside from vagueness and subjectivity, this curriculum standard gives more authority to teachers than to families to teach something as controversial as gender identity. The Anti-bias curriculum: Tools for empowering young children (Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children, p. 53) describes gender identity activities this way:
Make copies of an outline of a body as drawn by a preschooler, and in small groups ask children to fill in all the body parts, and to show if the person is a girl or boy; or Have anatomically correct dolls availableFor example, tell a person a doll story where a few of the dolls ask questions about what makes them a boy or a girl. (Derman-Sparks, L. (1989).
        The Senate early learning bill would adopt the Early Learning curriculum standards into law and use them to assess children beginning at age three. The curriculum standards would be used to rate child care centers and would be used as the basis for providing taxpayer grant money to child care centers that incorporate the curriculum standards into their programs.

        All the issues are on the table. (To see the differences between the House Early Childhood bill and the Senate Early Childhood bill, see our update..) Members and leadership must hear from the public that they oppose Nanny State. It is non-negotiable!

This is the time to contact the following people.
Tell them to say no to the Nanny State. Say no to:
Governor Pawlenty tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us   651-296-3391
    800-657-3717
 
Speaker Steve Sviggum    rep.steve.sviggum@house.mn 651-296-2273


House conferees:   651-
Barb Sykora rep.barb.sykora@house.mn 296-4315
Mark Buesgens rep.mark.buesgens@house.mn 296-5185
Sondra Erickson    rep.sondra.erickson@house.mn 296-6746
Bud Heidgerken rep.bud.heidgerken@house.mn 296-4317
Denise Dittrich rep.denise.dittrich@house.mn 296-5513


Senate conferees:   651-
LeRoy Stumpf Requests use of e-mail form 296-8660
Steve Kelley sen.steve.kelley@senate.mn 297-8065
Dan Sparks sen.daniel.sparks@senate.mn 296-9248
Gen Olson sen.gen.olson@senate.mn 296-1282
Linda Scheid    Requests use of e-mail form 296-8869


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