Subject: (Editorial): The Parents Rebel -- IV
Date: Published: 12/7/92 (72 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    REVIEW & OUTLOOK (Editorial):
    The Parents Rebel -- IV

    In a case with relevance for parents of public school students
 elsewhere in the country, some New York City mothers and fathers
 have lost the latest round in a long-running battle with the city's
 education bureaucracy.  This fight clarifies what should be the focus
 of the public-education debate:  Do we want the schools to teach
 children the basic skills they need to make their way in life, or
 are the schools to also inculcate whatever social goals that judges,
 advocacy groups and central-office bureaucracies deem as
 "necessary?"
    The immediate skirmish is over the "Children of the Rainbow"
 curriculum, a teaching guide for grade-school classes that calls for
 an explanation of homosexuality and homosexual families.  Among the
 books on the recommended reading list for the first grade are
 "Daddy's Roommate" and "Heather Has Two Mommies."
    As we've reported before, Queens Community School Board 24 has
 refused to accept the new curriculum on the grounds that sexuality
 and sexual orientation are sensitive topics that, at least at the
 elementary school level, belong within the context of the family,
 not in the classroom.  For this heresy, and for refusing to
 "compromise," the board was suspended last week by Schools
 Chancellor Joseph Fernandez, who appointed three trustees to run the
 district.  The trustees' first order of business is to implement the
 new Rainbow curriculum.
    The Chancellor's action is not only an affront to the parents of
 District 24; it is an extraordinary display of peremptory arrogance.
 For many people, homosexuality (not to mention some styles of
 heterosexuality now popular on prime-time TV) is not just another
 lifestyle but a matter of religious and moral concern.  School board
 leader Mary Cummins has said repeatedly that while the board will
 continue to teach respect for all people and all cultures, it will
 not support a curriculum that essentially amounts to indoctrination.
    Mr. Fernandez came to New York three years ago from Miami with a
 reputation as a can-do, hang-tough educational administrator.
 Instead, his tenure has been marked by the introduction of metal
 detectors in high schools to keep students from bringing in guns
 with which to shoot one another, a program to distribute free
 condoms on demand, and now the Rainbow curriculum.
    Cynics speculate that Mr. Fernandez wants out of this mess and
 therefore deliberately provoked the current crisis with District 24
 to find an excuse to resign.  It would be no surprise if Mr. 
 Fernandez longs for escape.  The New York City school system
 encompasses 991 schools and nearly a million students.  What single
 person, or central bureaucracy, could possibly run anything this big
 effectively -- especially if his assignment is not only to make sure
 his charges can read and write competently but also that they must
 think "correctly" about sex, AIDS, ethnic diversity, the ozone,
 Columbus and on and on.  And of course the New York problem is
 repeated in school systems all over the U. S. Why do we keep
 wondering and asking why we have an education problem?
    All this adds up to more fuel for the burgeoning school-choice
 movement, whose most persuasive spokesman is a Milwaukee grandmother
 who comes from a school district much like New York's District 24.
 Polly Williams was fed up with an education system that tried to
 solve all of life's problems except illiteracy and incompetency in
 essential skills, and in the face of this failure paid scant
 attention to parents' concerns.  That system hurts poor and
 middle-class families most, since they can rarely afford to send
 their children to private schools.  If she were to make a trip to
 Queens today, we suspect Mrs. Williams would find an avid group of
 listeners.

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