Last year’s gubernatorial race in Virginia came down to the stark contrasts between education policy. Glenn Youngkin made promises to keep parents involved. That message won and Youngkin has been keeping his promises.
Virginia Department of Education announced revisions to the former administration’s reckless education policies. The new guidelines are a return to normalcy, so they are not really new; it was the Northam administration’s policies that were completely new and inconsistent with offering an honest education. Those policies allowed teachers to withhold information from parents, forced teachers to use pronouns that were factually incorrect, and permitted students to use the bathroom of their opposite sex. And Democrat Terry McAuliffe ran on those policies. Virginians rejected those ideas at the polls when they elected Youngkin, along with a Republican sweep of the statewide offices, and a change to a Republican majority in the House of Delegates.
As promised, the new administrations’ guidelines keep parents informed about their child’s life altering decisions, such as changing their pronoun. The policy also empowers teachers by allowing them to reject the false premise that biological sex does not determine gender. The guidelines are effective immediately.
Cited in the guidelines is “The Code of Virginia, § 1-240.1: Provides that a “parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.” Schools may not abrogate the rights of parents.” Again, that was the winning campaign message last cycle and a mandate to deliver.
Also included in the revisions is the requirement that students play on the appropriate sports teams based on biological sex, which protects girls.
From the guidelines- “Schools may separate their sports teams on the basis of sex. Neither the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Title IX, nor the Virginia Human Rights Act require school divisions to allow students of one biological sex to participate on sports teams reserved for members of the other biological sex. Code of Virginia, § 22.1-23.3.A.1.” Anyone who supports girls’ sports needs to support this.
The guidelines state- “These 2022 Model Policies adhere to the First Amendment. The First Amendment forbids government actors to require individuals to adhere to or adopt any particular ideological beliefs. Practices such as compelling others to use preferred pronouns is premised on the ideological belief that gender is a matter of personal choice or subjective experience, not sex. Many Virginians reject this belief.“
Education needs to be honest and factual. Telling a child that he or she can change their gender is a lie. It cannot be done. Gender roles are a social construct, but gender itself is not. Adopting the term “gender assigned at birth” is also a lie. Gender was not “assigned,” it was determined by the child’s biology, not by the doctor’s discretion. The lies need to stop. Patting a child on the head and telling them they are something they are not, is dishonest and insulting. A school needs to be a safe haven for truth. When it is not, it becomes a dangerous place, which we all saw in Loudoun County as school administrators protected a sex-offender over the victims he created.
We have a lot of liberty in this great country. If someone wants to live off the grid, then they can. Whether that’s the electric grid or the reality grid, once 18, an American can enjoy a lot of liberty. A child in a government-run school does not get to enjoy that level of liberty, yet. As Americans, they will, but until then parents need to be involved, teachers should never keep secrets with kids from adults, girls should feel safe playing sports against other girls, and safe bathrooms are essential to a safe environment.
