“CT parents’ rights education bill draws concern: ‘demonization of teachers’” (Hartford Courant)

But Rep. Nick Menapace, an East Lyme Democrat, and member of the Education Committee, told the Courant he could not in good conscience vote for the bill.

“There are a lot of things that I don’t like about this bill,” Menapace said. “The fact is, as a teacher I will be honest, Sen. Berthel was pretty upfront that what this bill is designed to do is to essentially target teachers.”

Menapace said a similar bill passed the committee last year but did not pass the legislature. He noted that course curriculum is already available upon request.

“It is an unfunded mandate to make all the districts put their curriculum online and functionally it doesn’t make sense this year,” he said. “The curriculum is already available for people and if a parent requests to see more details they certainly can. This is trying to do more demonization of teachers. As a teacher, I really struggle with that. Certain groups have tried to target when you have curriculum online to go after districts, especially now with the current federal administration.”

Berthel said for years he has advocated for the legislation.

He said four years ago he had a constituent reach out to him from a district who had a child in the sixth grade. He said she included a photograph of the blackboard and all the various LGBTQ flags hanging.

“The mom asked me if I knew whether or not having those flags on display was part of the mathematics curriculum,” he said.

He said in response that he would not have any knowledge of that and suggested she reach out to the district to ask for a copy of the curriculum. The parent told Berthel that she had reached out to the district and the district requested that she had to make a Freedom of Information request for the information.

“Now the law says it has to be provided on a reasonable request,” Berthel said.

When the parent received the information on the curriculum back, Berthel said it “did not make any mention of speaking about, you know transgender ideology or beliefs or any of that and certainly not hanging flags in a classroom.”

Berthel disagreed that the bill was policing teachers’ lesson plans.

“I think that we are providing to a parent the opportunity, if their child comes home, and the example I gave and the teacher is way outside of the boundaries of what is mathematics education that the parent has knowledge of, what should be discussed in a classroom and not the free will of the teacher to express his or her opinions regarding any other issue that’s not relevant to the curriculum,” he said. “And again that doesn’t mean that the teacher shouldn’t be having social interaction with the child, but you know where do you draw the line?”

Drew McWeeney, assistant professor at CT College Norwalk, wrote in his testimony that he supported the bill “because public education is funded by my tax dollars and If I am paying teacher salaries via my tax dollars, I want to know everything including what they are teaching. This is a right. This bill solidifies transparency.”

Anne Manusky, M. Ed., of the Connecticut Republican Assembly and president of the CT Parents Involved in Education, warned that her scrutiny of  curriculum found “psychological manipulation of children” and pornography.

Rep. Anne Dauphinais, a Danielson Republican, said while she favored posting curriculum online, she voted against the bill because she doesn’t support the mandate coming from the state.

“We don’t need big brother telling every town in the state what to do,” she said.

Connecticut Education Association President Kate Dias said the CEA does not support the bill.

“I just would argue that the information is readily available to anyone who wants it already,” Dias said. “When we talk about updating curriculum, this is thousands of documents. It’s an incredible amount of work.  And I just think it’s an unnecessary step that detracts resources from where we really need it. “We go through a massive accreditation process in which we have to produce all of these documents that are peer reviewed by people from all over the country. We don’t do anything in this private or secret space. Everything we do is incredibly public.”

Dias said teachers have a high set of standards they set for themselves and “it’s very rarely a situation where a teacher has brought in information that’s outside the curriculum.

“We have to remember sometimes we study uncomfortable things because that is the nature of learning,” she said.