More than 1,200 students walked out of six Denver-area suburban high schools yesterday to protest a newly-elected school board’s attempts to force-feed them conservative ideology. Teachers at the schools are also upset with the board’s efforts to censor education, and staged sick-outs that shut down two schools.
The protests involve Colorado’s second-largest school district, where Koch-supported rightwingers who won a 3-2 majority in last fall’s school board elections are trying to impose a curriculum promoting patriotism, respect for authority, and the free enterprise system, and would exclude educational materials that “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife, or disregard for the law” — code words for protest, dissent, and civil disobedience.
It’s not hard to see where they’re going with this: By these criteria, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez were troublemakers.
The conservative faction’s unwillingness to accommodate other viewpoints is starkly articulated in their leader’s statement that “I would rather be able to do those things without conflict, but at the end of the day, it’s very important that we align with those goals.”
Many of the district’s students, parents, and teachers are having none of it.
Shortly after the election, the district’s superintendent quit, and on Sept. 10 teacher representatives — union and non-union alike — delivered a 180-0 “no confidence” vote against the board’s conservative leader after his faction voted in August to deny pay raises to “ineffective” teachers.
They want to base teacher pay on performance evaluations and the marketability of their positions, instead of tenure and education level.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_24559539/election-brings-new-direction-jefferson-county-schools
The new board members also are pushing for charter schools and private school vouchers.