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Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona prefers to dodge questions about whether schools should inform parents about their children’s gender transition.
As lawsuits mount against school districts for withholding information about children’s gender transitions and about “educational” content related to Critical Race Theory, Cardona avoids referring to parents’ right to their children’s education.
In a virtual hearing on May 26, the Secretary of Education testified before the House Education Committee on his department’s budget request for 2023; and, during the hearing, he avoided answering a question from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) who asked him if he thought schools should “keep a student’s gender transition secret from their parents.”
Cardona initially refused to answer and said he was there only to talk about the budget; however, Banks demanded he answers.
“It’s a simple question: Should schools ever keep it a secret from parents if their children are involved in gender transition?” the congressman asked again.
Cardona did not respond, only arguing that “parents and schools must work together to support students”; however, he later added that he has spoken to students who say they feel safe at school, so he nodded that he would not want that trust to be lost.
“I have spoken to students who shared, whatever situation is at their home, that they felt safe at the school, and we have to be careful not to turn this into something that it’s not,” he continued. “Our schools are safe places for our students, and our teachers are often the front-liners when it comes to supporting our students when they have issues in their lives,” he added.
“Joe Biden’s Education Secretary just refused to agree that parents have the right to know if their kids are undergoing gender transition at school. Democrats really do want to take parents out of the picture!” said Banks on his Twitter account.
Various school districts around the country instruct schools to withhold detailed information about children’s transitions from their parents.
Such is the case with the District of Columbia public school guidelines, where students have a choice whether their parents are involved in the process; or the case in Massachusetts or Chicago Public Schools, where the state instructs schools to first talk to children about a pronoun or name change and they are asked whether they want their parents to know about it.
Parents sue
There are school districts that not only leave it up to children to decide whether to inform their parents about their transition, but also withhold information related to educational content.
It recently came to light that a Michigan mother filed a lawsuit against her children’s school district because she requested a curriculum for an “ethnic and gender studies” class and was denied the information.
Carol Beth Litkouhi sued the Rochester, Michigan school district after the school administration “evaded” some questions and avoided showing her the curriculum materials that would be used for the class.
It recently came to light that the Southeastern Legal Foundation requested an investigation into whether a Missouri school district would be violating privacy rights by having students complete surveys that include questions about their sexual orientation and their parents’ political beliefs.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo