Curriculum warriors brace for round two - controversial New York, New York school board elections

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 17, 1993 | by Brian Robertson

At first glance, the May 4 school board elections in New York City look unremarkable: voters choosing members of the 32 local school boards responsible for hiring superintendents and principals and approving curricula for kindergarten through the eighth grade. The nine board members in each district are unpaid, and participation in the elections traditionally has been abysmal -- less than 10 percent of eligible voters -- both because of a convoluted election system and a lack of interest.

This year, however, the school board vote has turned into a major event, and groups across the political and social spectrums have entered the fray. Grass roots organizations of parents are accusing gays of infiltrating the school system with "homosexual propaganda," gay activists are working diligently for the defeat of "conservative homophobes," the daily newspapers are warning ominously of stealth candidates sponsored by the "religious right," the Catholic archdiocese has forged an unusual alliance with Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition in order to inform parents about "pro-family" candidates, People for the American Way is cautioning citizens about the impending threat to the separation of church and state and Mayor David Dinkins is spending more than half a million dollars in taxpayers' money to "get out the vote." With all of the interest and activity, you might think that the future of the city itself was at issue. And you might be right.

The unusual amount of national attention being given to the vote stems in large part from last year's highly publicized dispute over the Children of the Rainbow curriculum, which ultimately resulted in the Board of Education's vote to oust Chancellor Joseph Fernandez when his term expires in June. The Rainbow curriculum -- and the controversy over its mandate to teach acceptance of "gay families" to first-graders -- was just one aspect of a larger battle that includes the distribution of free condoms in high schools without parental consent and an AIDS/HIV program for elementary school students that discusses anal and oral sex.

Parents who had been little interested in issues such as multiculturalism and the content of curricula were enraged to find that, under the guise of AIDS education and acceptance of different cultures, their children were being exposed to an agenda designed to eliminate all moral distinctions regarding sexual activity. Some were left with the distinct impression that gays had been able to use the curriculum to proselytize for their own lifestyle and that those in charge of the public shools were more interested in social engineering than in teaching children to read and write. But for most parents, the controversy over the Rainbow curriculum simply served to highlight the fact that the city's schools are failing in their basic mission: to provide children with the education they need to make it in an ever more competitive society. In increasing numbers, parents are asking whether issues involving morality and behavior are best left at home.

That feeling is widespread in areas such as Queens School District 24, where Mary Cummins and six other members of the board that faced down Fernandez over the Rainbow curriculum are running for reelection. Encompassing working- and middle-class neighborhoods near the border with Brooklyn, the district lives up to the common description of New York as a racial melting pot. Although the board headed by Cummins is all white, the district is ethnically diverse, with Hispanics, Asians and blacks making up almost three-quarters of the student population. The question of whether the board represents the cultural diversity of the district has been raised by some critics, but the board's tough stand against the Rainbow curriculum has met with little dissent from minority parents in the neighborhood, many of whom are offended by the comparison of gays to racial minorities.

In fact, Cummins has gained a good deal of notoriety for her role in deposing the chancellor -- for better or worse. "We did have some activists come through the neighborhood plastering the mailboxes and storefront windows with posters with the words |GAY BASHER Mary Cummins' over my picture," she says. "Some of the store owners just cut out the words |GAY BASHER' and put |VOTE FOR' in its place. These people don't seem to understand that this type of thing doesn't make them any friends."

Another thing that didn't win hearts in the neighborhood was the firebombing of cars belonging to three board members -- Linda Sansaverri, Terry Federn and the Rev. John Garkowski -- when the controversy was at its height in August. "There was also a rock thrown through my storm door window in February," says Sansaverri. "I was watching the news about the central board's vote against renewing Fernandez's contract, and I heard this crash in the other room." The cases still are being investigated by police.

On April 17, gay activists staged a march through the district to protest the board's intolerance of homosexuals. "They talk about intolerance," says Cummins, "but they don't seem very tolerant towards us." Aside from some heckling by local teens, the march was greeted with a mixture of curiosity and seething silence by most locals, almost as if they were watching an invading army march through their neighborhood. And in a sense they were, since most of the marchers had come across the East River from Manhattan.