Legislator proposes law to ban politics from classroom

[TexasTowelie]

Rep. Mark Finchem wants the State Board of Education to craft an educator code of ethics explicitly prohibiting politicking in the classroom – an activity already banned under state law.

The Oro Valley Republican’s proposal in House Bill 2002 would require the board to adopt uniform rules for all certified teachers in “taxpayer-supported schools” to bar them from a litany of political activities in school. Those include the endorsement or opposition of any candidate, nominee or elected or appointed official; any pending or enacted legislation, rule or regulation; any pending, proposed or decided court case; or any pending, proposed or executed executive action.

Finchem also proposes a prohibition on “any controversial issue that is not germane to the top of the course or academic subject,” where “controversial issue” is defined as “a point in a political party platform.”

But the bill seems to mirror prohibitions already in place under a state law that forbids the use of public school resources to influence elections. That would include advocating or opposing a candidate or the like during working hours.

Read more: https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2018/12/14/legislator-proposes-law-to-ban-politics-from-classroom/

[Rhiannon12866]

1. They need to reinstate "Civics," or whatever it's called, in the schools

Too many people have grown up knowing nothing about government, or how it works, and that's what gave us Trump. Lately, I've been remembering and appreciating my 9th grade social studies teacher - so much of what he said has been coming back to me. He made sure we knew who our representatives were and we learned about George Wallace - and how he remained in power, even though he couldn't succeed himself, by alternating terms with his wife, Lurleen. Someone brought up murdered civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo on this board and I immediately thought of Mr. Wadach who taught us about what had happened to her. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I do now. We need to educate kids about the political process early on - or we end up with uneducated voters and we're paying for that now.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Sounds like this legislator wants to ban any kind of civics knowledge, or knowledge that ...

accountants need for handling accounting issues that sometimes states mandate methods of handling, or
rules/regulations basically that may impact just about everything, or attorney training/etc. which requires basically everything under the law. If these restrictions apply only to grades 1-12, still a far fetch to limit so severely and again, speaks of limits to freedom of speech which is unconstitutional.

Agree?