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Wanda Sykes: We're going to have a great night tonight. For you people in Florida, we're going to have a gay night.

Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. That was Wanda Sykes hosting The Oscars Sunday night, poking fun and expressing dissent at Florida's so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill by saying gay over and over again. Now that might have been the best thing about The Oscars, by the way, that nobody will remember because of that other thing that happened. Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer and Regina Hall were oh so funny, I thought. Governor Ron DeSantis did in fact sign that bill into law yesterday. Wanda Sykes couldn't mark him out of it. Here is Governor DeSantis describing what's in the bill as he wants us to understand it, breaking it down into three parts.

Ron DeSantis: First, the bill prohibits classroom instruction about sexuality or things like transgender in K-3 classrooms. After third grade, those curriculums need to be age-appropriate. Second, the bill ensures that at the beginning of every school year, parents will be notified about healthcare services offered at the school with the right to decline any service offered.

[applause]

Finally, this bill ensures that whenever a questionnaire or health screening is given to our young students, parents receive it first and give permission for the school to give it to their child.

Brian Lehrer: That was Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday, and as you can hear nowhere did he say that teachers won't be able to say the word 'gay'. Which has become something of a sticking point for conservatives who say progressives are purposely over-blowing and distorting what's in the bill. Advocates shoot back and say the bill's vaguenesses are the point. They say it's just broad enough to create a chilling effect among teachers so that no one will want to risk lawsuits by even mentioning the existence of gay or trans people in classrooms.

What sort of effect will the law have on classrooms and on people and how does the law compare to how other districts around the country design curricula around sex and gender issues and counselling? In New York, for example, there's a bill currently in committee that would mandate more openly progressive gender and sex ed instruction in grades K–12. New Jersey passed new sex ed standards in 2020 requiring certain lesson plans by each grade, and folding in more inclusive language. Obviously, different states with different politics are going in different directions right now. Remember when Governor Phil Murphy's opponent Jack Ciattarelli said this in last year's gubernatorial debate?

Jack Ciattarelli: Why does Phil Murphy believe that we should be teaching sexual orientation and gender ID to kindergartners? Why does he believe that we should be teaching explicit sex acts to middle school students?

Brian Lehrer: No, schools aren't coaching middle school students in how to perform sex acts but that's where the debate is. Here with me now to go over what's in Florida's law and to take your calls on what the gender or sex ed or identity curricula or counselling practices are in your school is Dana Goldstein, national education correspondent at the New York Times, and author of The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession. Hi, Dana, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Dana Goldstein: Hey, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Let me start with that applause line from Governor DeSantis in the clip. The item he mentioned about parental notification and right of refusal for any healthcare services in the Florida public schools. What's the 'don't say gay' context for that?

Dana Goldstein: I think you have to look at the language of the law and you also have to look at the intent. When I spoke to supporters of what they call the Parental Rights Bill and what opponents have termed the 'Don't say gay' law, they are very clear that what is motivating them is the desire to prevent schools from affirming children who say they are questioning their gender identity or who identify as transgender. They do not want schools to affirm that for kids if their parents disagree with that decision. Now there is a lot of--

Brian Lehrer: What does affirm mean in that context? Just acknowledge the existence of the identity that a kid says that they have or what is it?

Dana Goldstein: I think the concern is that if a child who's born female comes to school and says, "I don't feel like a girl. I'm thinking maybe I feel more like a boy," the national standards of the American Counselling Association is to accept what the child has said, to assure them that having those kinds of thoughts or questions is perfectly normal and to explore with them what they're feeling. That is not what these activists want schools to do. What they would like schools to do is to go immediately to parents and see how the parents want the school to respond and reject the child's questioning or encourage them to reject that questioning if that is the parent's approach.

Brian Lehrer: How unusual is that in national context or what does the other side say is wrong with that? Because a lot of people are going to hear that as common sense. If a minor, and I don't know if this kicks in or kicks out at a certain age, but in general, if a minor goes to a school professional and says something intense about their call it identity or the bill is even broader and I think says mental health, so that could be anything, then why shouldn't a parent be notified and have an integral role in how the school deals with whatever the child is presenting with to a counsellor? What's the other side of that argument?

Dana Goldstein: I think this is certainly one of the most divisive questions in American life at the moment. When I spoke to counsellors and folks who are leaders in the school counselling field, they talked about how it is a live debate and one of the most fraught issues they deal with as to when to inform parents of any kind of difficult issue that a child brings and parents do have existing rights. The ethical standards of the national association that represents American school counsellors does call for schools to be affirming and accepting of children who are questioning their gender identity.

That's the official policy here in New York City and our public schools that parents don't have to agree, say, for a child to use a different set of pronouns in school. This is debated in how individual district state schools implement this on the ground is going to differ in 13,000 school districts across the country. There is no one approach here. I want to call out the language you asked me about, which is saying that parents have the right to know every mental health service that a school provides and opt-out of it.

Governor DeSantis did accurately describe that in the clip that we just heard. This by my reading of the law, the legal experts I've approached while reporting on this, this is not confined to LGBTQ issues, gender identity, sexuality, or any of the hot button topics that we're discussing here. This requirement that schools tell parents, basically, give them a menu of all social, emotional, mental health services that are provided and allow them to opt out, could allow parents to opt their children out of any counselling services that a school provides regardless of what the issue is. This is a huge, huge concern for educators, for mental health advocates.

Brian Lehrer: What's the argument for confidentiality from your parent?

Dana Goldstein: Well, there's many cases where the school or the adults in the school may be more accepting of a difficult issue that a child is going through than the adults at home are. They really worry that children won't come to their school counsellor with those really hard issues they may be dealing with if they know that the counsellor will immediately be required to go to their parents with it. You can imagine all kinds of things, bullying or knowledge that appear or is using substances or drugs or alcohol, pressure to use those substances, maybe even with terrible things that do happen and children do witness at home like domestic abuse.

There is language in the bill saying that if a school suspects that a child would be neglected or abused due to this breaking of confidentiality, that they could overwrite it in those cases. Those sort of very extreme cases are carved out of the bill, but schools don't always know if children might be under risk for those types of threats. Again, the concern is that counsellors or teachers may be more accepting of kids going through tough things than parents are in some instances. Educators would like to be able to make a professional judgment on whether or not they go immediately to parents and this bill by the way it is written, it does override their ability to make a professional judgment.

Brian Lehrer: Am I right that the bill distinguishes between mental health screening and mental health services, that in both scenarios a parent must be notified, but there's some difference in what the bill requires for screening and for services regarding mental health?

Dana Goldstein: Correct. There's separate clauses there. In both scenarios the parents must know what is provided and have the option to opt out. In the case of a screening questionnaire, which is a growing practice in schools across the country especially coming out of the pandemic, they're actually requiring the actual text of the questionnaire as the student would see it to be shown to the parent, previous to the child taking the questionnaire. These are sometimes talked about as social emotional screenings.

This year, the New York City schools, for example, did try using them. Parents were told about it. They did in New York have the option to opt out. I took a look at what these are. They asked questions such as how often are you excited about school? Are you sleeping well? Do you have a quiet place at home to do the homework? Do you feel anxiety or stress or sadness? They're basic questions for kids, so that the grownups at school can see if they might need some extra support.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, let's compare Florida's new law to what happens in whatever school district you're in. Dana just said there are thousands of school districts across America. What are the protocols around how you teach about gender and sexuality or in how you assess or provide mental health and mental health services for students? If a child expresses changes in their gender identity for example, do you inform that child's parents? 212-433-WNYC. If you work as a teacher or a school counselor of any kind or anywhere in any school system, 212-433-9692, help us report this story by helping us put Florida's new law that the governor frames as a parental rights law and opponents frame as a 'Don't Say Gay' discriminatory law, 212-433-9692.

How does it go in your school system? Does sex or gender come up in your classroom? To go to that part of it, which we haven't even touched on yet. We've just been talking about mental health services. Is it part of your curriculum? How at different ages has your school officially designed the curriculum around gender issues, around language, around sexual orientation and what about working with parents in that curriculum context? 212-433-9692.

If you're an educator in New Jersey, for example, how has how you teach about sex and gender changed since 2020 when the state passed new guidelines about what students should be learning in each grade, which among many things says, "Students should be exposed to inclusive gender language, should be exposed to inclusive gender language and family systems by grade two. By grade five students should be taught about sex and puberty." I know there are 600 school districts in New Jersey, so whichever one you're in, have you changed anything about how you teach or talk about sex and gender in the past year because of that state law?

Do you get pushback from parents or other educators? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, for Dana Goldstein, national education reporter for the New York Times, on this day after the so called 'Don't Say Gay' bill or officially Parental Rights and Education Bill got passed in Florida. Dana, you want to go on to the curriculum pieces of it? What does the Florida law explicitly restrict or require? Then we'll get into how different that is from what's generally done around the country.

Dana Goldstein: In grades K-3 the law says that classroom instruction and classroom discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity are not allowed. In the upper grades above grade three, it says that any instruction or discussion must be developmentally appropriate. I think that we can delve into those two clauses, but the author of the bill has said that by banning classroom instruction and discussion on gender and sexuality, the intent is only to apply to teachers' formal lesson plans. In other words, they should not select books that highlight a family with two fathers or they should not do a history lesson that focuses on a lesbian path breaker.

However, I think when you use the term classroom discussion, it's a lot broader than that, potentially. One of the scenarios that advocates are concerned about is let's say you're reading to second graders a book about different types of families, different families, and a little boy raises his hand and says, "I have two mothers." How is the teacher to respond to that? Under the strict reading of this law, the teacher should not open up a classroom discussion and say, "Yes, having two moms is a type of family in our community," and celebrate that in any way or call attention to it.

Brian Lehrer: Well, what are they supposed to do? Because that's a big question, if kids are just talking about their families. That could be part of curriculum, I guess. Talk about your family and what's important to you and your family. Maybe in those very young grades through third grade it's not officially, but if a kid raises it what is a teacher supposed to do under that law? In that example that you gave where a kid says, "Well, I have two daddies at home and one of them says, 'Blah, blah, blah, blah,'" then what's the teacher supposed to do?

Dana Goldstein: Joe Harding, the Florida legislator who sponsored the bill, has said that there's nothing here that would prevent the teacher from just responding in a neutral or even a warm manner, that there would be nothing here that prevent a teacher from accepting, say, a short story that child writes about their two moms. However, I think it's just important to note that because the bill is written in a very broad and vague language, there's a real incentive here for teachers to just avoid the subject of LGBTQ issues because parents who are angry, who feel that LGBTQ issues have been brought up in the wrong way or in a developmentally inappropriate way by their own views, have the right to sue and it is the schools and the districts that must foot the bill for that. There is a real incentive here to avoid these lawsuits on the controversy and stress that would be caused by being caught in the crosshairs here to simply avoid talking about it.

Brian Lehrer: Then take me up the grades a little more. We've talked about pre-K through three just now. Then what can they do or what are they required to do?

Dana Goldstein: This is one of the vaguest aspects of the bill. It says that instruction on gender and sexuality must be "developmentally appropriate" but that's completely debated what that actually means. One person's developmentally appropriate for a 10-year-old would be somebody else's totally unacceptable. One 13-year-old maybe ready to discuss one topic and another 13-year-old may feel it's a little bit too grown up for them. Again, it just seems to cast a very wide net.

Brian Lehrer: The genesis of the bill, before we take some of the many phone calls that are coming in, is it genuinely out of parental concern that kids are being given sexual material or confusing gender identity material that is going to harm them in some way or is it an anti-gay and anti-trans agenda to marginalize those people as an act of politics?

Dana Goldstein: I spoke to several supporters of the bill. I spoke to Tiffany Justice of Moms for Liberty, which is an advocacy group that has very much supported it. She said to me this is really not about gay or lesbian issues, but it is about anger about schools in what she sees as encouraging transgenderism. There is a belief among some conservatives that there is "grooming" going on. That is false, but there's a belief that there's an active effort to, in some sense, just convert children to the idea of transgenderism and even seed the idea in children's minds that this is a good thing, as opposed to traditional notions of maleness and femaleness.

They point to children being able to dress differently in school or use different pronouns in school, or use different bathrooms in school if parents disagree with that and that is the overriding passion for the activists in Florida who support the bill.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a way to draw a line between just affirming a child, and even that is not allowed under the Florida bill, but, between just acknowledging and being supportive of whatever a child is going through that groups like that Moms for Liberty or whatever that title was, wouldn't consider grooming? Grooming is such a disgusting accusation. Grooming is almost as if the teachers or the counselors are grooming the kids to have sex with them.

This was a word that came up in the Andrew Cuomo scandal, for example, where he was talking about sexual issues with these young women employees who maybe he was "grooming them," is the accusation, to eventually have sex with them. When they used the word grooming with respect to teachers and counsellors who were just acknowledging and affirming what a child is going through it's, to my ear, really disgusting to use that word. Where's the line as far as the activist on the right are concerned between acknowledging what a kid is going through and being supportive and trying to recruit them into being any of LGBTQ, or do they not see a line?

Dana Goldstein: I can't really answer that because that's not really the way they talk about it. The way they talk about it is that as soon as a child were to approach an adult in school saying, "I don't know if I really feel comfortable being a girl. I'm questioning that identity. Maybe I would like to dress a little differently," that the parent should immediately be brought into the conversation and however the parent wants to proceed would be how the school ought to proceed. That is their strongly held view. Yes, the term grooming is very ugly and it has a long history in anti-gay bigotry in particular, and it carries a strong implication of abuse, and so the cropping up of that term in this debate is certainly notable.

Brian Lehrer: Just one more thing before we start taking some phone calls. The genesis of the bill, I read it was spurred from a conversation between a Tallahassee mother and her 13-year-old non-binary child. What happened there?

Dana Goldstein: Yes. There's a lot of different anecdotes that are going around in Florida among the conservative organizations and activists that support the bill of children who question their identity were affirmed or acknowledged by their schools, and then later regretted it or became incredibly depressed. There's many different stories, so I'm not certain I know of the specific one.

Brian Lehrer: There was one from that Tallahassee family that broke out. Also, the Anti-trans law in Texas that we discussed in a separate segment is also spurred, I understand, by a parent who became activated after finding out his own child was trans. I'm not sure what the question is, but I just think it's particularly sad that these laws are written with the help of parents who don't support or are terrified by their own child's existence.

Dana Goldstein: Yes, that's absolutely true but also it's important to note that the same movement of people and organizations who are writing laws that are against "critical race theory" in schools are the same groups that are pushing this type of law. It's a broad conservative movement at this moment that is politicizing a lot of what goes on in schools on a range of issues.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with New York Times national education correspondent Dana Goldstein, and your calls as we try to understand what's really in the Florida parental rights, or don't say gay bill and its national implications. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue to talk about the bill signed by the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis yesterday, known as Parental Rights in Education to him, known as "Don't Say Gay" to many LGBTQ Americans and others. One more stat by way of contrast in the New York context. In 2020, the legislature considered six very similar bills about comprehensive sex ed in school and all of those failed.

They received major pushback from conservative Christian groups. Sex education itself is now not mandated in public schools in New York, though many school districts choose to teach it, but HIV Aids education is mandated though parents can opt their children out of that with the promise that they will teach the content at home. If sex education does take place, New York State Law requires that its stresses abstinence. There's some conservatism, if you want to call it that, even in New York. Let's start bringing in some callers. Maria in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Maria.

Maria: Hi, Brian. I'm on the air.

Brian Lehrer: You are on the air.

Maria: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you so much for taking my call. I have a lot of thoughts in my head. I am an English teacher in Northern Jersey. I used a pseudonym because I wanted to protect my identity. This is a really challenging time to be in public education. I think couple of issues are administration needs to not cower to parents. You mentioned this Moms of Liberty Group. I can't help but think that this is perhaps part of a larger conservative agenda to break public school systems. That way education becomes privatized.

I'll just say from my end as a teacher, I teach 9th through 12th grade and so much of the literature that we teach there's so many rich opportunities to discuss gender sexuality and issues like that in the classroom. It's terrifying to think about the backlash. I'm a non-tenured teacher. My job could be at stake if I say something that a parent is upset with. There is a lot of pushback. We have this beautiful bulletin board in our hallway that our counselor put up to try to celebrate historic figures in the culture at large who are LGBTQ part of that community, and there's parents who have called or have had meetings, very upset about this, which is awful.

I just wish that there was a way for some of these parents to understand that, especially for transgender youth, I think the statistic, I believe, is one in two trans gender young people consider suicide. This is a population that's vulnerable and we need to protect them. That's part of what the aim of school is. You're teaching all children.

Brian Lehrer: What would you to parents who might be hearing your call and think, "Wait, she said she's a high school English teacher. Why is it the job of an English teacher to be thinking about these things, as opposed to teaching literature and writing and critical analysis?"

Maria: That's a fair point. My response to that would be that literature is a really rich opportunity to explore psychosocial dynamics and, obviously, gender is a huge part of that. One of the books that is in the curriculum Americana, that's a great rich opportunity teach about intersectionality. I would argue gender is a critical lens through which you can analyze literature. That's going to be part of a well run comprehensive English class. It's frustrating that parents wouldn't want their children to be exposed to perspectives other than their own. That's really the whole point of education.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Maria. Thank you very much. Could that not be done at the high school level, Dana, under the Florida bill? It's almost a whole separate conversation, but, of course, it's a related conversation this push to ban various books from school libraries and school curricula. At the high school level could books that revolve around themes of gender identity or sexual identity not be taught in English class?

Dana Goldstein: The text of the law doesn't explicitly ban that, but it would empower any parent who believes that those books are "not developmentally appropriate" to sue a school. It would open up the school to the possibility of lawsuits based on the language of this law.

Brian Lehrer: Even at the high school level?

Dana Goldstein: Correct, at any grade level.

Brian Lehrer: Derek on Staten Island, your on WNYC. Hi, Derek. Thanks for calling in.

Derek: Hi. I don't have nothing wrong with the law because it gives you the options to choose. People can choose whatever suits them and they believe in their children. I don't have a problem with it.

Brian Lehrer: It gives the parents the right to choose, but it restricts confidential counselling in school between the children and the school counsellors. If you're a parent do you think that should be the case, that restriction?

Derek: Yes, because I'm a parent of four children, two boys, two girls, and I would like anything the school, whether they're going for counseling, whatever program they have I'd like to see it first or especially if it has to do with mental illness or anything like that. I would like the option to opt out of anything that I don't find is appropriate. We're still in the land of freedom, we're still in America, so we have the right to choose. Anybody could do whatever they feel like, but with me and my child I would like the options to opt in and opt out.

Brian Lehrer: Would you also personally like to see restrictions in the curriculum for how gender or sexual identity can be discussed in the classroom at any age?

Derek: For the young age, I think they should leave that to their parents to choose. When they reach the older age then the parents are supposed to already have that talk with their children. I wouldn't have a problem with it at the older age, but the younger set I think they should leave that for the parents to opt in and out.

Brian Lehrer: Derek, thank you so much for your call. Call us again. Dana, how much do you think Derek speaks for the majority of parents in Florida and what, if anything, would people on the other side of that say he's missing?

Dana Goldstein: I don't know about the majority, but I think certainly many parents would relate to what Derek said. I think the concern for many school counsellors and many advocates in the LGBTQ community is that some parents just will not accept who their children are and will reject them if they're gay, reject them if they're transgender. In that case it's imperative for the child's well-being that they can find an adult who will be accepting of them and find that social, emotional, mental health support at school. A blanket effort to empower the parent over the school in every single instance would be frankly dangerous for children who come from families who don't accept them for who they are.

There's a specific term in the bill that really stuck out to me because I think people will just interpret it really differently depending on their own value system. It refers to parental control of children. I think the word control is one that some parents may feel like, yes, it's really important that I control the ideas that my young child comes into contact with and hears about. I think for other folks that word control is not one that they would use when talking about children, how they develop, and how they come into contact with ideas and beliefs. This is just something that people are going to probably fundamentally debate.

Brian Lehrer: Francesca in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Francesca.

Francesca: Hi, Brian. Two points. I'm a mental health counsellor and a school counsellor and I was a teacher, and I lived in Florida for a while. To me part of this is in Florida there is this deep resistance to critical analysis and general subtle critical thinking in the schools and there's this tremendous pushback. To me it feels like this is just one more symptom of this much, much larger problem that is going on down there. It's one of the reasons why I just didn't want to live there anymore. I have taught a lot of health classes to 12-year-old seventh graders, eighth graders, and putting a chill on classroom conversation endangers all the students.

It particularly is going to endanger these trans students, but it endangers all the students because you have to create an atmosphere where the kids feel like they can say what they need to say, ask the questions they need to ask of things they're being exposed to on the internet and wherever. Parents have no idea. A lot of parents have absolutely no idea and they need a place to process what is going on and what they're seeing and what they're taking in. Kids who are having other problems, if you put a chill on the whole conversation, they're not going to feel safe to go to their teacher and say, "My friend is cutting themselves. Is that okay?"

"These seventh graders are having sex in the bathroom. I'm uncomfortable with that. Is that okay?" It makes it impossible because if the parents are holding the teachers hostage to feeling like they're going to lose their job if they say the wrong thing in class to the wrong kid. When a kid asks a sincere question, you want to have an open conversation. It makes the whole thing impossible. The whole paradigm doesn't work at that point, and it's where we're headed.

Brian Lehrer: For you as a school counsellor, is there any example you can give us of where there was, maybe, a gray area between whether you should in your own judgment inform the parent of something a kid is presenting with to you or if you should keep it confidential from the parent?

Francesca: The approach that I take with that is I will talk to the kid. I never want to blindside a kid. I will say like, "Wow this sounds like something we really need to figure out a way to talk to your parents about." I will generally work with the kid until they feel comfortable that we all go together to speak to their parent or whatever. I'm not about confidence with kids, but I'm not really about keeping secrets from parents either. If you can avoid it, most of the time it's not necessary.

Occasionally, you get a kid who will really be in danger if they bring information to them and that becomes a completely different situation. You have to hope that you're working with the right administrators, where you can work through that. If you have a good administration that has, like I said, good, critical analysis and good thinking skills, it's one thing. If you're working with an administration that doesn't have that perspective, it can get really, really unpleasant and teachers careers can get ruined by this thing, and it's not okay. It puts a chill on the entire education system.

Brian Lehrer: Francesca, thank you so much for your call. Heren in [unintelligible 00:38:34] Park, your on WNYC. Hi, Heren?

Heren: Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Hey there, so you're a high school teacher, I see?

Heren: I'm a high school teacher in Manhattan and I a little bit wanted to pushback on the idea that schools are very supportive of multiple gender identities and sexualities. Even in Manhattan, and I've worked at my school for about 10 years, there's been a lot of pushback to getting a gender neutral bathroom. Even I don't use miss or mister, I use teacher as a gender neutral and it was hard to implement in the beginning. Even still, I have students that come out to me every semester and more and more through the years they come out as non-binary, they come out with their pronoun preferences.

I don't think that their parents know, I don't think their other teachers know. Even for my myself just getting my pronouns respected at school, as someone who works in Manhattan has been very difficult. I think I would like to see more of this idea of continuing to fight forward rather than being so defensive, because I think it's a lot of made up that teachers are teaching these things regularly. It's not from my experience.

Brian Lehrer: How different or not different, do you think it is between Manhattan and Florida, let's say, under this law, even with the limitations in Manhattan that you were describing?

Helen: That's a great question. I haven't spent too much time in Florida. I think that it depends on the community that's being served, and also the specific teacher. I do feel pretty free to teach what I want to teach, and I know people in my community that are queer teachers also do, and so I assume that's different in Florida, but I don't think that this is institutionalized. I don't think that all kids in New York City are receiving these sorts of lessons. Even though it would be less in Florida, I don't think it's as ubiquitous as it should be in our progressive schools either.

Brian Lehrer: From that item that I mentioned about the bills that went successfully or not through the New York State Legislature a couple of years ago, there's obviously successful pushback from the right, even in the context of New York State on some of these things. Heren, thank you very much for chiming in. One more. Philip in Manhattan, your on WNYC. Hi, Philip. You teach elementary school do I see?

Philip: Good afternoon. I teach chess K-5 in various schools, so I'm not a permanent teacher in any one school, but I go from bird to bird teaching, and I do curriculum teaching during the day and after school clubs. I do have a lot of contact with kids, especially K-3. They talk to me about all kinds of issues. Some of them were quite at risk, and so they'll discuss some of their family situations. First thing- it's actually a couple of things. One, I have yet to find any child in that age range wanting to discuss with me their sexuality, their gender identity, or any of the issues associated. I'm not saying it can't happen, but so far in my experience and I've been doing this, I'm going on 25 years, have not come across it at that age.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe not so likely in chess club, right?

Philip: Perhaps not, but on the other hand, they do discuss with me their at home lives. The things that are definitely outside of chess, like sometimes problems with parents. Occasionally, I've had situations where there's abuse, so things that you would not think that a chess teacher would deal with, and in fact, I don't. When I am confronted with things like that, I take them immediately to the local counsellor in the school, and let them deal with, because I'm not trained in that way. Let me just say, I haven't heard it. One other thing, a reading of the "Don't Say Gay" bill, if you don't mind me calling it that, I don't see anything about discussion. I see no instruction.

Clause 3 says, "No instruction in K to third grade." I don't know exactly what instruction is. Perhaps that's open to interpretation. If a kid in the classroom says, "Teacher, my--" Well, let's say the assignment is to draw a family tree at third grade, let's say, and one kid has two dads or two moms. That can come up if "my reading of the bill", I'm not an attorney, is that that come up in casual discussion, but it can't be a subject of instruction.

I would wonder if your expert might clarify that point. Finally, I'm wondering, would it not be equally illegal or against this law to discuss heteronormative gender identity issues? A teacher can't say, for example, if I'm understanding correctly, that marriage is between a man and a woman exclusively. It's protective of the entire genre of discussion, as far as I know, and I'm wondering if your expert can speak to those points.

Brian Lehrer: Philip, thank you very much. Of course, saying marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman, that would be just a factually incorrect statement in this country, because we have legal same sex marriage nationwide. Dana, you get his larger point about the difference between instruction and conversation.

Dana Goldstein: Yes, lines 21 to 23 of the bill about "prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or in a specified manner." Now that term discussion, which is broader than instruction occurs in the preamble to the bill, which is some introductory matter at the beginning of the bill. Lawyers actually really highlighted this to me, because they said if they are advising a school district, if a school district is a client of theirs and says, "I'm really wondering how to interpret this bill," they would often turn to the preamble as a place where the legislature has declared their intent.

In this case, the preamble language is even broader than the actual language of the law itself. It gives a clue as to what the legislators were trying to do with the bill when they wrote it. As for the question as to whether discussion of heterosexuality would be banned by this law, I think that's actually a perfectly fair reading of the explicit language of the bill as written, but there's no doubt as to how this will be implemented. It will not be used to target a female teacher who speaks about being married to a man or puts a picture in her classroom of her wedding day. However, it may be used to target a male teacher who would put a picture of his wedding day to a man in a classroom.

Brian Lehrer: There you have some more context, folks about the Parental Rights in Education Bill, officially, or the "Don't Say Gay Bill", as its critics label it, now signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida. Teachers, school counsellors, parents, thanks to all of you for your calls. Dana Goldstein, national education correspondent at the New York Times and author of The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession, thank you so much.

Dana Goldstein: Thanks, Brian.

 

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