This article was slipped into your database. Your glorious leaders don't know that it replaces their datafile. Liberal Schools, How liberalism destroyed the public school system. The following are actual cases of the public school system in decay and actual cases of liberal politics that have cause those problems to occur during those so called awful 80's and glorious 90's OCR Scan Newsweek December92 Just because you're a Hit out of town doesn't mean you'll shine on Broadway. Look at Joseph Fernandez. When he came to New York City from Miami three years ago to run the nation's largest school system, Fernandez had a national reputation as an innovative educator with lots of political savvy. As superintendent of the Miami schools for two years, he won high marks for reforming school management. But in New York, his achievements have been marred by months of fighting with school- board officials. Last week the battle escalated, with Fernandez in a bitter dispute over how to teach tolerance of homosexuals to elementary-school children. Even his most stalwart supporters were reluctant to predict a winner. For weeks, Fernandez and officials of a neighborhood school board in a working class area of Queens have been trading angry accusations over "Children of the Rainbow." a 443-page multicultural curriculum. It includes a section entitled "Fostering Positive Attitudes Toward Sexuality" in which first- grade teachers are urged to, "include references to lesbians/ gay people in all curricular areas." The suggested reading list features such titles as " Heather Has Two Mommies," about a little girl, her mother and her mother's lesbian lover. " Daddy's Roommate" includes an illustration of two men in bed. Every other district in the city either accepted the curriculum or modified it with Fernandez's approval, some by delaying mention of tolerance of gays until the fifth or sixth grade. But the Queens board refused; the president of the local board has described the passages on gays as ,"gay /lesbian propaganda" that promotes sodomy and violates parents' religious rights. Fernandez has accused her of a "malicious and highly organized campaign" to scare parents. It's the latest in a long list of skirmishes between Fernandez and school officials. With nearly a million students at a thousand schools, the New York system is an administrative nightmare under the best of conditions. During the 57 -year-old Fernandez's tenure, budget cuts and a growing population of needy students have made a tough job tougher. On top of all that, he has complained that members of the central Board of Education are too involved in day to-day school operations. Fernandez's contract expires in June, and he isn't promising to stay in his $105,000-a-year job. There are rumors that he wants to go back to Miami, where members of his family still live. He has also been mentioned as a contender for secretary of education. In his autobiography, "Tales Out of School," scheduled to be published next month by Little, Brown, Fernandez, who was born in Harlem, predicts that ,"the politics in New York are almost certain to bring me down sooner or later." Attitude problem: His critics say that attitude is typical of Fernandez's arrogance and ruthlessness; his supporters say he's a dedicated reformer with vision. ', In Miami, he had a win-win situation," says Noreen Connell of the Educational Priorities Panel, a monitoring board. "In New York, it's a lose-lose. People don't really want someone good to succeed in this town." One of the major problems is the schools' byzantine governance structure. The seven members of the main Board of Education are appointed by the mayor and the presidents of New York's five boroughs. In addition, each of the city's 32 local school districts has its own elected board. In the current dispute, Fernandez first suspended the local board. Last week the central board reinstated them, but urged both sides to reach a compromise. "The battle is not just about multiculturalism," says Beth Lief of the Fund for New York City Public Education, a reform group. "It's about the power of the chancellor and his ability to set minimum standards." Education reformers worry that the dispute itself has distracted too much attention from the real issue: making the schools better . " I think the whole city politic is only interested in sensationalism," says Judith Baum of the Public Education Association, a nonprofit advocacy group. "It's a lot of noise that gets in the way of progress." Baum's group issues an annual "report card" on Fernandez. This year they graded the central board as well, because "it seems unfair to assess him alone without taking into account the many constraints facing his programs and positions." Fernandez got an A for his response to the budget cuts, but a D for his efforts at systemic reform . If Fernandez wins his battle, it won't be the first time he has defeated the odds. In his memoir , he says he used heroin as a teenage dropout in New York; going back to school gave him another chance. "I can pinpoint the day-actually the very moments I knew I was going to make it," he writes. When a math teacher praised him for a perfect test score, Fernandez was inspired to work harder and went on to become a math teacher. Even if he fails his current test, he's learned one lesson: New York is not Miami. * LANSING Don't expect the State Board of Education's new guidelines on sex education to douse the fire storm of controversy about what schools teach children about sex. In fact, Wednesday's approval by the board of its new schooL heaLth curriculum may be Little more than a bucket of water on a blaze that has raged for close to 20 years . Conservatives have consistently demanded that public schools get out oF the sex education business, yet many schools remain the only authority on sex for kids. And it's unlikely the board's approval oF new voluntary sex ed guidelines will change that. Voting 7 -0, the board adopted a policy that primarily encourages abstinence untiL marriage or untiL students are ready to assume responsibility for their actions. Currently, districts emphasize abstinence but also are encouraged to provide other information on saFe sex practices. The new poLicy is the resuLt oF a sweeping revision of the Michigan ModeL For Comprehensive School HeaLth - a schooL heaLth curriculum that aLso covers problem-solving, nutrition, disease prevention and mental health programs . Observers say these changes don't address the core probLem: Many people don't want the schools to play the role oF "parent" in the sexuality discussion at all. "My first choice would certainly be that parents teach their children in their own home," said GOP board member Cherry Jacobus, who oversaw the health guideline changes. "Schools can do an appropriate job oF teaching sex education, but it's no replacement for parents providing the inFormation." But many parents fail to connect with their kids on touchy issues, such as AIDS, teen pregnancy and sexuaL permissiveness. And with recent surveys showing that more than half of all high schooL students are sexuaLLy active, the government and school oFficials have FeLt the need to step in. "In this day and age, we can't have kids running around without some knowledge about safe sex and birth control," said Annetta MilLer , a Democratic board m ember from Huntington Woods. "This is not a when OUr children can afford to be ill informed." SchooL officials hope to tone down some of the conservative ire over sex education by focusing more on abstinence and doing a better job of communicating with parents . "The districts are partly at Fault For this problem," said Al Short, a lobbyist for the Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union. "They were deFensive about attacks on their programs when they should have been asking parents to get more involved." Schools must make parents partners in the dialogue about sex, keeping them inFormed about topics discussed in the classroom and encouraging them to talk about sex with their chiLdren . Many districts are aLready educating parents about their programs, and Short expects locaL school boards to be even more sensitive to parents' attitudes in the Future. As for long-term change, it may take a generation or two to ease the tension between parents and kids when discussing sex. * And, here is what actually happened in those schools as a result. Dead baby found in school Lansing (AP) A janitor found the body of a baby in a bathroom trash can at Lansing Eastern High School. "To us it seemed a normal, fully developed baby, but it's hard to say when you're not a medical examiner", police Lt. mike Whal said Thursday, April 8th. 1993. "It was born recently, perhaps today." the baby, a girl, was found about 4p.m. inside a plastic bag with something wrapped around the neck, Ingham County Prosector Donald martin said. The body was found after Eastern's 1,600 students had gone home for the day. Class already was cancelled today for the Good Friday holidays.* Isn't sex education with no instructions about morales wonderful? Teacher quits in touching case. Bellaire (AP) A high school social studies teacher pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault and agreed to retire after being charged with fondling a 17 year old student. James Longcore, 58, of traverse City, has taught in the Elk rapids school system more then 30 years. Under a plea bargen, he will retire April 19 instead of June as he originally planned. According to police reports, Longcore touched the victim's buttocks in front of other students in a school hallway. The girl yelled at him to never do it again.* Sounds like a case of reverse sexual harassment. There will be many more cases of this occurring as students use this method as a way to get rid of unpopular teachers. It gets even more bazarre as liberals have managed to remove any traces of respect for authority from the students as they have removed all means for teachers to control their students. Pupils get wild in Detroit schools Detroit (AP) Police arrested 34 middle school students after a disturbance broke out during an anti-violence program. Six members of a police anti gang unit were at Cerveney Middle School on the city's NorthWest side Thursday, April 8, 1993, for a presentation discouraging violence, said Sgt. Richard nixon, a department spokesman. Members of several gangs were among the sixth, seventh, and eight grade students and started shouting out their territories, said a school district official who asked not to be named. The ruckus included one student "urinating on the wall and mooning a female teacher," said Lt. charles Wilson, one of the officers making the presentation.* Is this a surprise that students are behaving in this manner?