@Crimsonorblue22 said in How Blue is Your Valley?:
I find it interesting that #ksleg will pass out of #k12educationcommitte a bill that has over 70 opponent testimony and 4 proponent. That’s listening to Kansans!
They were allowing proponents more time to speak too. Most were out of state. A senator on the committee said she didn't want to hear from the out of staters.
HB 2662 is the bill, and yeah, it's bad. I don't mind the transparency stuff. All my course materials and syllabi are public record and posted on a website. All part of the gig.
The rest of it is a trash fire. Parents shouldn't be able to unilaterally get books removed from the school library or dictate what goes into them. They're repositories of knowledge, not political statements. Section 4 of the bill is the worst part. It effectively criminalizes teaching certain things or to quote, "Display material that is harmful to minors." Which the bill defines as, "...that quality of any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse when the material or performance, taken as a whole or, with respect to a prosecution for an act described by subsection (a)(1), that portion of the material that was actually exposed to the view of minors, has the following characteristics:
(A) The average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance has a predominant tendency to appeal to a prurient interest in sex to minors;
(B) the average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance depicts or describes nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse in a manner that is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors; and
(C) a reasonable person would find that the material or performance lacks serious literary, scientific, educational, artistic or political value for minors."
It also applies to professors. Which, it's certainly possible to have minors in a college classroom or taking college courses. I had 45 hours going into my undergraduate degree. I'm almost always down with bills that enable greater school choice for parents, but this is has nothing to do with that. This is a gag order.