Newsom Blasts Book Banning in K-12: ‘Education Is under Assault’
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
California governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday blasted Republican-dominated states that are countering the left-wing radicalization of K-12 by removing sexually explicit and critical race theory-laced books from school libraries and curricula.
He suggested that restricting such materials, which parents nationwide have sounded the alarm against at school board meetings, threatens education.
“I do believe education is under assault in ways that I’ve never experienced in my lifetime. I really believe that. I thought it was bad back in the day when folks were debating the merits or demerits around vouchers,” Newsom said during a speech at the National Forum on Education Policy, the Hill first reported.
The Democratic governor noted that education disputes used to be far less contentious, focused primarily on school choice. They’ve since heated up to include critical race theory, gender ideology, and other questions of progressive pedagogy as well as parental involvement in education.
“You know, back in the good old days, in the ’90s, the black and white movie days, and people have different opinions about something called ‘charter schools,'” he quipped. “But what’s happening now? Banning books, suppressing speech, the othering of our students, teachers, parents? It’s alarming.”
Newsom took shots at Florida for rejecting math books in which critical race theory and social emotional learning were allegedly embedded as well as Texas for re-allocating hundreds of millions of dollars of mental health funding to the state’s border crisis management. He boasted that California took the opposite approach, pumping billions into student mental health programs.
Some lawmakers have decried Democratic states for fueling the youth mental health epidemic over the pandemic by resisting efforts to re-open schools. Many California public schools did not resume in-person learning until this past fall, nearly two years after the outbreak of Covid-19.
“But what about the whole person? What about the wellness of our kids? Everybody’s talking a good game now about mental health,” he said.
“There’s one large state, Texas, where they cut mental health funding by $211 million. You know why I’m up here? Because we just expanded mental health by $4.7 billion in our public education system in the state of California.”
Newsom has been tapped as a possible favorite for the Democratic 2024 presidential nomination. Though he survived his recall attempt in September, Newsom has presided over a population outflow of 360,000 people in 2021, with many leaving for states like Texas and Arizona, which has been dubbed “The California Exodus.”
Last week, Newsom launched an ad campaign targeting Florida residents with a similar message to that of his Wednesday speech, encouraging them to move back to California where their freedom is supposedly not “under attack.”
“Freedom is under attack in your state,” he said in the ad. “Republican leaders – they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors. I urge all of you to join the fight, or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom.”
