Equality vs. equity: Top NJ Dems join criticism over fairness policy for public schools

Two top New Jersey Democrats joined a chorus of Republicans who are criticizing rule-making around the hot-button issue of gender identity in public schools — an issue that until now saw both groups toeing the party lines.

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Nick Scutari joined Republicans lashing out at the State Board of Education for its vote this week to approve changes to policies that guide districts in giving New Jersey’s schoolchildren fair and equal access to public education.

Republicans have mostly criticized sex education, curriculum and other changes that touch upon LGBTQ+ issues as government “overreach” into parents’ rights, while Democrats have mostly supported the Murphy administration’s outspoken support for LGBTQ+ students. These issues are key to changes in Chapter 7, which has adjusted regulations to consider gender identity.

Changes include replacing the word "equality" with "equity" throughout, and removing gendered pronouns and nouns. Names of certain mandated curricula have been changed, such as replacing “African American history curriculum” with “Amistad Commission curriculum.”

"'Equality' means sameness, uniformity, and equivalence, and focuses on a student's access to educational resources,” the state said in its summary of the changes. “Equity” takes into consideration each student’s different needs and, by not assuming sameness, offers a fairer approach, the state said.

“The state board of education doesn’t coordinate with policymakers,” Coughlin and Scutari said in a joint statement Friday about the 13-member nonpartisan, volunteer, governor-appointed board that works mostly independently to effectuate how state laws are implemented in public schools based on recommendations made by the Murphy administration’s Department of Education.

“We expected better communication with them,” the legislators said, suggesting that they were not given a heads-up about changes to the code.

Changes to state guidance have been mulled for months

But changes to Chapter 7 have been the subject of meetings at the state board since December.

Asked what pieces of the approved amendments the two legislators objected to, the Democrats' spokespersons said, “We’ll let the statement speak for itself.” They did not confirm whether Coughlin and Scutari had corresponded with the board over this issue publicly since it was introduced.

Impact on sports

Morris and Sussex County Republicans, including state Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco and state Sen. Steve Oroho, said the state board’s vote has approved policies that will permit boys to participate in girls’ sports. They referred to changed language that says teams should be selected based on “all sexes,” not “two” sexes.

But the state, in its written responses to comments, said schools may still have teams separated by sex. "A school district is permitted to operate separate teams based on sex in one or more sports," it said. It also said, responding to other comments, that schools must consider gender identity when selecting teams. Operating "separate teams based upon biological sex without regard to their expressed gender identity would not be consistent with State law," the Department of Education said.

The actual changed language in Chapter 7 does not mandate procedures for how schools should pick teams, and it notes that competition should be fair. It replaces “two” sexes with “all” sexes, when schools operate separate teams, “as long as the athletic program, as a whole, provides equal opportunities" for students to participate in "sports at comparable levels of difficulty and competency.”

The state also said in its response to comments on the same issue that Title IX, adopted to prevent discrimination against women and girls, remains part of state law. Protections for transgender students were in place during the Christie administration. The amendments mostly streamline language to reflect New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination.

More than 250 comments

The state responded to 263 comments both supporting and objecting to the changes to Chapter 7. One common objection was the state’s recommendation that children be separated in sex ed classes by gender identity instead of biological sex. This was anti-Christian and anti-God, said some commenters.

The state responded by saying schools did not have to separate children at all and could conduct classes in one room. Class content must be the same if classes are separated. And parents could opt their children out of sex education if they choose to.

“A school district is not required to hold separate sessions and can continue to develop health education curriculum based upon the school district’s curriculum development and review process,” the state said in its response to one comment. However, if students are “separated for class sessions that exclusively deal with human sexuality, it must be done in accordance with state and federal law.”

More: Parental rights candidates are rattling NJ school boards. Meetings have been tempestuous

Parental rights fuel political conversations

The protests from Republicans and the two Democratic leaders in the Assembly and Senate come as “parental rights” continues to be a key issue expected to drive voters in the November election. Many Republican lawmakers have supported removing books from school libraries and characterized the Murphy administration’s stated commitment to protecting the privacy of LGBTQ+ children in schools, including through its sex education standards, as the state’s intention to “indoctrinate” and “groom” students. Meanwhile, Democrats have generally been silent or ignored criticism.

Scutari's and Coughlin’s statement bypassed any mention of gender or sex ed but gave a nod to parents' rights.

"We believe that families should have a voice in what is taught to their children, and as long as we have a say over the matter, they will continue to," their statement said.

Districts have always been able to "align their curricula to local needs," provided they follow state-mandated learning standards, and "parents and guardians have always had the right to object to their child attending lessons related to health, family life education, or sex education," the Department of Education said, in written responses to public feedback.

With a 6-5 vote, the state board was not unanimous in approving the changes to the equity code, which has far-ranging impacts to deliver fairness to students by recognizing their differences rather than assuming that their needs are all the same.

Equality vs. equity

Replacing the word “equality” with “equity”  was another target of objection from Bucco and other Republicans.

“Equal” implies that all students receive the exact same instruction regardless of a student’s particular needs, while “equitable” supports differentiated instruction that is based on individual student needs, the state said in its written responses to criticism of the changes.

Board member and Schools Superintendent Joseph Ricca voted against approving Chapter 7 but strongly supported allowing children to attend sex ed classes based on their preferred gender identity. However, he said he objected to approving the changes to Chapter 7 this time because he felt there was more work to be done to iron out many parts of the regulations, including the athletic code.

“With regard to athletics I believe it is very very important to have separate competitions for male and female sexes,” he said. It wouldn’t be fair to biological girls to have males compete against them, Ricca said.

But this interjection of sports and gender by politicians into the public’s discussion of the equity code was distracting from the goal of Chapter 7, he said.

The issue of gender identity in sports and sex ed "is not even the central topic," Ricca said. "The equity work was about allowing all children the opportunity to succeed by giving them that opportunity to succeed, and it became very quickly about all of these other social issues.”

Mary Ann Koruth covers education.

Email: koruthm@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ gender policy for public schools criticized by lawmakers