Is Newsom Hir For You ?

The other day I was at the local park with my two year old granddaughter. While she was minding her own business, playing in the dirt off to the side, a four year old boy came over and started pointing a stick at her. She was frightened by his aggressive behavior and started to back away, but he followed with the stick still in hand. The mother of this disruptive young bully-to-be was near by, but made no effort to let him know that his behavior was not acceptable. I was ready to intervene, but when she came close to me, he backed off. I thought, “Luckily when he starts school, his teacher will be able to instruct him on what his proper behavior should be. When the parents are clueless, thank goodness there is the kindergarten or the first grade teacher who can hopefully point the young child in the right direction.
Oops, that is until here recently with the passage of Senate Bill 419, and the subsequent signing of S.B.419 into law by Governor Newsom in California. Now I did not care very much for California’s last Governor, Jerry Brown, but in retrospect he did have a modicum of common sense compared to our present governor, Gavin Newsom. Senate Bill 419, is similar to S.B. 607, which was vetoed by Jerry Brown; S.B. 419 was signed into law by Gavin Newsom here recently. For those of you not familiar with S.B. 419, it is a bill to amend the Education Code to address one of the twenty reasons for which a school can suspend a student. It addresses “Defiance/Disruption Suspensions.” (Like I said, Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill, S.B. 607, because he felt that local control of schools was better than a one size fits all dictum from the government in Sacramento.) Starting on July 1, 2020, this new law, S.B.419,  will prohibit school suspensions through 8th grade for defiant or disruptive behavior in public schools. The thinking behind SB 419 was pointed out in an article by by Angela McNair Turner(AMcNT) – to paraphrase her: Latino, Black, and LGBT students are suspended at higher rates than other students, and since this is unfair and something needs to be done! (To be fair I was initially anti-Ms. McNair-Turner because of my deep seeded aversion to opinions from those with hyphenated last names. However, my attempt to be fair and balanced was immediately rendered null and void, based on AMcNT’s first sentence, which included, “my client,” and “Latinx,” – apparently a gender neutral alternative to Latino and Latina. So not only is AMcNT an attorney, but zir [a gender neutral pronoun] is also uber P.C.!)

While it is probably true that certain students are suspended for defiant/disruptive behavior more often that others, is it possible that the reason for their increased suspensions is that they actually are more defiant and disruptive? Duh! Just like giving everyone a trophy for participation, instead of only giving a trophy for excellence, here this new law will dumb down classroom behavior to the lowest tier possible. As a consequence all of the other students in the disruptive/defiant student’s class will suffer, because of zir or hir’s unruliness. (again another impressive use of gender neutral pronouns by ze!)

There is a multitude of unforeseen reasons that S.B. 419 will turn out to be a disaster. Actually these will not actually be unforeseen consequences, but foreseen consequences! When those disruptive/defiant students get to high school, what is going to happen? Either Gavin Newsom and his liberal Democrat cronies will pass S.B. 419.5, so that the disruptive/defiant behavior will then be okay in high school, or these disruptive/ defiant middle school students will not have learned that their behavior is not acceptable, and their high school experience will be punctuated by numerous suspensions. If either of these possibilities were to happen, explain to me how these students have benefitted. Duh! If Newsom’s theoretical 419.5 passes, and these disruptive/ defiant high school graduates cannot hold a job because they are still disruptive/defiant exactly who benefits . . . certainly not ze/hir! For them life will be very tough, basically because they were not taught at an early age that disruptive/defiant behavior is a “no-no!”