Should elected local school boards decide what kind of education the children of their district should get, or should Gavin Newsom?

Newsom, as he always does, says 'me.'

Here is his latest strongarm of the Temecula Valley Unified School District, as described by Yahoo! News:

Days after Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to fine a Southern California school district $1.5 million over its rejection of a state-approved social studies curriculum, the school board unanimously voted to adopt a compromise version of the curriculum on Friday.

The Temecula Valley Unified School Board held an emergency meeting to adopt the elementary curriculum, though it will pull one fourth grade unit that discusses the gay rights movement for further review, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In May, the school board voted 3-2 to reject the elementary social studies curriculum that mentions gay rights activist Harvey Milk, and did so again last week. School board President Joseph Komrosky referred to California’s first openly gay elected official as a “pedophile” and questioned why he would be featured, calling it “morally reprehensible,” The Bee reported.

So much for parental rights -- and local control.

This was a naked, political muscling with draconian consequences employed in contradiction to the decision of the community, led by its locally elected leaders, to not teach sex to children under the age of 11. Newsom not only threatened the district with a $1.5 million fine if they didn't play ball with his pre-chosen textbook contractor and its wokester curriculum, which featured a section on the greatness of gay elected leader Harvey Milk, who also had a record of sexual coercion and pedophilia, Newsom also used menacing language in his statement about it, and implied that a "civil rights investigation" he had launched against them would have a rigged, preordained result. Look at how he uses language here:

“Demagogues who whitewash history, censor books, and perpetuate prejudice never succeed. Hate doesn’t belong in our classrooms and because of the board majority’s antics, Temecula has a civil rights investigation to answer for.”

I thought investigations were done with no fear or favor, in order to find something out, and not as an instrument to punish a disfavored political foe.

Does this sound like an investigation to find something out, or to pin something on someone as political retaliation for defying his orders?

We all know what it is. 

In doing this, Newsom outs himself as a political thug, with nothing but contempt for local rule.

Temecula is a conservative little city of 110,000 just north of San Diego in the southwestern corner of Riverside County. I've been there many times; as someone who once made frequent 124-mile trips between San Diego and Los Angeles, Temecula was always the perfect little stopover, a cutesy cowboy-Western town full of nice cafes, American flags, street posters featuring military veterans, decent Mexican food, and regalia related to its status as an avocado-growing and honey-producing center as well as the capital of Southern California's wine country. It's always a great place to visit.

The biographies of the three elected school board members he's got a bead on are all pretty impressive, all of them deeply rooted in their community as well as firm advocates of parental rights in education, which is why they got elected:

Here's board president Joseph Komrosky:

Dr. Joseph Komrosky holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University and is a tenured college professor teaching logic full-time at Mount San Antonio College. He also teaches critical thinking part-time at the California State University of San Marcos. Before this career, he worked in the field of nuclear medicine – primarily PET/CT – for over 20 years, helping cancer patients, and retired as a radiology supervisor. He also served as a former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger protecting our valuable country and is a disabled veteran. Originally born in Wiesbaden, Germany, where his mom lives, he has lived in many of the 50 states as a military brat. He moved to Temecula in 2019 and loves this community. He is actively engaged in Temecula and is also a board member for the non-profit organization, Neighborhood Drop In, where he works with city officials to advocate for more actions, sports facilities, and better skateparks for this city. He loves spending time with his wife and kids and also coaches youth soccer. His hobbies include skating, surfing, playing adult league soccer, watching Fußball-Bundesliga - Bayern Munchen, playing speed chess, and Frisbee golf. Overall, he loves being a professor, watching students flourish, and feels blessed to be able to contribute back to the Temecula community.   

Here's Jennifer Wiersma:

As a Community Development and Event Specialist, Jen’s dedicated to creating memorable moments for students and their families. Whether writing weekly newsletters, working with ASB, planning field trips, organizing graduation ceremonies, or planning a prom, Jen enjoys collaborating with teachers and administrators within the academic community. Past career specializations include: sales and marketing, organizational management, customer service, and college admissions. 

Married for over twenty-five years and a mom to three young adults who have attended TVUSD schools, Jen and her family have lived in the Temecula Valley for 17 years. As a recovered cancer warrior determined to live life joyfully, she loves hitting the beach, line dancing, serving in her church, and taking a variety of workout classes. Jen’s always up for conversation and a rich cup of Nespresso.

Believing in the goodness of faith, family, and freedom, she’s honored to serve as an advocate for parental rights while prioritizing an excellent education for the future of all TVUSD students.

Here's Danny Gonzalez:

The most important and rewarding job I have is as a father to my 2 elementary school aged kids, both enrolled in public school in TVUSD. I believe our school district has the potential to be an example of excellence in CA, if not for a recent cultural shift to an insular culture of “we know best”. 

Over the last few years, parents have been treated like obstacles instead of partners in their child’s education. I believe my experience in creating a successful business and family-oriented culture that hires union employees gives me a unique perspective on how to approach the issues that affect our employees and families. As a strong advocate for parents' rights, I believe we need to immediately improve the communication from our district to include two-way discussions, instead of the current model of disseminating edicts and proclamations without any discussion or input from parents and teachers alike. 

I value the diversity in culture and thought that our great city offers. As a proud Hispanic man, I reject the philosophy that we live in a systemically racist country. Prioritizing educational needs based on race, gender, or anything other than the individual need of each student only divides us as a community.  

That's right, Newsom went after the disabled war veteran, one of the women, and the Mexican guy on that board. Identity only counts if you're a leftist in Newsom's fevered mind.

The big point of contention and something the school board has not backed down on is the textbook's lionization of Harvey Milk, who was a leader of the San Francisco Democrats, but also had a gamy past as a pedophile and coercer of sexual relations in underage boys. He was hardly an appropriate guy to use for kids on the matter of gay rights in some kind of "Be Like Harvey Milk" school lesson, and in any case, the board said it was all right with teaching gay rights, but just not with Milk as the posterboy.

Newsom denies that the schoolbook he wants to foist on the district has any mention of Harvey Milk.

“But this vote lays bare the true motives of those who opposed this curriculum. This has never been about parents’ rights. It’s not even about Harvey Milk – who appears nowhere in the textbook students receive. This is about extremists’ desire to control information and censor the materials used to teach our children. ..."

Which seems to be a blatant lie if the news reports contradicting that are correct.

The textbook company seems to have scrubbed any reference as to the contents of its books, so it's hard to say who's right but I lean to those who have decribed specifics on the reference over Newsom, who lies constantly.

The Patch reports that the hagiographic bio is there:

At the heart of the trio's initial argument against adoption is a short bio on slain California gay rights leader Harvey Milk in TCI supplemental material for grades 4-5.

Why would Newsom lie like that?

Seems he's a little scared of being called out as a Democrat pol who's against parental rights, and is therefore going the old gaslight route. Maybe that's because he knows what happened in Virginia when local Democrats belittled the concept of parental rights in education. Newsom circles around this several times in his various statements on the matter, here, and here.

Which points to what this is really about -- his quest for the White House. Newsom's attack on the school board with draconian fines and a predatory investigation is him rallying his political base. His gaslighting about it is his bid to fool the broader voting public.

And it very likely won't work. What we have here is a political strongarming of a small school district from a guy whose only longing is for more power, the power to duplicate his "California Model" onto the rest of the country and stomp out any dissent. That should be a warning to voters that this guy doesn't respect local power or grassroots sentiment -- he prefers the top-down Stalinist model for total control over the country. Just look at his outrageous behavior against tiny Temecula.

Image: Charlie Nguyen, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0