The “Moral and Civic Education Handbook” is the result of 1973 legislation, enacted when Ronald Reagan was governor, that mandated the teaching of moral values in the state’s public schools.
The publication was updated in 1988 during the tenure of Gov. George Deukmejian, and again in 1991 — the year Gov. Pete Wilson took office.
When Jackie Berman, education director for the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council, learned the board was slated to review the handbook again, she got a copy and decided to attend the board meeting.
“I was appalled,” she said. “I don’t know who wrote this particular version. We thought it was pretty bad.”
The state board, meeting in Sacramento Jan. 13, voted to rewrite a section called “Teaching Religion in the Public Schools.” The passage was roundly booed by many in attendance at the meeting after its presentation by Greg Geeting, a consultant to the board of education.
“Teaching Religion in the Public Schools” opens by informing the state’s teachers they “need have no hesitancy in teaching about religion.”
Students learn about the world’s major religions and their role in history and culture as part of the state’s social studies curriculum. Sixth- graders study the development of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity and seventh graders take on Islam.
“To discuss the influence of religion on art, literature, or music is one thing,” said Tracy Salkowitz, regional executive director for the American Jewish Congress.
But “anyone who thinks we’ve created a school system that’s religiously neutral is living in fantasy land,” she added. The handbook’s “goal is worthy, but it creates an explosive situation.” Salkowitz allows she “just let it rip” in her blistering address to the board.
At first, the board voted to scrap the handbook. It then discovered the law that mandates its publication is still in effect. As a result, the booklet will be rewritten, with input by the JCRC, the AJCongress, and the California 3Rs Project, which monitors church/state issues.
Berman, a credentialed teacher with a degree in political science, reviews state schools publications and curricula, and also gives teacher-training workshops on inclusiveness. She said the handbook, intended for use by teachers in public schools, promotes the teaching of religion “with an almost no-holds-barred attitude.”
The booklet does not acknowledge any limitations on the teaching of religion, Berman said. And the open guidelines could do plenty of damage, she said, especially since its authors do not offer or suggest any preparation for teachers before they plunge into one of the most volatile and delicate issues they could raise in the classroom.
“They can’t just say, ‘Go for it,'” Berman said.
Other criticisms of the handbook lodged by Berman and Salkowitz:
*It does not discuss the legal separation of church and state mandated by the Constitution, nor how it may be safeguarded in the classroom.
*It maintains that only the “Judeo-Christian heritage” has shaped the “fundamental moral values in our society.”
*It does not acknowledge that moral behavior may spring from sources other than religious belief.
*It holds that teachers need not be neutral in teaching religion.
The handbook urges teachers to avoid discussing “unusual religions or religious practices so that respect for religion will not be undermined.”
Charging the handbook’s authors with religious chauvinism, Berman and Salkowitz issued a joint statement, which read, in part: “We daresay, many common religious practices would seem unusual to those who do not practice them.”
They also found irony in the section’s closing admonition to practice sensitivity in the face of “possible problems that may develop.” In their own statement, Salkowitz and Berman retorted, “Suffice to say that if this document is used as a guide, problems can be assured.”
Berman said this is only the most recent example of programming that would alarm many parents if only they knew about it.
“I got a call from a parent whose child attends school in the Lafayette Elementary District,” she said. “The teacher was reading from the Gospels of the New Testament.”
The parent e-mailed the teacher a protest, and the teacher e-mailed back to say she was not teaching religion but rather teaching about religion. She offered to excuse the child from class, which distressed the parent all the more.
“In my workshops with teachers, I ask them if ‘Silent Night’ is secular or religious. They say it is secular, because they have just heard it so much. You hear it in the mall, on the radio, everywhere. But when they read the words, they realize it is not.”