New York City Progressives Struggle as Moderates Weigh In on School Policy

This week the NY Times reported on a new trend that is raising concern among New York City progressives. Some conservative and moderate parents are speaking up at parents councils about what school policy on hot-button issues should look like.

Perhaps nowhere are tensions more evident than in District 2, a sprawling and diverse section of the system weaving through the heart of Manhattan — from the West Village and Hell’s Kitchen to the Upper East Side…

…last month, parents there passed a proposal asking the city’s Department of Education to review its gender guidelines, which currently allow students to participate on sports teams based on their gender identities, regardless of the sex they were assigned at birth…

During the meeting, parents attending remotely argued over whether their children would be unsafe if transgender girls joined girls’ teams. Several elected officials called the discussion “disgraceful.” [schools chancellor David ] Banks later asked, “Won’t you just leave the kids alone?”

It’s pretty astounding that the school chancellor considers having biological boys compete with girls leaving the kids alone. Prior to about 10 minutes ago, nearly everyone in the country would have said that leaving the kids alone would not have included boys using the girls locker room. This particular proposal eventually passed 8-3 but it’s just a nonbinding resolution. The parents councils have no actual power in NYC. It’s the mere fact that some parents are daring to disagree with progressive orthodoxy that is upsetting to some progressives.

Chancellor Banks has been more critical of the moderate parents lately but the head of the teacher’s union wants to see the troublemakers ejected. What good is power if you can’t use it to silence your opponents? Others worry this kind of top-down action could set a “dangerous” precedent.

Kenita Lloyd, a top school official overseeing family engagement, said at a press briefing last week that it could set a “dangerous precedent” to “summarily remove” elected parent leaders.

But some parents remain disappointed. “The adults in the room at the Department of Education really need to step in,” said Gavin Healy, a parent leader in District 2.

With the exception of one line that mentions these arguments don’t always line up with the usual party divide, the framing of the story is very much about progressives versus conservatives. But the top comment on this story (upvoted more than 440 times) notes that this is not a left vs. right issue.

This is always framed as a left vs right wing issue. What the NYT and others in a liberal bubble fail to realize is that moderates and centrists are increasingly disillusioned with how extreme the curriculum and policies have begun. What you are seeing is not (just) a right-wing backlash. It is a moderate, centrist, and center-left backlash. Most people just want sanity back in the classroom.

I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve seen this sort of framing by the left when they are feeling defensive. A relevant example that comes to mind is former SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin who constantly blamed the move to recall him on the right-wing.

San Francisco voters who ousted District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office on Tuesday share a common trait. No, they’re not all closet conservatives conned by rich people into thwarting national criminal justice reform — despite what Boudin’s supporters have said ad nauseam, like that old Chatty Cathy doll that repeats the same phrase every time you pull her string.

They’re simply angry. Steamed. Pissed off. Tired of ideology taking precedence over real nuts-and-bolts progress. Fed up that nothing related to city government seems to be working. Frustrated that this city with so much potential isn’t remotely living up to it. Irate that a city with so many built-in advantages — wealth, beauty, diversity, creativity, smarts — is so much less than the sum of its parts.

The complaints in NYC are the same sort of nonsense. One Manhattan borough president claimed “the MAGA movement has come to Manhattan.” Well, no, that’s not it, Skippy. The problem is that the far left has moved so far left that some moderate parents suddenly sound right-wing when they suggest that maybe biological boys should be allowed in the girls locker room or on the girls swim team. They also don’t want their 2nd grader spending time with the gender unicorn.

Schools should focus on education and leave social aspects to the parents. As an example, I don’t want 2nd grade daughter to be taught gender orientation. I am perfectly fine to teach racial past in the country but without assigning blame to the white kid in the class. I am glad parents are taking an aggressive stand as public schools run on their tax money.

From a mom in Brooklyn:

“Let kids be kids,” says Mr. Banks, who thinks that having naked men parade around locker rooms with their vulnerable daughters is normal. Removing girls consent and autonomy is the most dangerous tactic that gender ideologists and adult male rapists  use to invade women’s spaces. Women’s sports. Women’s prisons. 

There is no stronger misogyny than what’s being coded as schools as progressive. Girls are in danger. I am a mother, not a transphobe; but name calling is an effective way to silence women. Again.  

The intense pressure to coddle mens feelings above girls safety has already caused permanent physical damage for some former female athletes, who no longer feel safe.

I am politically homeless, and will never vote for anyone who glibly claims girls are not in danger when boys can proudly steal safe spaces, scholarships & community & get rewarded for it here.

I’m not cherry-picking at all here. I’m literally just going down the line of top comments in order. These are NY Times subscribers voting on these. That should tell you something.

“ Still, Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president and a progressive Democrat, said “the MAGA movement has come to Manhattan.”

Has it though?  

In a deep blue state like NY isn’t it just possible, even liberal, moderate and progressive parents can have legitimate concerns about things that might seem out of sync with the progressive agendas of some? 

Labeling  swaths of parents, MAGA,  whether they are or not, is a way to effectively shut them down and minimize their concerns. 

And try to shut them up.  

Listening, addressing concerns and fears and even yes, acknowledging that people are complicated and nuanced and may have beliefs that are contradictory,  is the way forward.

Several people made the point that the article conflates a lot of issues together, seemingly to try to get trans girls in sports past the reader.

This story conflates a lot of issues. Banning books is ridiculous, counterproductive, and anti American. Obviously we should teach Black history, we should teach all history. But you don’t have to be a right wing hack to know that only  letting girls play girls sports is fair and  persecuting  Jewish teachers based on their ethnicity is wrong.

But many readers keep making the point that trans girls competing with girls is not going to fly.

Some time back, my wife and I were asked if we’d be willing to play tennis with a trans woman.  It’s difficult for her to find a partner to hit with.  Of course we’ll play.  We had a very nice time.

Here’s the tough part to say out loud, and no, I don’t have all the information.  All I have is my experience.

Based on strength alone, a man who’s transitioned to a woman should not be able to play organized women’s sports or participate in sanctioned events.

It was a good, casual pickup match.  But the vast strength advantage is not fair to other athletes in organized sport.

I really could go on and on but I’ll wrap it up with this brief comment.

The far left progressives have gone too far left, and Democrats, with their so called big tent, are allowing their farther left ideological positions to drive policy. Identity politics has not been good for America.

Identity politics makes people hate one another. Blaming the right for this just isn’t going to work.