National Observer Home > No. 60 - Autumn 2004 > Articles

Why the Prime Minister is Right on State School Values

Bill Muehlenberg

Early this year Prime Minister John Howard stirred up a hornet's nest of indignation when he made various comments about the trend towards private education. He said the reason more and more parents are sending their children to private and independent schools is because of political correctness and a loss of values in public schools, among other reasons. The Prime Minister suggested that our public schools might be short of values while long on political correctness.

While the teacher's unions and many others heavily criticised the Prime Minister for his remarks, many parents were agreeing with him. Around a third of all children do not attend public schools. And the number continues to rise each year. Many parents recognise often that children coming out of our public schools today may still be insufficiently literate, but they know much about drugs, sex and value-neutrality.

Of course there are bad private schools just as there are good public schools. And many public school teachers are doing a good job, and many do not like the negative trends either. Indeed, many public school teachers send their own children to private schools. As an interesting example, left-leaning columnist Jill Singer recently penned an article chastising John Howard for his school values remarks. Yet she admitted in the column that she sent her own children to private schools.¹

Many parents believe that higher academic standards, better discipline, more common sense and less political correctness can be found in private schools. And these concerns are important to parents. A recent survey of 3000 parents found that the top social virtues parents consider when deciding on a school for their children are values and discipline.²

And parents are right to be concerned about the direction being taken in many public schools. Various crusades, such as those of the feminists, the peaceniks, the anti-Americans, the socialists and the greens have been pushed in our public schools for years.

Columnist Andrew Bolt reminds us of many recent crusades promoted by the Australian Education Union. These include telling teachers to read anti-war statements to their students during the Iraq war; encouraging teachers to accuse Australia of genocide in its treatment of aboriginals; getting students to say sorry for the "stolen generation"; discouraging competitive assessment; attacking the Howard government over refugee policy, and so on.³

Thus leftist bias, mediocrity, a downwards leveling, discipline problems, lowered academic standards, political correctness, and the push for values that many parents are uncomfortable with, have all led to a mass exodus from public education.

There has been much documentation of these trends. It cannot all be here recounted. But two areas may be mentioned, which serve as alarming illustrations of the kinds of problems found in many public schools today.

The first has to do with the kind of literature and required reading found in many public schools. Many parents have become quite alarmed at the kinds of books and magazines their school children are required to read, or at least are encouraged to read. Values which are out of step with those of the parents are regularly found in public school library books and in classroom textbooks. A number of examples could be cited here.

Interestingly, it was in The Weekend Australian of January 17-18, which appeared just several days prior to the Prime Minister's remarks, that a very revealing example appeared. An article entitled "Alert on children's book porn"⁴  spoke of how child abuse experts were warning that children's books need warning labels, to filter out hard-core porn. The experts said more and more books which our school children are reading contain material clearly not suitable for young children. Parents around the country have been shocked to find school books featuring graphic descriptions of rape, sex, abortion, murder and drugs.

As one expert said, "We're more interested in the content of a chocolate bar than we are in the content of what is feeding our children's brains. . . . This is violent, hard-core porn being disguised as children's literature."⁵

The article provided two graphic examples of adult-only reading being offered in public schools to young children. The article told of a 12-year-old girl from South Australia who had to read these edifying words in one school-approved book: "I held her down . . . I had the screwdriver right there . . . I held her down and opened her legs and I made sure she'd never have another child".⁶

And a 12-year-old Victorian child was given a book to read with these adult-only words: "He used to pull out his dick and make me rub it and play with it. Once he put it in my mouth and he held my nose so I had to swallow this stuff".⁷

Other examples of school literature which many parents would be unhappy with could be mentioned. As but one more example, in New South Wales a recommended reading list of fiction and non-fiction books providing positive images of homosexuals and lesbians has been distributed to N.S.W. schools. The lists have been distributed by the Department of School Education as a response to perceived anti-homosexual attitudes.⁸

Pro-Homosexual Activities In Schools

A second major example of how the public schools are pushing values that most parents are not happy with is in the area of homosexuality. For years now the public school system has been force-feeding our children a steady diet of pro-homosexual propaganda.

A major way in which the homosexual lobby can reach children is of course through school curricula, especially in sex education programmes. There are many such programmes around the country, taught in many schools, all designed to instill in young children the idea that homosexuality is natural, normal and to be accepted and embraced.

Such programmes, and/or proposals for them, have been around for years. These programmes have often been sought to be justified as part of A.I.D.S. education, or more recently, as a means of dealing with bullying. As an example, back in 1987 the Australian Teacher's Federation called on teachers to educate students on male and female homosexuality as part of basic sex education.⁹

In 1992 an A.I.D.S. study commissioned by the University of Queensland recommended that explicit sex education courses be taught in the first three years of primary school. The study said that students should become experts in contraception techniques and S.T.D.s before they enter secondary school.¹⁰

In January of 1995 the Australia Education Union (A.E.U.) called for mandatory A.I.D.S. and sex education for all students, beginning in primary school. The course should include "positive information about gays and lesbians", the A.E.U. said.¹¹ The A.E.U. argued that not only should these classes be mandatory for even primary school children, but parents who ban their children from attending such courses for religious and cultural reasons should be prosecuted by the law.¹²

At an October 1995 conference on Schooling and Sexualities at Deakin University yet more such proposals were made. Speakers told the delegates that homosexuality should be taught as acceptable to primary and secondary students, and homosexual relationships should be recognised through school projects.¹³

And pro-homosexual indoctrination is not limited to sex education classes. In 1995 the Victorian Association for the Teachers of English said that A.I.D.S. and homosexuality studies should be incorporated into mainstream English studies. It said that the study of English must embrace "the burgeoning field of lesbian and gay studies", and that teachers need to "promote awareness of homosexual issues".¹⁴

Further the A.E.U. called for pro-homosexual education to be integrated into all parts of the curriculum. It spoke of the "rights of all teachers to influence curricula in ways that will enhance understanding and acceptance of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men".¹⁵

In mid-2002 a pro-homosexual booklet was distributed to every secondary school in Victoria. The 72-page booklet, Alsorts, was jointly published by the Alternative Lifestyle Organisation (A.L.S.O. Foundation) and Deakin University.¹⁶  The book, filled with a number of statements that many would consider inaccurate and misleading, is just one of many attempts by the homosexual lobby to convince young people that homosexuality is an acceptable and positive lifestyle.

The push continues today. Consider several recent examples. In a newspaper article entitled, "Sex survey shocks," there was a story about a Wodonga (Victoria) High School course for 14-year-olds.¹⁷  Year 9 students were forced to answer a blatantly pro-homosexual questionnaire. The mandatory questionnaire, which students had to sign their names to, was part of a compulsory health class. The survey asked these sorts of questions:

• "If you have never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you need is a lesbian/gay lover?"
• "How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive and exclusive heterosexual behaviour?"
• "Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?"

The students then had to discuss these questions in class. The survey was designed to show that homosexuality is just the same as heterosexuality, that the two are interchangeable. But they are not of course. This appears to be nothing but propaganda: forcing students to feel guilty about being heterosexual. This is just a blatant attempt to force the homosexual agenda upon impressionable young people.

Most 14-year-olds are too young to be questioned about explicit details in sexuality. Thus our public schools, with our tax dollars, are pushing the homosexual agenda on our children.

The following day there was a follow-up article about the questionnaire.¹⁸  It seems that as a result of a loud public outcry, the State Government had to go into damage control. The article said that the Premier had ordered an inquiry to find out what was happening. It also said that the survey has been scrapped from the class. The school authorities claimed that the adult-only survey was actually meant for teachers, not for students.

However, in an article in another newspaper, a much different slant was put on the affair.¹⁹  According to that report the principal of Wodonga High School was standing by the decision of the teacher to hand out the survey. He said the survey had been handed out at a professional development course run by the federally-funded Family Planning Victoria. A spokesperson for Family Planning Victoria in turn said the questionnaire was designed by the Australian Research Centre in Sexual Health and Society at La Trobe University to develop teachers' sex education skills, and was "not a classroom tool".

Whatever the actual facts and explanations are, many questions still remain: Why are our tax dollars being used to indoctrinate teachers with pro-homosexual propaganda, who then in turn are expected to indoctrinate their children?

Simply swap the word tobacco for homosexuality and see how this plays out. Every class has some smoking students: "We need to respect this diversity. We do not want them to feel stigmatised. We need to embrace them in their lifestyle choices. We should let all students know that smoking is as normal as non-smoking. The important thing is for all students to be tolerant and non-judgmental. We do not want the smoking students to feel alienated or vilified for his behaviour. No one lifestyle choice is better than another."

Does anyone really believe that this approach in regard to smoking would get very far in our school systems? Homosexuality is a very dangerous and high risk lifestyle, just as smoking is. Why do we have such double standards in these areas? Why do we protect our children against tobacco while encouraging them to embrace homosexuality?

This questionnaire is part of a Commonwealth-funded national teacher development package that has been adopted by more than 250 Victorian schools, and presumably schools across the nation. There are several versions of this kit, and it is an important exercise in pushing the homosexual agenda unto our nation's children, via their teachers.

In another example of pro-homosexual activities in our schools, the Tasmanian Committee for Human Rights Education gave three Tasmanian schools prizes for their "anti-homophobia" programmes. In December 2003, the schools were given the awards after they trialed the six-week Pride and Prejudice courses. The schools are now planning to make the courses compulsory, and the Education Department plans to run the programme statewide. Homosexual activist Rodney Croome praised the programme, saying that challenging homophobia must be "put in a human rights context".²⁰

The constant push by homosexual activists to get access to all school children, from the earliest of ages, is a part of the larger attempt to coerce mainstream society to not only accept but welcome homosexuality. The progress they have made has been quite alarming, and all parents should be aware of the pro-homosexual agenda being pushed in our schools.

And as mentioned earlier, increasingly the concept of bullying is being used to push the homosexual agenda. Bullying of course should not be tolerated, and one can counter bullying without pushing the homosexual agenda. But homosexual activists are linking the two together. Recently the Victorian Education Services Minister told a homosexual interviewer that more needs to be done in this area, and she spoke of a recent conference on the issue, and that the department is "ensuring all schools have a code of conduct" on the issue. In the same interview she attacked the Catholic Church, saying their abstinence approach was misguided: "The zero tolerance approach to young people and sexuality is not the best."²¹  Thus she allied herself with homosexual activists, and against parents who might have religious concerns about homosexuality and condom use.

Is it any wonder with this kind of propaganda being force-fed to our children that parents are voting with their feet and sending their children elsewhere? Of course not all public schools are bad, nor are all private schools good. But surely the Prime Minister is right to suggest that we have allowed our public schools to impose its own set of values which are often at loggerheads with the values of many parents.

Until public education reins in the political correctness and the influence of aggressive minority groups, the trend away from public education will only continue.

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1. Jill Singer, "Learn, P.M., learn," The Melbourne Herald Sun, 22 January 2004, page 17.

2. Farrah Tomazin, "Parents opt for values," The Age, 17 February 2004, page 6.

3. Andrew Bolt, "Lessons for lefties," The Herald Sun, 28 January 2004, page 21.

4. Rebecca DiGirolamo, "Alert on children's book porn," The Weekend Australian, 17-18 January 2004, page 4

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Julie Lewis, "Books may counter anti-gay attitudes," The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 March 1995.

9. David Hirst, "Teachers urged to educate students on homosexuality," The Australian, 9 January 1987.

10. Jamie Walker, "Under-10s 'should be taught about sex'", The Australian, 13 March 1992.

11. Joanne Painter, "Teachers consider classes on sex and gays", The Age, 19 January 1995.

12. Carolyn Jones and Justine Ferrari, "Teachers propose mandatory HIV classes", The Australian, 18 January 1995.

13. Cheryl Critchley, "Call to give lessons on gays", The Herald Sun, 2 October 1995.

14. Kevin Donnelly, "Teacher unions make classrooms the new battleground", News Weekly, 22 April 1995, page 7.

15. Ibid.

16. Daryl Higgins, ed., Alsorts: A Sexuality Awareness Guide. Melbourne: The A.L.S.O. Foundation/Deakin University, 2002.

17. Jeremy Calvert, "Sex survey shocks", The Melbourne Herald Sun, 28 October 2003, page 7.

18. Jeremy Calvert, "Sex survey probe", The Melbourne Herald Sun, 29 October 2003, page 15.

19. Daniel Hoare, "Gay sex questions 'in the curriculum'", The Australian, 29 October 2003, page 3.

20. "School's out for award winners," M.C.V., 12 December 2003, page 3.

21. "Taking aim at bullying," M.C.V., 16 January 2004, page 4.

National Observer No. 60 - Autumn 2004