Kiko Award

This month Kiko’s carpetbag takes a trip to the Pacific Northwest to provide an unruly perspective on a story so odd it garnered national attention, proving yet again the real danger to America’s public schools lies in the hands of incompetent boobs masquerading as school board trustees.

Kate Walls, a seventh grade science teacher in the Federal Way Public Schools district, decided to show her students the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” in a unit on global warming. One of the students in her class told her parents and all hell broke loose.

Literally.

Fueled by an unabashed hatred of all things remotely liberal and, one suspects, the unresolved childhood trauma of being named after a famous fictional snowman or the frozen Dairy Belle confection his parents consumed prior to his conception, angry parent Frosty Hardison accosted Walls, telling her, her principal and the Federal Way school board “No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation — the greatest nation to ever exist on this planet — for global warming.” Hardison, a couple others from his sect, and a handful of conservative activists spurned to action by right-wing radio marching orders mounted a campaign to ban the documentary from the district, though it was Frosty’s audacious Christian extremism — brazenly telling the media he believes the Earth was created only 14,000 years ago and that global warming is merely “one of the signs” that Jesus is returning for Judgment Day soon — that made him the national press poster boy for global warming skeptics. (For more on Frosty Hardison’s views on religion and climate change, read his posts to this blog:)

Of course, religious zealotry isn’t national news. Neither is a parent upset or worrying about the curriculum covered in their kids’ classroom. These stories usually fly under the national press radar until a school board gang of five or seven put their collective feet down — before inserting them back in their mouths.

In what could be dubbed a tempest in a teapot political science experiment, the Federal Way Board of Trustees voted 3-2 on a “controversial issues” policy that would require superintendent approval and the inclusion of opposing viewpoints for teachers to discuss controversial subjects in the classroom. Adopting the policy allowed the board to ban showing “An Inconvenient Truth” and brought Frosty Hardison and the trustees their fifteen minutes of cold comfort infamy.

Once the story broke, the Federal Way school board received complaints from environmental scientists to separation of church and state folks to those defending academic freedom. Valid viewpoints all, especially given the blossoming conservative movement in the United States to limit academic freedom (). Team Unruly humbly offers a different, kiko-worthy perspective to this debate.

School board vice-president David Larson lamented about the “terrible ordeal” caused by the board’s decision and argued that he and his colleagues were merely trying to uphold a policy that requires students to be exposed to “other perspectives” when learning about controversial subjects. In a proclamation straight out of a Fox News promotional bumper, Larson told a recent school board meeting audience “We do not need to lose balance in order to save the Earth.” Logicians of all stripes refuted the statement, asking Larson if Mein Kampf was now required reading when teaching the Holocaust or what the board’s official policy was on the long-burning flat or round Earth question. Walls told reporters she was struggling to find authoritative articles to provide board-required “balance,” finding only a 32 year-old Newsweek article about global cooling.

Team Unruly relishes this opportunity to help a colleague out. Ms. Walls, all you need to do is reframe the debate. Though you’ve been hired to teach science and we’re sure you have the appropriate background to teach the subject, look at the global warming “controversy” from a political science/social studies perspective and you’ll find the root cause of the controversy has nothing to do with science. Need some quick curricular reference material? Mother Jones did an extensive expose on the connections between Exxon Mobil, all of its subsidiaries and their contributions to foundations and think tanks opposing global warming (). Need a chart to show students how pervasive Exxon Mobil has been in shaping public opinion on global warming? This should do the trick. (). Want to take the lesson a step further and teach students about conflict of interest? Here’s a great Socratic seminar article about how former White House Council on Environmental Quality staffer Philip Cooney, who was discovered to have altered conclusions on global warming studies conducted by government researchers prior to their public release, was eventually hired by Exxon Mobil for a job well done. () And just in case you need to temper the Exxon Mobil bashing with district-required “balance,” jut on over to MSNBC so your students can learn about corporate citizenship. As of January 12, 2007, Exxon Mobil pledged to stop funding global warming skeptics and look at ways to curb their greenhouse gas emissions ()

When the company feeding the controversy throws in the towel, it’s pretty hard to argue that a controversy still exists. But wait, it gets even better! ,Just before we published this story, one overworked and underpaid staffer at the Team Unruly Media Research Center uncovered this savory morsel of irony. Self-proclaimed Evangelical Hardison opposed the lack of religious balance in the global warming documentary in spite of the fact that evangelical groups and concerned scientists have joined together to COMBAT GLOBAL WARMING! ()

Does a controversy really exist when the group purportedly associated with banning Gore’s film tells CNN they are stewards of the Earth and must do what they can to stop global warming? Does this mean the Federal Way trustees kowtowed to the demands of a minority group whose membership is roughly the size of the total number of books George W. Bush reads in a year?

The easy answer is yes, and many in the blogosphere have been quick to argue that a like-minded theocracy runs the Federal Way school board ().

No answer is ever that simple. Team Unruly would like to throw out an inconvenient truth of our own. School board trustees are the bottom rung of the political ambition ladder. Those who hunger most for higher political office fill school board positions across the country. To get that coveted state assembly or city council post, trustees spend too much time building political connections and granting as many quid pro quo favors to monied interest groups and not enough time doing what is right and necessary to help their local schools. The inconvenient truth? Political opportunism trumps public service altruism every time.

Frosty Hardison took the opportunity to make himself a well-known, vocal citizen in Federal Way’s local political scene. He is a frequent speaker at city council meetings (). He involves his children in the political process, and they speak at all types of governing boards, like the one that oversees Federal Way’s public libraries (). He proposes ordinances to city officials () His wife Gayla once ran briefly for a city council seat ().

That level of political involvement makes Hardison a man to know in his community, no matter how wacky his fundamentalist beliefs. Add to that the possibility that Hardison and three of the trustees travel in the same religious and conservative circles () and it’s easy to see that a displeased Hardison can make fundraising difficult for a trustee seeking reelection, higher office, or an endorsement from Federal Way’s evangelical coalition. Why else would they cave to the whims of one local activist whose fringe position made their local school board the laughingstock of the educated world?

However, sucking up to Frosty did not earn Federal Way’s trustees the uncoveted Kiko award, nor is Frosty a Kiko nominee. The cause for this less-than-prestigious honor has sadly been the least discussed aspect of this story, yet remains the most critical given the mad national rush to eliminate academic freedom and blur the line between church and state.

This is an issue about treating teachers with professional respect and courtesy.

Kay Walls is a professional teacher. In order to remain employed in a public school under No Child Left Behind mandates she must be highly qualified, which means she has a bachelor’s degree — if not a master’s — in her subject. Federal Way Public Schools hired Walls as a professional to teach students science, but they obviously have no respect for a teacher’s professional judgment. Instead, Federal Way’s administrators reprimanded Walls for doing the job she was hired to do. They put a letter in her employee file and proceeded to pass a policy requiring teachers in all curricular areas to receive superintendent approval before teaching a controversial matter. That’s like requiring a CEO to get the night janitor’s approval before a company sells a new line of products. Many modern school superintendents have no classroom experience. Nor is there a college degree requirement for school board trustees.

In Federal Way, a teacher with expertise in a particular subject area hired under the guise of being considered a professional must now seek approval to teach their subject matter from folks with no classroom experience, no subject specific expertise, and too much political ambition to make sound curricular judgments.

Given the dire need for highly qualified science teachers in the United States, Federal Way’s board has done irreparable damage to their reputation as an employer that respects teachers. With so many other districts to choose from in the greater Seattle area, who in their right mind would take a position in a district that passes an incompetent policy that unnecessarily embroils a teacher in a national controversy?

The undue emotional stress caused by this ridiculous incident cannot go ignored. With such an overt lack of faith in its employees, it will be a miracle if Walls remains in the Federal Way district. There’s a reason why teachers are second only to police officers in employee turnovers; nobody wants to work in an industry that fails to respect an employee’s professionalism. If she does remain — and we hope she does — it will be tenacity of spirit and a dedication to students that keeps her on the job. Lord knows it ain’t the paycheck.

We don’t have a tenacity award for Walls, but we can offer solidarity. In light of this fiasco The Unruly Advocate is declaring February “Inconvenient Truth Month.” We’re asking all junior high and high school teachers to show “An Inconvenient Truth” and lead students in discussions on the range of topics this faux-controversy sparked, from the definition of peer reviewed studies to the limitations on academic freedom to corporate influence on political thought. Liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, put your political leanings aside and come together as educators to demand professional respect from your employers. When you’re done, post your experiences or let your students discuss these issues in our community forum. Remember, without eternal vigilance you too could find a letter in your employee file simply for doing your job.

And so, for creating a greater controversy than Al Gore ever did, for ignoring an employee’s professional judgment, for appearing to place a need for campaign donations over common sense, for autocratically punishing a teacher for doing her job, and for all the ridiculous equivocation David Larson spewed in defense of a misguided policy, The Unruly Advocate awards President Ed Barney, Vice-President David Larson and the rest of the Federal Way school board a Kiko, and may the inconvenience of this award lead you to a greater truth.

TAKE ACTION!

Send an email to Ed Barney and David Larson, president and vice-president respectively of Federal Way Public Schools. Be professional when expressing your views to public officials, even those with whom you disagree.

Email—go to the website and click on “email the board”: http://www.fwps.org/info/board/

Snail mail: 31405 18^th Avenue South, Federal Way, WA. 98003

Phone:  (253) 945-2000

RECENT ISSUES

October 1, 2009

PAST ISSUES

February 2007

The Unruly Response to the East Side Union High School District State of the District Address

February Kiko Award President Ed Barney, Vice-President David Larson and the rest of the Federal Way School Board

Ed Barney President

David Larson Vice President

Evelyn Castellar

Charles Hoff

Thomas Madden