Rep. Bobby Levy: ODE Starts Off School Year with Sex Ed. Email to Educators

September 18, 2023 – Rep. Bobby Levy: ODE Starts Off School Year with Sex Ed. Email to Educators

Last September, OPB published an article revealing intolerable hits to Oregon’s test scores. Across Oregon, passing rates on standardized exams decreased by 9%. Passing rates for English fell to 43.6%, and 30.4% for math. Governor Kate Brown’s Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, Colt Gill, blamed COVID.
In Oregon, the Governor is the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Governor Kotek’s State website says that she wants to improve Oregon’s graduation rates to 90% for all student groups by 2027. The Deputy Superintendent she appointed to run the Oregon Department of Education, Dr. Charlene Watkins, chose to focus the agency’s first newsletter at the beginning of the year on… SEX EDUCATION.

That’s right. The letter starts off with a friendly, “It’s back to school for Oregon students and with it comes both excitement and apprehension.”
It quickly veers into, “This time of year is a great reminder that sexuality education is an important avenue for fostering care, connection, and community.”
With a new administration, Governor Kotek had an opportunity to start of the first new school year of her term by focusing communication with educators on English, arithmetic, science, and history. Instead, the new ODE Director decided to focus on sex education, a topic that is best discussed between parents and children. If this administration was focused on Oregon’s education crisis, the first communication of the year to teachers would be an admonition about plummeting test scores and encouragements to do better.

As a former teacher myself, I am extremely disappointed in the imprudent direction that Governor Kotek is taking in her new role guiding Oregon’s education system. Oregon students deserve to receive the skills and education that will place them among the next generation’s best and brightest, building an America that is better, safer, and more prosperous than the country where they were raised. Starting off the year with sex education takes our students in the opposite direction.