Liberal Group Pans School District

The reluctance of Orange Unified School District officials to accept a $25,000 grant intended for needy students has been criticized by People for the American Way, which warned that public education is under assault across the country.

The liberal Washington-based group also singled out other incidents during the past year in Orange County school districts, including the banning of Halloween costumes, a lack of education about homosexuals, book censorship and a proposal to refuse all future federal grants.

People for the American Way warned that such moves are all part of a growing national trend among conservative and right-wing religious groups trying to influence school districts and impose an ideological and sectarian approach to education.

Bill Lewis, an Orange district trustee, said: “The People for the American Way have a whole different agenda. They want to take a child away from their parents as soon as they can and mold them in their own way. I want to promote excellence in education just as we learned when we were kids, but now the social engineers have moved into public schools with a whole different agenda.”

During the last school year, the nation’s public schools experienced 475 attacks on textbooks, libraries, class subjects and education curricula, according to the group’s annual report, “Attacks on the Freedom to Learn.”

California led the nation with 56 such incidents. They included requests to ban lessons on AIDS prevention and sex, to remove “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Beowulf” and other books from libraries, and to restrict the teaching of evolution.

Supporters of these actions say they are simply seeking to maintain local control.

“The whole thrust is to back away from federal and state control and let parents decide what’s best,” said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, who heads the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition.

In years past, efforts to censor books had been steadily increasing, but last year were in decline, the People for the American Way reported. What has increased is efforts to apply pressure on school boards to make even greater changes, the report said.

The annual report also listed these incidents in Orange County:

* A Huntington Beach track coach and several athletes claimed they were subject to repeated homophobic attacks after the coach revealed he is gay. The school did nothing to remedy the situation, according to the report, nor does it include discussion of homosexuality in activities related to social tolerance and diversity.

* An elementary school in the Orange district banned the celebration of Halloween for all but kindergartners. “It’s anti-Christian; any alternative would be better, I think, than celebrating it in the traditional way,” said one trustee, according to the report.

Supt. Robert L. French said half of the district’s 26 elementary schools have banned Halloween costumes over the years because they are “too disruptive” to education.