| GENOCIDE EDUCATION BILL PASSES TO GOVERNOR | | Print | |
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This piece is to appear in News of Polonia, August 2004. Please credit the paper if forwarding this electronic release. GLB August 20, 2004. GENOCIDE EDUCATION BILL PASSES TO GOVERNOR By Gordon Leon Black, PACF member California Assembly bill AB1175 has been approved by the Legislature and now passes to the Governor. The bill extends the life of the Center for Excellence in Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance Education (the Center) and its advisory Taskforce until 2008, and defers its required official report until 2007. The bill also prohibits State funding, while allowing funds from private sources. The Governor is likely to approve the bill. Accordingly, the State Education Code will continue to require as follows (Section 44775.8): The Center shall engage in the following activities: (a) Support and facilitate teachers' use of certificate programs in Holocaust and genocide studies developed through the California State University. (b) Act as a clearinghouse for teacher training materials. (c) Provide specialized training for teachers and school districts. (d) Assess and monitor the effectiveness of teacher training programs provided by the center. (e) Promote Holocaust and genocide awareness. (f) Compile a roster of volunteers who are willing to share their survivor testimony in classrooms, seminars, and workshops on the subject of the Holocaust or genocide and make the roster available on the center's Web site. (g) Solicit financial support from both the public and private sectors. (h) Promote activities to memorialize the Holocaust and genocide events. During the legislative process, Polonia engaged only lightly in criticism, withholding its doubts in hope that its nominee for appointment to the Center's advisory Taskforce would be favored. But Dr. Marek Zelazkiewicz- a sociologist with a specialty in educational innovations, a veteran of conflict resolution in Kosovo, and raised during WW II in a family of rescuers- was overlooked by Governors Davis and Schwarzenneger, and the Taskforce appointments have been filled without our designated representative. The Center & Taskforce were established as a pilot program at the Chico campus of California State University (CSU), but without the usual formal oversight by school and dean, and without involvement by the academic senate- which represents the university faculties, as distinct fromadministration. Thus the Center is not grounded in CSU scholarship. This is a serious flaw, for without the usual academic checks and balances,the drive for private funding invites undue private and sectarian control in public education. Instead of the usual academic supervision, the Center has been placed under direct oversight of the Chancellor's office in Long Beach, under Chancellor Charles Reed. This may be in line with the Chancellor's Executive Order 751 re: Centers, Institutes, and Similar Organizations on Campuses of the California State University. In its section B the Order states: "Each entity is to be under the programmatic oversight of an academic unit (e.g., a department, school, college, office of graduate studies and research, office of academic affairs)." In this instance, the Center reports directly to Executive Chancellor David Spence, Chief Academic Officer. Dr. Spence is also a member of the Taskforce. The Chancellor reports to the Board of Trustees, and the president of the Board is the Governor, Arnold Schwarzenneger. On July 16, 2003, at its public input session in Long Beach, the Board was cautioned about Polonian concern that the Center be grounded assuredly in historical scholarship, and reminded of its responsibility for Education Code requirements of accuracy and objectivity and prohibition of adverse reflection. Concluding that public statement, I asked for patient attention by the Trustees, and mindful exercise of academic authority. So dismissals and misrepresentations of Polish history would be in violation and even reckless disregard of education law. Patient attention and mindful exercise continue to be the responsibility not only of the CSU Board, but also of the California Polonian community, and all persons of good will. If the Center is to appear under the cachet of CSU, then the intellectual resources of the 27 CSU campuses should be brought into engagement.This would be a responsible arrangement worthy of the ideals of human rights and tolerance. ---- [Gordon Leon Black (G. Leon Zajac-Blachowiak) is a Vice-President of The Polish American Congress, Northern California Division, and formerly its Executive Director for Ethnic Relations. He may be reached at TWOFLAGS@mcn.org.] |
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