The “Gay-Friendly School” Conundrum

Tuesday, 2 December 2008 Clay Burell Print This Post

I missed this one: Chicago education officials were ready to consider a proposal for a “gay-friendly” school, but the GLBT group that originally proposed the plan withdrew it. Apparently, they didn’t want to bend to requests that the school be “all-inclusive, for kids that are straight, gay, obese,” and not exclusively GLBT.

Many of you know I was harassed for three years for being perceived as gay at my high school back in the ’70s, so I’m fascinated by recent research into the effects of this harassment on students nationwide. Key findings:

widespread verbal and physical harassment, assault
average GPA’s a half point lower than perceived straight students
frequent truancy among 35%, compared to 5% of perceived straight students
increased drop-out risk
bad effects on college choices

And that sounds just like my 1970s.

So, despite opposition by GLBT groups that argue such a school would segregate GLBT students like second-class citizens, I have to disagree. As an old veteran of these wars, I’m proof, in a sense, of the counter-claim by Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network founder Kevin Jennings:

If we keep doing nothing, we are going to keep getting these horrifying levels of harassment, greater rates of skipping, not going to college and more tragic violence like the murder of Lawrence King. Those are our choices. We can continue to do nothing, and we know the results, or we can save young people’s lives and offer them an education and a future.

It’s a tough one, but I have to side here with the bullied of all, not just rainbow, stripes. Because little seems to have changed in 30 years.

Photo: Gay-Straight Alliance Schoolbus by jglsongs

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The entry 'The “Gay-Friendly School” Conundrum' was posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 6:16 am and last modified on December 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am, and is filed under bullying, school reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “The “Gay-Friendly School” Conundrum”

Morgante Pell writes:
No. 1 — December 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
Separate but equal, eh?

Sounds like a great model for a school system. Some group of people is looked down on? Harassed? Occasionally beaten up? The solution is definitely to put them in their own school. Poor kids, keep them away from the normal kids (some might say the better kids). Oh, and they all will only be ~~laborers~~ artists… so no need to teach good math, science, or reading.

Oh, but they also might be harassed in bathrooms! Separate bathrooms, to prevent harassment.

etc.

—

IMHO, this is a giant step backwards. Hiding the bullied doesn’t make the bullies and more likely to accept them, they’ll just forget about them. We should be teaching tolerance, not separation.

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Clay Burell Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Like I say, Morgante, conundrum.

I come down on giving immediate aid to the kids skipping school, dropping out, and handicapping their future by giving them an environment they won’t skip or quit, but can flourish in. The Harvey Milk School in NYC did this, and graduation rates there are at 95%, compared to around 50% state averages.

When all schools are ready to get serious about tolerance, maybe you have a point. But until then, giving kids another alternative – a key point, since nobody’s talking “forced segregation” here – to skipping or dropping out seems good to me.

It’s the old ethical principle of choosing an immediate good over a remote one.

Again, not comfortable. But neither is leaving kids unprotected, with no choices, in a war zone.

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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I think that it also might be a difference in perspective.

From my viewpoint, the idea seems very absurd – given my location in one of the most liberal states in the union in an extraordinarily forward-thinking school where tolerance is very much a part of the country. In short, teaching tolerance has worked here.

Definitely, I think there are problems when it comes to protecting students, but it is a problem with the school if it doesn’t provide adequate support and respect. In some part, I think this is endemic of the issues which revolve around all school reform today. Instead of attempting to fix the problems in existing schools, the solution is to create new schools and move a lucky few into them, whatever the issue is. Poor grades? Charter school. Violence? Voucher program. Bullying? Bully-free school.

In short, I think we are avoiding the problems in education instead of actually trying to fix them.

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Bea Cantor writes:
No. 2 — December 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
If we separate gays in school, imagine how everyone will get along after school.

Bea Cantors last blog post..Thinking Maps

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Clay Burell Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:44 am
Bea, I know the choice isn’t perfect, but the nice thing about after school is that students are free to choose their physical environments, to hang out where chances of bullying are low. The same is not true during school hours. They’re forced to daily enter hostile territory – daily, mind you – which is what leads to those very important research findings. That’s why I think, again, that until schools do get serious about both teaching and enforcing tolerance, students who don’t want to remain in that system are given an alternative.

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Reply to Gary Stager’s HuffPo Post on Duncan | Beyond School writes:
No. 3 — December 20th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] Chicago. (Yes, I’m aware such an idea smacks of “separate but equal,” but wrote here about why I still think it’s a good idea.) While not an educational feather, it’s still a refreshing one to see in a cabinet [...]