QUEER QUOTE: Are Bert and Ernie Gay?

There has been longtime speculation abut whether Bert and Ernie, two puppets on the Sesame Street television show who are depicted as living together, are "gay." Puppeteer and director Frank Oz, who created the puppets said on twitter that the two are not gay. Oz said, "I created Bert. I know what and who he is." These quotes are in response to an exclusive interview in Queerty with Mark Saltzman a writer for the show from 1981-1990 said that he based the interactions of Bert and Ernie on his own longtime relationship with his male partner. "I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple," Saltzman said.

However, Sesame Workshop, the producer of Sesame Street released a statement which is today's Queer Quote denying (again) that Bert and Ernie are gay:

As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.

Regardless of what Sesame Workshop says, it has not stopped other people from recognizing that Bert and Ernie behave like and resemble a same-sex couple.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Openly Gay LA School Board Prez Resigns After Admitting Felonious Behaior

Ref Rodriguez appeared to be a rising political star when he was elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District school board in May 2015. He's openly gay, with a Ph.D. and was elected chair of the 7-member board by his colleagues soon after the 2017 LAUSD elections. He represented a majority that was in support of expanding charter schools in the nation's second largest school district.

That all came crashing down last week when Rodriguez pleaded guilty to a felony and immediately resigned from the school board on Monday July 23rd. The Los Angeles Times reported:

Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez pleaded guilty Monday to a felony count of conspiracy and resigned from office, marking a dramatic fall for a widely admired educator who became the first charter schools executive elected to the Board of Education.

Rodriguez, 47, was once the leader of the charter school-backed majority that took over the board a year ago after the nation’s most expensive school board elections ever.

But two months after becoming school board president, the criminal charges compelled him to step back — giving up his presidency but retaining his seat amid the distractions of defending himself.

Under the deal with prosecutors, Rodriguez will avoid jail time. Instead, he will get three years’ probation and 60 days of community service.

Pretty shocking!

NEWS: United States Places First In International Mathematics Olympiad

The U.S. team won first place at the 59th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), which took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania on July 3-14, with 116 countries and 615 students participating. The USA Mathematical Olympiad Team cosisted of: Adam Ardeishar, Andrew Gu, Vincent Huang, James Lin, Michael Ren, and Mihir Singhal.  Individually they also took home five gold medals (Lin scored a perfect 42) and one silver medal. Gu, Huang, and Lin are returning IMO team members from 2017. Teams from Russia and China placed second and third, respectively

Hat/tip to American Mathematics Society and Mathematical Association of America.

GRAPHIC: Per Capita Spending on Education in the United States

Education Week released its analysis of per capita spending on education by the various states in the Union. The national average is $12,526 but Utah spend $7,207 per student while Vermont ($20,795) and Alaska ($20,640) are at the very top. At this link you can mouse over the map and see how your state compares.

California is at $9,417.

Hat/tip to Education Week.

REPORT: Boys and Girls Equally Interested In STEM; Boys More Prepared

In a new report from ACT (yes, the organization that runs those other college readiness tests) there is a result that states that all though boys and girls have an equal interest in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), it turns out that boys are generally more prepared for them.

Ed Week reports:

To determine readiness, students were assigned a STEM score based on combined results from their ACT math and science tests. ACT test scores range from 1 to 36. A student earning at least the benchmark score of 26 has a 50 percent chance of earning a B or higher in first-year college STEM courses, and a 75 percent chance of earning a C or higher, according to the report. The student is also more likely to stick it out with a STEM major and earn a bachelor's degree.  

The report revealed that just 18 percent of females, compared to 24 percent of males, earned a score of 26. 

The disparity is even larger among students with an interest in STEM: 22 percent of females earned a score of 26 compared to 31 percent of males. Even more surprising, females interested in STEM were less likely than all males (including those with or without an interest in STEM) to meet or surpass that benchmark score (22 percent versus 24 percent). Meanwhile, the overall level of interest in STEM between females and males is nearly equal at 47 percent versus 50 percent, respectively.

The source of the data is from the 2 million students who took the ACT in 2017.

Lost Einsteins: New Report Demonstrates Variation In Innovation Opportunity by Class, Race and Gender

There’s an interesting new report (from Stanford’s Raj Chetty) showing how lack of diversity in STEM is leading to reduction in the number of innovations being created in this country, even by low-income children who would be expected to be inventors due to their proficiency in math in school. (Generally proficiency in mathematics is a predictor of patent filing.) The report calls the result of this gap “Lost Einsteins.”

The New York Times wrote about this latest report this week:

The researchers worked with the Treasury Department to link the tax records with patent records. Doing so allowed them to study the backgrounds of patent holders (and the study focused on the most highly cited, significant patents). The researchers — Chetty, Alex Bell, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova and John Van Reenen — were also able to link these records to elementary-school test scores for some patent holders.

Not surprisingly, children who excelled in math were far more likely to become inventors. But being a math standout wasn’t enough. Only the top students who also came from high-income families had a decent chance to become an inventor.

This fact may be the starkest: Low-income students who are among the very best math students — those who score in the top 5 percent of all third graders — are no more likely to become inventors than below-average math students from affluent families.

Here is a graphic which demonstrates the difference in patent-holding by income level.

Of course there is also variation by race and by gender as well:

This report explains why broadening the participation in STEM is so important. As Chetty says "There are great differences in innovation rates. Those differences don’t seem to be due to innate ability to innovate.”

Our goal should be to make sure that the difference in innovation rates are not related to race, gender or income.

QUEER QUOTE: SCOTUS Agrees To Hear Important Transgender Rights Case From Virginia

The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old transgender boy who (with the help of the ACLU) is suing the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia for the right to use the bathroom associated with his gender identity.

Today's Queer Quote is from the granting of certioari by SCOTUS in Grimm:

 (1) Whether courts should extend deference to an unpublished agency letter that, among other things, does not carry the force of law and was adopted in the context of the very dispute in which deference is sought; and (2) whether, with or without deference to the agency, the Department of Education's specific interpretation of Title IX and 34 C.F.R. § 106.33, which provides that a funding recipient providing sex-separated facilities must “generally treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity,” should be given effect.

SCOTUSblog describes the Grimm case in this way:

Although the controversy over the school board’s policy requiring students to use the restrooms and locker rooms that match the gender that they were assigned at birth instantly became the highest-profile case of the court’s term so far, the dispute actually centers on more technical (and, some would say, rather dry) legal issues. In this case, the district court ruled against G.G., relying on a 1975 regulation that allows schools to provide “separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex,” as long as those facilities are comparable to those provided to the opposite sex. But, in January 2015, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued an opinion letter stating that, if schools separate students in restrooms and locker rooms on the basis of their sex, a “school generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.” In light of the 2015 letter, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit reversed and ruled for G.G. It relied on the Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in Auer v. Robbins, which held that courts generally should defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation. 

In granting review today, the justices sidestepped the most prominent issue they had been asked to take on: whether they should overrule their decision in Auer, which has been the target of criticism by conservative lawyers and jurists. Instead, they agreed only to weigh in on two other, lower-profile questions presented in the school board’s petition: whether courts should defer to a letter, like the Department of Education opinion letter in this case, that was issued as part of the specific dispute before the court; and whether the Department of Education’s interpretation of the federal civil rights laws and the 1975 regulation as requiring schools to treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity should be given effect. 

The school board’s case, as well as the others in which the justices granted review today, likely will be argued during the court’s February sitting, which begins on February 21.

Here at MadProfessah.com we will be  watching this case closely. The primary takeaway should be that although marriage equality is now the law of the land, the fight for full LGBT equality is clearly not over. And the United States Supreme Court will almost certainly play a role in accomplishing this.

Hat/tip to Kenneth in the 212

WATCH: Animated Gif Proving Pythagoras' Theorem #math

This is a perfect depiction of a creative way to illustrate mathematical concepts, even relatively simple ones like Pythagoras' Theorem that a² + b² = c². Or, in words, the sum of the squares of the two sides of a right-triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.

SATURDAY POLITICS: Openly Gay, Latino Ref Rodriguez Elected To Los Angeles School Board

Dr. Ref Rodriguez was just elected this week to fill the District 5 seats on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board of education. He defeated incumbent Bennet Kayser by a surprisingly large margin of 7 points (53.5% to 46.5%). Rodriguez was endorsed by the Victory Fund, which supports only LGBT candidates for elected offices around the country.

Rodriguez is well-known for founding the Partnership to Uplift Communities Schools, commonly known as the PUC Schools, which run many charter schools in the state of California. The Rodiguez-Kayser battle was the most expensive of those contested on May 19th, with the California Charter School Association spending millions of dollars to defeat Kayser, who was aligned with the United Teachers Los Angles (UTLA), the teachers' union.

As KPCC put it:

As was the case in the primary, voter turnout was low as predicted: 7.64 percent of registered voters turned out in the school board election and 13.93 percent in City Council District 4. 

In the school board election, the low turnout gave special interests more influence in the results than had voters turned out in decent numbers. California Charter Schools Association Advocates' PACs spent over $2.2 million, primarily to support charter school administrator Ref Rodriguez. The teachers union, UTLA, spent about $1.3 million while calling on its 31,000-plus members to campaign for its favored candidates. 

The District 5 election got so fierce that I had people knocking on my door (twice) for Kayser even though I am not in District 5 (I'm in District 2 currently held by Monica Garcia).

Because of the ill-advised Charter Amendments that passed earlier this year, Rodriguez will serve a 5.5 year term, coming up for election in June 2020.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Bobby Jindal Gives Evasive Answers To Questions On Evolution

Not sure if this belongs in Godless Wednesday category but it is something I feel like I need to blog about to alert my fellow godless heathens! Governor Bobby Jindal, currently "praying about whether he will run for President in 2016" and former Rhodes Scholar (to study biology and public policy) refused multiple opportunities from reporters to say whether he believes in evolution or not.

Instead, this is what Jindal said:

"I'm not an evolutionary biologist"
and
"I will tell you, as a father, I want my kids to be taught about evolution in their schools, but secondly, I think local school districts should make the decision."
and 
"I told you what I think. I think that local school districts, not the federal government, should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories."

This is the same politician who exhorted his fellow Republicans to "stop being the stupid party"! Until ambitious GOP politicians like Jindal stop issuing dog-whistle messages instead of acknowledging scientific truths ("Evolution is a real biological phenomenon. The climate of the earth is being impacted by man-made activity. A blastocyst is not a human being.") they will continue to be thought of as the group of people who puts faith before fact.

And that is just stupid.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: 10-Year-Old Tanishq Abraham Graduates From High School With 4.0 GPA

Tanishq Abraham, 10, made some headlines as a prodigy this week with the news that he was graduating from high school at the age of 10, with a perfect 4.0 GPA no less. This is not too surprising, since he joined Mensa at age 4 and has been taking college courses since age 7.

The San Francisco Examiner reports:

Abraham was home-schooled for the past three years, and then he passed a state exam in March that certified him as having met the appropriate academic standards to receive his high school diploma in California.
[...]
The boy says that he realized he had a special gift when he was just in kindergarten. At that very young age, he realized he could read books written for second and third graders. Additionally, his math skills were that of a second or third grader. He believes that learning just comes more naturally to him than to other youngsters. It also helps that he says he really likes to learn things. 

Abraham names science as his favorite subject. However, he says he also enjoys social studies and history. Of math, he says he kind of likes it. He plans to either become a doctor – though he doesn’t know what kind – or perhaps a medical researcher or even the president.

Let's hope that Taishq continues to excel as he gets older!

May 17, 2014: Today Is The 60th Anniversary of Brown v Board of Education!

Today is May 17th, the 60th anniversary of the issuance of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education which ruled that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal and unconstitutional, thus ending legal segregation in public schools in the United states.

It was in important moment in civil rights history but note that changes occurred with "all deliberate speed" until right-minded people started organizing protests in earnest and actual public policy change occurred in the 1960s, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Bizarrely, 60 years after Brown many schools in the South are LESS racially diverse now than they were then as this stunning report from The Atlantic makes clear.

Black Boy Gets Accepted To Every Ivy League School!

This is a great story that I hope gets more coverage! It's college acceptance time and one kid from Long Island got accepted to every single member of the Ivy League: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, University of Penn, Dartmouth and Brown. His name is Kwasi Enin and he is the 17-year-old son of immigrants from the African country of Ghana. Yes, people, this smart kid is black!

CBS reports:

Kwasi Enin has until May 1 to decide on a school. He said he is leaning toward Yale, where he will likely study the medical field – specifically to become a cardiologist. 

“I’m trying to major in either biology, neuroscience or, if I go to Yale, biomedical engineering,” he said.  

With that said, Enin does admit to having a guilty pleasure.

“Video games,” he said. 

For someone to accomplish the all but unattainable at 17 years old, Enin hopes to continue a strict regimen – with a possible future of changing the world as Dr. Kwasi Enin.

So there ya go, sometimes there are good news stories in the news!

Opponents Of CA Trans Student Bill File Suit To Get On 2014 Ballot

Hmmm, some people just don't seem to want to follow the rules. After filing fewer signatures than they had initially claimed they would have and failing to qualify their anti-LGBT ballot measure by nearly 20,000 signatures, the organization Privacy For All is now suing the Secretary of State to have their measure qualified anyway.

A group seeking to overturn California’s law allowing transgender students access to programs and facilities based on the gender they identify as, rather than the sex they were born into, is continuing the fight by serving Secretary of State Debra Bowen and other officials, the group announced Tuesday. 

“We have served the Secretary of State with another legal action asking her to qualify the referendum and we have served county officials across the state with a demand for the documents to prove the abuse of discretion in rejecting more than 131,000 signatures,” Gina Gleason, director of faith and public policy at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, wrote in a press release issued Tuesday morning. 

Gleason is one of the proponents listed on a proposed referendum that would repeal Assembly Bill 1266, which was signed into law last September by Gov. Jerry Brown, and took effect on Jan. 1. 

Opponents say the law will allow curious teens to ogle members of the opposite sex while at their most vulnerable, and for male students to game the system by dominating female sports teams. But officials in school districts where such policies have already been in effect — including Los Angeles and San Francisco unified school districts — have said those issues haven’t emerged in practice.

I'm glad the article notes that Los Angeles and San Francisco already have the transgender-inclusive policies of AB 1266 in effect regardless of the legislation, and would continue to have them regardless of whether a ballot measure repealed AB 1266.  In addition, New York City just issued guidelines recently about how it is adopting its transgender-inclusive policies in schools.

But this is not about "privacy" and "safety" for students. This is about a group that has specific ideas about the way that all people should display and conduct their gender identity, in a way that only conforms to a heterosexist ideal. Since they know they are losing badly in the kulturkampf on marriage equality and civil rights based on sexual orientation they are trying to make progress on an issue which has less salience with the public: transgender issues.

Hopefully Attorney General Kamala Harris will defend the state of California and point out that 504, 760 valid signatures means 504, 760 valid signatures, not 484,484!

Bigots Fail To Qualify CA Referendum On Transgender Student Rights Law!

As I predicted in December, the Secretary of State today confirmed that religious extremists and heterosexual supremacists failed to submit enough valid signatures to force a referendum on the School Success and Opportunity Act (AB 1266). In order to suspend the law and force a vote on the measure in November 2014, the opponents of the measure had claimed they had enough signatures to force a vote but they submitted 619, 387 signatures and a 3% spot check showed that they were above 95% of the needed total which triggered a review of every single signature. In the end, though, the Secretary of State determined that only 487,484 were deemed valid and 504,760 were needed. That's a deficit of 17,276 or 3.4% of the total needed to qualify the measure.

They got 96.6% of the way to their total, which is scary enough. But close is not good enough!
 This is great news for transgender and cisgender students in all California schools.

The haters could still try and file a ballot measure to repeal the law or a constitutional amendment to prevent the legislature from enacting such a measure in the future.

Equality California celebrates with a press release:

Attempt to Repeal the School Success and Opportunity Act Fails

(San Francisco) Today, the effort to repeal the School Success and Opportunity Act — California’s new law ensuring that all children have opportunities to do well in school — failed to qualify for the ballot.

The law — also known as Assembly Bill 1266 — went into effect on January 1, ensuring that schools have the guidance they need to make sure all students, including those who are transgender, have the opportunity to do well in school and graduate.
The law is modeled after policies and practices that are already working well in several schools, and gives important guidance to educators so they can work with students and families on a case-by-case basis.

Oakland’s Redwood Heights School is among the California schools with policies in place that provide transgender young people with fair chances. Like other schools with similar policies across the state, the policy has been successful since it was established five years ago.

“We want our students to know that when they walk onto this campus, they are welcomed for who they are,” said Redwood Heights Principal Sara Stone. “Every educator I know went into the education field because they truly care about young people and making sure they have everything they need to do well in school.”

The law helps students like Zoey, a 12-year-old transgender girl from the Los Angeles area who transferred out of her school after administrators there refused to acknowledge her as a girl or allow her to use the girls’ restroom. Her mom, Ofelia Barba, says that the law makes it easier for her daughter to go to school and be herself.

“I love my daughter and want the same things for her that other parents want for their children,” Barba said. “I want what’s best for her, for her to be happy, and for her to be able to do well in school. No one wants to see any kid singled out and excluded from school because of who they are.”

The Support All Students campaign comprises a broad coalition of nearly 100 state and national organizations supporting the new law. The coalition includes Equality California, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, ACLU of California, Gay-Straight Alliance Network, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Gender Spectrum, LGBT organizations, racial justice organizations, statewide teacher and parent organizations, and others committed to ensuring that all kids have the opportunity to do well in school and graduate.

Said Transgender Law Center Executive Director and Campaign Chair Masen Davis: “This law gives schools the guidelines and flexibility to create an environment where all kids have the opportunity to learn. We need to focus on creating an environment where every student is able to do well and graduate. This law is about doing what’s best for all students — that’s why it’s supported by school boards, teachers, and the PTA.”

To learn more about the School Success and Opportunity Act and the Support All Students campaign, visit www.SupportAllStudents.org.

Great news!

This Yearbook Picture Violates "Community Standards" In Texas. Why?

It is becoming clearer that the next frontier for LGBT equality is in the area of public accommodations for transgender people. This story about Jeydon Loredo caught my eye. The school board of La Feria High School in La Feria, Texas is refusing to allow Jeydon to appear in his yearbook picture wearing a tuxedo, saying that it offends "community standards."

A major milestone in life would be summed up in one image: Jeydon in a crisp tuxedo with his hair neatly combed. As time passes, this may be the only image his classmates have to remember him by.

That’s why Jeydon, a transgender student, was upset to learn from the school district’s superintendent that his photo would not appear in the yearbook because it supposedly violated “community standards.” Jeydon, while he grew up female, is now a young man. He is transgender, meaning that his gender identity is different from what he was assigned at birth.  District Superintendent Rey Villarreal told his mother that Jeydon’s photograph would be included only if he wore stereotypically feminine attire, such as a drape or blouse.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve grown up with the kids here,” Jeydon said. “I’ve seen those in my community go through troubles, and denying my tuxedo photo would be a way for the district to forget me and everything I’ve brought to this community. The yearbook is for the students, not the faculty or the administration. It is a way for us to remember each other.”

The Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center are fighting for Jeydon's right to appear in the senior yearbook picture that his family paid for and have sent the La Feria School Board a strongly worded letter explaining why the school board's (in)action is discriminatory.

HRC and SPLC are encouraging people to contact the school board.

Transgender Teen Voted Homecoming Queen At SoCal High School

An interesting LGBT landmark occurred in Southern California yesterday. A 16-year-old transgender girl named Cassidy Lynn Campbell was voted homecoming queen at a local Southern California high school.

Cassidy Lynn Campbell broke down in tears Friday night when she learned that she had been crowned homecoming queen. 

The senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach was born male but told The Times she always felt like a girl. In high school, she began taking hormone blockers and estrogen injections prescribed by an endocrinologist and made the transition to living as a girl. 

She decided to run for homecoming queen, in part, to make a statement. 

"If I win it would mean that the school recognizes me as the gender I always felt I was," Cassidy, 16, told The Times before the election. 

"But with all the attention, I realized it's bigger than me," she said. "I'm doing this for the kids who can't be themselves."

She may be the first but will almost certainly not be the last transgender homecoming queen. As I've said before, the more people realize that gender is not a binary phenomenon, the more progress will be made for LGBT equality, so I see this as a big step forward for LGBT rights.

Hat/tip to Wonder Man

Homophobes File Referendum on Transgender Student Rights Bill

Here we go again. Just last week Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1266, the School Success and Opportunity Act, into law. SSOA basically put into effect statewide the policy of the state's largest school district, LAUSD, which allows transgender students to participate fully in activities using the gender identity that they feel is most appropriate. Massachusetts and Colorado already have similar statewide policies.

Most people think this was a historic move forward to advance the rights of transgender students. Of course, that is not how the homophobes see it. They have filed paperwork to put theis historic civil rights law up for a referendum, meaning that it would not go into effect immediately if they are able to file 500,000 signatures with the Secretary of State within 90 days. Then there would be a vote during a statewide election in 2014 on whether the measure would go into effect at all or be effectively repealed.

Equality California executive director John O'Connor responded to the move:

"This is a predictable move by fringe groups that oppose all pro-equality measures and that historically have lacked the capacity to successfully execute similar efforts. AB1266 is an historic civil rights bill ensuring all students have the opportunity to participate and succeed in schools, including transgender students. EQCA and our partners will remain vigilant about monitoring the situation."

It should be remembered that there were also people who wanted to put the FAIR Education Act up for  a vote of the people of California, and they failed (twice!) to do so. The FAIR Education Act was a law that amended the state Education Code to insure that information about LGBT people in all California public schools has to be "fair, accurate, inclusive and respectful."

Now it looks like the homophobes are starting to realize that they are most certainly going to lose the war over marriage equality (California's fight over Proposition 8 ended with a whimper on Wednesday August 14) they are changing their focus to the T in LGBT rights, narrowing in on challenging the very concept of gender identity itself.

This is the hyperbolic language they are using on their temporary website to publicize their attempt to overturn the Transgender Student Rghts Bill:

Governor Jerry Brown just signed into law AB 1266 which would allow boys and girls to share the same school locker rooms, showers, restrooms, sporting programs, and school activities, based on the student’s gender identity, rather than his or her actual biological gender. 

Gender identity refers to a person’s subjective opinion of ones gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s biological sex. But no matter the student’s gender identity, imposing this drastic and intrusive law upon all students is foolish and irresponsible. 

This bill will go into effect in Jan. 2014 unless we stop it.

One of the main reason that the heterosexual supremacists are going after AB 1266 is that the polling on it is pretty tight, with a June 2013 survey indicating 43% support and 46% opposition to the then pending legislation.

Hopefully they won't even get enough signatures to qualify the referendum, but this is probably also about activating the conservative base in California for the 2014 statewide elections, since currently the Republican party has basically zero power in all three branches of California government.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God