SF schools boss dodges questions from Congress on pronouns, parental rights

San Francisco’s public schools chief repeatedly refused to condemn an alleged ethnic studies comparison Wednesday when pressed by Republican lawmakers during a tense congressional hearing.Superintendent Maria Su was asked whether she agreed with curriculum that allegedly compared parents who opposed COVID-19 school policies to white families in the 1960s who avoided desegregation by moving their children into private schools.Rep.Burgess Owens (R-Utah), who is black, asked Su whether she believed opposition to public schools was “a problem only with white parents.”Rather than answer, Su repeatedly said she would need to review the material first.“I would need to see the document,” Su said.

“I would need to understand the context.”Owens then pressed her on whether black parents who choose to remove their children from public schools should also be viewed as racist.Su again declined to answer directly, saying instead that San Francisco was developing a new ethnic studies curriculum.“Just know that in terms of parents leaving public school systems, it’s all colors,” Owens replied before ending his questioning.The exchange came during a more than three-hour hearing before a House committee examining education policies across several school districts, including curriculum, parental rights and transgender student policies.While fellow superintendents from Virginia and Illinois faced the most aggressive questioning, Su was repeatedly accused of sidestepping direct answers when questioned about controversial issues.In another exchange, Rep.Rick Allen (R-Georgia) asked Su about alleged district guidance that equated refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns with physical assault.Allen asked whether she agreed with that position.Su declined to give a yes-or-no answer.“In San Francisco, we welcome all of our students as they are,” she said.“We believe firmly that when we allow students to come in and truly be themselves, we are abl...