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Supporters and critics of a new California law requiring media literacy instruction in public schools say it’s no coincidence that the law is being implemented as presidential campaigns — particularly former President Donald Trump’s — get underway.
Supporters say Assembly Bill 873 aims to help students discern accurate, objective data from opinion and misinformation. Critics say the law is an extension of state Democrats’ efforts to discredit and silence conservative and alternative media sources.
“Legislation became necessary at the state level when the federal government didn’t take action,” said Pedro Hernandez-Ramos, an education professor teaching K-12 technology classes at private Santa Clara University. “I think Trump is the poster child for what someone intent on serving only himself can do to hurt everyone else — like when he said a horse tranquilizer could be an effective antidote to COVID and caused several people to use and die from it.”
Williamson M. Evers, an education policy expert at the libertarian Independent Institute in Oakland, said Democrats and liberal groups “want to claw back control over what is taught and believed.”
“Misinformation can and has come from the left, right and center. Too many teachers believe that misinformation only comes from the right,” said Mr. Evers, assistant secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed the bill on Oct. 13. The law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, defines media literacy as an effort to teach “skills necessary to safely, responsibly, and critically consume and use social media and other forms of media.”
The California Department of Education will add mandatory media literacy lessons to all K-12 mathematics, English, science and history classes. Students will be taught how to weigh the “ethical standards” of digital news and opinion sources and how to create and critique their own “appropriate, responsible and healthy” media content.
“The proliferation of online misinformation has posed risks to international peace, interfered with democratic decisionmaking, and threatened public health,” Assembly Bill 873 states.
State Assemblymember Marc Berman, the Democrat who wrote the legislation, represents Menlo Park in the San Francisco area. In an email, his office referred The Washington Times to an Oct. 14 statement on his bill becoming law.
“From climate denial to vaccine conspiracy theories to the January 6 attack on our nation’s Capital, the spread of online misinformation has had global and deadly consequences,” Mr. Berman said. “We have a responsibility to teach the next generation to be more critical consumers of online content and more guarded against misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories.”
Critics describe the law as a Trojan horse of liberal bias. They say parents should not trust public schools to treat alternative news sources fairly, even in conservative states, as the 2024 presidential election looms.
“Media literacy is a term the left uses as a euphemism for silencing conservative voices,” said Dan Schneider, a lawyer and free speech expert at the right-leaning Media Research Center. “The schools that adopt it are told that Ted Cruz’s podcast is unreliable but Al Franken’s podcast is reliable.”
The Virginia-based watchdog group, which has tracked the laws over the past year, said schools already teaching media literacy commonly turn to left-leaning advocacy groups to define “misinformation.”
California is one of 18 states that have enacted K-12 media literacy laws since 2009. Statutes range from grade-level resources to mandatory lessons, according to the advocacy group Media Literacy Now. Delaware, New Jersey and Texas also mandate K-12 instruction.
Advocates tout the need for children and teenagers to develop critical thinking skills, distinguish advertising from news and identify hidden agendas in digital media. They point out that conservative and liberal states have enacted the laws.
“I personally vote for the importance of educating K-12 students with media literacy across the nation, simply because of the ease of digital information access,” Ken Huang, CEO of the right-leaning social media platform GETTR, said in an email.
Ad Fontes, a for-profit Colorado company that supports Media Literacy Now with small donations, provides K-12 teachers with a media bias chart that rates more than 3,000 multimedia news sources. It ranks many more conservative than liberal outlets as propaganda, misleading, or fabricated and inaccurate.
“I think it’s less a reflection of the bias of our analysts than of what is available in the current media landscape,” said Ad Fontes CEO Vanessa Otero. “There’s unreliable and highly biased information on the left and right, but there seems to be a higher concentration of websites on the right with lower reliability.”
The Ad Fontes chart rates the conservative Federalist magazine as selective, unfair and persuasive “propaganda” but says left-leaning alternative news site Vice offers a mix of factual reporting and “analysis.”
“We want to provide the tools for teachers and students to be able to evaluate sources for themselves,” Ms. Otero said. “We believe in free speech as a marketplace of ideas.”
Acknowledging school librarians’ role in that effort, California’s new media literacy law directs state officials to incorporate model library standards in the K-12 English language arts curriculum next year.
“Our goal as educators and librarians is to provide students with the tools they need to evaluate information for themselves, not dictate personal or political agendas,” said Rene Hohls, president-elect of the nonprofit California School Library Association. She supports the law.
She conceded that the law doesn’t prevent teachers from bringing political bias to the classroom.
“I think the way the law has been written gives instructional latitude for teachers to examine media literacy through ethical standards and moral obligations,” said Ms. Hohls, an administrative assistant in the Fort Bragg Unified School District.
Lance Izumi, a state education official under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said that latitude is the problem.
“Remember, leftist political indoctrination is rampant in California public schools,” said Mr. Izumi, an education policy analyst at the right-leaning Pacific Research Institute in Pasadena. “Does anyone really think that these educators will approve of students using and citing, for example, alternative conservative media?”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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