Straight Talk from Steve:

The Nebraska State Board of Education has lost all credibility with the people of Nebraska. On August 6, 2021 I called for all of the members of the State Board of Education, including the Education Commissioner, Matthew Blomstedt, to resign. Last week Patricia Timm who represents district 5 in southeast Nebraska did the right thing by announcing her resignation. I am still waiting for the other seven members of the State Board of Education and the Commissioner to resign.

The Education Commissioner needs to resign because he did not shoot straight with Nebraskans about updating the sex education standards. On May 7, 2021 Matthew Blomstedt stated in a document entitled Points of Clarification that “The State Board of Education is not approving a sexual education curriculum, textbooks or instructional materials.” He also said in that same document that the “The proposed draft of the Health Education Standards was not written by activists” and that “Planned Parenthood is not funding or helping to write the Health Education Standards.” Today we know that that is exactly what was going on.

Everyone else on the State Board of Education needs to resign because today we know how they secretly recruited extremist Left-wing organizations to help write the sex education standards for our state. Earlier this summer Jason Martinez, a private citizen with school aged children, used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain hundreds of pages of government documents, emails and text messages, which reveal how the State Board of Education enlisted individuals from outside activist groups to draft the sex education guidelines. Some of this information has since been revealed by Patrick Hauf, who wrote an article for the Washington Free Beacon on October 11, 2021, which revealed some of what Mr. Martinez found out through his FOIA request.

Thanks to Jason Martinez and Patrick Hauf today we know that Deborah Neary, the State Board of Education member who represents district 8 in eastern Nebraska, tried to recruit Lisa Schultze to the writing team. Deborah Neary wrote in an email to a state agency employee, “I want to make sure that Lisa Shultze is selected to help write the NDE Health Standards.” Although Neary’s recommendation was rejected for the writing team, Shultze was appointed to sit on the 28 member advisory board.

Lisa Shultze has very close ties to Planned Parenthood. Shultze worked for Planned Parenthood for 15 years before becoming the activist that she is today. Today she sits on the board for Friends of Planned Parenthood and she works for the Woman’s Fund of Omaha, another activist organization which has given more than $8 million to Planned Parenthood and to local transgender clinics.

Lisa Shultze played a significant role in the formation of the newly proposed health education standards. Emails obtained through the FOIA request show that Shultze arranged meetings between Nebraska Department of Education members and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), which is the activist organization who wrote the National Sex Education Standards. Because of Shultze’s influence and help the first draft of the proposed health education standards mirrored those written by SIECUS.

Other emails obtained through the FOIA request reveal how Deborah Neary disparaged parents’ complaints as “hate speech” and claimed that only her side of the sex education debate was based upon science. For example, Neary said, “It is irresponsible in my opinion when one of the sides is based in science and fact and the other is based in religion.” With this kind of attitude, there is no wonder why Neary abstained when the board voted 5-1 to table further discussion about the health education standards.

The State Board of Education continues to flounder. The board is now a ship without a rudder because the board members have lost the public’s trust. It is time for them to resign and allow others to take over at the helm who can steer our educational system back into the direction of true academic success.