Issues in Newport-Mesa School Board Election

Tuesday’s contest for the Newport-Mesa Board of Education has ignited a flame of fear in me, for at issue is the smoldering threat of “censorship” promised by a group of extremist-minded candidates supported by groups whose sponsoring names belie their motives: Traditional Values Coalition, Citizens for Excellence in Education and Eagle Forum, to name a few.

Keep in mind that the sole purpose of these organizations is to foist on the majority their minority views within the classroom in an attempt to mold children, all children, in their image.

The tactic is classic censorship via the political process. All of us parents should be mortified at the prospect that the narrow convictions of a relatively few politically active (and well-financed) fundamentalists may predominate at the policy-setting level of our public schools.

If the challengers fear information, information that has been professionally and sensitively proffered in our science and social studies classrooms, then they have no business making the policy decisions that will affect the future of my child.

Information is power, the power to grow, to become educated, to make cogent decisions, to function. Censorship is insidious, undermining, retarding.

RICHARD V. SIMON

Newport Beach