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March 24, 2005
TCAPS cuts abortion passage from booksOfficials say they're following state lawByRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - Tom Czarny hates having to take an Xacto knife to his students' textbooks, and he'd like to see it change. Czarny teaches advanced placement biology at Traverse City Central High School. Page 994 of the class textbook includes a brief passage about abortion, which he dutifully cuts out before students get the books. It's a decision Czarny inherited and one Traverse City Area Public Schools officials said is influenced by state law that prohibits the teaching of abortion "as a method of reproductive health." "It's just an unhappy reality," Czarny said. "I don't like anything involving censorship. It's counterproductive and counter-intuitive to the goal of education." TCAPS Superintendent James Pavelka said he was unaware the district was removing anything from textbooks until the Record-Eagle inquired about the practice. But Sue Wilson, a TCAPS school nurse who chairs the district's sex education advisory board, said the district's administration sought a legal opinion in the 1980s and decided to remove any textbook references to abortion in the context of reproductive health. Assistant Superintendent Jayne Mohr said since the state law is subject to some interpretation, TCAPS chose to err on the side of caution. The district could not immediately provide a copy of the 1980s legal opinion. Wilson said the advisory board since asked administrators several times to revisit the decision to censor. The advisory panel includes parents, educators and health professions, and reviews sex education curriculum materials. TCAPS offers AP biology classes, which lets students earn college credit, at Central and West high schools. Wilson said this year West AP biology students could receive books with the abortion references intact if they purchased the book and had permission from their parents. She said the advisory board approved that change, which she called a successful "pilot" that will likely include Central's class next year. Czarny said that's a more palatable option, and he'd like to see the district reconsider whether deleting the passages is necessary. The sections cut out are part of a chapter on animal reproduction and are surrounded by discussion of other contraceptive methods. Petoskey Public Schools AP biology students use a different edition of the same textbook published by Pearson Education. That district has not removed the portion that mentions abortion, said Jane Bailey, Petoskey schools' director of teaching and learning. Bailey said the Petoskey district believes the text's treatment of the topic - "defining the concept" - complies with state law. Czarny said the topic of abortion "almost never comes up" because of the course's pace and breadth of subjects. His students can purchase their textbook, which he called the best available, at the end of the year to take with them to college since its used by many universities. He said he saves the portions cut from the pages to give back to students if they buy the book. Czarny said updated editions of the same book have been used with portions cut out since the early 1990s, before he started teaching the class. Pavelka said abortion remains a permissible topic outside the contexts of sex education and reproductive health, such as in history and social studies classes.
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