Center for Investigative Reporting

Under pressure from the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry, schools officials in California edited a new environmental curriculum to include positive messages about plastic shopping bags, interviews and documents show.

The rewritten textbooks and teachers’ guides coincided with a public relations and lobbying effort by the chemistry council to fight proposed plastic bag bans throughout the country. But despite the positive message, activists say there is no debate: Plastic bags kill marine animals, leech toxic chemicals and take an estimated 1,000 years to decompose in landfills.

In 2009, a private consultant hired by California school officials added a new section to the 11th-grade teachers’ edition textbook called “The Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags.” The title and some of the textbook language were inserted almost verbatim from letters written by the chemistry council.

Although the curriculum includes the environmental hazards of plastic bags, the consultant also added a five-point question to a workbook asking students to list some advantages. According to the teachers’ edition, the correct answer is: “Plastic shopping bags are very convenient to use. They take less energy to manufacture than paper bags, cost less to transport, and can be reused.” Read more.

The mother of a deceased 13-year-old middle school student has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Tehachapi Unified School District in California after federal authorities concluded school officials didn’t adequately respond to the gay teen’s complaints of attacks and harassment.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Kern County, accuses school district Superintendent Richard Swanson, Jacobsen Middle School Principal Susan Ortega and several teachers of violating Seth Walsh’s federal civil rights.

In September, Walsh, an eighth-grader at Jacobsen, hanged himself moments after being taunted and attacked by classmates. The suit argues that Walsh’s death resulted from continual public taunting and assaults from classmates that were ignored by school officials.

Walsh’s story sparked outrage and a national dialogue about the harassment of gay and lesbian students in public schools.