Matt Shapiro who cites fake research and pushes conspiracies supportive of Republican talking points has this to say:
Matt is wrong on this Culture War of course.
In Texas we have similar laws so at the beginning of the school year I helped a colleague, a High School English teacher, remove all her shelving and personal books to remove any risk of parent complaint.
Yep, an English class without books.
The rules do allow books, yet are so onerous needing every item listed and catalogued by what is on campus. Considering it takes a couple minutes to log each book into the computer compiler and most professionals have a couple hundred books in their personal libraries, it is simply easier to pack them up and take them home than spend the two to three days to get into initial compliance with State Law. Then comes the parent’s desires.
Parents may object to any book. For example, the Bible is banned by at least one parent due to genocide, begetting, CRT, and violating the Constitution’s right to have no “state sponsored religion.” The list of books banned at various schools get repeated elsewhere, removing large swaths of material, mostly stuff written by minority authors and the LBGQT community.
A few parents can and do cause mass removals at school libraries of many a great book which in turn triggers interest in those banned books by other parents. Maus, shown above, got an enormous boost in interest when a district in Tennessee banned the novel.
My favorite Big Brother, Big Government law though was a law requiring a poster with a slogan on it that had to follow several rules be approved by each district and posted with the US motto. A smart Alec sent one alternative in through their lawyers saying the one the school chose violated the State Law (it actually did, technically) and proposed an equally not within the rules one that had LGBTQ coloring cleverly used within the motto.
Frankly, if that came from a student, I’d give them big high fives for creativity and problem solving.
This past week at another school a parent complained over her child being exposed to a piece of art accompanying a state approved curriculum book for the nondescript silhouette of a ship mast featuring a mermaid included in a classic story, Treasure Island. That complaint wasn’t even predictable. When I taught history regarding Michelangelo’s the David in Utah to Fifth graders as part of the school adopted Core Knowledge curriculum, I sent home a warning letter to parents, with the David altered to be wearing a school uniform, informing them of what it was, when it would be taught and appropriate ways to discuss this beforehand with their children. When the lesson came, a few students had papers ready to cover the image, the lesson was taught, and the paper assigned regarding the art topic had some very deep-thinking thought provoking responses built out mostly by those home discussions.
One of the most outrageous stories regarding these fascist laws though is this one:
The book is INAPPROPRIATE and totally RELATABLE to young audiences which is why it is amazing to share instead with your own kids at home, not with a class. The choice was spontaneous, and frankly not what one would have ever considered as a fireable offense before the Make America Great Again campaign fractured education in two, just as this poor child found when his Butt split unexpectedly.
That being said I bet the story cracked open quite a few wallets to acquire a copy of the book once the story made headlines.
I personally wouldn’t read this one to a class full of students because the curriculum constraints eliminated most of the read aloud time we as educators once had and there will always be at least one child bothered by the content. Having it on the bookshelf is also a big no for the reasons stated above.