Education

by David Safier

It’s a long and impressive list — the organizations signing on to a Joint Statement in Opposition to Book Censorship in the Tucson Unified School District. When groups of this caliber band together to oppose an action by a school district, that’s a very significant development. Here are some of the signers:

• American Association of University Professors
• American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona
• Antigone Books
• Association of American Publishers
• Association of American University Presses
• Authors Guild
• Freedom to Read Foundation, an affiliate of the American Library Association
• International Reading Association
• National Council for the Social Studies
• National Council of Teachers of English
• PEN American Center
• People For the American Way
• Reading is Fundamental
• Student Press Law Center

You can read the entire statement after the jump. Here is an excerpt which discusses two essential issues: the discretion schools have to chose certain texts and not others, which does not include a restraint of unwelcome information and viewpoints, and the validity of the term “book banning” to describe TUSD’s actions.

The First Amendment is grounded on the fundamental rule that government officials, including public school administrators, may not suppress “an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” School officials have a great deal of authority and discretion to determine the curriculum, the subject of courses, and even methods of instruction. They are restrained only by the constitutional obligation to base their decisions on sound educational grounds, and not on ideology or political or other personal beliefs. Thus, school officials are free to debate the merits of any educational program, but that debate does not justify the wholesale removal of books, especially when the avowed purpose is to suppress unwelcome information and viewpoints.

School officials have insisted that the books haven’t been banned because they are still available in school libraries. It is irrelevant that the books are available in the library – or at the local bookstore. School officials have removed materials from the curriculum, effectively banning them from certain classes, solely because of their content and the messages they contain. The effort to “prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, [or] religion” is the essence of censorship, whether the impact results in removal of all the books in a classroom, seven books, or only one.

Read the whole statement, including a complete list of signers, after the jump.

by David Safier A judge has given her OK to Arizona's "Education Empowerment Scholarships," which is the state's vouchers-on-steroids bill. She accepted the dual arguments that (1) creating "savings accounts" somehow launders the money of its government connection and it can therefore be used for religious education; and (2) because the parents can use the … Read more

by David Safier

The banning of the use of texts by former Mexican-American Studies teachers infuriates the English teacher in me. I understand, there are some good reasons why some books should not be in schools, but the ideas contained in them is not one of those good reasons.

But if you want to see a group of people rise up against unreasonable banning of books, look no further than librarians. They may seem like a demure group of folks, always speaking in whispers and shushing people in their libraries. But they are fierce defenders of access to books of all kinds.

The American Library Association released a resolution Tuesday condemning both the decision to get rid of the MAS program and the decision to prohibit the use of texts by former MAS teachers. You can read the whole resolution with all the WHEREASes after the jump, but here's the actual resolution:

RESOLVED, That the American Library Association:

1) Condemns the suppression of open inquiry and free expression caused by closure of ethnic and cultural studies programs on the basis of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
2) Condemns the restriction of access to educational materials associated with ethnic and cultural studies programs.
3) Urges the Arizona legislature to pass HB 2654, “An Act Repealing Sections 15-111 and 15-112, Arizona Revised Statutes; Relating to School Curriculum.”

Here's a list of the Library groups supporting the resolution:

[T]he ALA Committee on Diversity, ALA Committee on Legislation, American Association of School Librarians, American Indian Library Association, Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Chinese American Library Association, Intellectual Freedom Round Table, REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, Social Responsibilities Round Table, and the Young Adult Library Services Association.

My advice: Kiss your local librarian — but be sure to ask first. These people are defenders of our freedom and strong advocates for literacy. (You might ask a librarian how they responded when, during the Bush administration, they were told they had to release lists of books patrons had borrowed if the government asked.)

A MAJOR HAT TIP: Jeff Biggers just keeps writing about the MAS story, on Huffington Post, on Salon, wherever he finds a national outlet. He puts the links on Facebook, then sends them to me and others. I got the link to the ALA resolution from his article Arizona Unbound: National Actions on Mexican American Studies Banishment. (And a literary hat tip if I'm correct in assuming Jeff took his title from Prometheus Unbound, with versions written centuries apart by Aeschylus and Shelley). He sent me links to another group of articles I haven't had time to read yet. I'll post about them when I do.

Read the entire ALA resolution after the jump.

by David Safier I learned long ago, whenever anyone has lots of reasons why something is a good idea or a bad idea, usually none of the reasons given are the real reasons. There's something else going on. Rich Crandall is on my "Too many reasons, too many rationalizations" list. Crandall is sponsoring the bill … Read more

by David Safier Muckety, a website whose mission, in its own words, is "Mapping the paths of power and influence," has posted a power map of Craig Barrett and his wife, Barbara. Craig currently heads Brewer's A-Wreck (AREC: Arizona Ready Education Council). He's a big player in the conservative Choice/Education Reform movement here in Arizona. … Read more