Public education and community input

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A great number of column inches in the press have gone to questions of who decides what is taught in our public schools.

• The Mankato (MN) school board has created new rules over how members of the community can be heard at school board meetings - angering many in the community.. 
• The outcome of the 2021 gubernatorial race in VIrginia has been attributed to the losing candidate saying that parents should not have a voice in public school curricular decision-making.
• A legislator in Texas recently published a list of 850 books he feels should not be in the state’s schools. Many deal with issues around race and sexuality.
• Contentious school board races have pitted vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers, mask mandaters vs anti-mask mandators, and critical race theory opponents vs those who actually understand critical race theory and the degree to which it is taught in schools. 

It’s kind of a hot mess, but not necessarily a new one. We (old) librarians have been responding to community input related to titles in our collection for about as long as I remember. And while angry parents are not much fun, I believe that it’s important that their voices be heard.

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a column titled Don’t defend that book  Library Media Connection, August/September 2007. In it, I argued for individuals’ rights to ask that material be removed from library collections.* At the time, an award winning book called The Power of Lucky was being challenged since it used the word “scrotum.” People were going nuts (I punned.) In it I wrote:

What troubles me is that our professional colleagues are trying to defend a single title rather than defending a fair and open process for selecting and retaining any instructional material in our schools. Quite frankly, if a school decides to remove Lucky or any other book from its library or classrooms, so be it. If it decides to block every Web 2.0 resource because it can’t discriminate between MySpace and a professional blog, so be it. If it decides that Zeffirelli's movie Romeo and Juliet not be not be allowed because it shows a glimpse of Olivia Hussey's breasts, so be it. 

So long as due process has been followed in making the decision.

While I can't imagine the circumstances under which I would do so, I sort of like knowing that as a citizen I can request that ill-chosen materials be removed from my public school. Harrumph!

“Community standards” is often a term that is used by public schools in their materials selection policies. I take that to mean that the values of people in the community are taken into consideration when an item is selected or targeted for removal. What parents and other engaged community members should have are formal processes for providing input into educational decisions being made. Don't protesters protest when other means of being heard seem fruitless?

Once again, I will advocate for the process, not necessarily for a set of outcomes. Should a community decide that mask mandates should not be required, so be it - so long as the decision was made in a rational manner with a means for gathering citizen input. 

As engaged citizens, we have a number of ways to get involved in educational decision-making that do not require marches, signs, or screaming matches:

• Know the issues on which school board candidates are running and vote for the ones which align with your personal values. Run for school board yourself if you have the courage and energy.
• Volunteer to be on district committees that have community members. Our district technology advisory committee was always lucky to have good citizen voices when debating policies and budgets.
• A good deal of curriculum is written at the state level. Find out how you can provide feedback to proposed standards as they are being written or in draft form.
• Make an effort to actually understand the issues involved in areas of contention. Do you actually know what “critical race theory” and provide an example of how it is being taught in your district? Have you actually read the book you want to see removed from your library? Can you accept the fact that you may be in the minority if your opinions are too extreme

Ever the Pollyanna, I believe most of our country’s problems can be solved through open and good-willed discussion and compromise. Yes, I am a radical centrist. But rational thinking and polite discourse don’t sell many clicks on Facebook or increase viewership of national news channels. One can dream.

*I am shocked that not every person in the world did not read this and have it burnt into their memory. Hah.