Voters are taking their grievances over public schools to the ballot
box. This midterm cycle as school board elections have become a proxy
war for a larger political culture wars on issues of race, gender
and parental rights. Florida and several other states have implemented
laws that critics say effectively ban certain books in schools and
libraries to talk about this growing fight in education. I'm joined
by Kelly Jensen, an editor at the literary site book Riot. She's
also a former librarian and has been monitoring book censorship.
Nationwide. Kelly Jensen, welcome and thanks for joining us So broadly
speaking when you look at
Some book challenges the book removals from schools and schools,
libraries. What are you seeing? How would you characterize what's
going on right now? So right now, What we're seeing is sort of the
culmination of 16 plus months of work and looking at the sorts of
books that are in school libraries and classrooms. And there's been
a systemic plan to pull books about people of color and books about
or by or related to issues.
Of queer Identity, and so
Right now We're seeing parents really wanting to have a say in the
sorts of materials that are available to their students and doing
so through book banning through seeking opportunities to have input
on curriculum and in what sorts of materials their their kids have
access to, so we, I should mention we spoke with one of the co founders
of one of the groups who has been saying that parents should have
More of a say in what their kids have access to in school woman named
Tina Deskovic. She's the co founder of the group Moms for Liberty.
She argues that what they're pushing for is not actually a ban on
books. But here's how she characterizes what they're doing. Take
a Listen. We do not stand by or believe that we are banning books
We want to, um, you know, make sure books are age appropriate for
our Children, and we're looking for solutions together like I mentioned,
you know, there's
There's options to put books in a place where you need parental permission
or practical opt out of parental opt in whatever each local district
decides. But there is no hard ban. Kelly. What would you say to that?
She says, no hard ban. Is that what you've seen?
So they have been successful in getting a number of books pulled
from school libraries, and they've had a lot of pull in the legislation
that we've seen come out of Florida in particular, Um in Florida.
Here's a good example to showcase just how small a group this is
speaking, Um, on behalf of parents more broadly in Polk County, which
is the seventh largest district in Florida, reliably Republican there
are about 110,000 students and pull count.
He just implemented a system where
Parents could opt their students out of a number of books that have,
um, come under fire. And of all of those students less than 100 and
60 kids have had their parents upped them out of access to these
books. So really, and truly, it's a very small number. Um and so
What they're trying to do is revoked access to this material for
all students and not just their students. Kelly at the core of this
conservative argument is also this idea. They say that you know,
public education has long skewed towards liberal ideas and we feel
like we have been left out of this conversation. We asked Tina Deskovic
about this. This is what she said.
Even educators aren't necessarily checking. What's what's in every
one of these books. A lot of times I've talked to school librarians
that order books through lists that they depended on historically,
and so they haven't read every single book that they've allowed into.
The library takes kind of all hands on deck. And when it comes to
what's our Children, especially our youngest Children are being exposed
to parents need to have a voice in that conversation.
Kelly. What would you say to that This argument that parents feel
like they've been left out? Shouldn't they have a say in their kids
education have always had a say in their education. They've always
had the right to up their Children out of lessons out of readings
that they don't feel appropriate for the students. Um, it's always
been a right that they've had what the argument that they're trying
to make. Now is that
Professionals who use professional tools to determine materials that
are appropriate for students are not
Useful tools for determining what should or should not be in a library
or classroom. And the argument is that
Librarians and educators can't rely on these tools that are created
and sustained by professionals in education and library in ship in
child develop development and should instead listen to parents who
are trying to undermine the professionals in the professional institutions
of education and librarian ship. So we're now seeing these issues
show up in our elections specifically in school board elections today
in Florida, but also elsewhere. Tell me about that. What are we seeing?
So in Florida. It's been going on for about a year. Now that there's
been this real push to get conservative voices on school boards and
in Florida and most other states. Texas is a great example. Um, outside
Dallas.
It had a number of challenges in the last year, and during that year
number of books were considered appropriate for for the classrooms
and libraries, so they stayed on shelf. We just saw that they pulled
all those titles again in the last couple of weeks because the new
school board, which was put together by very conservative Pac organization
there decided that they need to re review all these titles so
Whatever decisions the previous school board made are now considered
not the right decision to make. And so this new group of people who
have been put in there purposefully, um with very long, um you know,
conservative ties. Conservative money are able to then make new determinations
about the books that are in the schools. In that case, you know,
that's where they pulled the Bible. That's where they've pulled.
The Diary of Anne Frank, the graphic novel, which got a lot of attention
in the last couple of weeks for
For those titles that everyone knows. Um and it's familiar with being
pulled again from the schools and fair to say, I think an issue will
come up.
In election after election moving forward that is Kelli Jennsen,
editor of the literary site book Riot and former librarian. Thanks