Warm up the bribes.

Remove all ads!

What about the KKK author-guy crucis hypothesized, btw? Does his innocent children's book get equal consideration from the school board?

 

As long as it doesn't say fun stuff like 'Niggers are worth less than White men' and has unproblematic content there is no reason why it shouldn't. Another criterion would be whether it is predictable that it will bog down the school council over predictable complaints by irate parents over the reading material. In such a case it might not be worth it and the school might be better served with another book.

 

Fair enough, but what if the hypothetical Marxist guy's book (and I know he wasn't actually the Marxist guy) caused predictable complaints by irate parents over the reading material? In that case, would the board be allowed to excercise discretion?

 

How about we let the teachers decide? This is what I mean about politics in our schools - when people demand that the KKK should be considered in our schools.

 

Perhaps. But considering the absence of protests during the time the book was used the assertion that that would be the case is hardly credible.

 

Those days are gone. How long has it been since you were in second grade? And by the way, some of the titles you listed have been banned in the past.

Nevertheless, I think that reading list has not changed much, since that looks like a HS reading list and not second grade. When I was recruited by a local district here, I specifically asked them for a list of books that they were teachng, and what I would be expected to teach, but that was at the HS level (a job I eventually turned down) and it looked as if most of those titles were still there, iirc. But that's been a few years.

 

I would assume that since he didn't actually write that book, there would be no reason for any protests whatsoever, regardless of whether people would be inclined to protest a Marxist author in that situation. Otherwise though, shouldn't it be absolutely instead of perhaps? If not, isn't the board behaving arbitrarily?

 

Indeed, perhaps absolutely is better.

 

Ragusa, I think you're missing something basic here. The article strongly shows that this wasn't a conservative witch-hunt for the 'evil communists', but rather a desperate attempt to shorten an overly long list. From this I take it as a given that all the books on the list already met all reasonable criteria (otherwise they wouldn't be so desperate to shorten it) and that the list needed to be shortened further. Given those two, how would you suggest shortening the list? And please, answer this one.

So... you have no problem with a Creationist science teacher teaching from a text-book on Intelligent Design? It's exactly for issues like that that we have such boards.

Yeah, anything by Dickens should be banned, as should Ethan Frome. Forcing children to read those books is cruel and unusual punishment.

 

I agree, NOG. The point of such boards is to support common standards throughout a community (or a state, in this case).

Furthermore, it should be remembered that the point of this board (IIRC) is to produce a common standard so that its constituent school regions can buy the books in bulk so that they can get lower prices. That would not be possible if every single teacher was picking his/her own preferred book lists. If you're going to use this sort of bulk purchasing, there is no choice but to have some sort of board deciding what books are on the list and which ones aren't. I have little doubt that teachers contribute suggestions for non-textbook literature, which is certainly appropriate. But I also think that it makes sense for parents to have the final say, thru their representatives on this school textbook board. And if those parents collectively feel that (for example) Catcher in the Rye is inappropriate, IMHO, it's their right to decide (thru the board, of course) that it shouldn't be on the books to be purchased.

 

Your notions of what should be taught are fine if all a student wants is a HSD. But why not offer a two-tiered approach? One for students who want a more serious education and those who just want the diploma? A student is going to hit some of those titles anyway once he or she gets to college. It will be much tougher for a student to appear ignorant of the classics (like Catcher in the Rye) in a higher level of education.

And I have no problem with ID and Evolution being taught side-by-side as long as it is not required, just as advanced clases in literature may not be required for students who are not going on to college.

 

Of course that wasn't a witch hunt. It was one one members erroneous and silly idea that found his fellow member's approval.

Whatever they were actually intending to do - shorting the list, getting more books on it, modernising the list - they still did it in a way exceeding their allowed discretion by applying irrelevant and arbitrary criteria. It doesn't matter whether they did or did not achieve a desired result, like shorting the list. They could also have achieved that by rolling dice, or by striking all titles starting with the letter B, and then it would still be flawed, even though the list would be shorter.

That a desired result comes out in the end doesn't cure procedural and material flaws.

It's like with acquiring nice things. To be allowed to keep them, you need to buy them.

 

And these are the incompetent bureaucrats who are supposed to be deciding which books our children are "supposed" to be reading? Good luck!

 

Just making sure. At times you've sounded like you thought it was.

This arguement is perfect and flawless if you can prove that the Board's authority was so limited. It may be in Germany, I'm not sure, but I honestly doubt it is in Texas. If they were allowed to select books on their own criteria, they can use any criteria they want, including luck of the dice, alphabetical prominence, or ideological connection.

In short, though, it seems to me that you would rather have the Department of Education go broke buying too many books than have a board trim the list down by any non-standard criteria. Am I right?

 

PreS: To add to the 'witchhunt' - the case suggests that the other board members have been sympathetic to the ideas of Mr. Hardy to apply ideological criteria. It suggests that in a more permissive political climate they would probably be inclined to witchunt i.e. apply such criteria generally.

It probably is. But I have already suggested you put your google skills to some good use ... consider that you could find certainty AND prove me wrong!

Probably not; I doubt that a long list doesn't equal buying more books. Usually school book lists mean that teachers can choose from (only) the list, not that the schools do have to buy all those books.

 

I just figured a lawyer would be better at looking up law than a layman. My first and last place to look is Google, whereas I guessed you may know of some sites that may actually talk about this in specific.

That being said, while on Google, I found this:

Interestingly, it also said:

Emphasis mine. So, the quesiton now is whether your 'denial of market' arguement applies if the BoE is only giving a recomendation. If any school is free to buy any book they want, and they just tend to follow the BoE's recomendation, doesn't that mean the book in question still has access to the same market, even now?

I also didn't realize how regularly heated the debates over textbooks got in Texas. That was from a case in 2004 where the debate was over an environmental science textbook, als over 1st Amendment issues. Further research showed that the courts found that the Board of Education ruling was "government speech"
Here:

Furthermore, from the same article, it looks like the Supreme Court ruled that the government may “regulate the content of what is or is not expressed when it is the speaker or when it enlists private entities to convey its own message.” So, it looks like your idea has been tried, and denied.

EDIT: Do you find it odd that, despite the constant arguements to the contrary in atheism/religion debates, here it is the negative position (that something isn't there) to which you assign the burden of proof?

 

Just briefly, because I have some really, really important business to attend to, two things:

#1: The list isn't forcing schools to buy all the books on it, so your previous cost argument "longer list = more costs" obviously doesn't fly.

#2: The schools can choose from then list i.e. don't have to buy all the books on the list, emphasis mine. With great probability they can choose only from the list, but must not buy books that are not on the list.

The State Board of Education work would be a little pointless if the product of their deliberations was just a non-binding recommendation. Then they could as well just sit out in the desert smoking pot, at taxpayer's expense.

 

I assumed cost was the issue simply because they were cutting down the list. The fact that they were looking for names to cut off the list is, well, a fact. There may have been another reason for why they did it, but I don't know what.

As for #2, where did you get this? The article I linked specifically said

Not "no school is required to buy all the books", but "no school is required to buy the books", which implied 'any', rather than 'all'. You'll have to support that if you want to claim it.

BTW, enjoy ME2!