Texas lawmaker wants to know what books on race, sexuality are in schools
texastribune.org
texastribune.org
This is a list of books which a member of Texas House of Representatives (Matt Krause) has inquired about from the Texas Education Agency (supposedly at least in part with respect to Texas's version of the "no critical race theory in schools" laws).
He’s not just casually inquiring the Texas Education Agency, he’s burdening school districts on this wild goose chase which is most likely a political stunt in his campaign for Texas Attorney General.
Quote from the article you linked. I can’t imagine how much time it would take to track this information down for all 850 books on his list, and how these resources would be better spent on actual useful tasks for the school districts.
“Krause informs districts they must provide the committee with the number of copies they have of each book, on what part of campus those books are located and how much money schools spent on the books, as well as information on any other book that violates House Bill 3979, the so-called “critical race theory law”designed to limit how race-related subjects are taught in public schools.”
I also changed the title to the article's HTML doc title, in case anyone wonders.
Just like reading Mine Kampf is not banned in the Netherlands (or Germany). Stores however are not allowed to sell it (Dutch Government has the rights to the Dutch translation so disallowing reprints is easy). But even then; I can download the PDF on the net without issues. And I can read it. I can even sell an old copy of the book (if I had one) without repercussions.
Not that you'd ever want to read it. Mussolini famously gave up on finishing it. Even in nazi germany it was always more of a symbol, a book you buy in support of its author and proudly present on your shelf - not read.
But no. The 2015 annotated edition was released by the Institut für Zeigeschichte under critical acclaim. Its annotations are (rough translation mine):
> A critical commentary that deconstructs and contextualizes Hitler's work. How did his assumptions come into being? Which goals was he trying to accomplish by these? Where his claims supported by by his contemporaries in society? Which consequences did his announcements have after 1933? And above all, how can Hitler's myriad of claims, lies, and policy goals be countered by our current understanding?
Not sure how relevant this still is given the Internet.
So, if these schools are unable to teach these materials appropriately, maybe it should be left to other institutions that can. There is real corruption going on and parents are angry about what their kids are being taught. Some schools need to reform how they teach these topics and they are completely unwilling to do so without political pressure.
This is a straw man. Teaching history is important but teaching all history through the lens of oppressor/oppressed is problematic. Many parents' rightly object to ideologically-driven teachings where white children are singled-out and taught that they are oppressors of all other children.
Ah, yes, so let's leave it up to conservative Texan parents, a group famous for being willing to teach "neutrality, openness, or critical thinking".
If you are seriously trying to contribute constructively to the problem I outlined, then I think you must (a) acknowledge there is a problem, and (b) acknowledge these institutions are set up in a way to make reform difficult. (c) Figure out ways to solve it.
What is the recourse to parents who think this is a legitimate problem? They must engage in a political process, which currently involves hyper partisanship. What's going on is crazy. The federal government painted parents as domestic terrorists for their legitimate concerns surrounding schools. We are going to see more of these hyper partisan tactics until we figure out better ways to reform our corrupt institutions.
Let's not forget both sides are not impervious to racist behaviors. "White liberals dumb themselves down when they speak to black people, a new study contends." https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/30/white-liber...
What recourse should parents have when they're upset that their children are being taught to be better people than they are, and don't like it?
> Let's not forget both sides are not impervious to racist behaviors.
What is the relevance of this at all?
> What is the relevance of this at all?
You brought it up.
So some obscene book (think the worst parts of pornhub coupled with the worst parts of erotic fanfiction) should be in primary schools?
While Texas State Representative Matt Krause's attempt to limit exposure these books is politically misguided and dangerous, we're not talking about books not being allowed to be read. We're talking about schools not being allowed to have the books in their libraries.
> But even then; I can download the PDF on the net without issues. And I can read it. I can even sell an old copy of the book (if I had one) without repercussions.
Students in Texas could also do all of these things, even if these books were banned from school libraries. If this nonsense goes through, the best way to address it in the short term would be to increase kid's exposure to the list and suggest it as a reading list. Kids are naturally curious about 'banned' things. All they really even need to do is read the titles of the books in the list and they'll get a good idea of what makes conservatives in TX scared.
My opinion is that the books school boards pre-select for students to be part of their curriculum, should be from a carefully selected list of books.
In general, it should not include newly published books, but rather ones that have survived the test of time by remaining relevant over decades/centuries/millenia.
If you look at the list, the books being questioned are published within the last 0 to 10 years. Books so new they have not gained scientific or scholarly acceptance or review. Many are likely transient pieces which follow the latest media fashion.
It would be analogous to teaching organic chemistry students with anecdotal papers on Ivermectin. Teach kids the foundational fundamentals, and then let them explore whatever they want on their own as they mature. Feeding them agenda-driven narrative-supporting books is just a mechanism of indoctrination - not education.
Unfortunately just like putting "democratic" in your country name - if you have to put "freedom" in your name it's a good sign you are going for anything but.
Some State Rep has inquired about these, so is true that it's plausible that some of the books in the list may be targeted in the future, but that hasn't happened yet.
It's quite literally a list of targeted books.
Link to the inquiry: https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/965725d7f01b8a25...
EDIT: I learned of one instance of books already being "temporarily" removed by a school board [1] triggered by this inquiry.
[1]: https://www.granburyisd.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&Dom...
+ Remove them from their shelves, and send a letter saying they do not have the books available. This is the cheaper/easier option, and several schools have already opted to do so.
+ Make a count of all the books, provide location information about the storage of the book, including its exact geographic location on their campus, and trawl their records to determine precisely how much they spent on each of the books in an itemised manner [0], and send a report detailing all of this.
[0] Schools receive books generally in either donations, or in groupings that are not itemised, making determining the cost of an individual copy of a book extremely difficult. That's before you get to poor financial record keeping that is also rife in school libraries.
Do you have a source reporting that schools are actually removing books in response to this particular inquiry? It seems that they shouldn't be. (I am aware of other instances of books being explicitly removed from school libraries or curricula by the school boards.)
What makes me skeptical is that I'm not sure in what situation physically removing a bunch of books from the shelves would be cheaper/easier than retrieving records about them.
Schools don't buy individual books. They buy packages. Those packages are not itemised, and the receipts don't list which individual books you received, just the number of titles in what genres. The people sending the packages don't have that information either.
You make a purchase, and get a guarantee of N titles, in X genres. The warehouse pulls down N titles, in X genres, with varying numbers of each individual title, and then sends that out. The individual titles come from the publisher under wholesale costs, so individual purchases aren't tracked.
The exact costs are further complicated by other discounts that may be applied. Seasonal discounts for different genres, some places will give you discounts if you return covers of damaged books (as proof of destruction), etc.
The records requested may literally not exist, and require the school to compare when entries appeared in their tracking system, as compared to when a purchase was made and received, reverse-engineering those costs.
I found an example of what you were referring to though (thanks to @shankr linking to a relevant Twitter thread). [1]
[1]: https://www.granburyisd.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&Dom...
I believe it makes sense for them to be banned from being mandatory, but school libraries should still be able to carry them.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/12/20/texas-library-books/
I totally agree with you!
"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills, critical thinking skills and similar programs..."
So I'm not surprised that they oppose anything to do with a decent education, like a different point of view, but have no problem promoting a book that encourages slavery, rape, genocide, and misogyny.
Reference: http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Pla...
"Women's rights - Justin Karr
Neil Gaiman's reaction on Twitter sums it up nicely:
> There's only one kind of people who would vote to ban Maus, whatever they are calling themselves these days.²
1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/27/tennessee-scho...
2: https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1486473393075802112
The last time I remember people prominently burning books in mainstream conciousness was the Nazis, including irreplacable knowledge like the IfS library by Magnus Hirschfeld.
The notion is so widespread among the right, Dave Rubin named his entire book after it. I have not seen anyone actually try to burn it, even though it is barely worth the paper it is printed on in my humble opinion (and the opinion of most critics).
Unless you want to include edgy atheists burning holy books, but that is provocation and not an attempt at censorship.
What's actually important is that none of the above fit well within contemporary US-centric understandings of "left" and "right". I say US-centric because some people center-left in the US would be considered center-right where I live - this is how fragile this dicotomy is.
From my outside the us perspective, both sides look psychotic right now. Or maybe psychopatic? Or both?
- 1984 by George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair) -- what evil looks like
- The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius -- the "theory" of a good life
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig -- the "practice" of a good life
ZAMM can be optionally replaced or supplemented by Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Robert Bach.
At some point you have read the instructive books you needed to read and solidified the principles you want to live by. Anything after that is whimsical personal recreation, raising the question why we waste money forcing children to do it. Because English teachers believe their little hobby deserves a larger audience?
A random selection of humanities books I enjoyed in middle and high school, which you might enjoy and/or learn from:
Guns, Germs and Steel
The Art of War
A People's History of the United States
The Prince
Catch-22
Like, it raises questions of what other classical monuments you are unaware of. Cicero? Ovid? Plutarch?
I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter.
As someone who is well-educated in the humanities, do you believe that most people receive a thorough and effective education? Why did you find it worthwhile to say that Cicero/Ovid/Plutarch are obscure for them?
Alternatively, it is surprising that someone like yourself, with some baseline of a humanities education, has dedicated time to learning about an author of light whimsy ahead of an author of a readable, relevant, extremely thoroughly time-tested, and influential work of moral philosophy. Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the embodiment of the title of philosopher king, and a lot of people would benefit from reading him.
Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams - what evil really looks like
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail - the "theory" of a good life
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - the "practice" of a good life
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings can be optionally replaced by Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
But note that none of your picks appear on that list of 850 books they're banning in Texas.