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From: Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Books Banned in Utah.
Date: 14 Aug 2024 01:14:29 GMT
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On 2024-08-12, Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:
> Chris Buckley  <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
> Education is highly valued in Utah, with its large Mormon
>>population. Reading and books get a lot of attention.  Note that Utah
>>is almost all public school education, it ranks 49th in private school
>>percentage (3% versus 9% nationally), so it's not because of the
>>Mormon equivalent of parochial schools.
>
> This is true, but it should be pointed out that curriculum in Utah is a
> little bit different than what you might expect in the rest of the country.
>
>>Your arguments, with these additional fun facts, seem to imply that we
>>should be trying to emulate Utah.  They get a lot of bang for their
>>buck! 
>
> This is true and it basically shows that the value of education has more
> to do with what students put into it than what the institution puts into
> it.  This is as true in grade school as in college.
>
>> (I personally don't believe we should emulate Utah's rather
>>silly state ban law. Ability to ban books in grade school libraries is
>>necessary, but it should only be done at the local level, not any
>>higher level, IMO.)
>
> It should be done by librarians.  Not by the school board, not by the PTA,
> not by the city council.  Selection of books should be done by librarians
> because that is their job.
> --scott

This is directly contradicted by the whole theory of education of
children in this country. The public school system is built around
local control of the schools, not governmental control. The states set
broad policy, but it is the directly elected, non-governmental, local
school boards that set the local policy, implement policy, and hire all
the educators, including librarians.

What do you think the responsibilities of the school board are? I
admit for some large school districts it's hard to distinguish them
from government (my local school district has a budget of 3.3 Billion
dollars), but they are the ones designated to be in control of what
gets done in the schools.

School librarians are down in the hierarchy under the local school
boards, which is where they should be. They do not set policy.

Chris