On this edition of Your Call, we speak with teachers who are fighting back against Republican policies to ban books and whitewash US history.
At least 25 states have enacted laws that will make it easier to remove books from school libraries, ban certain lessons on race, gender and sexuality, and limit the rights of transgender students, according to a Washington Post analysis.
What is their end game? Dr. Maurice T. Cunningham, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, told Salon: "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind — zero — that what groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education are doing is structural and aimed at the destruction and ultimate privatization of America's public school system. These groups are communications operations and highly networked into The Daily Caller, Breitbart [and] Fox News. They have gotten educators fired and attacked online. They want to create chaos to destroy trust in public education and draw funding away."
Guests:
Ben Hodge, teacher for over 20 years, artistic director for the Central York High School Performing Arts program in York, Pennsylvania, and founder and faculty advisor of the Panther Anti-Racist Union
Adam Tritt, AP English teacher at Bayside High School in Melbourne, Florida, founding director of Foundation 451, and author of several fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books
Jesse Hagopian, teacher for over 20 years, organizer with the Zinn Education Project, editor for the social justice periodical Rethinking Schools, co-editor of Black Lives Matter at School, Teaching for Black Lives, and Teachers Union and Social Justice, and author of the forthcoming book, Teach Truth: The Attack on Critical Race Theory and The Struggle for Anti-Racist Education
Web Resources:
The Guardian: US conservatives linked to rich donors wage campaign to ban books from schools
Al Jazeera: How teachers and librarians are subverting book bans in the US
NBC: Schools banned books about Black life. Black kids are reading anyway.
Education Week: What Happened When Students Led Fights to Reverse Book Bans
Ed Post: My Students Overturned a Book Ban, You Can Too
Media Matters: The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story that platforms the conservative war on education
