Book Bans Exposed: Who Decides What Students Can Read? (Ep. 10)
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Episode Notes
In 2021-22, 138 school districts in 32 states banned more than 2500 books, affecting close to 4 million students. according to EdWeek. In some cases, books are removed because they are deemed by some to be pornographic. In other cases, book bans were prompted by themes considered inappropriate by local decision-makers. Forty-one percent of the books removed from school libraries last year contained LGBTQ characters. Books with prominent characters of color accounted for 40% of the books banned by local school boards.
Can people with opposing views on this highly contentious issue listen to one another, have a civil conversation, and even find some common ground? Listen in and find out.
Featured Guests:
Alvin Lui
President, Courage Is A Habit
Indiana
Alvin Lui, President of Courage Is A Habit, calls himself a “political refugee” from California. He moved his family to the mid-west only to encounter some of the same polarizing ideologies that he sees spreading across the country. Courage Is A Habit offers actionable strategies for parents, school board candidates, and legislators who want to defend children against indoctrination in America’s K-12 schools.
Summer Crow
Parent and Part-Time Substitute Teacher
Fort Worth, Texas
Summer Crow is a part-time substitute teacher, and a mother of 3 children who attend K-12 schools. She received a Bachelor in Finance degree from Texas A&M University and pursued a successful business consulting career before becoming a stay-at-home mom and community volunteer. In 2021, a teacher and fellow parent alerted her to the sexual content contained in some school library books and school-issued eReaders. As she started to dig further, she found many books with content that she believed was shockingly sexual and explicit. She launched the website, Between The Book Covers, to inform parents about the books students have access to.
The board of trustees in her local school district, recently established Library Content Guidelines to define further what content is appropriate for various age groups within their schools. Crow now plans to help school districts across the country adopt similar policies and to require book publishers to use content warning labels, similar to those used with movies, video games, and TV shows.
Abigail Harris
Senior in Highschool at the Alliance Academy for Innovation in Forsyth County
Cumming, GA
Featured in Teen Vogue
Harris is the Forsyth County Outreach Lead for the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, a legislative intern for Representative Sandra Scott of GA's 76th District. I also intern at the Forsyth County School's Teaching and Learning Department.
Nancy Vera
Educator and Past President of the Corpus Christi Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers
Corpus Christi, Texas
Dr. Vera has been a classroom teacher for over 30 years and has taught English/language arts, speech/communication, and drama. She earned a doctorate in education with an emphasis in Corpus Christi Mexican-American history from Texas A&M.
About the Show:
Courageous Conversations About Our Schools is a podcast that brings people together for respectful conversations about today’s most contentious issues affecting our schools.
Host, Ken Futernick
Dr. Futernick hosts the podcast, Courageous Conversations About Our Schools, and Teacher Stories, a podcast that celebrates the profound and lasting impact many teachers have on their students and communities.
He began his career as an elementary teacher near Sacramento, earned his MA and Ph.D. degrees in education at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as a faculty member at California State University, Sacramento, for twenty-two years. As a professor of education, he taught courses to new and veteran teachers and conducted research on teacher retention, educational policy, and pre-service teacher education programs.