The Largest School District in Texas is Taking Book Censorship to an Unbelievable Extreme

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ndependent School District will surely remember Miles’s disastrous tenure as superintendent of DISD from 2012 to 2015, a polarizing era which saw many longtime teachers leave and standardized testing scores remain flat.His actions since taking over at HISD have been no less polarizing, especially since these closures are happening in some of the city’s poorest schools. The libraries will be converted into the so-called Team Centers where, according to <a href="https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2023/07/26/hisd-to-eliminate-librarians-turn-libraries-into-discipline-centers-at-28-campuses/">a story from Houston news station KRPC</a>, “kids with behavioral issues will be sent.” Protests from parents have, thus far, been completely ignored.There is no question that academic performance of HISD students has been unacceptable for some time now, and there have been numerous allegations of misconduct by school trustees; that something had to be done was not in dispute. However, the idea that the best way to help raise students’ reading scores is to eliminate school libraries is clearly not a step in the right direction. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/us/texas-houston-schools-libraries-takeover.html#:~:text=As%20part%20of%20a%20state,to%20watch%20lessons%20on%20computers.&text=Sign%20Up%20for%20the%20Education,the%20latest%20U.S.%20education%20news.">reported</a> by The New York Times, one parent protesting outside HISD headquarters held a sign that says it all: “”Even prisons have libraries.”If you are wondering how this ties into my first paragraph about the ongoing issue of censorship and book banning in schools across the s

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tate, consider this. Houston is one of the most liberal cities in Texas and the HISD would normally push back most strongly against the state’s new policies on what books are “appropriate.” Even with Miles in place, there would be significant battles with parents and librarians over the banning of books. Far easier to eliminate all of the books, like a Colombian cartel blowing up a jetliner to kill one person on board.It may even be more nefarious than simply the desire to ban books. It can surely be no coincidence that the 28 schools whose libraries will be turned into de-facto detention centers are in the poorest areas of the city, both economically and with regard to access to books (one teacher called them “reading deserts”). And given the fact that Superintendent Miles is the founder of a charter school network, there seems to be a conflict of interest at the very top. The assault on public schools in Texas has been ratcheted up a notch.Some might say I’m overreacting and that I should give the new administration time to show if its New Education System will improve the education of the kids in Houston. To that I say this: education is never improved by closing libraries, regardless of the reason. As Ray Bradbury famously <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4959-you-don-t-have-to-burn-books-to-destroy-a-culture">said</a>: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this story, you can support my writing directly by leaving a tip below using the small (and kind of weird) hand icon (you tip waiters and bartenders, so why not writers?).</article></body>

How have we come to this?

I’ve written several times before about the ongoing effort to censor books in my home state of Texas, including the legislature’s accidental banning of the Bible. In an article back in April, I said that the state had reached a new low in these efforts; over the past few weeks, I was proved wrong. As part of the State’s takeover of the Houston Independent School District due to ongoing poor academic performance, it was announced that libraries in 28 of the 85 schools that are now part of a new reform program within the district will be converted into “Team Centers” (what we called the detention room when I was in school) and that the librarians at these schools will be out of a job. The remaining 57 schools will continue to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, which almost certainly means more libraries will be eliminated.

This draconian action was initiated by HISD’s new state-appointed superintendent, Mike Miles, in what is called the New Education System (NES) program. Folks with children in the Dallas Independent School District will surely remember Miles’s disastrous tenure as superintendent of DISD from 2012 to 2015, a polarizing era which saw many longtime teachers leave and standardized testing scores remain flat.

His actions since taking over at HISD have been no less polarizing, especially since these closures are happening in some of the city’s poorest schools. The libraries will be converted into the so-called Team Centers where, according to a story from Houston news station KRPC, “kids with behavioral issues will be sent.” Protests from parents have, thus far, been completely ignored.

There is no question that academic performance of HISD students has been unacceptable for some time now, and there have been numerous allegations of misconduct by school trustees; that something had to be done was not in dispute. However, the idea that the best way to help raise students’ reading scores is to eliminate school libraries is clearly not a step in the right direction. As reported by The New York Times, one parent protesting outside HISD headquarters held a sign that says it all: “”Even prisons have libraries.”

If you are wondering how this ties into my first paragraph about the ongoing issue of censorship and book banning in schools across the state, consider this. Houston is one of the most liberal cities in Texas and the HISD would normally push back most strongly against the state’s new policies on what books are “appropriate.” Even with Miles in place, there would be significant battles with parents and librarians over the banning of books. Far easier to eliminate all of the books, like a Colombian cartel blowing up a jetliner to kill one person on board.

It may even be more nefarious than simply the desire to ban books. It can surely be no coincidence that the 28 schools whose libraries will be turned into de-facto detention centers are in the poorest areas of the city, both economically and with regard to access to books (one teacher called them “reading deserts”). And given the fact that Superintendent Miles is the founder of a charter school network, there seems to be a conflict of interest at the very top. The assault on public schools in Texas has been ratcheted up a notch.

Some might say I’m overreacting and that I should give the new administration time to show if its New Education System will improve the education of the kids in Houston. To that I say this: education is never improved by closing libraries, regardless of the reason. As Ray Bradbury famously said: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this story, you can support my writing directly by leaving a tip below using the small (and kind of weird) hand icon (you tip waiters and bartenders, so why not writers?).