The Central York school board banned a long list of books and videos about race, racism, and diversity. Days ago, responding to protests by students, parents, and teachers, the board voted unanimously to lift the ban.
This censorship is in keeping with the current effort by Republicans to label teaching about racism to be teaching “critical race theory” that makes white students feel guilty and uncomfortable.
A Pennsylvania school district that had banned a list of anti-racism books and educational resources by or about people of color — including children’s titles about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. — reversed its nearly year-long decision this week after backlash and protests from students, parents and educators in the community.
The Central York School District had implemented “a freeze” last fall on a lengthy list of books and educational resources that focused almost entirely on titles related to people of color. The school district claimed the books on race and social justice, which some in the southern Pennsylvania community hoped would help bolster the educational curriculum following George Floyd’s murder and the racial-justice protests of 2020, were frozen, not banned, after some parents raised concerns about the materials.
The school board announced Monday it had voted unanimously to reinstate access to the books, district spokeswoman Julie Randall Romig confirmed to The Washington Post.
Jane Johnson, president of the school board, said in a statement that the review of the anti-racist materials had “taken far too long.” The all-White school board had taken months to vet books and materials such as children’s titles on Parks and King, education activist Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography, the Oscar-nominated PBS documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” about writer James Baldwin and CNN’s “Sesame Street” town hall on racism.
Johnson previously noted that some parents in the district “believe that rather than uniting on diversity, certain resources polarize and divide on diversity and are based on disputed theories and facts…”
Students at Central York High School had denounced and protested the ban, saying their “thoughts are being invalidated.” Students organized demonstrations over consecutive days this month in response to the district’s inaction toward reversing the ban…
In November, the school board “unanimously approved a decision to freeze the use of these resources” pending a review, Johnson said.
A Twitter account named Central York Banned Book Club compiled a lengthy list of every book and resource that had been prohibited by the district. “The copy is tiny because the list is massive,” the account tweeted Sunday. @cybannedbooks
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please be aware that the school district involved in this controversy is the Central York School District, NOT the York City School District.
I fixed that.
I couldn’t get the link above to work but hopefully this one will. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/09/24/pennsylvania-school-book-ban-diversity/
Sad
Why sad? The students and other community members fought back and got a unanimous reversal by the school board of the ban. The ship was righted.
“The document offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a well-financed conservative campaign to undermine regulations that health authorities say are necessary to contain the coronavirus. The frustration of many parents who want a greater say is deeply felt, school superintendents say. But their anger is also being fueled by organized activists whose influence is ordinarily veiled.
Both are nonprofits once touted by their board chairman and CEO, Heather Higgins, as part of a unique tool in the “Republican conservative arsenal” because, “Being branded as neutral but actually having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position.”
Higgins, an heiress to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, did not respond to a request for comment.
Tributes to sponsors prepared for recent galas — and reviewed by The Post — recognize the Charles Koch Institute as a major benefactor. Other backers include Facebook; Dick DeVos, heir to the Amway fortune and the husband of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos; and the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropy controlled by the family that founded Walmart.”
There’s an awful lot of connections between ed reform funders and the funders of these anti-mask and anti “ciritical race theory” groups- DeVos, Koch, Wal Mart and Facebook.
Are ed reformers ever going to address this? Do they agree with this? They are funded by the same organizations and billionaires.
How can ed reformers continue to claim they are not aligned with the Koch, DeVos, Walton and Facebook ideological agenda when the ed reform “movement” is funded by the same people and organizations?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/01/masks-schools-koch-money/
It seems like these ideological mask fights and anti-“crt” fights would offer an opportunity for ed reform groups to clarify their position on “parent choice”
What does the ed reform slogan of “parent choice” encompass? Does it mean the loudest and best funded parents direct everything that happens in a public school? Does it mean public schools can’t have rules unless a small group of parents approve the rules?
How can public schools function in a community if “parent choice” means everyone demands their own rules, fashioned only to serve their individual child?
The “parent choice” claims of ed reformers are incoherent and inconsistent with the community role of public schools. There are thousands of paid ed reform theorists. Shouldn’t they have to clarify their theory and explain how it co-exists with public schools in the real world, or do they just get a pass on that?
Should a small minority of parents have the power to ban books they don’t like? I’d say no.
A more interesting question is should a majority of parents have the power to ban books they don;t like. I am curious how people here would answer that question.
That is an interesting question. My answer would be no. I trust the teachers and school librarians to make the right decisions.
That’s a really good question. I think if a large majority of parents were pushing to ban a book or something in the curriculum and it went against what the teachers, admin and school board felt – a member of the state board of education would need to get involved.
Say for example (this would never happen – just an extreme example) the admin, board and teachers in a small community had books and materials in the curriculum that were for something extreme (like pro guns) and parents intervened?
D — there are 14 school districts in York county PA; the only one this controversy applies to is the CENTRAL York district, not to be confused with the York City district (where I once taught) or the York Suburban district (from which I graduated many, many years ago, or a dozen others with “York” in their name. The distinction is important because each district has its own education philosophy and politics. M
e.g., https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-school-districts/c/york-county-pa/
Max McConkey Tucson, Arizona
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