A Fuse #8 Production
Tag: school libraries
Fighting Public School Book Bans with the Civil Rights Act
The First Amendment is a crucial defense against book bans, particularly those targeting LGBTQ+ stories, critical race theory, and BIPOC authors. However, schools often navigate around these protections through "educational discretion." Beyond the First Amendment, the Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act's Title VI and IX provide avenues to challenge bans based on race and sex discrimination. A notable case in Georgia's Forsyth County School District demonstrates how these civil rights statutes can combat bans, offering a more direct path to restoring banned books. This approach highlights the importance of considering discriminatory impacts over intent in the fight against book bans, providing a potentially more effective strategy for upholding students' rights to information.
Parsing Religion in Public Schools
The First Amendment's Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses create a constitutional balance: the government cannot establish a state religion nor impede individual religious practices. This delicate equilibrium has posed challenges for public schools, which must remain religiously neutral while not infringing upon personal religious expression. Historical Supreme Court rulings have defined this balance by prohibiting school-led religious activities, while recent decisions have leaned towards protecting individual religious expressions, such as personal prayer, even in public school settings.
Engaging Parents in the Future of School Libraries
Parents play a crucial role in the ecosystem of school libraries. Their advocacy, support, and involvement are often key to securing the budget to maintain and expand library services. Engaging parents effectively means communicating the multifaceted value of the library not just to individual students but to the entire school community.
More Recent Posts
Elevating the Visibility of School Library Programs Through Social Proof
Empower your school library advocacy through the power of social proofs. Discover how endorsements drive coalitions and funding success.
Complex Perceptions of School Libraries and Librarians
The EveryLibrary Institute NFP and Book Riot conducted a series of surveys in late 2023 to investigate parents’ perceptions of school libraries and school librarians in the United States. The surveys were comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics such as the importance of school librarians, access to books, parental involvement in education and reading, […]
Prioritizing State-Level Coordinators for School Library Programs
What would the school library landscape look like if every state Department of Education prioritized a full-time staff role to champion the needs of school librarians and school library programs? According to our colleagues from the SLIDE project, only 13 states have full-time coordinators who support school librarians employed by their state departments of […]
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Making the Case for School Libraries. Are You up to Date on the Research?
Schools that have high-quality library programs and library staff benefit the entire student body. Student achievement improves when care and consideration is put into a library’s collection, staffing, and funding. A 2012 longitudinal literacy study completed by Dr. Stephen Krashen, an international linguistics scholar, and his colleagues Christy Lao, Sy-ying Lee, and Jeff McQuillan, looked […]
Pre-Session Legislative Advocacy
In light of the 2023 legislative session, state school library associations should consider reframing their legislative strategies and shift focus to the pre-session or intersession period as a way to engage electeds outside of the intensity of the regular session. Education policy and funding are largely set at the state level. State school library associations […]
Who Writes the Rules in Your State?
Post-legislative advocacy is an essential component of the education policy process, particularly when it comes to rulemaking in states. Your state school library association should anticipate involvement in implementation and rules-making as a core component of post-legislative advocacy. Being involved in rulemaking can help to mitigate the impact of a bad bill on the profession, […]
The Value of Field Candidate Surveys
State school library associations can play a key role in shaping your state’s educational policy landscape. Your influence should stretch beyond the profession into the educational ecosystem. As the 2024 state legislative and school board primaries approach, it’s essential for state library associations to take an independent, proactive approach to pre-legislative advocacy. One useful technique […]
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