Texas Board Of Education Refuses To Adopt American Library Association’s Anti-Parent Policies

Parents concerned about left-wing agendas in their kids’ classrooms won election to the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) last year and successfully rejected anti-parent library policies earlier this month. In a 10-5 vote, conservative board members overwhelmingly rejected the inclusion of several American Library Association (ALA) policies in the state’s librarian certification requirements.

The ALA has a long history of circumventing parental rights to fill local and school library shelves with pornographic, racist, and leftist propaganda. The certification board specifically asked the SBOE to rubber-stamp several references to the ALA’s ethics and privacy policies in Chapter 19 of the Texas Administrative Code.

Protecting Parental Rights

Several conservatives on the SBOE firmly opposed the use of the national association’s educator guidelines because the ALA’s policies contradict explicit protections for parents in current state code. According to the Texas Education Code, “a parent is entitled to full information regarding the school activities of a parent’s child.”

“I’m a policymaker, in public education, but I’m also a parent,” veteran board member Will Hickman said to his colleagues during their general meeting in mid-April. “And for me, the parents have the right to see what their children are learning, what their children are doing. I have one daughter who’s 18 so I’ve just lost all those rights. But until my kids turn 18, I get to oversee what they’re doing and their education.”

Expertise vs. Parental Rights

Some SBOE members had no problem with the ALA’s continued hostility towards parental oversight. Board member Marisa Perez-Diaz said, “The ALA is a nationally respected institution and so those individuals are subject matter experts. I just want us to consider: We would never step into an operating room and tell doctors what processes and procedures to follow and not to follow because we don’t have the expertise … and that’s what I think this veto will do.”

Another member, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, accused the conservatives on the board of leading “an unfounded attack on librarians, on their professional association” and “moving in the direction of book burning, which is really counter to education.”

Both members were quickly reminded by their colleague LJ Francis that it is “well within any member’s right here to rule as they see fit and make any objections, amendments, or substitutions, irrespective of what an expert body might indicate.”

Protecting Children from Harmful Materials

During the board’s Committee on School Initiatives meeting in mid-April, board member Julie Pickren asked if any Texas librarians have lost their certifications “based on pornographic materials and children?” Emily Garcia, a Gov. Greg Abbott appointee serving as associate commissioner for Educator Preparation, Certification, and Enforcement, told the committee that the state had revoked some certificates but she wasn’t sure how many.

Because of the SBOE’s veto, the state’s certification board will need to rewrite its updated school librarian certificate guidelines without reference to the ALA and resubmit that for approval to the SBOE. This is a huge issue in our society right now, from our governor, to our legislators, to our board, to parents especially, and children and teachers,” board member Julie Pickren said.

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