Great column (as always). School libraries are always tough to center in the whole book censorship debate because they have a narrowed focus (more curating/censorship) and often smaller budgets than most public libraries which also narrows what they can collect. Often they reflect, as they should, the curriculum being taught at the school which may or may not have a liberal bias.
You point out some big problems in the Cato Institute methodology, completely agreed, it seems unlikely to produce any facts of value.
The thing is each community wants a certain amount of control over all of this and the institutions reflect that and communities are often happier when their educational institutions reflect their values.
Do we want more federal mandates over balancing content? That would seem to be an odd aim for the Cato folks?
I do believe that heavy leaning into political bias in either collections or curriculums builds distrust in those institutions especially by people in the political out group and there should be an effort at balance. If things are out of whack though, this isn't the study to prove that.
Great column (as always). School libraries are always tough to center in the whole book censorship debate because they have a narrowed focus (more curating/censorship) and often smaller budgets than most public libraries which also narrows what they can collect. Often they reflect, as they should, the curriculum being taught at the school which may or may not have a liberal bias.
You point out some big problems in the Cato Institute methodology, completely agreed, it seems unlikely to produce any facts of value.
The thing is each community wants a certain amount of control over all of this and the institutions reflect that and communities are often happier when their educational institutions reflect their values.
Do we want more federal mandates over balancing content? That would seem to be an odd aim for the Cato folks?
I do believe that heavy leaning into political bias in either collections or curriculums builds distrust in those institutions especially by people in the political out group and there should be an effort at balance. If things are out of whack though, this isn't the study to prove that.