https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/29/houston-school-district-libraries-book
Critics condemn superintendent Mike Miles’s ‘new education system’ that removes students’ access to books
The state is to take over the district next year due to poor academic performance. Photograph: Francois Picard/AFP/Getty Images
The largest school district in Texas announced its libraries will be eliminated and replaced with discipline centers in the new school year.
Houston independent school district announced earlier this summer that librarian and media-specialist positions in 28 schools will be eliminated as part of superintendent Mike Miles’s “new education system” initiative.
Teachers at these schools will soon have the option to send misbehaving students to these discipline centers, or “team centers’” – designated areas where they will continue to learn remotely.
News of the library removals comes after the state announced it would be taking over the district, effective in the 2023-24 school year, due to poor academic performance. Miles was appointed by the the Texas Education Agency in June.
In a press release announcing the schools participating in the “new education system” program, Miles said: “I am overwhelmingly proud that this many HISD school leaders are ready to take bold action to improve outcomes for all students and eradicate the persistent achievement and opportunity gaps in our district.”
Lisa Robinson, a librarian retired from the school district, told local news outlet KPRC2 that her “heart is just broken for these children that are in the [NES] schools that are losing their librarians”.
Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, condemned the district’s move and said the solution to the problem of behavioral conduct was not to revoke access to books, especially in these underserved communities.
He said: “Are there students who need additional support? Yes, and I am 100% supportive of that. But it’s not an eithe/or. You don’t close the libraries, remove the librarians, and simply have the books on the shelf. What about all the other students? What are you saying to them?”
He added: “With all due respect to the superintendent, I grew up in this city. I still live in the same neighborhood that exists. I am the mayor of this city, and I am the mayor of every person who lives in the city of Houston.”
He urged schools to open up libraries to avoid creating a two-tier system within the district, as well as providing additional support to students who need it.
The Houston independent school district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Discipline centers sounds a lot like internment camps…just saying. Texas.
There will be a triage. Minority kids get whipped. Lbgt kids will be assigned a.minister or a youth pastor. white kids will get pistol training.
MrRobotoLA Joe in NM5 days ago
This is the school to prison pipeline. They’re teaching the undesirable kids, ie black and brown inner city teens, that the only future in front of them is a prison sentence.
Beat me to it.
I’ve been saying we’re reliving the 1930’s and it’s no coincidence Republicans don’t want history taught.
These motherfuckers aren’t even trying to hide their education-hating bastardy anymore.
I used to practically LIVE in my school’s libraries. They were my sanctuary and my escape.
And now they want to turn them into little day prisons inside their bigger day prisons for children being prepped only for lives of manual labor and poverty.
Same. My neighbourhood library just a few blocks away was my sanctuary. I knew all the librarians and they knew me. I grew up there. I knew all of their names and they knew to leave me alone to find what I was searching for. Art, history, and even sex books as I got older. They were better for me than catholic school or even my parents. Best of all was that none of the other neighbourhood kids or my family, other than my mom, ever went there. She was the person who taught me to love reading and research.
2patricius2 jugomono4 days ago
I used to love to walk to the public library when I was in grade school. I loved books about space and about science fiction. I would check out and read as many books as I could on a regular basis. The school library didn’t have as many books. But I liked the libraries in high school and college, and in graduate school as well. One summer when I was in graduate school for an MSW, I drove to the Institute for Sex Research to do a week of independent study of transvestism, and what was then called transsexualism. While there I met Alan Bell, and we discussed some of the latest theories on the origins of homosexuality.
Same. In junior high (aka “middle school”) this weird latent queer kid hung out there, by myself at lunch, every day…
This is terrible for all kids but especially those from low income families. It’s not just about access to books, but also to the internet, computers and other media and technology that many couldn’t afford otherwise. Books are great but only one part of what modern libraries do. And lack of access makes it impossible for them to get themselves to the kind of opportunities their talents might take them.
I’m betting that if Houston actually gets to do this the
discipline centers will be 99% Latino, black, gay, poor and ESL students. Right after this Texas will try to legalize slavery, again. Florida will be riding Texas’s coat tails and then the rest of the shit-hole states.
The next step is to shutdown the schools and turn them into jails.
Gregory In Seattle freehit5 days ago
The school to jail pipeline has existed for many years, all this is doing is shortening the pipe.
C’mon, Texas. Why not just send your misbehaving students directly to jail? You know you want to.
This initiative to prevent students from learning the truth about the Civil War is really getting out of hand.
They are going to learn remotely? I recall the MAGA cult hyperventilating over remote learning when it was the emergency option to use in a life threatening pandemic. They said it was an infringement on their freedoms. But now it’s okay to do remote learning when the students being harmed are kids they don’t like.
They know that. And they have no intention 😞 f teaching “those kids” anything.
Scottie's Playtime 
This is horrifying. I worked as a library assistant for 5 years in an elementary school and libraries are vital to education in all grades.
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Hello Nancy. I agree. Libraries were both a refuge for me growing up and a necessity. See I was adopted into a dysfunctional abusive home, with most of the abuse directed towards me. For a long period of time I was forbidden to have books in the house, even school books. The librarian in the small town I lived in seemed to understand my abuse from my earliest ages and I would hang out there until I knew I was forced to return to the hell hold I lived in. The librarian would hold the books for me behind the desk, knowing I couldn’t risk having them at home. At school in my teen years or 7th to 11th grade, I loved the library and would go there every free period to read voraciously. Learning things about worlds my stunted adoptive parents who never had an education couldn’t understand and wanted to deny to me. The idea that libraries are now gone for less privileged kids and turned into punishment centers is horrifying to me. Hugs
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I’m sorry you went through that. Many librarians I’ve known have that ability to understand children without words being said. I know I learned a lot about children and the individuality and what each child needs while there.
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Hello Nancy. Thank you. I agree caring librarians are amazing. The librarians in my small town that had more cows than people seemed to know what I needed to read and when. In fact when I struggled to understand my sexual / physical abuse thinking I was alone, the only boy in the world facing this, the librarian quietly slipped me a book as I sat at a table reading alone. Not sure if it was the bruises on my face and exposed body or just what people in a small town talk about, but as I read that book about a boy like me, I was astonished. I was not the only boy, I was not evil and / or the other words shouted at me in anger. The book gave me ideas of how to protect myself and ways to understand the things that until then I had no words for. I know now that as she left more books for me, she was trying to get me to tell her or anyone about what she suspected, as it seems many in the town did it now seems. While I never opened up to her, she gave me a gift that helped me understand my reality and may have prevented me taking actions that would leave me not here now. For those librarians that without fuss or questions would keep what book I was reading behind the desk ready for me to read the next day without asking if I wanted to take it home when I turned them in as I got ready to leave, I owe a great debt. Their quiet acceptance / understanding of my need kept me from openly asking when others might hear and maybe alerting those who abusing me. Be well. Hugs
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I’m glad they were there for you.
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