Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools • Hacker News Board

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#381

Post by Jsebast23 » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #293

crooked-v wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The schools have "exceeded their warrant"... how, exactly? You linked an article about schools with a standard policy of allowing kids to use preferred names and gender expressions. So what? It's a complete nothingburger that's only notable because kids these days tend to be accepting enough for their peers to be comfortable doing that when in the past they weren't.

A teacher from the article is quoted: "My job, which is a public service, is to protect kids," said Olivia Garrison, a history teacher in Bakersfield, Calif., who is nonbinary, who has helped students socially transition at school without their parents' knowledge. "Sometimes, they need protection from their own parents." The idea that teachers should be "protecting kids from their own parents" by affirming their chos…

This is the same people that ban the Bible or Dr Seuss. When the State Government bans gay-sex books meant to sexualize elementary school students, they act like it's Plato or Hemingway who are banned. Most people in this forum really need to take a good, sober look at what's really going on here.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#382

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

yamtaddle wrote: post #360

mcv wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still remember that in 2010, the approval rating of US Congress was 10%, and yet 90% of incumbents was reelected. How the hell is that possible?

"Congressional approval rating" is a dumb and misleading stat and I hate that it's reported on so much, especially in contexts like comparing to to e.g. the President's approval rating. Maybe you love your representative and Senator(s) but your party is in the minority. So, you don't approve of Congress. Maybe ditto on the liking your reps, but Congress is always doing really stupid shit even when your side's in char…

To make an extreme example, let's say that 99 senators are great and everyone loves them, but 1 senator is terrible and the rules of the Senate happen to allow filibusters. You could have a situation as a result where 98-99% of people approve of their senator, but a small minority approves of the overall output of the Senate.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#383

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

yamtaddle wrote: post #351

Someone1234 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is designed that way. Instead of taking property tax money, pooling it, then evenly dividing it across a state. The way most states are designed is that property tax is given to the local school district, meaning that areas with cheaper homes get less money than areas with more expensive homes. This is made worse by demographic problems associated with poverty which makes teaching poor kids more expensive than ric…

The money's a very small part of the problem. Failing schools have huge piles of money thrown at them all the time, and it doesn't help like one might think it would if that were the main problem. Actually fixing US schools amounts to "fix (or significantly mitigate) the US poverty-cycle problem", unfortunately. Unfortunate because if just funding poor schools like rich schools (Nb sometimes those funding levels are…

No. Lot's of money is sent to the school district where it then gets squandared into sports fields and administrator pay while the district cries to teachers that it doesn't have enough money to pay them more. Anyone thinking teachers are actually getting the money from these "funding increases" apparently doesn't know who is in control of that money. It's not teachers.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#384

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #275

CydeWeys wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, don't confuse school libraries with public libraries. What's the actual meaningful distinction here? Both are publicly funded, that students/kid can choose to go to and browse books in (but rarely do). It's not like kids are banned from public libraries.

For one thing, adults are typically not allowed into school libraries during school hours. It's much easier to keep books away from parents interested in knowing what their kids are reading in a school library than a public one, where parents are more likely to be with their child. But either way, governments cannot stop you from speaking. However, no government office, neither a school library nor a general public o…

> However, no government office, neither a school library nor a general public one, is or ought to be required to carry your speech.

That's the opposite of what's actually going on here, though. What's going on is that speech is being prohibited, not that it's being forced to be allowed.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#385

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

yamtaddle wrote: post #375

crooked-v wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, rather than have actual data or even a single concrete anecdote, you're happy just passing along word-of-mouth gossip when we already know that the people pushing for these laws are happy outright lying about their intent.

The thing about anecdotes about schools is that you actually can find examples of a lot of bad behavior—because there are lots and lots of schools and lots and lots of teachers and sometimes those teachers are malicious or are catastrophically stupid, just like any other group of people that large. But when you dig a little farther most of that stuff's usually handled just fine at the school or district level. There'…

Just wanted to thank you for this astute point.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#386

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

notch656c wrote: post #163

CydeWeys wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, this isn't democracy, it's republicanism. Laws get passed in republicanism all the time that the majority of the people don't agree with, because their representatives aren't actually representing their interests.

If the government doesn't have the assent of the people is it not illegitimate? I thought the whole presumption under our system was the representatives have the assent of the majority.

Republicans are generally much more moderate in their personal ideologies than what their representatives do. But it doesn't matter because they still vote them back into office no matter what.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#387

Post by nobody9999 » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #361

nobody9999 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Other schools [2] in the US are more explicit on change... ?> School of Education devoted to developing civically engaged children, youth, and adults for a diverse and inclusive society. Why is developing "civic engagement" among our population a bad thing? Why is a "diverse and inclusive" society a bad thing? Not being snarky here, I just really don't understand how reducing civic engagement and excluding those who…

First, let me say that I'm not attempting to give my own opinion on the direction that folks should go in. I'm most interested in bringing awareness as to what's going on so we can have deeper understanding and discussion. With the school his is from, look at what their vision isn't. It's not to create well educated people who can excel at their jobs. Their vision isn't to create people who are self sustaining adults…

>Their vision is to get people civically engaged around certain forms of change.

>The specific forms of change are not agreed to as a culture in the US. This is an area where we don't have good in depth thoughtful conversations, either.

That's not what you initially said, nor do I understand how "civic engagement" is ever a bad thing. In fact, we need lots more of it.

You are applying ("The specific forms of change are not agreed to as a culture in the US") your trained-in prejudices as the right way, the only way. That's a little disturbing.

I'd add, as far as creating civic engagement is concerned, that you should never, metaphorically (and literally) speaking, hand someone a gun unless you know where they're going to point it.

I, and most reasonable humans, want more civic engagement from everyone. Including those with whom we disagree. Because that's how we make sure our society and government are working.

Discouraging civic engagement for any reason is bad, IMHO.

It's unfortunate that you don't come right out and say what you mean, rather than using inference and innuendo: You don't like what other folks want, so you want to ban it, or at least discredit those you believe disagree with you. At least that's my take on your comments.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#388

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #63

notch656c wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were some books that some segment of voters didn't approve of that certain school libraries were providing. This seems like a backdoor way to stop that while bypassing having to go through controversial school board meetings and/or 1A constitutionality issues to block those books. Not to say this isn't insane, just explaining how I think it happened.

[flagged]

"I'm hitting you because you made me do it" certainly seems to be a popular take among social conservatives.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#389

Post by yamtaddle » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #352

mfer wrote: post #115

Context as to what's happening in US schools... This highlights part of the growing movement and disagreement around culture shaping through kids. To highlight this, if you take a look at school of educations mission statement[1] > Through commitment to innovation, social justice, excellence in teaching and research, and partnerships, the School of Teacher Education will position itself as a national leader in shapin…

>Other schools [2] in the US are more explicit on change... ?> School of Education devoted to developing civically engaged children, youth, and adults for a diverse and inclusive society. Why is developing "civic engagement" among our population a bad thing? Why is a "diverse and inclusive" society a bad thing? Not being snarky here, I just really don't understand how reducing civic engagement and excluding those who…

Many right wingers believe "diverse and inclusive" is code for "progressive/communist indoctrination and telling our kids that LGBTQ people are better than cis straight people". They don't object to the literal words, they object to what they believe is the hidden meaning behind the words.

(this is not an exaggeration—I have a sickness that causes me to be fascinated by right-wing media, so I watch/read/listen-to quite a bit of it)

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#390

Post by ThePowerOfFuet » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

zacharytelschow wrote: post #142

mabbo wrote: post #3

Hey America, is everything okay down there? Y'all have some truly dystopian stuff going on there. Felony prosecution for showing kids books that the Governor didn't approve of? Yikes.

Can I correctly surmise that you're Canadian? If so, your leader declared a national emergency to squash free speech, banished handguns so you can no longer protect yourself, and cut off political opponents from the financial system. Trying to control the books children can view in an educational environment seems trivial by comparison.

> banished handguns so you can no longer protect yourself

Because it works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...

2A was intended to allow the populace to keep government in check. In the age of muskets that was probably good thinking, but try that now and see what happens.