And the latest wrinkle: A wave of complaints around the nation about inappropriate material in public schools has stirred emotional argument over just how much freedom should be extended to students in advanced courses.
Earlier this year, a California parent objected to sex-related terms in a collegiate dictionary placed in a fourth- and fifth-grade classroom to accommodate advanced readers. And the American Library Association and other groups say they have seen a noticeable rise in complaints about literature used in honors or college-level courses.
“This is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it’s spreading,” says Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, a New York-based group.
More high schools are offering Advanced Placement or similar honors courses, in part to help students earn college credit and to give them a leg up in college admissions. Nearly 12,500 U.S. high schools offered Advanced Placement English literature this year, up 30% since 2000, and the number of students taking the national exam is up 86%.
This year, high schools in Hillsborough County, Fla., Easton, Pa., and Franklin Township, Ind., were asked to review books being read in Advanced Placement English courses.
Judith John, an English professor at Missouri State University, suggests book bans might have become more noticeable these days because of an uncertain economy and concerns about terrorism. “When people are afraid, they become more conservative and reject changes,” she says.
Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, a Christian ministry in Colorado, says it’s “healthy and normal for parents to want to weigh in on what their kids are exposed to at taxpayer-funded schools, especially when we talk about materials that are sexually explicit.”
Sex is not always the primary concern. A Seattle high school recently dropped Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from its 10th-grade required reading list after a parent objected to the book’s depiction of American Indians as savages.
Cushman’s group encourages concerned parents to start with school officials. “We trust the democratic process to weed out illegitimate complaints,” Cushman says.
The American Library Association urges schools to keep challenged books on the shelves until a review committee can read the material and make a recommendation to key decision-makers.
Sometimes the decision is questioned:
• In Plano, Texas, last month, the school district collected a textbook, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, from classrooms after a parent voiced concern, then reissued the book after former students launched a social-media campaign to object. “This decision was made behind closed doors without discussion,” says Ashley Meyers, 22, a 2006 graduate who had used the book.
• After the school board in Stockton, Mo., voted in April to ban The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, English teachers who assign the book said they should have been consulted about its educational value. “We expected a more thorough, well-developed process before a book was banned,” English teacher Kim Chism Jasper said during a public forum in September.
• A chapter of Glenn Beck’s 9.12 Project, a conservative watchdog network, was a force behind the removal of Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology from the school library at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Burlington County, N.J. The ACLU of New Jersey requested documentation from school officials regarding how the decision was made.
Such controversies make headlines, which helps the library association and other anti-censorship groups track book bans. John, who has been studying book bans since 1993, suggests many library books simply disappear from circulation.
“It’s more prevalent than people think,” she says.
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