There appears to be a frenzy of book “banning” in public schools, with the challenge to Maus in a Tennessee district just the most recent to grab headlines. But has there truly been an explosion of challenges? And if so, why?
Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom has tracked conflicts over reading material – books either stocked in school libraries or prescribed in classes – since the 2005-06 school year, along with many other types of values- and identity-based conflicts in public schools. They are part of the data collection behind the Public Schooling Battle Map, through which the public can access information on such battles by state, school district, year, and more.
The conflicts have been collected through daily reading of education news, captured by Google alerts for subjects such as “banned books” and by news aggregators such as the ChoiceMedia.tv “Newswire.” The collection is not exhaustive – there are likely many conflicts that do not get reported by media, or that generate reports we do not see. We also only began fully regularized collection around 2012. Still, the multi-year timeframe can likely provide some insights into trends.
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