Nationwide Book Bans Cause More Damage Than We Are Acknowledging
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In 21st-century America, we are witnessing an educational commitment to vilify and dehumanize marginalized communities through the censorship of children’s books. Since 2019, there have been more than 1,500 book bans in at least 26 states across the country, contributing to the erasure of many marginalized groups’ histories. In the 2022-2023 school year alone, there was a 33 percent increase in public school book bans. Bans on books that were once standard to read in the classroom, like Maus and Animal Farm, have made teachers and educators leave their field during an already massive educator shortage, further exacerbating the crisis. The increased harassment of teachers and school librarians has also contributed to the educator shortage.
This will ultimately create more disparities for students, particularly students of color and socioeconomically disadvantaged students, because these bans will prevent students who have already been allocated limited resources to have even less access to books, particularly those that share their stories. The legislation that forces educators to take books off their shelves will further increase these devastating effects on kids not only as they continue their education, but also when they enter the workforce.
The anti-public education movement has gained traction in mainstream legislation within the past couple of years, as seen with the targeting of schools that teach “critical race theory” and the highly politicized book bans in states like Texas and Florida. Anti-public education policy perpetuates discrimination faced by students of color and students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. These students are confined to attending public schools because the alternatives are too expensive or blatantly discriminate against racial minorities.
The push for the defunding of public education has resulted in the reallocation of funding and resources to private schools or alternative schooling, like charter schools, which do not have to follow the same curriculum standards that public schools do. These looser standards make it easier for charter school administrators to forcibly impart their beliefs upon students. By defunding public schools and forcing them to take books that contain LGBTQ+ and Black stories off their shelves, politicians are trying to wipe out public schools’ ability to teach students the correct, truthful version of history.
Anti-public education policy causes students to suffer even more extreme learning losses than those they already experienced during the pandemic. Educators have found that censorship of books and learning materials has caused students to be less engaged with reading, with one study finding that 65 percent of educators have noticed that book banning has already had a negative impact on their ability to teach. One teacher even detailed their experience of disengagement from their students due to the nationwide book bans, stating, “I’ve never had this kind of difficulty before finding something that a kid would enjoy reading. The attitude towards books and reading in general has become more negative.” This same study also found that 72 percent of educators have indicated that banning books decreases their students’ engagement with reading materials, which inevitably inhibits students’ ability to build critical thinking skills that are crucial to their educational success.
At a time when the ongoing pandemic has severely exacerbated the learning disparities between students of color and white students, as seen by Black and economically disadvantaged students’ test scores severely suffering during the pandemic, it is crucial that we supply students with books and resources that supplement their learning instead of taking away from it — especially when 36 percent of educators have already witnessed their students’ critical thinking skills being impacted by the bans. School districts that were suffering from limited resources and financial burdens before the pandemic were already behind compared to more affluent districts, and the pandemic only exaggerated these gaps.
All students are being impacted by the anti-public education movement, not just students in Republican states or districts. Even in states or schools where policy has not been passed to effectively ban books, teachers and libraries are preemptively taking books discussing race or sexuality off the shelves, fearing that they will suffer legal consequences.
The book bans that Republican legislators like Governor Greg Abbott of Texas and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida have advocated for in the schools in their respective states have also further exacerbated the teacher shortage. A lot of time and effort on behalf of understaffed libraries and educators must be dedicated to censorship efforts. Librarians, teachers, and educators review books to see if they need to be censored according to the state’s standards, which takes away from the hours and resources that could be spent giving children a better education in a system that is already facing major shortages.
Book-banning efforts affect socioeconomically disadvantaged students of color and public school districts, especially low-income school districts, more than any other group. These groups and districts are more harmed by book bans because they are not allocated the sufficient resources and materials needed compared to their white, more privileged counterparts. Therefore, censorship efforts result in the further removal of resources that are already scarce for nonwhite, economically disadvantaged students and districts. They result in the further shutting out of Black and brown people from society by ensuring the education they receive is less than their more privileged white peers, emphasizing the systemic gaps in the education system.
Although seven percent of educators have been directly forced to remove books from their classrooms because of the attempts to criminalize certain books that highlight characters that are Black or queer, the removal of books does not stop there. Fifteen percent of educators have preemptively removed books from their libraries and classrooms for fear of criminalization or the loss of their jobs. In one instance that garnered national headlines, a teacher from Atlanta, Georgia, lost her job as an educator because of a ruling made by the Cobb County Board of Education. The board ultimately ruled that the teacher should be terminated from her job because she read a book to her students that discussed gender roles and gender fluidity. This fear is the sad reality that teachers across the country face every day. The banning of books gives kids less opportunity to pick out books they actually engage with and want to read, which leads to lower reading comprehension skills and literacy scores nationwide during a time when there are not enough educators or funding to give students the proper support they need to close these achievement gaps.
Why Is This Important?
The learning loss from the pandemic, defunding of public schools, and now book bans are causing students to lack cultural literacy because books that talk about racial and other minorities are not widely taught in their curriculum.
To explain the importance of reading books that highlight diverse stories and characters from historically marginalized backgrounds, researchers questioned whether banning these books actually affects students’ levels of reading engagement and achievement in school. One study found that after adding diverse books into the classroom curriculum, educators reported that reading scores increased by 3 percentage points higher than national annual expected averages. In addition, researchers also found that collective classroom reading time increased by 4 hours per week on average after educators introduced new, diverse books into their classrooms. Classrooms that incorporated books that contained multiple languages and LGBTQ+ titles saw the greatest improvements in students’ reading scores and engagement with reading materials. It is evident that books that share diverse stories and explain the realities of American history are beneficial not only to mitigating the learning loss and achievement gaps experienced by children today, but also to the level of engagement children have with reading material.
It is extremely important for children to want to read from a young age. Reading enhances critical thinking skills that are essential for future media literacy skills. These skills are vital in a world that is becoming increasingly politically polarized and spreads fascist ideals in the mainstream media, as seen with Elon Musk’s X, which promotes racist tweets now more than ever. It is critical that students develop reading comprehension, cultural literacy, and critical thinking skills now to prepare them for the realities of the world they are going to grow up in, which is trying to prevent Black, Native American, queer, and other marginalized groups’ history and stories from being told and widely understood.
Ultimately, children are inquisitive and will find information about diverse topics anyway. Book censorship makes it more difficult for students to find reliable and credible sources on these topics, as they are forced to use sources that contain misinformation or biased opinions. This leads to impressionable children learning false narratives that are potentially harmful to themselves, their peers, and their future relationships.
Banning these books will not only affect Black, brown, and queer kids, but also white students who are robbed of gaining empathy from reading these stories from those who have different perspectives. They will lack cultural literacy and engage in violence and bias against their peers because they never confronted their own racial bias in their K-12 education.
Book bans and the push for anti-public education legislation by Republican politicians deprive students of equal access, particularly students from marginalized backgrounds, to the information they need to understand America’s history and the history of oppressed cultures or peoples whom we have tried to erase for centuries.
What Can We Do to Help?
Parents are now more involved with their children’s schooling and what they are learning in the classroom than ever. We should take advantage of this level of involvement to pass successful education reform and make schools more equitable and accessible to all students. The work we put in now to close learning and achievement gaps will be reflected in the workplace in the years to come. If students have access to materials that reflect their stories and support at schools for their emotional and mental health needs, they will experience an increase in their overall well-being.
We must do all these things with everyone in mind. We must make resources and meetings available to parents who work full-time or at multiple jobs. Families that primarily speak languages other than English, parents with students with learning or physical disabilities — everyone must be included in this conversation. Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed AB 1078 in September of 2023, which effectively banned book bans and censorship and strengthened an already existing California law that requires schools to provide textbooks to all students that teach about California’s diverse communities. The stark difference between California and states that are effectively trying to ban books like Texas and Florida shows in the performance of public schools; California has outperformed most states in mitigating the learning loss from the pandemic.
Governor Newsom has also introduced legislation to ensure parents and children get equal access to resources and support from schools. Governor Newsom’s Family Agenda gives parents and caregivers the opportunity to actively participate in their child’s education by requiring schools to make it easier for working parents to get involved and attend meetings where decisions for the school are made. However, this is only a start. We must continue to give support to working parents and families and ensure that they are getting involved. Socioeconomically disadvantaged and marginalized students who are not given the equitable resources they need to succeed remain unheard in this discussion. One study found that 43 percent of educators said it is important that families play a big role in the books their children read and the stories they are exposed to.
We need community deliberation programs to be a mandatory implementation at every school in the United States. These programs allow students and teachers to participate in hands-on civic engagement and deliberate over current issues while receiving support from school staff to help them feel comfortable bringing up controversial topics they want addressed in the classroom. These programs connect the school with the community and with administrators, who may intimidate parents, caregivers, families, or students who are nonwhite and less privileged.