But for a RI court ruling, Chariho might be under this kind of right-wing control
.webp)
Questions like: What happened to our school library? And
where did our librarians go?
Sadly, these wholly beneficial, caring educators are
being dumped in school trash bins by loopy right-wing ideologues who are out to
impose their bigotry and ignorance on America. They’ve already been on a
rampage of banning books and demonizing teachers, but now the extremists are
saying: “That’s not stupid enough — let’s also launch a witch hunt against
librarians!”
This authoritarian assault, funded by a clique of far-right billionaires and coordinated by their front groups, has been popping off across the country. But leave it to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to push it from extreme to totalitarianism.
Abbott has unilaterally seized control of Houston’s
school district (the largest, most diverse in Texas), installing his own
whip-cracking, dictatorial overseer.
Mike Miles, a former Army Ranger and CEO of a corporate
school chain, promptly decreed that to improve reading scores in the
district, he would first eliminate librarians from
28 schools in Black and Latino neighborhoods — and second turn their libraries into centers where
students who misbehave will be disciplined.
Abbott’s education czar also demands that all teachers
there must reapply for their jobs, agree to follow a centrally scripted
curriculum, and be monitored by classroom cameras. All this, says Miles
with a twisted smile, is meant to give a message of “hope” to teachers and
parents.
Of course, eliminating independent educational resources
and regimenting instruction will reduce schools to state institutions for
obedience training. And that’s the point.
The GOP’s push to remake education is a billionaire’s wet dream of a compliant, subservient workforce: Don’t ask questions — just keep pulling that plow.
Jim
Hightower, OtherWords columnist, is a radio commentator, writer,
and public speaker. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.