Texas- Where It's Just As Easy To Incarcerate 'Em As It Is To Edumicate 'Em
Houston Independent School District is turning 28 of its school libraries into "discipline centers." Because librarians are whiny losers, anyway.
This is Texas. We’re still figuring out how to spell tolerance.
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Careful, Mr. Spiro, guns are dangerous. Especially the end with the hole.
Eoin Colfer, The Eternity Code
I lived in Seabrook, TX, on the Texas Gulf Coast for 3722 days (not that I was counting), so when it comes to commenting on all things Texas, I think I speak from a place of considerable authority. But even I was rendered dumbstruck when I heard of the latest dumbass idea to come out of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). During my time in the Bay Area (1997-2007), I became accustomed to the world-class silliness and craziness that are part and parcel of any governmental or quasi-governmental body in the Lone Star State. It’s part of the package. You can’t change it; it was like that long before I arrived, and it will be thus long after I’m gone.
And so it has proven to be.
Anyway, we tend to think of schools as edumication centers, no? And libraries are integral to the edumicational mission. At least, one could be forgiven for believing they go hand in hand. Well, not so much in HISD anymore. Imagine, if you’re able, that 28 of their libraries will be “repurposed” into discipline centers.
WTAF? Did HISD look at Floriduh, Alabama, and Mississippi and say, “HOLD MY BEER!!!!”? Yes, I believe it did.
What the fuck is happening in Texas?
I knew Texas saw Florida and Missouri and was like, “Hold my hat,” but I didn’t know they’d go this far.
Houston Independent School District—the largest school district in Texas, so you know it’s big—has announced that they will ELIMINATE all of 28 of their school libraries and turn them into “Discipline Centers.” No more picture books, no more chapter books, no more YA books, no more nonfiction books. Just punishments.
I’m sorry. What?? Are we in 1930s Germany or some shit? Maybe we’re in [T]he Handmaid’s Tale, because “Discipline Center” sounds like something a Commander would come up with. Maybe we’re in Russia.
We can’t be in the UNITED STATES. We just can’t.
Oh wait. I’m sorry to say we are.
Yes, it’s red-state AmeriKKKa, where never is heard a discouraging word, and the peons remember their place lest they be beaten into submission.
Of course, it’s not surprising that the response to the plan has been less than enthusiastic. The optics alone are depressing as Hell— turning libraries into “discipline centers?” Could we possibly find a way to give our children any LESS reason to look forward to going to school than that?
Thus far, no one’s been doing cartwheels and proclaiming the plan to be the next bold educational move. Unless you think turning our public schools into literal prisons is a GREAT idea.
“Team center?” Give me a f*****g break, willya?? How ‘bout re-education camps?
HOUSTON — The former Houston ISD head of services is calling newly appointed Superintendent Mike Miles' plan to repurpose libraries into "team centers" at some schools "soul-crushing."
"The library can be so many things, it's more than just a reciprocal of books," Kallie Benes said. “It can be a place, where they can explore their interests or find new interests and it can be a place where above all reading is fun and exciting."
Miles intends to repurpose the libraries of at least 28 New Education System (NES) schools into so-called team centers, which he described as a "hub of differentiated instruction." Some will be used as discipline centers.
These team centers will not have a dedicated librarian. He said students who require additional support can "catch up" and have greater access to teachers and learning coaches.
Why? Because, as anyone who’s spent time around librarians can tell you, they’re uniformly lazy, shiftless, unmotivated drudges who are only in it for the money and the pension plan. (I kid, I kid. The librarians I know earn their money and then some.)
So why not move them along and turn the libraries into minimum security jails?
Benes now serves as the CEO of a nonprofit called First3Years which aims to help Texans ages 3 and younger grow up in a healthy environment. She said attacks on libraries undercut the work of preparing children with a foundation to explore and learn.
"Most of the librarians are less concerned about their own employment and more concerned about the lack of access that their students will now have," she said.
Lisa Robinson, a former HISD librarian and English teacher, said students will miss out from not having a dedicated librarian.
"We are basically expendable in his vision of education when to me, we are a critical component of a well-rounded education," she said.
Sure, what’s all the fuss about books? Aren’t our public schools supposed to be, first and foremost, publicly-funded daycare facilities where children are warehoused while parents work to support them?
So why do we worry about libraries when we expect kids to become obedient Christian soldiers? They’re learning everything they need in church every Sunday, so why worry about what they’re learning in school? Jesus doesn’t expect them to think critically, after all. After they turn 18, they’ll be expected to join the military, travel to distant lands. They’ll meet new people there, then kill them and take their land. How much book learning will they need for that?
Of course, the sad thing is that so many parents seem OK with their kids’ public schools gradually being converted into minimum-security jails rather than vibrant learning environments.
But, at a time when for-profit prisons are becoming a significant growth sector in our economy, this all begins to make more sense, especially when you consider that some of the most prominent investors are Republicans.
Nonetheless, this whole scenario is pretty crazy, and Jenn Mann, who writes People I Want To Punch In The Throat, has some questions she’d like answered. And I have to admit that her questions are not at all unreasonable.
I want to know: are you really cool with all this shit? Are you really cool with your party and what it’s become and the road it’s on?
Do you want to close libraries in schools?
Do you want guns to have more rights than a uterus?
Do you want to see women receive the death penalty for an abortion?
Do you want women to bleed out in the parking lots of hospitals because they can’t have a life-saving abortion?
Do you want to live under an autocratic/theocratic regime with no checks and balances?
Do you want to see the end of birthright citizenship? Meaning every person born in the United States is not entitled to automatic citizenship.
Are you really that worried about transgender people? So worried that you want your party to spend as much time as they have on this group of marginalized folks? Even if it keeps much-needed jobs from coming to your state?
What about drag queens? Do you really think drag queens are assaulting children? We can all agree that children being abused is disgusting and horrible, but you’re going after the wrong group. Ninety percent of these kids know their attacker and none of them are drag queens.
No one could hope to use the word “reasonable” to describe Texas- certainly not since Republicans took over the Lone Star State. The Texas GOP is one of America's most batshit-crazy, kill-’em-and-grill-’em-but-yes-we’re-still-Evangelical-Christian parties. They LOVES them some Jesus, knowhutimean??
Texas’ annual GOP convention celebrates Looney Tunes Right-wing Evangelical Texas Taliban Christianity, unlike anything you’ll see outside the Lone Star State. Well, it would be funny if it were in, say, Rhode Island. The fact that it’s happening in America’s largest state is, frankly, pretty f*****g terrifying.
Now the largest city in America’s largest state is turning 28 public school libraries into “discipline centers.” What could possibly go wrong?
Sure, you could fault me for immediately going to the worst-case scenario. But we’re talking about Texas AND Houston, both of which I’m intimately familiar with and know to be profoundly and irredeemably f****d up. So a worst-case scenario doesn’t feel like much of a stretch.
I want to think there’s more to this story, and perhaps there is. Perhaps the 28 libraries won’t become minimum-security jails. Maybe someone at HISD will come to their senses and realize what they’re contemplating is the opposite of creating a supportive educational environment.
But what do I know? I’m just a clueless Librul who no longer even lives in Texas.
Git a rope….