Re: [LM_NET] H.R. 2295 / "Parental Empowerment Act of 2005"

[Alice Yucht <ayucht@GMAIL.COM>]

More about that misbegotten proposal to 'create local review boards of
five to 15 parents who would have the authority to review and make
recommendations on elementary school library and classroom materials
before they could be purchased. Under the law, introduced May 11,
states that failed to put the parental panels in place would lose all
federal education funding.' (SLJ: http://tinyurl.com/7ahtp  --

Christopher Harris, on his Infomancy blog
http://schoolof.info/infomancy/?p=9 explains that "This bill presumes
that the "highly qualified" teachers and librarians mandated under
NCLB are, in fact, incompetent. It assumes, as with filtering software
discussed before, that students are incapable of making decisions on
their own. This creates an environment where information is driven
underground. Information literacy cannot be learned in a controlled
environment. Students learn to evaluate the crush of information
sources they will face in the world only by encountering examples of
good and bad."

Thanks to Steven Cohen's http://www.librarystuff.net for the pointer
to Harris's excellent blog !
-- 
Alice Yucht, aka Alice in InfoLand
Library Management / Information Skills consultant, writer, and presenter
somewhere in New Jersey
ayucht at gmail dot com
http:aliceinfo.squarespace.com

"We may be service-oriented, but we don't have to be servants."

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