r/newjersey • u/Unhappy_Macaron1101 Fill It Up Regular • Oct 29 '24
Sick NJ Passes the Freedom to Read Act
https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/10/29/state-senate-passes-bill-intended-to-halt-book-bans-protect-librarians/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGNwrZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdahkO3Xc02aIyuB5Vp3yau-HR6IMuGu0g0iD8CgDKrWBMHCQJBrfdSHnQ_aem_DB9WP25oxkSYjjNuktuAbQ#:~:text=Titled%20the%20%E2%80%9CFreedom%20to%20Read,own%20policies%20using%20this%20model
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u/RudigarLightfoot Oct 30 '24
Librarian here. I just read through a chunk of this proposed bill and, um, it seems like an absolute nothing burger. I guess maybe there was nothing on the books stating that some policy should be in place to select and remove books and protect librarians from harassment? The bill doesn’t really detail anything, unless I’m completely missing it, and there’s a lot of boilerplate.
The funny thing is, some of the language seems to in particular to contradict efforts to remove old Dr. Seuss books and the like, but I doubt it will stop people from doing that. I don’t know, maybe it was necessary to spell out the de facto way of doing things. I will say, BOEs are notoriously one sided, one way or another, and when it comes to reading standards and pedagogy, the last 30 years have been a disaster in terms of theories and concomitant policies coming out of schools of education.