A lot of these issues can be solved by parents talking to their kids and setting up rules that they enforce themselves. Don't want your kid reading a book, then don't let them. If their desire to read and learn is so strong you cannot stop them, then they're probably fine. Count yourself as lucky.

Did they not have these where you grew up?

I think we are conflating curriculum with including books in a school library. I certainly think that educators have more expertise in designing curriculums than I do. I don't think any of the books we are discussing have been mandatory reading for middle school or high school English classes.

As for your question, yes, his point was mockery. In certain areas at least (e.g., history), I doubt that Luckbox believes that middle school and high school educators have any expertise. But he can speak for himself on that point.

This, this, a thousand times this. Different families are going to have different belief systems about what books are or aren't appropriate for their kids, and they can make their choices based on those beliefs. They don't need to force others to adhere to those beliefs as well.

An understanding of what will support the curriculum needs to be a significant factor in choosing what resources are in a school library. But you're right, while there is overlap, books in a school library aren't the same thing as the curriculum, so I'll rephrase.

Luckbox, are you thinking that school districts aren't able to hire people with better understanding of what supports good curriculum and is appropriate for certain age and maturity levels than Joe Public?

I agree. I've had discussions like this with Luckbox before where he'll mock experts in one field or another, and when I've asked him who we should choose to make the decisions instead, he doesn't tend to have a lot to offer. I don't really know what the ideal world looks like for him and others of the "don't trust the so-called experts" ilk, and who they want making decisions.

You get better experts, obviously.

But I trust the experts on plenty of stuff. If I need dental surgery I'm going to the dentist. When something is controversial however, sometimes it's necessary to think for yourself some.

I agree with luckbox that "professional educators" is a bit of stretch in terms of demanding respect because of their occupation when we are talking about grade school level teachers.

On top of that, I think what books we should have in a school library is occasionally more opinion orientated than it is made out to be. Similar to most other occupations there are some questions you can ask a pro in a field and 95+% of pros will answer it in a certain way, but there are other questions where the pros would be far more split.

What part of “professional educators” are you guys struggling with here?

The part where it has any actual significance to anything being discussed here.

Is it the “professional” bit?

Kevin Stitt and Ryan Walters are destroying education in Oklahoma. They've done the whole "let's bring Prager U into the schools!" And have tried to force that curriculum into the public schools here, but the schools are rejecting it.

And tax payers have to fund private religion schools now. Oklahoma sure is a ****ing piece of **** State.

This is the same kind of cop-out you tend to use in conversations like this. But maybe I'm wrong and you have a point here. So, what makes the current experts inadequate, and how do you propose finding new ones? Like, is there a standard you'd suggest that the current ones aren't meeting? Or is this the point where you say "I don't know"?

So, what does this mean? Do you have someone better qualified in mind?

Well sure, there's going to be a certain amount of subjectivity.

So, you're struggling to see how professional educators have any significance to education? Maybe this isn't the conversation for you then.

Do you think the "professional educators" here are all in agreement about what sort of sexual content should be in school libraries? If they aren't all in agreement, why aren't they?

Do you think the "professionals educators" here are all in agreement about what sort of sexual content should be in school libraries? If they aren't all in agreement, why aren't they?

Why do books end up getting pulled?

How about you have a go at answering my questions first.

I am answering your questions. They're built on the false premise that the so called experts are in agreement-- they are not.

More or less, yes.

Busybody illiterates who think they know better keep the professionals from doing their jobs.

Have there been federal or state constitutional challenges to this policy?

No, you're not. These questions:

are in no way affected by whether or not there is lockstep agreement between educators on appropriate books.

If the experts are not in agreement then we know that at least some of them are wrong, right? How can we know which experts to trust?

If you don’t know the first thing about this profession, how is it you’re so quick to mock the educators who curate school libraries?

Your games get tiresome. I mean, you're not really expecting me to believe that you sincerely think there could ever be 100% consensus on "what sort of sexual content should be in school libraries", and that if there isn't, this is some kind of big gotcha? C'mon, dude.

And this.

Of course I don't think that, hence why your "trust the experts" deserves mockery

LOL, so if there can't be 100% consensus on something, if there's an element of subjectivity involved, we can no longer trust people who are experts in the field? If so, you might want to reconsider those dentist visits.

Regardless, none of this need prevent you from answering some very simple questions:

Have there ever been any sort of actual experiments or studies on the effect of sexual content on the minds of adolescents?

What actually makes these people experts here?

Students for many generations have gotten by just fine without having porn novels in their school's library