Parental authority push could upend public education norms
Justin Murphy – Rochester Democrat and Chronicle USA TODAY NETWORK – in the D&C on 5/15/23 on page A1
Ask any candidate for school board in a Monroe County suburb and they will tell you: Banning books is bad.
Dig a little deeper, though, and distinctions emerge.
“I’m not a book burner, not at all,” Septimus Scott, a candidate in Greece, said at a public forum. “(But) parents need to be involved in deciding what books go into our libraries and are in front of our children.”
“I don’t call it a book ban because they’re kids,” Don Markham, a candidate in East Irondequoit, said at a forum there. “Adults are adults — there’s freedom. Kids are kids. I don’t believe they have the freedom to do things.”