This and That

 At the Hacks & Wonks news site, after the August primary, there was a Week in Review discussion with Robert Cruickshank, Chair of Sierra Club Seattle (and long-time public ed advocate)  and Crystal Fincher, a political consultant and host. (The discussion is very near the end of the hour.)

They said a bit about the Board races but most of their discussion was about The Stranger. They gave The Stranger kudos for "pinning people down" as a "trusted brand" but they wondered if their endorsements were a double-edged sword. Meaning,The Stranger is a major player in endorsements and maybe it was unhealthy to have that much influence early on when it might "cut off debate." 

Readers, what do you think? 

School has resumed around the country and apparently, things have changed. From the AP:

 Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic.

Kids are staying home for myriad reasons — finances, housing instability, illness, transportation issues, school staffing shortages, anxiety, depression, bullying and generally feeling unwelcome at school. 

All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data, which was compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black and low-income students, according to Dee’s analysis.

In the end, students who are chronically absent — missing 18 or more days a year, in most places — are at higher risk of not learning to read and eventually dropping out. 

Here's a good idea - start a banned book club at your high school. An interview from the ACLU:

Since 2021, dozens of states have moved to introduce and pass classroom censorship bills that restrict students and educators from discussing race, gender, and sexual orientation in K-12 classrooms and universities. At the same time, politicians and school boards across the country have also made moves to ban books — especially books representing Black and LGBTQ experiences — from public schools and libraries. 

Students who are directly impacted by these censorship efforts are at the forefront of advocating for their right to receive an inclusive education. We spoke with Ella Scott, a junior at Vandegrift High School who co-founded the Vandegrift Banned Book Club in response to book bans happening in her Texas high school.

We started reaching out to our friends first to spread the word about the club and try to build members. We were a very small group initially, as there were only six of us at first. But now, we’ve tripled in size, which is very exciting! We would meet about every month in the library and start plowing through the list of books that our school was attempting to remove and focusing discussions on them.

Their process:

Like any other school club at our high school, we had to go through an application process to become a club. But overall, we didn’t receive any pushback for the formation of the club from our teachers or librarians. They’ve all been really supportive. 

The main hurdle though was, at first, we had difficulty getting access to the novels we wanted to read because of our district’s book ban. We asked some of the English teachers who had extra copies of some of the books on their shelves if VHS Banned Book Club students could borrow them for the month, but they were not allowed to do that because of the school district’s ban.  

CLU: What advice would you give to other students who might want to take action against book bans and other efforts from adults trying to limit what they can read?

ES: I would say don’t be afraid to break boundaries. I think that was something I really learned from this experience. A lot of adults weren’t asking for student opinions in this book ban debate, but our club is giving it in a place where it wasn’t asked for and I think it has made a huge difference. It’s helping a lot of people understand that students do add value in this conversation, and our opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s.