Alice in InfoLand

I’ve been following the news about this misbegotten federal bill proposall that would prohibit states from receiving “any funds under any [Education Department] program or activity” unless it establishes a “parent review and empowerment council” at each local education agency. H.R. 2295 requires parent councils to meet at least every six months to “provide significant input … regarding the purchase or acquisition of any library or classroom-based reference, instructional, or other print material for use in any elementary school,” except textbooks. The councils would be comprised of 5–15 members, most of whom would be parents of students enrolled in that district’s school system.”

Christopher Harris, on his Infomancy blog  remind us 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.”