Book bans undermine our education mission

I hope the governor doesn’t ban “To Kill a Mockingbird,” my favorite book. That, as Scout’s father Atticus said, “would be as sin.” He’d be right. As a high school teacher years ago, I asked, and 10th-graders agreed, to read and discuss a goodly number of the now-banned books. I’d probably be sentenced to a year in the jug now for asking kids to read “Lord of the Flies.”

But the ‘60s — ‘70s were a more progressive time (Robert Ray was the governor). Iowa was first in the nation in education — because communities then demanded world-class public schools. The mission was: 1. To transmit democracy from one generation to the next, 2. To teach basic skills so kids were ready for jobs and further learning, and 3. To offer quality academic and extracurricular programs based on bona fide knowledge and skills. The governor wants to pull the plug, especially on transmission of democracy, and pass schooling (and public money) over to private providers or charters where accountability for these objectives is optional.

Gerald Ott

Ankeny