In so many places labeled "urban" or serving "low-income" communities (I hate labels but will use the language I have for the time being) teachers have neither the content, nor pedagogical knowledge to experiment with the canon.
Schools can and will be shut down and principals fired, forced to retire, or reassigned if literacy scores look a certain way for too long.
This leads to a panicked and constant "putting out fires" or "avoiding disasters" type of energy and climate in schools. So, adults in charge of making curriculum decisions lean on what "worked" for them--the classics.
Lots of adults making curriculum decisions in urban districts have not actually taught kids who don't read in a very long time.
Lots of adults making curricular decisions are not fluently bilingual or aware of what it's like to feel you've got to compartmentalize yourself to succeed in the school system.
Lots of adults making curricular decisions do not consult kids directly impacted by those decisions or include their voices when holding meetings.
We know state literacy tests have racial, linguistic, and cultural biases, as do many of the classics which some kids just can't read (often because adults stop holding hands after 6th grade) and some kids just won't (often for good reason).
So what sense does it make to give students books that are irrelevant to their lives, then test them on skills they don't have because they didn't read, then use the "gotcha" data as justification to force feed more intense test prep?
At some point adults are going to have to realize that we reap what we sow. Children who don't read become adults who won't read.
Add to this the fact that libraries in urban school districts have all but disappeared...quietly. A picture emerges that many people do not think our most marginalized children deserve to have lives as readers.
Libraries are disappearing everywhere, but it's happening in urban districts among our Black and brown children first--of course.
So #DisruptTexts is part of the work. We have to do it if we have any chance of helping children reclaim the right to read they so richly deserve.
But more adults also need to take a stand more often--on behalf of librarians who are a tremendous resource that can and should be respected as such. Let's face it, the sheer volume of what you've got to read to be a successful librarian is admirable.
More adults need to take a stand on behalf of our new teachers who usually do not have the cred, experience, privilege, or tenure to make radical moves or propose changes to curriculum--which may be great ideas!
More adults need to take a stand on behalf of our multilingual and multi-ethnic children who do not need you to read or center whiteness anymore. Too many already feel school is not for them. Show them they are wrong.
