A majority on the Republican- dominated State Board of Education said Thursday that it wanted more control over whether school library books are considered sexually explicit or not.
Ten members on the board responsible for determining what Texas' 5.5 million public schoolchildren learn in the classroom voted to call on the Texas Legislature, which convenes in January, to pass a state law granting them authority to determine what books are appropriate for school-age children. Local school districts currently manage that process.
Republican members said granting the board control would alleviate the state’s more than 1,200 public school districts of the burdensome task. They also said it could offer a solution to a recent court ruling stopping Texas from fully enforcing a state law requiring booksellers to rate their materials for appropriateness — based on books' depictions or references to sex — before selling them to school libraries.
