California schools could face more challenges in banning textbooks under proposed bill – Orange County Register

Assemblymember Corey Jackson plans to amend one of his bills to make it harder to ban school textbooks in California. He aims to put provisions in place to require a supermajority vote by local school boards to ban textbooks and set up an appeals process for book bans involving county boards of education. AB 1078 passed the Assembly in May and is currently before the state Senate. The bill, which aims to counter “white Christian nationalist extremism,” does not have a supermajority or an appeals process. Jackson intends to add this language through amendments next week. The move comes after the Temecula Valley Unified School District board blocked a history textbook last month because supporting materials mentioned the late LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk. Jackson’s bill would likely have left Temecula’s five-trustee board one vote short of rejecting the textbook. The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation opposed an earlier version of AB 1078. The foundation said that the bill effectively creates a layer of ideological hijacking by state bureaucracy and local control is a fundamental principle of American public education and an important cornerstone of our liberal democracy.