Live from Music Row, Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee State Textbook Commission member Laurie Cardoza-Moore to the newsmaker line to describe the textbook publishing monopoly that is supplying age-inappropriate books in public school libraries.
Leahy: We are joined right now by a very good friend, Laurie Cardoza-Moore. Laurie is on the Tennessee State Textbook Commission. Good morning, Laurie. How are you this morning?
Moore: Good morning, Michael. I’m well, thank you.
Leahy: Well, what’s going on with the Tennessee Textbook Commission? Every time I turn around, there’s some kind of controversy. What’s the latest?
Moore: The latest has to deal with library books. And as we know, there was a bill passed by the legislature earlier this year requiring that public school libraries must publish a list of materials in their library collection for parents to be able to review.
And this list has to be reviewed periodically. But the Textbook Commission in our last meeting, which is issued, is required by law to issue guidance for the lease and public charter schools to use when reviewing materials in a library collection to ensure that the materials are appropriate, only one member had reviewed any of the books and she was a librarian.
She’s the newest member to this textbook commission. If we are going to provide guidance, then it is important for us to review and look at these books, to make recommendations on what to look for. But that’s not part of what we’re going to be doing.
And this is outrageous because, Michael, the content in the library books that our children are being subjected to now is absolutely outrageous. We saw it with textbooks a decade ago and now they’ve moved into the library book industry.
After asking my colleagues who had reviewed them and the librarian stated she had reviewed at least one book that we talked about, now the local districts have adopted we found out, a process to evaluate materials and handle complaints.
But most of those districts adopted these policies based on a template provided by the Tennessee School Board Association. Michael, who is the affiliate of TSBA, but their national association.
The National School Board Association. And you may recall that they contacted Merrick Garland last year requesting to investigate parents and citizens who attend school board meetings as domestic terrorists. And our commission has been invited to make recommendations to the groups across the state and to the LEAs. This is what we’re up against.
Like that controversy, we had a decade ago where Pearson Publishers was promoting anti-Semitic and anti-American, even anti-Judeo Christian and pro-Marxist content. They were buying up smaller textbook publishers, basically creating a monopoly on our textbooks.
Now there is an ex-Nazi corporation who is buying up book publishers in the United States peddling this pornographic, Antisemitic and anti-American content, poisoning our children’s minds. And the publishing company is none other than German-based publisher Bertelsmann. They bought up Penguin, Random House, and Doubleday. We’ve got a major problem on our hands and we have got to get a handle on the books that our children have access to. We are creating a process and unfortunately, as I’ve been dealing with parents and citizens on the local level, their requests to remove books have basically been dismissed. We ran into the same problem again a decade ago with the textbooks. Parents would bring the textbook to the school board requesting it be removed because it was inaccurate, it was biased and did not reflect the values of the community, which is stated by law. Unfortunately, our kids are still being subjected to this garbage. And now we have the Tennessee School Board Association is weighing in on what is appropriate and what materials our children should be able to have access to.
Leahy: What’s your recommendation? What should happen here?
Moore: My recommendation is that this commission should be reviewing the library books that I am receiving from parents across the state. We’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and pass legislation that these books are not going to be accepted in our library.
These books have no redeeming value. They do not help our children. They have no literary value. It’s garbage. In fact, I’m going to give you an example. Your listeners need to hear this because there’s one book, it’s just one book of hundreds, Michael, called Beyond Magenta, which describes an eight-year-old having sex and contains the sentence, “from six and up I used to kiss other guys in my neighborhood, make out with them and perform oral sex on them.”
Leahy: This is a book for eight-year-olds in the library?
Moore: Yes. This is for what you would say, elementary kids. It’s being promoted by Penguin Random House to teens and young adults.
Leahy: There are eleven seats there. One is open, and the nine others. How do the other textbook commissioners respond when you bring this information up?
Moore: When I brought this information up, I was repeatedly told that we’re just putting together the guidance. We’re only providing guidance on how this should be handled. But the guidance that they are providing doesn’t work.
And this is what I’m trying to communicate to them that it’s not working. And how do I know that? Because the parents are trying to remove these books on the local level and they are being dismissed. Their requests are being shut down. We cannot allow this type of content to be given to our children. And listen to this, though, Michael.
You got to hear this because Marcus Dohle, who is the German CEO appointed to head up Penguin Random House, a respected publisher declared war on parental rights advocates by setting up a $500,000 Dohle Book Defense Fund to advocate against censorship, track and expose the egregious assault on books and ideas playing out in classrooms, state legislatures and other arenas. They’re declaring war on us.
Leahy: Laurie, do you intend to propose legislation for the Tennessee General Assembly to consider this session on this issue?
Moore: We need to go back and yes, we need to revise the bill that was passed earlier this year. There has to be some type of removal process. There have to be guidelines as to what will be tolerated and what will not be tolerated in our children’s school libraries because these teachers who are pushing this woke agenda are checking those library books out because her students aren’t going into the library and checking them out. They’re going in, checking them out, and reading them out loud to the class. This is happening.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Laurie Cardoza-Moore” by Laurie Cardoza-Moore. Background Photo “Classroom” by Wokandapix.
Laurie
ACCOUNTABILITY
is what is needed
There is none
The local school boards & librarians need to be removed from their positions, loose retirement benefits and charged with proliferating porn to minors
Knox County Board of Education Transmitted a letter to the State BOE indicating they are non compliant with the current law. At their last meeting the concern was not the inappropriate nature of the material but how much money they were going to get to even start the process of compliance. They had previously asked if individual Teachers “Classroom Libraries” were exempt from the new law. They have no idea what books they currently make available to children or its content. They have asked to be given until March of next year to look into the matter. Meanwhile the public is dared to even ask, when they do they are told to fill out a form.