cry me a river

a letter to The Washington Post from a reader who is none-too-pleased about a homework assignment that was given to honor students at Cabin John Middle School.

Marc Fisher's Oct. 20 Metro column, "Views of the Few Send a School Into Retreat," about the Cabin John Middle School English teacher who asked eighth-grade honor students to choose a reading assignment from a list of 100 banned or challenged books, missed the point. Under Maryland law, only books approved for use by the county school system may be used by teachers. Although the standards for acceptability may be too low in some instances, this assignment contravened clear law.

While, technically, Ms. Irate Reader is correct, she unfortunately missed the point herself:

Teachers at the Potomac school had instructed honors students to look at the list with their parents and choose a book to read. "It is important to know why a book may be challenged," the assignment said.

Thankfully, later in the article, one parent shows that they "get it":

"The parents flunked the assignment," says parent Chris Rigaux. "I don't blame Montgomery County for trying to avoid another court battle, but this was a chance to use books like [Hinton's] 'The Outsiders' to teach about very different lifestyles than we have here in Bethesda, Maryland."