Librarians and schools weary from escalating efforts to ban books have new protections under legislation Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Monday.

The “Freedom to Read Act” limits book bans in public schools and libraries and shields librarians from lawsuits and criminal charges filed by folks who find library materials obscene or otherwise objectionable.

Murphy signed the bill in the children’s section of the Princeton Public Library, surrounded by a crowd of smiling librarians, lawmakers, civil liberties advocates, and parents.

“This law will strengthen, not diminish, the rights of parents to choose what reading materials their children should or should not have access to by ensuring that every family can make their own determination about what books are appropriate for a child,” Murphy said.

Under the new law, the state’s education commissioner — in consultation with the state librarian, the New Jersey School Boards Association, and the New Jersey Association of School Librarians — will develop policies on how library materials are selected and how challenges to books on library shelves should be evaluated. Local school boards and library boards then must adopt their own policies using this model.

The law also bars school and library boards from removing books because of the “origin, background, or views” of the material or those contributing to its creation, and allows only people with a “vested interest” to challenge a book in a school library.

It also gives librarians and library staff immunity from civil and criminal liability for “good faith actions.”

It will take effect in one year, giving state education officials and libraries time to devise the required policies.

Republicans and conservative activists have fought the measure, warning it would give children access to obscene materials and protect librarians who share obscene books with children.

But Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex) said the new law, which he introduced, is a “bold response to this growing wave of censorship.” Many of the  reported during the 2023-24 school year were of books with characters or themes centered on people of color and the LGBTQ community, he added.

“That is not a coincidence. These bans are a deliberate effort to erase voices and perspectives that challenge the status quo, often under the guise of protecting children from discomfort,” Zwicker said.

Zwicker said he was inspired to draft the legislation after hearing Martha Hickson, a recently retired librarian, speak.

Hickson, who successfully fought efforts to ban five LGBTQ-themed books at North Hunterdon High School, got hate mail, was shunned by colleagues and antagonized by administrators, and endured calls for her firing and arrest.

She was there Monday to watch Murphy sign the bill into law.

“I’m certainly not the only victim of these politically motivated attacks,” Hickson said. “The students I serve feel the pain, too, when the books that describe their lived experience were called disgusting, obscene, and depraved. Students recognized that those insults were also intended for them.”

She applauded the new law and shook Murphy’s hand as he gave her the pen he used to sign it.

“New Jersey citizens now have protections to read about the topics that interest them in their libraries. When concerns about books arise, parents now have a clear process for raising issues without resorting to bullying. And for librarians across the state, the dignity of our work will now be recognized and preserved,” she said. “All of that is truly cause for celebration.”

The bill signing received boos from three GOP lawmakers — Sen. Parker Space and Assembly members Dawn Fantasia and Michael Inganamort — who said the law will eliminate protections that have kept obscene material out of the hands of children.

“Our school libraries are meant to be a peaceful place for learning, not littered with lewd or inappropriate materials that distract from a child’s education,” they said in a joint statement. “Enabling the distribution of obscene material is reprehensible, but absolving accountability for its distribution is heinous and inexcusable.”

The law was a bit pared-down from what its sponsors initially intended. To appease critics, Zwicker and his bill co-sponsors Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) and Assemblywoman Mitchelle Drulis (D-Somerset) removed language that would have amended the state’s obscenity statute to add protections for librarians and teachers and state anti-discrimination law to bar employers from considering librarians’ actions on book removal requests in hiring decisions.

The bill ultimately passed the Legislature after lengthy committee hearings largely along party lines, with the Senate  by a 24-15 vote and the Assembly voting 52-20 for it in June.

A poll released earlier this year showed most New Jersey residents  about book bans, with more worried about censorship than classroom content.

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said book bans are related to attacks on other freedoms that have sprung up in recent years as politics have become more polarized — and will worsen under President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.

“There’s a subset of the population that wants to control what children have access to, regardless of whether or not they parent those children. Whether we’re talking about book bans or sex ed or abortion rights or critical race theory or DEI initiatives, those are all part of the same ecosystem,” Sinha said.

The new law protects the freedom of intellectual choice, he added.

“No one parent or no one community member gets to decide what books are appropriate for everybody in that community,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.

The New Jersey Board of Education decided by a one-vote margin this month to lower the minimum passing score on the state’s high school graduation test.

In four words, here’s what that decision means for families across our state: Expect less, get less.

For decades, no matter whether Democrats or Republicans were in charge, our elected officials have agreed that the state should set high standards for academic achievement — standards that correlate with being truly prepared for success in life.

This decision represents a stunning abandonment of that principle.

It also undermines the critical goal of equity. One board member who supported lowering the passing score suggested that it was “unfair” to “Black and Latino students” to require underperforming students to demonstrate a higher level of proficiency in reading and math before graduating. This gets it exactly backward. Every student, regardless of race or economic circumstances, should be launched into adulthood ready for success.

For too many years, our education system — sometimes subtly and sometimes more explicitly — set lower academic expectations for many students of color or those born into poverty. 

Holding all students to high and equal expectations is a core purpose of public education. The State Board’s decision, made at the behest of Gov. Phil Murphy, is directly contrary to this fundamental value.

So what is the justification for lowering the passing cut score in reading and math? It is certainly not that the state is achieving at a level that would somehow support lowering the bar. New Jersey rightly views itself as one of the top school systems in the country. 

In recent years, however, the trend line has had a decidedly downward trajectory.

With scores in both math and reading declining on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the NAEP), I applaud our efforts to give our great teachers the tools they need to help their students succeed. It is critical, however, that we also double down, not let up, on our academic expectations.

More broadly, while “accountability” seemingly has fallen out of favor in some political circles, setting high standards without honestly measuring whether they are being met is flatly inconsistent with the best interest of students.

What’s the real motive behind the change? The answer is in the numbers. 

Under the prior passing score, 39% of students would be “graduation ready” in reading and 49.5% in math. With the decision to reduce the required score, the numbers would leap to 80% in reading and 56.5% in math.

There may be superficial political value in this statistical parlor trick, but it comes at the expense of New Jersey students.

This essay originally appeared at . 

After three years of challenges caused or aggravated by the pandemic — closed schools, staffing shortages, students with burnout — New Jersey lawmakers are taking a closer look at whether high schoolers should pass an exam to graduate.

New Jersey is one of 11 states that require students to pass a standardized test in 11th grade in order to get their diploma. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law , and now some lawmakers want to make that a permanent move.

“No way should this test be on the books for 2024, because we still haven’t resolved the issues that our students have gone through in 2021, 2022, and 2023,” said Assemblyman Ralph Caputo, (D-Essex) sponsor of a  to eliminate the requirement.

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For nearly two hours Thursday, the Assembly Education Committee heard testimony from dozens of parents, school officials, and students who argued the state should not require 11th graders to pass a standardized test to graduate. Education advocates say students of color, students who speak English as a second language, and students with disabilities struggle with testing and tend to score much lower than their peers.

Jamil Maroun, superintendent of Manville Public Schools, where 47% of students are bilingual and 35% speak Spanish as their primary language at home, said standardized tests reveal the inequities between schools. The assessments are discriminatory against students from certain socio-economic backgrounds and students who speak other languages, he said.

The tests, he added, are designed for some students to fail and are a “barrier” hurting students.

“I would agree that we need to provide some sort of measure, but shouldn’t we ensure that that measure truly measures the quality of the educational programs that the students are receiving, not the wealth and poverty that they’re coming from? This is an equity issue,” he said.

In December, state education officials released results for the graduation exam that showed 39% of juniors who took the language arts test were ready to graduate, and 50% passed the math portion.

Caputo said the test adds to student and teacher stress, driving mental health concerns that have worsened during the pandemic. Nicole Asamaro, a Jersey City teacher who has a daughter with ADHD and anxiety disorders, said she’s seen her daughter panic over tests that don’t reflect whether she’s a good student.

“Even when she studies, she still somehow manages to fail. The teachers can’t understand why she fails when they know she knows the material … She will leave her test papers completely blank because her anxiety overcomes her ability to perform well on exams,” said Asamaro.

Asamaro works with Save Our Schools New Jersey, which advocates for fewer standardized tests in schools and other education policies.

As an educator working with students who have autism, she added, she prefers using assessments where students demonstrate what they can do rather than race to circle multiple-choice answers during a timed test.

The current form of the test is known as the New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment, but it’s been previously known as NJSLA, NJTPA, PARCC, or NJASK. The requirement comes from a  that mandates the testing requirement.

The testing requirement was waived in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years as well due to the pandemic.

The 2022 law Murphy signed allowed the assessment to be used as a field test, the year the newest version of the test was first administered. The State Board of Education the Graduation Proficiency Assessment for 11th graders through at least the class of 2025.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

An appellate panel last week ruled that public university students whose in-person instruction was upturned by school pandemic rules aren’t entitled to a refund.

The  affirms a trial court ruling that found the two universities in question did not have to partially refund tuition to students because in-person instruction went remote in March 2020. The judges ruled that New Jersey’s Emergency Health Powers Act insulates the schools from liability and does not violate the state or federal constitutions.

“Immunizing public entities from liability related to their actions in a statewide public health emergency is a key part of the legislative scheme, as it allows these entities to act quickly, efficiently, and fully to prepare for and react to such circumstances without fear of litigation consequences,” the decision reads.

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In separate cases, students from Kean University and Montclair State University alleged the move to remote schooling constituted a breach of contract, claiming they were denied the education their tuition paid for.

They said the online classes provided them with a worse education and, in some cases, deprived students of access to necessary equipment.

The plaintiffs noted that online classes both universities offered pre-pandemic carried lower tuition.

Both universities issued refunds for housing and dining fees after going remote but kept tuition payments and other fees, including some related to on-campus facilities.

“Notably, plaintiffs do not contend the actions taken by Kean or Montclair in transitioning to total online instruction were unreasonable or unnecessary,” the ruling reads.

Gov. Phil Murphy directed universities to stop in-person instruction in an executive order issued on March 16, 2020. Both universities resumed offering in-person classes in the fall 2021 semester.

It’s not clear whether the plaintiffs will petition the New Jersey Supreme Court for an appeal.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

As more Americans receive Covid-19 vaccines and schools move to reopen widely, leaders are doing their best to make sure everyone gets the memo: School is happening in-person this fall.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently , “We must prepare now for full in-person instruction come next school year.”

In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said in March he is “” schools across the state to return in-person in the fall, no exceptions. “We are expecting Monday through Friday, in-person, every school, every district,” he said.

Good luck with that.

Even as vaccination rates soar and the government authorizes access for adolescents, school districts nationwide are grappling with sometimes widespread suspicion and dissatisfaction over how they handled the pandemic, especially in communities of color. That’s forcing them to offer families an option that might have been unthinkable a year ago — and one that has a terrible track record: enrolling their children online this fall and continuing learning from home.

Dawn Williams, whose daughter will start first grade in August in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, said she’s seriously considering an online program. “Most of my friends that have children, their kids are still virtual,” she said.

So far it’s happening in just a fraction of the nation’s 13,500 districts. But those include a wide mix of rural and suburban districts, as well as large urban school systems like Albuquerque, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Nashville, Omaha, Richmond, and the District of Columbia, according to the University of Washington’s Center for the Reinvention of Public Education (CRPE).

In Colorado’s Jefferson County, the school district, responding to “high demand” from families, an online option in the fall. District spokesperson Cameron Bell said more than 700 students have enrolled so far, with at least 1,000 expected by August.

In Montgomery County, the largest school district in Maryland, officials are developing a virtual academy “to address both the students who may want to remain virtual for health reasons but also those who have thrived in virtual learning,” said spokesperson Gboyinde Onijala.

What’s going on here?

Much of this can be chalked up to simple consumer demand. One recent found that nearly 30 percent of parents would rely on virtual learning “indefinitely” going forward. That suggests a potential market of more than 15 million students.

Districts are listening. When RAND researchers surveyed about 320 public school leaders last October, they found that were either considering or actually planning to keep “one or more virtual schools” operating after the pandemic ends, said RAND’s Heather Schwartz.

“I expect that to hold, or even to increase somewhat based on early anecdotal indications that a sizable minority of students and parents prefer remote learning,” Schwartz said via email.

More recently, in early April, researchers at CRPE surveyed officials in 100 large urban school districts and found nearly identical results: 23, or just over one in five, plan to offer a remote option next fall.

District leaders told Schwartz and other researchers that their main motivation was “to be responsive to parent and student preferences” — and in no small part to improve sagging enrollments. of 33 states by The Associated Press and the education news site Chalkbeat found that public K-12 enrollment in 2020 dropped by more than half a million students, or 2 percent.

“You keep hearing this word: ‘thriving’”

As he talks these days to school leaders nationwide, education consultant John Bailey said he hears many of them say they plan to make online learning “a more permanent part of their offering to kids going forward.” A one-time U.S. Department of Education official who now advises the Walton Family Foundation, Bailey has supported the idea that reopening schools is safe. He said that while many educators acknowledge millions of students lost ground via distance learning, “for some kids, it’s working really well. So why not offer that going forward?”

Nationwide, families of color are keeping their children home at especially high rates. In Chicago, the district’s chief of school management told school board members late last month that most students are “learning virtually.” But about one in four Black high school students was absent from both in-person and remote learning in late April. Overall, only about two-thirds of high school students attended in-person classes on days they were expected in school, the Chicago Sun-Times .

At the same time, Asian fourth-graders attend school remotely at the of any group — 95 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Eighth-graders attend at an even higher rate: 96 percent. Asian families have expressed fears about their children experiencing anti-Asian discrimination or even violence in the wake of the pandemic.

While state and local restrictions can play a part in attendance statistics like these, many families are simply voting with their feet, said Bree Dusseault, a practitioner in residence at CRPE.

“There’s still a really sizable population of students who, even when given the option to be in-person, aren’t taking it,” she said.

“You keep hearing this word: ‘thriving’ — particularly in families of color,” said Annette Anderson, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools in Baltimore. “Districts have never had to wrestle with ‘How do we provide education in multiple formats?’ They thought this was a stopgap. Now what I think they’re finding is that there are many parents that were just fine with virtual learning.”

Anderson, a Black educator who is also a mother of three teens, said the past year has taught parents “that they have a voice at the table – and they are not being shy and retiring about letting people know what they want in terms of how they want their children to learn.”

Recent survey data suggest that Black, Hispanic and Asian parents are more likely than their white peers to say they prefer online learning. For instance, the journal recently noted data from early April that showed 60 percent of white parents have a preference for in-person learning, compared to just 25 percent of Black and Hispanic parents.

At the same time, Dusseault said, many parents of color see how badly education systems have served their kids in the past, with substandard instruction and .

When Anderson surveyed her three children recently, none wanted to go back to their Baltimore school this fall. They like learning from home and have been successful.

“I think my kids sometimes miss their friends,” she said. “But aside from that, I don’t have any of my three children saying right now, ‘Mom, I want to go back to school today or tomorrow.’ They have adapted to this.”

Anderson was quick to add that her kids “have every kind of technology possible,” as well as space at home to use it. All three have their own rooms, plus their home has a backyard. But whatever their situations, she said, “There are a lot of kids who are at home and they’re thriving. You can’t negate the success of those students and the opportunity that they have had to be separated from their peers and still do well academically.”

Williams, mother of the Maryland first-grader, said her daughter is already doing advanced work — and she’d like to keep it that way. Giving her child a chance to work virtually and independently is key.

“Students that are more advanced — and parents that have the choice — we’re going to keep our kids home,” she said. “Those kids are going to accelerate. They’re going to soar and they’re going to keep advancing.”

“School hesitancy” and safety

Vladimir Kogan, an Ohio State University political scientist who studies politics and public policy, said “school hesitancy” may in part be a function of the messages families hear — especially in places where teachers’ unions loudly demonstrated last year, enacting and the like to warn of the dangers of reopening schools.

“I think that messaging has definitely filtered down to the parents,” he said.

But has shown that when prevention strategies are in place in schools, transmission of the virus is typically lower than, or similar to, levels of community transmission, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As a result, public opinion is shifting. A February Pew found that 61 percent of Americans said K-12 schools that weren’t open for in-person instruction “should give a lot of consideration to the possibility that students will fall behind academically.” That’s up from 48 percent last July. And fewer Americans said schools should give a lot of consideration to the risk to teachers or students.

“I think the number of parents who are hesitant is going to go down pretty substantially,” Kogan said. “But I don’t think it’s going to go down to zero.”

Bailey, who recently summarizing research on safe school re-openings amid Covid fears, predicted that there will be a group of parents “who will probably never feel that it’s safe until there’s a vaccine for kids.”

The prognosis on vaccines seems promising: This week, both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved expanded use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children 12 to 15 years old. Pfizer also said it’ll ask the FDA for emergency authorization in September to administer its vaccine to children as young as 2 years old.

Both Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are conducting trials in children.The U.S. vaccine developer Novavax is also on children — its vaccine has a reported 96 percent efficacy rate in adults and is awaiting emergency use authorization in the U.S.

A “really terrible” track record for virtual schools

Kogan, the political scientist, worries that by relying on virtual schools, districts are embracing a well-studied — and failed — reform.

In a 2019 , researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Education Policy Center found that graduation rates at virtual and blended-learning schools were far lower than the national average for public schools. The review followed years of from researchers nationwide.

In 2016, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, along with other groups, issued “A Call to Action” to , saying far too many virtual schools “have experienced notable problems.”

At the student level, most of the dilemma lies in what’s required for students to be successful in virtual settings: huge amounts of self-control, motivation and discipline, said Kogan, who last January that found worse declines in reading achievement among Ohio third-graders in districts that used fully remote instruction.

The track record of these programs “was terrible before Covid,” Kogan said. “And I think it’s certainly the case that there are kids who do fine. But the districts are not saying, ‘We’re going to limit it only to kids who do fine.’”

To be fair, many educators get it. In its announcement of a “modified digital learning option,” the , district last month offered an official warning: “Digital learning is not optimal for every student. Some students did not do as well academically, socially, or emotionally in the digital learning environment.”

In the long term, Kogan said, his larger worry is that this could open the door to a two-tier education system: a bigger, functional one for students whose parents are comfortable sending them to school, and a smaller, inferior one “for kids whose parents are too scared and keep them home.”

The long-term damage, he said, “is going to be so devastating. It’s going to exacerbate all the inequalities that we already have.”

Anderson, the Baltimore educator and mother, acknowledged the dilemma, but emphasized it was nothing new: Millions of kids weren’t being served well before the pandemic. Here’s a chance for something better, especially for students of color who are already staying away in large numbers.

While leaders may insist that everyone attend in-person on the first day of school this fall, Anderson said, “I’m not hearing what is going to significantly shift over the summer that is going to make sure that these large numbers of families of color are going to suddenly show up in September.”