Ravi Gupta, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of RePublic Charter Schools, wrote a blog post about Nashville School Board Member Amy Frogge complaining to MNPS about a book that seventh graders at Nashville Prep are currently reading. Amy Frogge wants to close down Nashville Prep because they are reading City of Thieves, a book she does not want in middle schools. This is what censorship looks like.
If you want to close a school because they are reading a book you don’t like, you may be closing a lot of schools in Nashville. We hear so much of autonomy in MNPS schools, but some involved in education are still afraid to give up all that power. Nashville Prep agrees with the teaching of City of Thieves. That’s all that matters. If parents disagree with that decision, they can take it up with Nashville Prep and their board.
Seventh graders can handle mature content. When you work with these students everyday, like I do, you know what type of content they can handle. The seventh graders I have worked with in MNPS can handle mature content.
Teachers & schools know their students. That’s what we are trained to do.
Nashville Prep knows how to educate their students. What can the Nashville School Board do to Nashville Prep?
As a literacy educator, I hate seeing books attacked while students are actually reading. City of Thieves could be the turning point for many of the middle schoolers to stick with reading. While we are spending time discussing the merits of the books, Nashville Prep is making growth while other schools are not.
Nashville Prep must be doing something right.
Please read the rest of the blog post that was posted by RePublic Charter Schools to hear about the claim that City of Thieves was too high of a lexile for the students at Nashville Prep and how Amy Frogge & Chelle Baldwin were for Nashville Prep before they were against Nashville Prep.
UPDATE: Amy Frogge has responded to Ravi Gupta with a lengthy Facebook post that you can read here. She lists many allegations against Nashville Prep that she has heard over the years. You can read those at her Facebook page.
Since my post deals with the issue of the book, City of Thieves, here is what she as to say on that topic.
This book currently resides in high schools in Nashville. This may be the start of at least one book being banned in MNPS.