Book Review: They Came for the Schools by Mike Hixenbaugh (2024)
Synopsis: Southlake, Texas seemed like an ideal community, especially for parents who wanted their kids in a good school district and could afford to live there. However, while Southlake's Carroll Independent School District seemed to have embraced diversity, a series of racist incidents tarnished the district's reputation and attempts to correct the problem were met with unexpected resistance.
This book discusses Southlake's plight as part of a broader discussion about national opposition to school diversity programs and curriculum.
Review: I always attempt to pick out at least one non-fiction book when I'm at my library and, when I came across They Came for the Schools by the library entrance a couple weeks ago, I decided to give the book a try. It proved to be an interesting and eye-opening read.
I think the thing that really impressed me about this book is it was able to take a national narrative about school diversity/the resistance to it and make it easier to understand in context by narrowing it down to one community and one school district. This enabled the author to put faces and names to the problem and make it seem more personal as a result.
Frankly, the book surprised me. When I saw it was discussing a school district in Texas, my first reaction was - "well of course, it's deep-Red and highly conservative Texas." However, Southlake's story wasn't as predictable as I expected. It was a community that was clearly built to keep "undesirables" out by purposely keeping property values and the cost of living high but also seemed to have learned from its past mistakes involving racism and was pushing for more inclusivity, even if it was mostly just professional athletes.
This made the story seem much more tragic as a result, with the Rolles, the family the author focuses the book on, choosing to move from California believing it would be a better life for their kids only to find their children becoming victims of casual racism that was being downplayed or overlooked by the school district.
The part that was eye-opening for me though was how there seemed to be a very real effort to finally address the problem, complete with a commission of community volunteers willing to put together a reform plan, only to have it ultimately fail because of COVID, because of fear caused by Black Lives Matter protests and because of an emboldened conservative "army." It was heartbreaking and tragic, especially when the real people who were impacted by it were discussed.
Final Opinion: It's an interesting book that brings a very real issue involving our nation's schools to the forefront in a way that is easy to understand. I am glad I chose it and I recommend it.
My Grade: A
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Here are some reviews of similar books:
Book Review: That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones (2024)
Book Review: Created Equal by Ben Carson, MD with Candy Carson (2022)
Book Review: The Gift of our Wounds by Arno Michaelis and Pardeep Singh Kaleka (2018)
Book Review: How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (2019)
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