> Chuck,
>
> When I was looking for a house to buy in Kansas City in 1991, all Real
> Estate agents I worked with would mention that Blue Valley Schools were
> the top in the country. What has happened since?
I really don't know where the schools rank nationally, but the school district has probably suffered from all of the sprawl and noveau riche yuppies. One thing that I meant to point out in my essay is that probably many of these parents who want to ban books include people from outside of the area. The Kansas City suburbs have seen a huge influx of new people over the past 20 years from outside of the area. So the bookburning isn't exactly nativist.
When I graduated from Blue Valley High School in 1983, it was the only high school. Now the district has at least 4 high schools. It seems very surreal to me that parents in this district would want to ban books, because when I was in high school nothing like that ever happened. I can't even remember the school doing the pledge of allegiance or anything like that. Blue Valley schools in the late 1970s were the kind of place that I could take classes in middle school which included mandatory reading of the Jungle, the Grapes of Wrath, and Fahrenheit 451.
I'm a product of Blue Valley schools and look how I turned out. ;-)
Chuck