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The case of Superintendent Carol S. Parham for including Maya Angelou's book "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" in the Anne Arundel County public school curriculum rests on several points. She believes that the book is excellent literature. She believes that its use in the schools helps achieve specific objectives of the school curriculum. She also believes that it is age appropriate for some ninth grade students in the county. Finally, she argues that proper procedures were followed by the school system in handling parental concerns about the book. In presenting the Superintendent's case, her lawyer relied on expert testimony about the quality of the book. Attorney Darren Burns established the credentials of each of his witnesses, then lead them through a defense of the book as quality literature. Next, his witnesses carefully and methodically explained how the book was used in the classroom to fulfill educational objectives specified in the curriculum. They presented evidence that, not only was the book not harmful to the ninth graders who read it, it was of tremendous benefit to them. Mr. Burns entered into evidence copies of the procedures used in handling parental complaints about curriculum materials, and generally established that they had been properly followed in the case of the Taylors. He then thanked them for raising the issues because, he said, it had caused the school system to reevaluate those procedures. As a result of the case, the procedures were fine tuned a bit. Additional teacher inservice training was held to make sure that the book was being properly used in all classrooms, and to make certain that parental concerns were being addressed. Mr. Burns insisted that the panel chosen to evaluate the book was fairly chosen, and that it included some opponents of the book. He noted that the final recommendation of the panel was unanimously in favor of returning the book to the curriculum. |