BACK TO SCHOOL LESSON FOR PAW: CENSORSHIP MEANS GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 1995 -- "People for the American Way still doesn't get 
it.  When a government restricts what its citizens can read -- that's 
censorship.  But when parents have input on what local officials do in the 
schools -- that's democracy," Family Research Council President Gary L. Bauer 
said Wednesday.

Bauer made the following statement as People for the American Way released 
their annual report criticizing parental input in local schools:

"Obviously not every school and every library can have every book in 
existence.  The question is will schools and libraries listen to parents or 
will they listen to People for the American Way.  The real story here is the 
breakdown of democracy.  How many times a day does a school board or a school 
library ignore parents who are merely trying to have input into the education 
of their children?

"It stretches the limits of the imagination to believe that 458 phone calls 
over 365 days spread over 80,000 public school and 15,000 public libraries is 
some kind of terrible groundswell of social destruction -- that's not even one 
call per member of Congress.

"Who are the real extremists?  An organization that finds calls from 458 
people in this country of 250 million a threat to freedom and who dispute a 
parent's right to comment on their children's education.

"Ironically, Washington bureaucrats these days are giving lip service to 
parental and community involvement in schools.  The U.S. Education Department 
recently acknowledged that 90% of the differences in average student 
achievement is attributable to home factors.  Parents are clearly the most 
important teachers in a child's life -- even the federal education department 
will admit.  Perhaps PAW should take a lesson from the Department of 
Education."