Battleground
BattlegroundCritical Review of Battleground
In Battleground, Stephen Bates narrates the account of a court case in a small Tennessee town. The court case started with a mother helping her child with a reading assignment. This mother could not believe what she was reading. This mother�s name was Vicki Frost, who was a home keeper. Frost went to the school and told the principal what she thought about the books. She believed that the books went against everything she taught her children. She believed Satan wrote these books. She took her children out of class during reading time, from that point on. When the school told her that her children would fail if they didn�t attend class, Frost was astounded. After many battles with the local school, she took her case to court. The school said the books were appropriate for the children to read, and if parents did not agree they could transfer their children to another school. Both sides had different organizations backing them. The case gained national attention. The federal court sided with the school district in the end, but Vicki Frost did raise attention on how schoolbooks are chosen for our public schools.
The book by Stephen Bates brings up a very controversial issue, should parents be able to control what their children read in public schools. Bates does not criticize either side during this book. Bates does a good job narrating the book giving good details and letting the reader make his/her own decision. Vicki Frost is a parent who does not want her kids reading books that contradict her families beliefs. Frost did the right thing by addressing the school about this problem. I could not decide which side I agree with while reading the book. Both sides made good arguments against each other. Men who believed in God founded this country. "IN God WE Trust" is on federal property that we use everyday, but the school system sometimes teach something different.
I agree with Frost that parents should control what public schools teach their children. Parents pay taxes, which fund public schools and pay teachers salaries. But public schools can not have different classes for different religions groups either. The Holts Books are like many other books; people get different understandings of the books. People think different, so people will translate the meaning of books differently. I also have to agree with the school district as well. Hawkins County has spent a lot of money on their educational system, and some lady with no college background is questioning the system. I believe the school district did not know what to think of the situation at first, but when a mother starts pulling her children out of class, "what can they do?" This would not be fair if the school district let the Frost children skip class and...
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