Why is Houston shutting down libraries at some of its poorest public schools? | Francine Prose

Former library spaces will now be multipurpose' rooms; disruptive students will be stationed there to watch footage of their classrooms

Among the news stories that have shadowed these bright, late-summer days is a recent report from Houston, where the state of Texas has announced its plan to close public school libraries in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. The former library spaces will now be used as so-called multipurpose" rooms, which actually seem to have one single purpose: punishing disruptive" students by making them watch, on computer screens, what's happening back in their classrooms.

No one seems clear about the fate of students who remain disruptive in the multipurpose rooms. Surely I am not the only adult who remembers that being sent to detention was more of a vacation than a punishment. So it's uncertain how precisely a student's internal exile is meant to function. It's hard to imagine what students will learn from these cheerless, punitive spaces - except for the grim possibility that they are being prepped for incarceration.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences