Pearland school board members knew they couldn’t personally vet hundreds of books for “indecent” or “profane” content prohibited under a new state law.
So when they met this fall to consider a 1,400-title purchase list, they had to either trust their librarians’ recommendations or find another way to weed out potentially problematic material.
“I have some trepidation about voting for something I didn’t review,” the board’s vice president, Kris Schoeffler, told fellow trustees at the September meeting. “But I also don’t want to slow the process – our librarian’s process – or second-guess their abilities.”
Their solution: ask ChatGPT.
Nestled in a red-leaning suburb south of Houston, Pearland is one of several school districts turning to artificial intelligence to keep up with the law, Senate Bill 13, which requires boards to sign off on all library purchases. The legislation comes after a 2023 law first required schools to purge “sexually explicit” books.
Katy ISD, Leander ISD, and New Braunfels ISD all confirmed to Hearst Newspapers that they also use AI tools to help identify potentially noncompliant titles. Some have hired a Dallas-based startup called Bookmarked to do the AI reviews for them.
In Pearland, ChatGPT flagged 57 books, among them a graphic adaptation of Lord of the Flies, several deep-dives on notorious serial killers, and a handful of books with “queer” in the titles. The school board is still deciding whether to pull any of the books.
Proponents see the technology as a gift, freeing up staff time while helping weed out content they see as inappropriate for schools.
“There’s a lot of needle in the haystack with these books,” said Sean Maika, superintendent of San Antonio’s North East ISD, which will soon use Bookmarked to identify titles that have been challenged elsewhere. “If it can lessen the burden of librarians and teachers – because they need time to focus on academics of our students, not trying to figure out what a book is or isn’t – I’m all for it.”
But critics of the new law say that AI screenings don’t factor in context and dehumanize stories about controversial topics, clearing the way for increased restrictions.
AI “doesn’t fully understand the community,” said Laney Hawes, an activist with the Texas Freedom to Read Project. “Books and stories are all about the human experience. Isn’t that the point of books?”
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Some school librarians see AI as a broader threat to their jobs as districts struggle under inflation and funding deficits.
“That’s my real fear, is that the AI sources will take the place of the librarians rather than the school board,” said Rachael Welsh, a high school librarian who chairs the Texas Association of School Librarians’ legislative advocacy committee. “We know that AI is not reliable. It can be biased. It can hallucinate.”
Welsh acknowledged that librarians cannot read every title, but said they have training, tools and processes that many board members do not. In Texas, books must have at least two reviews from accredited journals such as Booklist, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. Many librarians also refer to statewide lists of recommended titles.
On her campus, Welsh says she knows “every kid I’m buying a book for” and “every teacher’s curricular needs.” Most districts have dozens of campuses and tens of thousands of students, encompassing a range of age levels and interests.
“Our school board members have full-time jobs, so they don’t have time to go through all the books,” she said.
Kalyn Gensic, a librarian at Abilene ISD, said the idea of using AI to second-guess librarians’ choices is “pretty disturbing.”
“There are librarians all over the state who take building their lists very seriously,” she said. “The idea that you would then run it through AI just is frustrating.… We have a master’s degree in this and it was generally assumed that we could be trusted” before.
We can gnash our teeth all we want about the use of ChatPGT in this context, but that kind of misses the point. The original sin here is the law that mandates this review of books, by the school board. It’s not a realistic ask, and it allows the zealot class to pursue nuisance complaints with the express aim of bringing the state hammer down on school districts they think are not sufficiently compliant.
On the other end of that spectrum are the districts, including ones like New Braunfels ISD, named in this story, that over-comply up front. NBISD closed all of its school libraries pending their book review; that has been completed and the libraries are open again, after a few weeks. Some districts have essentially taken no action, leaving the review to librarians as before with the boards just signing off on their decisions. That’s how it’s always been done before, but as noted it’s a risk the districts are taking.
There’s lots to dislike about what some of these school districts are choosing to do, but they were ultimately forced into making one of several bad choices by the Legislature. The Lege is the problem here; ChatGPT is just a symptom. The Lege is what needs to be fixed.