The chairman of the Idaho Senate's education committee, John Goedde, has introduced a bill that would require every Idaho student to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and to pass a test on it before graduating high school, the Spokesman-Review reports.
The state senator clarifies that he doesn't intend to hold a hearing on the bill or move forward with enacting it, but that he just wanted to make a point about graduation requirements.
The story reminded me of how the great historian of the Holocaust, Lucy Dawidowicz, reacted once when she was asked whether there ought to be mandatory Holocaust education in American schools. As I recall the anecdote, which was related by Seth Lipsky, she said something to the effect that she'd be happy if the students learned about the Constitution.
That's about how I feel about forcing high school students to read Atlas Shrugged. I'd be happy if they read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Once that's mastered, we can have a conversation about what else to read.