Parents and local school districts pulled nearly 12,000 books from public school shelves last year — the highest count on record — and the free-speech establishment is calling it a crisis. Ordinary Americans call it accountability.

PEN America, a self-styled free-expression nonprofit, released its annual "Banned in the USA" report Monday and framed the 11,982 removals as evidence of a creeping "censorship crisis." But the framing reveals more about the organization than the facts: these are decisions made by parents and elected school boards about what content is appropriate for children in taxpayer-funded institutions. Calling every removal a "ban" — even temporary ones — inflates the numbers and strips parents of agency.

The methodology matters. PEN counts any book removed, even briefly, as a "ban." The American Library Association, which tracks the same phenomenon, only counts permanent removals and logged roughly 5,600 instances — less than half PEN's figure. NBC News reported both figures; The Guardian buried the ALA's count.

Texas led the nation with over 8,100 removals, driven by state law SB13, which bars broad categories of material from schools. Florida, which held the top spot for three consecutive years, dropped to second. PEN says 114 school districts across the country pulled books this year — the most districts ever in a single year.

The most frequently removed individual title was Patricia McCormick's "Sold," a young adult novel about a girl sold into sexual slavery in Nepal. PEN found 25 removals. McCormick pushed back hard, saying in a statement issued through PEN: "To hear people, or book banners, say that their accounts are pornographic is so disrespectful to them." Stephen King remained the most-removed author for the second straight year, with his books pulled 312 times.

Both outlets noted that themes of race, sexuality, and gender identity dominate the challenges. NBC framed this as targeting marginalized voices; The Guardian called the prohibitions on popular fiction and manga "worrisome." Neither outlet engaged the substantive argument: that parents have a right — and a duty — to determine whether content about sexual exploitation, gender ideology, or explicit material belongs in a school library serving minors.

One detail both outlets reported deserves more scrutiny: school districts are increasingly using AI tools to flag books for removal. Kasey Meehan, director of PEN's Freedom to Read program, called it tragic that schools are banning "engaging stories" when reading for pleasure is already in decline. But the question of who decides what counts as "engaging" versus what counts as inappropriate is exactly the dispute — and it's parents, not PEN, who have the legitimate standing to make that call for their own children.

The Guardian noted that progressive school board candidates in Florida defeated right-wing candidates in several elections this year, suggesting the pushback cuts both ways. That's how democratic accountability is supposed to work.

The real question isn't whether 12,000 removals is too many or too few. It's who decides what children can access in public institutions: parents, or the people who want to call those parents censors.