High schools have forgotten James Baldwin.

The New York Times dives into the problem of James Baldwin's non-existence in high schools. The famed writer known for stories and texts regarding race and sexuality in America, who would have turned 90-years old this year, has largely fallen from the educational landscape in high schools after spending the 1960s and '70s as one of the cornerstones of scholarship.

So what happened? Rich Blint, a Baldwin scholar, has an idea he shares with the Times.

“I think he’s not taught as much anymore on the high school level because he’s incendiary and, for some, inflammatory,” said Rich Blint. [...] Paradoxically, the belief that the country is somehow postracial, Mr. Blint said, has shut down some discussions about race. “Think about how impoverished our racial conversations are now,” he said.

Other reasons cited, according to the Times? Censorship, Americans lack of reading, and Baldwin's exclusion on the list of suggested texts in the Common Core Standards all minimize his standing, as does the emergence of other black writers in recent decades, like Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.

What's undervalued here is the Common Core Standard--adopted by 44 states as a guideline for curriculum in schools for math and English--which includes a 183 page document of "suggested" reading material for every grade from K-12. While proponents of the Common Core argue the reading list suggestion isn't a statement on the literary canon, it's hard to avoid the implication that leaving a writer off the list doesn't also devalue their reputation in the eyes of a teacher who, to varying degrees, might feel forced to teach toward said list. When teachers deal with angry parents over book selection, what teacher dares select something omitted from the Common Core? Something involving "incendiary" takes on race and sexuality?

James Baldwin's exclusion from the Common Core and lack of recent interest in high schools? Maybe it's coincidence.

Or probably it's reality.