If we were talking about a parent who'd never heard of it, I'd say it's quite possible. For any given person, it's always possible they haven't heard of anything, no matter how universal you thought it was. There's always SOMEONE. And in some situations, assuming good intentions until proven otherwise is the wiser course. But given these circumstances, I think the advice to essentially assume the best is fairly stupid. The odds that the teacher knows and chose this book deliberately are... fairly overwhelming, and assuming good intentions gains you nothing.
This sort of depends on the race, class, and feelings of the parent and the kid though, because the parent complaining about the book in one way or another can be tough for the parent and can result in the teacher resenting and trying to revenge thmselves on the kid later, like the Home Ec teacher who never forgave me because my mom insisted it was discriminatory to require girls to wear skirts or dresses once a week for extra credit (the requirement was removed the semester I had her and reinstated as soon as I left her class).
On the other hand, if the kid is in elementary school, the parent talking to the teacher and pretending to believe the book choice was made in ignorance and 'informing' them in a concerned way of the problems with Limbaugh might work well. Depending on the kid, they might be perfectly happy to be primed with talking points to announce to the class at large whenever the books came up for discussion, and the teacher might well be eager to leave the subject to avoid that. I was sent out into the hallway a couple of times for telling my 2nd grade classmates about Columbus's genocide and George Bush Sr weaseling out of service in Vietnam, and the teachers both got in trouble after my mom put on a suit and came to the school in person to complain to the principal.
no subject
This sort of depends on the race, class, and feelings of the parent and the kid though, because the parent complaining about the book in one way or another can be tough for the parent and can result in the teacher resenting and trying to revenge thmselves on the kid later, like the Home Ec teacher who never forgave me because my mom insisted it was discriminatory to require girls to wear skirts or dresses once a week for extra credit (the requirement was removed the semester I had her and reinstated as soon as I left her class).
On the other hand, if the kid is in elementary school, the parent talking to the teacher and pretending to believe the book choice was made in ignorance and 'informing' them in a concerned way of the problems with Limbaugh might work well. Depending on the kid, they might be perfectly happy to be primed with talking points to announce to the class at large whenever the books came up for discussion, and the teacher might well be eager to leave the subject to avoid that. I was sent out into the hallway a couple of times for telling my 2nd grade classmates about Columbus's genocide and George Bush Sr weaseling out of service in Vietnam, and the teachers both got in trouble after my mom put on a suit and came to the school in person to complain to the principal.