Congratulations to the Coeur d’Alene School Board for upholding the standards of education, even when those standards don’t emphasize science and math or claim to make America more competitive in a global economy.

Strengthening math and science curricula and making America more competitive in a global economy are essential, no question about it. But it’s also vital for schools to prepare students to be well-rounded citizens. And the humanities rarely enjoy the billing they deserve.

On Monday, though, the Coeur d’Alene board voted 3-2 to keep the acclaimed novel “Snow Falling on Cedars” as part of the English curriculum for juniors.

It would have been easy – and politically safe – to give in to pressure from those who see nothing in David Guterson’s PEN/Faulkner Award winner but some strong language and the occasional graphic sex scene. But the board held firm, if only by one vote.

Even the two dissenting board members said they would be content to allow the book on an optional list where curious students could turn on their own. They just didn’t want it to be assigned reading.

But it should be assigned reading. Teachers and schools should point students toward literature that tackles necessary themes. Coeur d’Alene schools give students and their families the option to request a different book if they consider “Snow Falling on Cedars” (or any other book) inappropriate, but assigning it in the first place tells students that the emotions, challenges and choices it portrays are part of the preparation they’ll need to understand the world at an adult level.

Adolescents, knocking at the door of maturity, are better off making that passage with the help of teachers and other caring adults.

“Snow Falling on Cedars” may contain passages that will trigger a blush or a nervous giggle, but it’s really about some of society’s most difficult challenges – fighting for justice, overcoming fear, standing up to bigotry. Things the late Walt Woodard exemplified as editor of the Bainbridge Review.

Woodward, the real-life Puget Sound journalist who inspired the Arthur Chambers character in Guterson’s novel, stood alone among West Coast editors in the promptness and relentlessness with which he defended Japanese Americans against racist paranoia during World War II.

On the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, he editorialized: “We dare not forget our neighbors of Japanese ancestry.” The community didn’t exactly show him the same admiration that history has.

Recognizing Woodward’s moral courage, as illustrated with vivid candor in Guterson’s well-told story, is as necessary for high school students as calculus and chemistry. Fortunately for them, the Coeur d’Alene School Board didn’t buckle under the pressure.