Reader Jack Covey left the following comment in response to a post about Utah:
“One of the first actions as newly appointed superintendent that really caught the ire of the community was to fire all of the librarians in the district including many reading specialists, citing potential increases in the cost of benefits under the Affordable Care Act. [ii] Smith also went on to explain that Ogden School District is the only remaining district on the Wasatch Front to employ licensed teachers as media specialists in their libraries. [iii]This turned out to be false, but deaf to the public outcry by parents, teachers, and students, the librarians did, indeed, lose their jobs. Many had been in the district for decades. After all was said and done, a handful of librarians remained.”
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A lesser known outrage during John Deasy’s reign of terror in Los Angeles schools was his treatment of librarians. Just after taking over, he made a speech at Occidental College calling them useless and a waste of money, and then went after them.
Once he closed school libraries and removed the librarians in charge of them, the next step was to keep librarians from being placed in classroom position—as most had 10-30 years seniority, and were at the high end of the pay scale—and fire them from the district to save money.
What happened next defies description. They were put through hearings that were right out of Arthur Koestler’s DARKNESS AT NOON. The intent was to “prove” that, though fully credentialed by the state to teach, their years as librarians rendered them unfit to return to the classroom.
“… attorneys representing the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) asked Kafkaesque questions such as ‘Do you take attendance?’ of dozens of teacher-librarians appealing their layoffs in order to prove to an administrative judge that the teacher-librarians were not qualified to become classroom teachers. At least, that’s what observers such as Tobar and Nora Murphy, a teacher-librarian for L.A. Academy Middle School and blogger, have written about the hearings.
“What does taking attendance have to do with being a highly trained educator who is duly credentialed and who teaches how to learn? Here’s the connection: A recency rule established this school year by LAUSD officials (and upheld by an administrative judge) states that a teacher-librarian who has not taught in a classroom for five years is no longer, by definition, a qualified teacher, no matter how many years of service and training she or he has.
“And if a teacher-librarian hasn’t taken attendance in five or more years, she or he must not have been in charge of a classroom. The administrative judge presiding over the hearings upheld the recency rule, clearing the way for the trials. It is unclear when the judge will rule on the individuals’ qualifications.
“In a May 18 op-ed in the Times, Murphy said:
” ‘I have listened as other teacher-librarians have endured demeaning questions from school district attorneys, and I wonder how it has come to this. . . . The basic question being asked is whether highly trained and experienced teacher-librarians are fit for the classroom. LAUSD’s lawyers seem determined to prove they are not.
” ‘One librarian, who would like to go back to an elementary classroom if her library is closed, was asked to recite the physical education standards for second-graders, as if failing to do so would mean she was unfit.
” ‘Another teacher, who wants to return to teaching English, noted that she spent all day in the library effectively teaching English. But her inquisitor quickly started asking questions about the Dewey Decimal System, suggesting that since it involved more math than English, the teacher was no longer practiced in the art of teaching English.’
“Among those laid off is Leslie Sipos, teacher-librarian for the middle- and high school library at the brand-new LAUSD’s Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools campus, which was featured in American Libraries’ 2011 facilities showcase. ‘She hadn’t even gotten all the books out of boxes,’ Monroe High School Teacher-Librarian Annette Scherr told AL.
“ ‘The elimination of school librarians means the District is losing invaluable teachers whose educational specialty is empowering students with life-long, independent learning skills,’ wrote American Library Association President Roberta A. Stevens and Nancy Everhart, president of ALA’s American Association of School Librarians, in an open letter May 18 to the LAUSD board and administration.
“Urging the district to reconsider its decision, Stevens and Everhart asserted: ‘The elimination of these positions will have a devastating effect on the educational prospects and success of the District’s students. A good school library is not an option—it is essential to a good education.’
“As the grilling of teacher-librarians and other LAUSD educators proceeded, there was a presumption that state aid to education was going to be slashed yet again in FY2012, which would be partly responsible for LAUSD having a nearly $408-million deficit to erase. However, California Gov. Jerry Brown announced May 16 that, because state revenues had mushroomed $6.6 billion more than anticipated this fiscal year, he was recommending the restoration of $3 billion to education spending.
“If LAUSD receives the $300 million it would be due, it’s unclear whether it could help alleviate the situation in which teacher-librarians find themselves. What could help is the intense networking and outreach that members of the California School Librarians Association are doing to make the Los Angeles school libraries crisis as visible as possible.
“Teacher-librarians such as Scherr lobbied in the state Capitol with the California Teachers Association in mid-May for additional education funding, and even buttonholed California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, who was among those backing the state’s adoption last year of model school-library standards. Authors Neil Gaiman, Bruce Coville, and Jane Yolen have been spreading the word through Facebook; Gaiman has also created a #savethelibrarians hashtag.
From Kafka to kiosk?
“Scherr and other LAUSD teacher-librarians remain determined, but according to the April 20 quarterly report on bond-funded projects issued by district Chief Academic Officer Judy Elliott, the district has already reorganized the Instructional Media Services, which supported the school-library program, into a new department: the Integrated Library and Textbook Support Services.
” ‘The Director position of Instructional Media Services is being eliminated,’ Elliott writes, noting, ‘ILTSS supports the instructional goals of the Superintendent and LAUSD by ensuring new school libraries will be made available to students. . . . It is understood that all libraries need a certified librarian, but budget constraints force us to investigate different options for the schools to implement.’ ”
“According to Scherr, Elliott testified before the administrative judge that there was no function a teacher-librarian could perform that couldn’t be performed by anybody else. That philosophy is reflected in the report, which goes into detail about the implementation of Follett Software’s Destiny integrated-library system for library and textbook inventory management. Principals are offered three options: Find external funding for a teacher-librarian to manage the software system; delegate a school staffer to learn and maintain the software; establish an unstaffed ‘kiosk’ self-check system so students and faculty can still access the library’s collection.”
And here’s Hector Tobar’s report at the LOS ANGELES TIMES:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/13/local/la-me-0513-tobar-20110513
HECTOR TOBAR:
“In a basement downtown, the librarians are being interrogated.
“On most days, they work in middle schools and high schools operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District, fielding student queries about American history and Greek mythology, and retrieving copies of vampire novels.
“But this week, you’ll find them in a makeshift LAUSD courtroom set up on the bare concrete floor of a building on East 9th Street. Several sit in plastic chairs, watching from an improvised gallery as their fellow librarians are questioned.
“A court reporter takes down testimony. A judge grants or denies objections from attorneys. Armed police officers hover nearby. On the witness stand, one librarian at a time is summoned to explain why she — the vast majority are women — should be allowed to keep her job.
“The librarians are guilty of nothing except earning salaries the district feels the need to cut. But as they’re cross-examined by determined LAUSD attorneys, they’re continually put on the defensive.
” ‘When was the last time you taught a course for which your librarian credential was not required?’ an LAUSD attorney asked Laura Graff, the librarian at Sun Valley High School, at a court session on Monday.
” ‘I’m not sure what you’re asking,’ Graff said. ‘ I teach all subjects, all day. In the library.’
” ‘Do you take attendance?’ the attorney insisted. ‘Do you issue grades?’
I’ve seen a lot of strange things in two decades as a reporter, but nothing quite as disgraceful and weird as this inquisition the LAUSD is inflicting upon more than 80 school librarians.
” ‘With my experience, it makes me angry to be interrogated,’ Graff told me after the 40 minutes she spent on the witness stand, describing the work she’s done at libraries and schools going back to the 1970s. ‘I don’t think any teacher-librarian needs to sit here and explain how they help teach students.’
“Sitting in during two court sessions this week, I felt bad for everyone present, including the LAUSD attorneys. After all, in the presence of a school librarian, you feel the need to whisper and be respectful. It must be very difficult, I thought, to grill a librarian.
“For LAUSD officials, it’s a means to an end: balancing the budget.
“Some 85 credentialed teacher-librarians got layoff notices in March. If state education cuts end up being as bad as most think likely, their only chance to keep a paycheck is to prove that they’re qualified to be transferred into classroom teaching jobs.
“Since all middle and high school librarians are required to have a state teaching credential in addition to a librarian credential, this should be an easy task — except for a school district rule that makes such transfers contingent on having taught students within the last five years.
“To get the librarians off the payroll, the district’s attorneys need to prove to an administrative law judge that the librarians don’t have that recent teaching experience. To try to prove that they do teach, the librarians, in turn, come to their hearings with copies of lesson plans they’ve prepared and reading groups they’ve organized.
“Sandra Lagasse, for 20 years the librarian at White Middle School in Carson, arrived at the temporary courtroom Wednesday with copies of her lesson plans in Greek word origins and mythology.
“On the witness stand, she described tutoring students in geometry and history, including subjects like the Hammurabi Code. Her multi-subject teaching credential was entered into evidence as ‘Exhibit 515.’
” Lagasse also described the ‘Reading Counts’ program she runs in the library, in which every student in the school is assessed for reading skills.
” ‘This is not a class, correct?’ a school district attorney asked her during cross-examination.
” ‘No,’ she said. ‘It is part of a class.’
” ‘There is no class at your school called ‘Reading Counts’? Correct.’ ”
” ‘No.’
“Lagasse endured her time on the stand with quiet dignity and confidence. She described how groups of up to 75 students file into her library — and how she works individually with many students.
“Later she told me: ‘I know I’m doing my job right when a student tells me, ‘Mrs. Lagasse, that book you gave me was so good. Do you have anything else like it?’ ”
It’s a noble profession. And it happens to be the only one Michael Bernard wants to practice.
” ‘It’s true, I’m a librarian and that’s all I want to be,’ said the librarian at North Hollywood High School, who has been a librarian for 23 years and has a master’s degree in library science.
” ‘The larger issue is the destruction of school libraries,’ Bernard told me. ‘None of the lawyers was talking about that.’
“School district rules say that only a certified teacher-librarian can manage a school library. So if Bernard is laid off, his library, with its 40,000 books and new computer terminals, could be shut down.
“Word of the libraries’ pending doom is starting to spread through the district. Adalgisa Grazziani, the librarian at Marshall High School, told me that the kids at her school are asking if they can take home books when the library there is closed.
” ‘Can I have the fantasy collection?’ one asked her.
“If they could speak freely at their dismissal hearings, the librarians likely would tell all present what a tragedy it is to close a library.
“Instead, they sit and try to politely answer such questions as, ‘Have you ever taught physical education?’
“It doesn’t seem right to punish an educator for choosing the quiet and contemplation of book stacks over the noise and hubbub of a classroom or a gymnasium. But that’s where we are in these strange and stupid times.”
Are the local teacher’s union’s lawyers presenting an affirmative case? If not why not?
UTLA, the local teacher’s union is a failing union that only does one thing well and consistently, collect union dues.
And these dues are evidently increasing soon.
UTLA also does a great job of not advocating in public for teachers and not organizing member around outrages such as this. This is the first I have heard about this.
And in Ogden, Utah, the NEA-affiliate also declined to protest at the firing of the librarians and reading specialists. But Utah is a right to work state, so there’s not much lawyers can do here.
I am hoping some Los Angeles Unified parent finds a school with the basics (rich curriculum, library, students at or above grade level, etc.), let’s say in nearby Palos Verdes, and applies for admission for his child. When he is refused because “you are not within our boundaries” I hope he goes to court because his child has a right to equal educational opportunities in California. Oh, I am just waiting for such a court case!
I agree with Linda 100% and cannot understand why this suggested lawsuit has not yet happened.
Palos Verdes, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Anaheim Hills, Pacific Palisades, Encino, etc. all have enclaves of wealthy and highly educated parents who support their PTO with big bucks (at least $7K a year donation per family, plus about $4K for after school programs). Poor districts are on a far lower level in terms of how much parents can afford to donate to their 501(c)(3) PTO.
It is amazing to see that in the last 15 years almost every public school in So. California has formed an Education Foundation (I have written the grant proposals for some of these) to bring in money for what used to be standard public school offerings such as librarians, bands and orchestras, arts classes, shop classes, AP classes, even janitors.
What are our huge California taxes going to support instead of education?
Exxon Mobil is one industry that profits off the California taxpayer. This richest and most powerful corporation not only does not pay any tax, but also does not pay any fees for drilling and fracking in this state. They do however, qualify for IRS rebates paid from the ‘little guys’, We the People, mandated state and federal taxation.
Another billionaire run corporation, the LA Times, is off and running with the Eli Broad determined edict to take over at least 50% of the LAUSD public schools and charterize them, raking in big profits for investors. Today, the lead article on Page 1, above the fold, shows a 4 column photo of a dozen cute little Latino students happily engaged in a hallway of their charter school. The article below paints rosy verbal pictures of these Broad-inspired charters, and of course, does not compare them with well-functioning public schools. It is pure ‘puffery’ and the worst sort of deceptive journalism.
Thanks to Jack Covey for often telling the real truth here about what is going on in LA schools.
Let’s get parents united and hire Mark Geragos to represent the striving parents in a true civil rights class action lawsuit to give inner city students parity with the wealthy neighborhoods that have highly functioning public schools. Vergara only benefits the union killer billionaires. Real civil rights would be to enhance and fund our public schools, not to ‘de facto’ kill Brown v. Bd. of Ed and return to segregated charter schools.
Ellen, I know that some parents have tried to get into good schools illegally, but has anyone gone to court to try to force admission? It’s hard to believe no one has, especially since CA courts have decreed that all children have a right to equal educational opportunities.
Yes, we definitely need a Mark Geragos on our side, and maybe we do!
Linda,
You asked if anyone has gone to court to force admission to a good school in the same district?.
Here is a news item that will shatter your beliefs. This is opposite of what you think.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654
An Ohio mother’s attempt to provide her daughters with a better education has landed her behind bars.
Kelley Williams-Bolar was convicted of lying about her residency to get her daughters into a better school district.
“It’s overwhelming. I’m exhausted,” she said. “I did this for them, so there it is. I did this for them.”
Williams-Bolar decided four years ago to send her daughters to a highly ranked school in neighboring Copley-Fairlawn School District.
But it wasn’t her Akron district of residence, so her children were ineligible to attend school there, even though her father lived within the district’s boundaries.
The school district accused Williams-Bolar of lying about her address, falsifying records and, when confronted, having her father file false court papers to get around the system.
Williams-Bolar said she did it to keep her children safe and that she lived part-time with her dad.
“When my home got broken into, I felt it was my duty to do something else,” Williams-Bolar said.
While her children are no longer attending schools in the Copley-Fairlawn District, school officials said she was cheating because her daughters received a quality education without paying taxes to fund it.
“Those dollars need to stay home with our students,” school district officials said.
Sentence Intended as Deterrent
The district hired a private investigator, who shot video showing Williams-Bolar driving her children into the district.
The school officials asked her to pay $30,000 in back tuition.
Williams-Bolar refused and was indicted and convicted of falsifying her residency records.
She was sentenced last week to 10 days in county jail and put on three years of probation.
She will also be required to perform community service, the Beacon Journal reported.
Williams-Bolar said she was being singled out.
“I don’t think they wanted money ? ,” Williams-Bolar said. “They wanted me to be an example.”
Presiding Judge Patricia Cosgrove acknowledged as much.
“I felt that some punishment or deterrent was needed for other individuals who might think to defraud the various school districts,” Cosgrove said.
We moved from one district to another, but I kept my 3 of my kids in the old school with 1 attending the new one (we moved because she was being bullied by her classmates and the high school was not supportive). Eventually a second daughter also decided to go to the other high school, but the two little ones stayed at the old elementary. I drove them to school every day, but I also drove them prior to our moving. The following year I got a letter saying I could no longer send my kids there as I did not live in the district. (I was using my mom’s address who lives right around the corner from our former home).
I couldn’t talk them into letting my elementary school children stay, but in their defense, it was a common practice for people to use their parents or other relatives address in order to attend this particular school and the district wanted to stop these abuses.
Luckily, my new neighborhood school district is excellent (number 1 in the area) so my children did not suffer (although the former school had a diverse student population which the new school lacked – a feature which I thought was worth the drive).
Oh, and we still own that house in the old district and pay taxes on it to this day, but we were told that since we didn’t live there it didn’t count as residency.
Luckily they just kicked us out and I didn’t have to serve jail time with all the other unlawful “peers” who attempted the same “con”. (But if my child was a sports star this story would have a different ending – a comment for a future column).
The Inquisition has returned. The great heresy is having a school library with a qualified librarian.
You can see how disingenuously public school education is treated in So. California mass media by reading the front page story on Kindergarten and the wonderful K-charters, in the LA Times today. This media supporter/ partner of Eli Broad is now doing daily stories that laud in some way, charter schools, and attach this to real and important news like mandated Kindergarten for all.
But even more egregious, please read about Anaheim (home to the former Dem state senator Gloria Romero, who wrote the deeply flawed Parent Empowerment Act of 2010) in Orange County, where PRev has spent a ton of Rheeform predators/billionaires/CCSA cash to take down public schools and implant charters.
Read the two articles in the link on 1) why the high schools will not get county funds (“they might teach Howard Zinn”) and 2) the article on the new parity of public schools and charters.
It is very discouraging to feel that we are running backwards.
And yes, UTLA at LAUSD seems not to protect librarians, nor teachers, nor students.
———————————————————————
Sent: Sat, Aug 22, 2015 12:59 pm
Subject: [Anaheim Blog] Anaheim Union HS School District Request For City Subsidy Should Be Rebuffed
Anaheim Blog has posted a new item, ‘Anaheim Union HS School District
Request
For City Subsidy Should Be Rebuffed’
The Orange County Register
reports the Anaheim Union High School District Board
of Trustees voted to
unanimously to ask the City of Anaheim to provide it with
an annual subsidy.
The resolution was introduced by Trustee Al Jabbar, a
Democratic and public
employee union activist:
“Therefore, be it resolved that the Anaheim Union High
School District […]
You may view the latest post
at
http://www.anaheimblog.net/2015/08/22/anaheim-union-hs-school-district-request-for-city-subsidy-should-be-rebuffed/
From one scapegoat to the next. Except the football coaches.
We are witnessing the wholesale destruction of civilization by the U.S. equivalent of ISIS.
This is a reasonable, clear-eyed comment.
http://www.theonion.com/article/nadir-of-western-civilization-to-be-reached-this-f-2812
Sadly, UTLA didn’t even negotiate on behalf of all librarians in recent contract negotiations. Even UTLA admits that even after they agreed to 609 layoff notices to be issued to UTLA members in March 2015, choosing not to fight for these educators in negotiations, there are still 219 educators who have not had their layoff notices rescinded. UTLA chose not to fight for them, or for schools to have fully staffed libraries. So much for UTLA unity. https://www.facebook.com/groups/utlaaccountability/
School Librarians have always been viewed as dispensable, even though the research indicates that the key to a successful school is a full time library media specialist.
I remember reading about this at the time. I thought I had read Deasy quoted as saying something like: “We won’t need libraries anymore, everyone will be using e-readers.” I thought about this quote when the IPad fiasco came out. Am I Incorrect in my timeline?
You’re right, RetAZLib, and Deasy was wrong. There are reasons, ignored by the wealthy and powerful, that people will always need librarians. This article about different reasons people read on- and offline coincided with the iPad rollout:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/29/e-book-vs-p-book
And who is going to coordinate the content of those eReaders?eBooks are circulated just like print books – one patron at a time. Plus, they don’t just materialize out of thin air, they must be ordered and processed for library use.
Someone who ordered iPads without realizing the immense cost of downloading apps for an entire district of students can’t be expected
Can’t be expected to understand the mechanism of eBooks.
FYI: Purchasing and training individuals to use online Databases is a much better use of funding than iPads or eBooks. (Yet once again, that is the purview of the school librarian).
“Lagasse endured her time on the stand with quiet dignity and confidence.”
Good thing it wasn’t me, I’d of said “STFU,YGDAW.GTFH” to the lawyer and walked out knowing no matter how polite and calm I was I wasn’t going to win the battle.
NUTS! Say it again …. NUTS! The “so-called” leaders of LAUSD have lost their minds?
A very visible quick check on the health of a school is for a parent to see if there is a well-stocked library with a full time library media specialist.
So life imitates art.
Anyone remember the old Twilight Zone episode, “The Obsolete Man?” It can probably be found on youtube.
“You are obsolete!”
How sad that this is what our government has come to.
Here we go:
The trial scene in which the librarian is told he is obsolete and must be liquidated. He is played by Burgess Meredith.
Shame on LAUSD.
This is great, Gayaneh. Thank you!
Unfortunately, LAUSD has a long history of incompetence. When I first applied to teach there, the news had stories of lay-offs. And at the same time we’re trying to find teachers for the south central schools. I passed all the “tests” and was given permission to teach if a job was available, but I was rated down because I lacked “regency of experience.”
I had one year of teaching in a small Midwestern town, three years in the east Bronx, and five years in a high school in N. J. But I was a secondary and preschool substitute for two years in San Jose at a time whenSo now there was a plethora of teacher applicants in Silicon Valley where my spouse was employed. Nevertheless, a recent graduate of a college would be rated higher in L. A.
The year I gained a contract position, the person in charge of employment was fired for miscalculating teacher need, according to a news story.
There is a lack of truly informed decision making, and mostly political decisions appear to be made. The board appears to have no idea of the importance of libraries, especially in the schools in low income neighborhoods. Freedom to choose what one reads by comparing what is available is a necessity in neighborhoods where going to the local library is fraught with danger. And not all parents have the time to take their children and some lack the will.
Yes, Nook and Kindle etc. can be useful. But it is pretty hard to have everything at once in front of you as you do in the library, teasing you to come take a look..
I wonder if Deasy’s own kids were mandated to NOT access the library. And I wonder if LAUSD is requiring the clerks to have in depth knowledge of various subjects as well.
Contradiction appears here. It seems we are shortchanging teachers in our concern for the children who we actually do not want to serve anyway.
Here’s a great video where Chicago
parent activist Matt Farmer calling out
then Board Member Penny Pritzker
for her hypocrisy in gutting the arts,
phys. ed., libraries, etc. from the
traditional public schools, while
simultaneously raising millions for a
new library and other facilities
at the Chicago Lab School where
her own children attend.
He begins by quoting from an
interview where Pritzker states that
that the traditional public schools—
where her kids do not attend, but
the children of middle and working
class kids do—are only responsible
for providing the bare minimum
required to perform at low level
jobs in the workforce… and no critical
thinking education, God forbid!…
and that’s all that Pritzker believes
that the children of the middle and
working classes “are entitled to.”
Matt then brings the facts, and
brings the fire. Since Matt is
a lawyer (and journalist), he
“cross-examines” Pritzker in
abstentia. In the process, he
delivers one of the greatest
speeches against so-called
“corporate reform” and
privatization ever given.
It’s a classic:
This immediately made me think of the literacy tests and other voter suppression tactics that were use to disenfranchise blacks in the post-reconstruction south. What a bag of vile nonsense this is.
Sad, our school libraries are places we all go for privacy and browsing for books and periodicals. For students to lose this place of quiet contemplation in the midst of programmed activity is further erosion of our public schools and private sanctuaries of reflection. How many times have we slipped away to the library to read, work on our computers, just be alone in silence. I want that for every student. They deserve it.
Scary times for all teachers, but especially non-STEM teachers. I mentored a high school senior this past Spring who wants to become a social studies teacher…I hope we both have jobs 4 years from now.
This was the darkeT of the Dark Ages of the Deasy Regime. Day after day we heard reports, especially on NPR affiliate KPCC, documenting these disgusting hearings. We in Los Angeles are still waiting for libraries to reopen. In this era with the state education budget showing
huge surpluses, we need to see the restoration of librarians so that we can open the damned doors to libraries to make a literate society.
Thank you for reviving the travesty against the Teacher Librarians in LAUSD. Thank you Hector Tobar but most especially Neil Gaiman, author, who tweeted the story to his 50,000 followers and brought our story to public attention. I attended the hearings — I had already been cut and had no recourse, other than to take the job of someone already in the position. We knew Deasy was intent on replacing ALL TEACHERS with computers and/or TFA. He had secretly contracted with TFA while laying off regular teachers. That was also the reason for sending 1000 teachers to teacher jail — so he could replace high paid teachers with entry-level TFA.
But the worst to me was that we had to provide our own evidence, we Teacher Librarians. And find our own witnesses. As I was not working, I volunteered to bring in a witness for our defense.
The UTLA lawyers are what my husband calls “dump trucks” – they are paid a set fee and do nothing. They think their job is secure. At the time we were told that one of the lawyers’ wives was high up in the union.
And the corruption continues.
I am very pro-union — but can’t excuse not fighting for its members. This isn’t really happening in LAUSD. And this need for defense extends to all teachers. We are in the fight for our very lives.
Eli Broad will privatize our schools and bankrupt our district. Is the union standing up against this?
It’s difficult to keep track of the books even if there is a full time school librarian, with no one minding the store the entire collection will be decimated as the “book” and other media will “walk” out the door or be “permanently borrowed”. Even if returned – who will reshelve the book so it can be retrieved the next time it is needed? And who will be the “expert” who orders new materials?
Of course, the school librarian does more than check out books. They collaborate with faculty to teach life long learning skills with many of these skills being a part of the Common Core Curriculum. Since it is the librarians expertise, most teachers aren’t qualified to competently teach these topics.
Whether the certified school librarian takes attendance, assigns grades, or teaches a credit bearing course does not take away their true value to their patrons – the entire school population.
I may be biased, but I think the role of the school librarian is more integral to a school than the superintendent, because they actually make a positive contribution to the students’ lives.
Where’s the UTLA in all this? Disgusting district.
I work in a high school library in LAUSD. I have students assigned to my class, helping in the library, learning information literacy skills. For the first time, I have students who have never been in a school library (the result of Deasy’s work). Their lack of knowledge of books is much greater than their peers with library experiences. I also have a new girl who seemed to know a lot about the library and books. When I asked what middle school she went to, she told me she was from New York. No wonder.
I just found this, which set the stage for the hearings described above:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/09/john-deasys-queen-antoinette-moment-let.html
—————————-
John Deasy’s Queen Antoinette Moment:
“Let them eat ebooks”
————————–
“Right now, only higher-income readers can afford ebook readers and ebooks.” — Dr. Stephen Krashen
Plutocratic priest of privatization LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, (PICTURE OF DEASY)
On September 14, 2011 former Gates Foundation executive and Broad Superintendents Academy graduate John Deasy gave a much ballyhooed speech at Occidental College. While I may have time in the future to critique his mendacious stream of business-speak, which amounted to a clever corporate couching of school privatization in the language of “civil rights,” it was his aloof response to an attendee’s pertinent question on school libraries that deserves an immediate response.
Here’s a quote from an attendee who endured Deasy’s verbal assault on public education:
“[O]ne of Rosemary’s questions about his shutting school libraries got through. He said libraries would be irrelevant soon as books will move to electronic format. This was after he lamented about the plight of a homeless student living in a tent. I kid you not. I guess the kid in the tent will have to access books on the $800 I-Pad he can’t afford.”
A pointed and poignant question indeed to Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Superintendent John Deasy, a man who deliberately gutted LAUSD’s libraries in defiance of California’s Assembly Bill 114, which was supposed to mandate the district spend its copious surplus funds on retaining the very personnel Deasy and company gleefully laid off. Laid off in a most ignominious fashion by the way, as Hector Tobar’s “The Disgraceful Interrogation of L.A. School Librarians” chronicled. Deasy’s vapid and vacuous response to the library question sums up everything about corporate education reforms and shows why Deasy was hand selected to implement the neoliberal agenda in Los Angeles.
As disgusting as Deasy’s quote about libraries being irrelevant was, it wasn’t surprising considering his astonishing wealth and privilege. For wealthy white males like Deasy, poverty is something you see on television and it’s easily solved by applying forms of the meritocracy myth via vile “no excuses” rhetoric and corporate privatization policies cloaked as promoting “high expectations.”
Deasy’s own phrasing of the threadbare right-wing no excuses rhetoric reads as follows: “I actually believe that no other issue—circumstances of poverty, one parent, no parent, race, language proficiency, special need—none of that has a greater affect on the achievement gap than our belief about the ability of youth.”
More to the point, Deasy’s flippant remark that electronic format books would soon replace libraries has no grounding in reality. Such thinking and policies exacerbate the inequality of access to books in a way that is both classist and racist. A brief, but fact packed essay by Schools Matter’s own Dr. Stephen Krashen entitled Kindelizaton: Are Books Obsolete? patently disproves everything Superintendent Deasy claims. Let’s look at some of the important facts the essay presents.
Data shows that “ebooks appear to be capturing some of the paperback book market, but certainly not all of it, and not the hard cover or tradebook market. Thus far ebooks make up only a tiny percentage of total school library collections.” [1]
In other words, while ebooks are making inroads in the profitable popular paperbook sector, there hasn’t been a great deal of investment in the more costly and lower volume textbook and hardcover sectors. As a consequence “ebooks only account for one-half of one percent of school library collections, and this is predicted to increase to only 7.8% in five years.” [2]
It isn’t just that ebooks aren’t widespread enough to be considered a suitable replacement for school libraries. It’s that access to ebooks is strictly class based:
The problem is the expense. Right now, only higher-income readers can afford ebook readers and ebooks. Kindles, for example, cost at least $100 each, and ebooks cost about $10, beyond the budget for those living in poverty. [3]
A table in Krashen’s paper shows only four percent of people with household incomes under $30,000 owned ebook-readers, and that percentage remained constant for the nineteen months prior to publication of the paper. Krashen’s conclusion is equally revealing:
The cost of ebook readers and ebooks makes them much less available to students from high-poverty families and under-funded school libraries. (Note that it is usually not possible to share ebooks.) Ebooks are allowing the print-rich to get even print-richer. [4]
It isn’t surprising that people who get doctoral degrees from Cracker Jack boxes, or worse, purchase them from convicted criminals like Robert Felner in exchange for six figure grants, might be unaware of such research. More cynical readers might be tempted to suspect Deasy’s deep ties to monopolistic software moguls like Bill Gates and technobabble charlatans like Tom Vander Ark as possible explanations for his intentional razing of school libraries in favor of profitable, but income exclusive, ebooks. Those things said, one would like to think the head of one of the largest school districts in the country would have a grasp of the basic fundamentals surrounding pedagogical issues and would be immune from pandering to his deep pocketed associates.
Given the frightening lack of capacity of California’s schools, outlined in UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access “The Train that is about to Hit,” Deasy’s notion of “let them eat ebooks” borders on criminal.
Research emphatically puts to lie Deasy’s assertion that “libraries would be irrelevant soon as books will move to electronic format.” In a state where the ratio of students to librarians is nearly 5,500 to 1 [5], Deasy’s outright dismissal of the importance of libraries and books, combined with policies that exacerbate the problem, strongly convict him in his role in neoliberal dismantling of public education.
Of course that’s Deasy’s capacity, he wasn’t brought in by the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate to fix LAUSD, he was brought in to destroy it. Collectively we need to reject Deasy’s false narrative and demand he spend our funds on libraries and classrooms, not he and his fellow administrators’ lavish lifestyles! Collectively we need to fight the privatization of public education!
I suspect Deasy was a holy terror when he was in school who fooled around in the library and was frequently shhhhhed and/or kicked out or banned from the premises. That’s why he hate librarians.
As far as eBooks, you check them out the same as a physical book. The goal was for many librarians was to purchase eBook readers loaded with various relevant titles and actually check those out to the students (like tape recorders would be signed out with a book on tape in the days of old technology).
Librarians actually try to update with the times. It’s not your grandfather’s library anymore only filled with hard covered books, but a dynamic place with access to computers, eBooks, books on tape/CDs, music CDs, DVDs, and downloads to your own computers in all sorts of formats. The public libraries by my house are always busy, and school libraries should be even busier.
This is beyond crazy. Check out Bernie Sanders. We need to get to the root of these problems.