Do you want to know what is wrong with American education? Look no further than Philadelphia. The city public schools have been a plaything for the city’s rich and powerful. The students are mainly black and poor. The schools are underfunded. Charter schools are thriving. Public schools have been closed to make way for privately managed charters. The city schools have not had democratic control of years. It is run by a School Reform Commission appointed by the governor and the mayor. The SRC does not have a clue about how to “reform” the schools.
Consequence: The city’s public schools have eight full-time librarians for 220 schools and 134,000 students.
As Philadelphia school budgets have shrunk, librarians have grown rarer, almost to the point of extinction. In 1991, the school system employed 176 certified librarians. Now, the librarians are only at Anderson, Elkin, Greenberg, Penn Alexander, Roosevelt, and Sullivan elementaries and Central and South Philadelphia High Schools.
In addition to the librarian-staffed libraries, 13 libraries are kept open by 128 volunteers from the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children, according to the district.
What a disgrace for the nation’s fifth largest city!
When I went to the Houston public schools in the 1950s, my public schools had fully staffed libraries. Are we poorer now than then?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Since the SRC is clueless about how to “reform” schools, they have tossed many young people into the market and sold the district off for parts. The result of all this mismanagement is widespread waste and fraud, particularly in the cyber charters. Many students in the for profit schools are getting a worse education than the one they would have had in the public schools. Those that remain in impoverished public schools get few services in larger classes. Everyone should look at the state of urban “reform” in many cities and understand, that the market creates winners and losers, and the big winners are those that extract profit from public funds, and the losers are most students. If we add vouchers to the money drain, the fiscal health of public schools and cities that adopt widespread “reform” will decline along with the quality of education.
Retired teacher,
You have just written in a paragraph the essence of “reform”: a death spiral for public schools, and worse education for all.
What is worse is that when politicians are in the pocket are the charter industry, there is little interest providing strong public schools. The Pennsylvania legislature protects the charter industry by refusing to give the governor a budget unless he allows more charters in Philly. These corrupt policymakers protect the “goose that lays the golden egg” charter industry. This is not how “public service” is supposed to work.
retired teacher: what dianeravitch said…
And re this thread: note that (in practice) the rheephorm normal for public schools is “doing less with less” and justifying it by saying that there’s sooooo much less to go around so get used to it because there are technological magical feathers that make elephants fly and management panaceas that cure all that ails public education and cheap business-minded silver bullets that will slay any problems…
Translation: the beatings will continue until morale improves.
🙄
Or to put it another way: there’s an important lesson here for those that have even an inkling of what goes on with Lakeside School and Exeter Academy and Pinecrest and Heschel School and such.
For THEIR OWN CHILDREN, the sky’s the limit [hint: look at the schools in the previous paragraph!] for the heavyweights and chief enforcers and enablers of corporate education reform. For OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN and their parents and communities that think they are entitled to anything even remotely resembling genuine teaching and learning—
as Cher’s character said to Nicholas Cage’s character in MOONSTRUCK: “Snap out of it!”
*Caveat: except Cher’s character was a lot more likable and honest than those in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$.
😎
Here in Miami FL, when we opened our high school in Kendall in 2000 we had 3 full time librarians and 2.5 FT computer IT techs, being the most “tech-advanced” school for the time, Felix Varela HS. Now, we have 1 IT tech, who has to maintain almost 900 computer stations (many more today with all the online testing, ex. EOC, FSA….ad nauseum). And, we have no librarians, but a staff person who is the substitute locator and works in the library, but has no training (except to check in an out books).
One observation to make is that with the Internet, Google, WiFi and access to “the world at your fingertips” there may not be the need to maintain libraries with physical media as in the past.
“One observation to make is that with the Internet, Google, WiFi and access to “the world at your fingertips” there may not be the need to maintain libraries with physical media as in the past.”
Tell that to the post Alexandria library world, eh!
DIANE! THANK YOU!!! This is such an important post! I will share with all the librarian listservs! It’s so appalling. I think it’s a real statement in how our values have eroded. If we don’t honor the work of libraries and librarians, well, I just don’t know what to say about the state of our nation. Speechless is not something I feel often.
The article about Philadelphia says “in many suburban schools…libraries have evolved into tech hubs, with 3D printers and maker-spaces and librarians providing sophisticated instructional programs.”
It will be interesting to see how the issue of Internet neutrality is treated by the Trump administration. Rick is correct about “The world at your fingertips” thinking about libraries, and more generally about “delivery of educational services.” The marketing hype for tech, as if that is a panacea, is exceeded only by the venture/vulture capitalists and billionaire foundations pushing for less privacy and more data mining cradle to at least twenty years after high school.
In suburban schools they may not have to make “Sophie’s choice.” Without the charter drain schools may not have to make a choice between library services, reading teacher and technology. Without gross charter negligence, there is more funding to devote to improving student services in public schools. My former school could afford technology, a reading teacher and a librarian, and they still do. As states provide more funds to charters, there will be less for everyone else. Charter funding is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Librarians positions are usually one of the first to go during budget cuts. All professional educators and the uneducated reformers want all Students to be able to read proficiently at all grade levels but they tend to forget the importance of Librarians in the whole learning process to read. Every school needs all its educational tools to teach their Students. This includes Librarians. Shame on those that cut Librarians to save a buck.
It’s the 21st Century. Many items are available online. Many families have smartphones or access to wifi at home, so what should be taught is how to access learning materials online as that’s the new reality of growing up in the technological age vs the Agrarian and Industrial ages.
I support literacy efforts in all forms, but seriously, a school Librarian is lower on the list then a Reading teacher and if it comes down to a Reading teacher or a librarian, most schools are most likely going to fund the Reading teacher in their budget over the Librarian.
Also, they can rotate the limited number of librarians throughout the schools in the district, as well as set up remote access to the librarians to assist in the schools if needed. There are many more options available than before the advent of technology – such as video conferencing, Skype, etc. and schools no longer need to be tied down to traditional brick and mortar options. Schools need to modernize many of their needs based on the new options that exist in order to broaden options with increasingly limited funding tax base to draw from.
Also, look at the private and NFP sectors and see what the ratio is for the IT staffs in larger operations and other government agencies, since this is what public schools actually are, another government agency supported by taxpayers and then compare it to your school districts ratio of users and workstations. Again, there are regional options available for a more efficient and centralized model of IT in educational organizations.
Our one IT tech, in a school of 2800 students in Miami, with about 900 stations (lots of computer labs, for all that “meaningful” testing) told me that in the private sector a 900 station corporation would probably have 3-4 IT techs. We opened with several and now 17 yrs later we are down to 1, and the poor guy has so much to do, especially on testing days when linking to servers and all that long-distance transfer is required. Miami-Dade Co Public Schools will talk about being “cutting-edge tech”, but they don’t provide enough support to use and maintain it.
When the money needed for endless testing hit our low-income school and data became the reigning king of all funding decisions, in a truly contrary move one of the very first positions cut was on-site IT personnel. Nothing about “test-score” school reform has ever made any sense.
The unfortunate reality is that districts should not be forced to choose between a reading teacher and a librarian. There is a lot of research to support reading gains from reading self selected fiction. If a school budget is a pie, and a bus load of people arrive for pie. Everyone barely gets a bite of pie. This is Philly’s reality. We should be concentrating our efforts on doing the most for the common good, and these are public schools that serve all. They are the most efficient and effective way to educate our young people. We should be focusing on how to improve them, not tear them down. Schools can only modernize with adequate funding. By the way, many of the schools on the list that receive library services are specialized or selective serving lower numbers of poor minority students. Once again, large numbers of students get short changed so a private industry can profit. Shameful mismanagement!
“…what should be taught is how to access learning materials online as that’s the new reality of growing up in the technological age vs the Agrarian and Industrial ages.” And who teaches students how to evaluate, analyze, and use all that information? Answer – school librarians. That’s what we do, and nobody does it better. I could write more, but I have to help a student with the aforementioned skills.
I have to agree with M. I am a CFO in a public school district and we did have to make a difficult decision to eliminate many library positions. We still have library assistants and computer aides that have teamed to become 21st century information enablers. They have re-purposed many of our library spaces into dynamic collaborative learning environments that are being used by both our teachers and students. No offense to librarians (because my wife is a former media specialist) but I’m not sure we would have moved this quickly to transform these spaces had our traditional librarian setup still been in place. My wife opted to move into the library assistant position (with a pretty hefty pay cut) rather than go to a classroom and even she is amazed by how the kids and teachers are using the space.
“. . . that have teamed to become 21st century information enablers.”
All the smell of bovine excrement so fresh in the morning. Stick to finance as your language skills leave a lot to be desired. Oops sorry, don’t take it personally. I just know you are repeating the misuse and abusive use of language so prevalent in adminimal speak these days.
What Duane said.
Thank you Duane. I was trying to come up with a civil response to GB and M but was unable to pull myself together to proceed.
The world of librarianship is arcane. Few outside that world comprehend what librarians do “at work”. Librarians are specialists. There are archivists, public, corporate, reference, school ( PreK – univerity) librarians and many more. Librarians are managers of properties, finances, staff, patrons, acquisitions, maintenance, technology and on and on. (If I’m not elaborating enough it’s because I am watching the Trump news conference which is adversely affecting my concentration. And no, I’m not eating bonbons, looking at magazine, and watching TV at work, I retired recently.)
School librarians customize their libraries to their individual schools. We have student bodies with specific needs. Those needs may be quite disparate from a school of the same level two miles down the road. Librarians connect. We make connections for students to their world. We help them connect core content to their lives. We also provide engaging reading material for our students to foster a love of reading and to provide accurate information that can be carried home in backpacks and read under the covers in bed at night. In my case a great many of my students did not have access to technology at home besides Mama’s cell phone. I taught every student at my school every week during class time and any other time they needed assistance. They were my focus, not the books.
If you want to know what librarians do and whether they are valuable to their schools, spend a week with one. Then take a few days off to recover.
Duane – you’re probably a very intelligent person but your contribution to this post doesn’t help solve any problems. I hope it at least made you feel better to slam some of us little peons in the field that are trying to make a difference everyday.
No, it doesn’t make me “feel better to slam some of us peons”. Number one adminimals aren’t the peons in this critique, far from it.
The intended purpose of the post is to point out the insidiousness and vacuousness of much of the misuse and abuse of the English language, especially by those who should know better, administrators, whom I accurately call adminimals for their amazing capabilities to minimalize complex problems into trite little sayings like “to become 21st century information enablers” in an attempt to rationalize their inane implementation of educational malpractices.
That’s how I see it. One has to realize where the true problems with public education are, and in many cases it is with the adminimals who only care about their own asses and salaries.
Brutal analysis, yes! Speaking truth to power, yes! Not being fooled by authority and power, yes!
From my forthcoming book on those vaunted solutions:
Afterword
‘If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow.’ Emile Zola
Not only that but who am I to propose solutions for everyone else?
Our society doesn’t work that way. So I offer no specific answers but I do offer some general guidelines in struggling to lessen the many injustices that current educational malpractices entail:
• Correctly identify malpractices that hinder the teaching and learning process and that cause harm to or do injustice to students. (see just a few identified above).
• Immediately reject those malpractices, cease doing them as soon as is practically possible.
• Maintain a “fidelity to truth” attitude in identifying those malpractices and instituting new practices.
• Focus on inputs and resources. Are they adequate to provide that all children have access to a learning environment in which they can learn to “savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
• Involve all, interested community members, parents, students, teachers, aides, other support personnel, administrators and the school board in revising and formulating new policies and practices in line with the fundamental purpose(s) of public education–to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.
Your wife is working as a librarian and being paid as a TA, and you support that? “Dynamic collaborative learning environments being used by both teachers and students” is the definition of a successful school library media center.
I don’t know why I bothered to weigh in – shame on me for trying to give you a dose of reality. I’m not going to argue with all of you as I can tell you’re very passionate about this topic and will simply attack me anyway. The money guys are always the demons even though we’re supposedly all on the same team. All I can tell you is that, like it or not, I have to live in reality. I don’t have the luxury of posting stuff on a website and hoping things will change – I live it everyday and actually have to do what I can with what I have available. I don’t like the situation we find ourselves in anymore than you do but I can’t just complain on a website and hope it gets better.
Instead of lampooning what we public schools have to do to get by, I’d really appreciate it if you focused your energy (instead of attacking me) on a productive cause like working to eliminate unfunded and underfunded mandates from state and federal governments. We’d have many more resources available.
The dose of reality is that you seem to be ok w/ your wife, a credentialed school librarian, being paid as a TA when she still works in a library after they cut the librarians. As CFO, you should understand why that precedent is harmful to students and teachers. It is a Pandora’s box.
The “pobre mi” doesn’t get it GB.
If I may get at the heart of the problem with the excuses and rationalizations that you give for not supplying, as CFO, the proper learning environment for the students in your district. You see you are using financial excuses, not enough funds, etc. . . when in fact it is how those funds are being used. And those vaunted “technological solutions” those “21st century information centers” (information centers for whose information,eh?) are no substitute for the very human need for the teaching and learning environment having said humans to interact with the students in a decent sized classroom. Not to mention what happens in having the students use that technology, and not teachers, as resources and tools, all the while someone, some entity is collecting, unbeknownst by the students and parents, data, data and more data on the students.
I hope you can understand a little philosophical take on the situation where someone uses someone else/someone else’s information without explicit approval:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
“I’d really appreciate it if you focused your energy (instead of attacking me) on a productive cause like working to eliminate unfunded and underfunded mandates from state and federal governments.”
Why the hell aren’t you leading the way? Might it inconvenience you and your position?
See my response quoting Comte-Sponville above about self-serving expediency overriding these justice concerns of which you speak.
The first requirement for a teacher is humanity. I am doing an ESL unit on the family. One first grader drew a picture of his father and him eating pizza. He told me he didn’t have a mom. His father had already shared with me that he and his wife were separated. Then the boy added that his mother had taken the baby to Ecuador. I do not know the veracity of this story. Is it any wonder that this child has trouble concentrating? He managed to knock out three sentences and I was very proud of him. Computers demonstrate compassion in rare circumstances.
IMHO, Duane Swacker brings up a critical point in his 11:33 AM comment on this thread re “the misuse and abusive use of language so prevalent in adminimal speak these days.”
So, pardon the length, but here’s a blast from the past…
First two paragraphs of George Orwell, POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1946):
[start]
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.
[end]
The pdf of the entire piece is available at—
Link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/Politics_and_the_English_Language-1.pdf
Thanks to all for a lively discussion.
😎
Thanks , KrazyTA, one of my favorite essays of all time.
As was stated, this is the 21st century and as the old saying goes, “there’s more than one way to skin (an onion or cat or whatever)…”
Therefore, you can still have access to a librarian to assist and train students without needing a physical presence; plus many times our kids are the ones training themselves or having to self teach themselves using Google YouTube videos, etc. because the librarian and teachers don’t have the training either… Even for items and technology noted in the students IEPs…
But reality is that funding is not unlimited and schools are going to have to get more creative and open up their minds to using technology to the benefit of the students, the staff and to the taxpayers. Sorry to burst your bubbles, but ‘doing more with less’ is what is going on in all areas of business, government, NFP (and unless you are Trump or the rest of the top 1%) everywhere else back down the food chain.
M,we always can find trillions for war. Why can’t we pay librarians?
Thank you Diane. I remember this from decades ago and it still has some merit. No disrespect to the military implied or otherwise on my part.
“It will be a great day when the schools get the money they need and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”
As to M, why pay a librarian when you can get a TA with a master’s degree and years of experience to do the work without proper compensation or credit?
M’s Cartwheel, librarian-
I actually do have a clue and not all school librarians are created equal … And again, it is the 21st Century … And library science has moved along to become digital as well… Plus, not all schools actually have the ability to cater to the special needs of its students in individual schools because they tend to be limited by budgetary constraints which seems to be a foreign concept to many here for some reason…
M,
One more insult from you, and you will be blocked permanently. That’s enough. Either participate politely or go away forever.
M, The university I attended had the school of library and information sciences. They go hand in hand. Ongoing technology training/instruction is necessary for all faculty; even librarians. The information is out there, the medium can be what is different. When I did a student internship for my undergraduate degree way back in 1973 I worked in a brand new “MEDIA CENTER” and the librarian was called a MEDIA SPECIALIST. I never warmed to that term, I kinda liked hearing “Library Lady!!!” when I went to Walmart, the Post Office or the grocery. There was something joyful about it.
Ms Cartwheel – I graduated in 1976 as a School Library Media Specialist, but the title was changed to School Librarian by the AASL about the years ago.
And to any dissenters:
With the new technology, librarians are more necessary than ever. The children need to learn how to find accurate information and discern between the hoaxes and the factual websites. They also need to locate the originators of a particular entry to discern any potential bias in the information as well as tell the difference between popular sites and scholarly articles. (The election results might have been different if the general public had better access to their local school librarian).
Finally, despite the advent of social media, the written word – whether electronic or paper – is more popular than ever. “Books” are here to stay and librarians and libraries are the best way to disseminate information.
Take limited access to a variety of reading materials in the local school district (without a certified librarian to select and deceminate appropriate titles) add in reduced hours and locations of the Public Library System plus families who can’t afford to purchase books for their children to read and you get an outcry of anger and blame for the resulting low ELA scores.
How do you expect to educate children without providing an access to an abundance of good books which expand their horizons, stimulate their imaginations, and improve their vocabularies?
The children in urban centers such as Philadelphia are in the greatest need yet receive the least services – whether to art, music, gym, computers or libraries.
You don’t need a college degree to deduce the outcome.
A study was done and it was discovered that the one factor which consistently improved the performance of a school was the addition of a full time certified school librarian with a well stocked library.
Thank you flo56. Make that MANY studies have been done with that outcome. Probably the most famous (to me) was the study done by Keith Curry Lance in Colorado many years ago.
Click to access lance-vitae-Nov-2015.pdf
You can have all the libraries and books in the world along with all the time in the world and yet if you are illiterate it won’t matter how many printed texts you have access to, they still won’t be able to read or enjoy them, unless it’s in an audio format of some sort…
M,
Duh.
M – I have worked with these so called “illiterate” students and given a wide choice of age appropriate books which are of interest – guess what – they start reading. And there is nothing wrong with “listening” to a book (whether on a tape or read aloud by another person), that’s just one more way to stimulate an interest in reading.
And a remote librarian works just as well as a remote teacher. That one in one contact is really important, with better access resulting in greater results.
There is nothing more heartwarming than a group of children running to the library before the school day starts to exchange their “old” library books for some new titles. Or sharing their excitement over finding the next book in their favorite series on the shelf or helping them locate a copy of the book you or the teacher introduced during a recent lesson.
Flo56-
Well one could start by teaching students how to access online library materials as well as their local libraries.
And maybe even how to decipher if what they find and read on the Internet is sourced and what those sources are and how accurate and possibly even biased they might be.
Again, a school district these days can get creative and figure out someway to provide the needed services that a physical librarian at each school might have played in the past and how to make it work in this new Technological age of the 21st century, especially in times of budgetary constraints, just as many of us paying the school taxes to fund the salaries and benefits and supplies and upkeep of those brick & mortar schools are doing as part of their jobs (while many are making less and working just as many hours or more many times too!!!)
M – just what is it that you think school librarians do? Sit around reading magazines and eating Bon Bons?
The librarian is well trained in current technologies and is the best person to facilitate the use of computers in both educational and recreational endeavors. Libraries have changed with the times and not remained stagnant. Many libraries circulate ereaders containing a entire selection of electronic books. Not only do they assist the student, but they are also a resource to the faculty. Often the library has access to resources that you can’t find anywhere else (such as expensive databases).
There’s all sorts of new “stuff” out there and the school librarian is usually one of the first people to try it out.
Get with the times. And if your school district is behind – then they haven’t updated/invested in their library or hired a certified school librarian.
You get what you pay for.
M – just one more point:
I have been to demonstrations on how to use the most current technology
And
I have been to in services where I get to actually try out the newest technological innovations.
Now which ones do you think are the most useful?
Seeing or doing?
I don’t know Dr Ravitch, but you have the national ear of people higher up the food chain than I. You should be asking them why that is. I agree with you on that statement, but reality is they seem to want to fund a military industrial complex and is predominately (well funded) out from national taxes vs the public school funding which is primarily derived from local and state taxes, along with some federal funds…
M,
I don’t have any influence over the policy makers who choose guns over butter.
My mother was a librarian. Newark as usual is ahead of the game having already tossed entire collections into dumpsters. We are witnessing the end of civilization.
My God! Dumpsters?!? Their children are doomed. I won’t sleep tonight. Last night wasn’t so great either.
There’s this inane idea that if a book hasn’t been read in five years or if the copyright is more than ten years old then to the dumpster it goes.
Who needs those “old” classics when you can read all those new contemporary titles?
PLAIN DISGUSTING.
Audit most districts and see what the school librarians do and do not know.
Most school librarians in the public schools I have been dealing with first hand are totally clueless about any of the newer technology being used in their school district by the students. Either their I house or continued growth educational training is not keeping up with what’s being used in their schools.
And you are the one that keeps bringing up Bon Bons…..
The district has a responsibility to provide in services for their staff to train them in the technology that has been purchased.
I never said that here was anything wrong with alternative formatted book! What I said is that a building full of books is of no help to students and adults that cannot read because they got through their mandated terms of primary and secondary school without being taught how to read proficiently, so providing a brick and mortar building containing printed books and all the time in the world to read them will be of no value to those who cannot read, and therefore would need to be provided in an alternative format, so that they could actually benefit from the books information.
Just as BOOKSHARE & LEARNING ALLY give students and adults access to, but which the schools my son attended couldn’t figure out how to implement into classroom use and he school librarian didn’t know how to help him get the books downloaded from BOOKSHARE as an MP3 file!!!! So he went to YOUTUBE and figured it out on his own…
That was a learning teaching opportunity for your son. We learn a great deal from our students. It’s not a one way street.
Actually Ms. Cartwheel, it was another instance of the school being out of compliance with IDEA in relation to FAPE. as per (20 U.S.C. 1400(2)(E) & (F));
Assistive Technology Training:
IDEA 2004 also requires schools to provide assistive technology training for the teachers, child, and family. (20 U.S.C. 1400(2)(E) & (F))
The school is supposed to provide the training to the student, not the other way around, as was the case that I previously presented and which you replied that it’s not a one way street. But under IDEA 20 U.S.C. 1400(2)(E) & (F)) it actually is a one way street if the school is to be considered compliant.
M – that was the fault of the district, not the teachers and librarians. Why purchase new programs and then neglect to train the staff in how to use them?
M,
I delete every comment you make that condemns all teachers and all public schools because of your personal experience. I will continue to do so, as teacher hatred is not allowed here, nor racism, nor misogyny. You are on warning that one more insulting comment and you will be permanently banned.
Thank you for bringing attention to this sad trend in education, Diane. School librarians in Indiana are also becoming extinct. Indiana school guidelines only require one licensed school librarian per district. This means in lean times the librarian is the first to get cut. As a result, many Indiana school districts only have one high school librarian. While it is true that high school students do more research and definitely need a librarian, I could argue that librarians are almost MORE important in the lower grades. Elementary school librarians are crucial in helping to develop a love of reading in children through story times and activities. They have extensive training on selecting and maintaining a quality library collection and as licensed teachers, they educate both student and staff on the effective use of these collections. Studies indicate that younger students (and many older ones as well) need to cut back on screen time. Therefore, it is important that schools continue to have physical books available. As students move into middle school and wish to use alternatives, they will know that they can turn to their librarian for instruction on how to find and use digital resources. Elementary and middle school librarians are crucial in teaching our children the information literacy skills they will need to become well-informed adults. They teach our youth how to responsibly use the power of the Internet and navigate the massive amount of information that’s on it. They are on the front lines when it comes to battling the current “fake news” epidemic. If anything, we need school librarians now more than ever!
M –
It’s hard to respond to that because I don’t know the particulars. In NYS Districts must hire certified Library Media Specialists (those with a Master’s Degree) for grades 7 – 12, although elementary librarians are not mandated. The librarians I know from Buffalo and Western New York appear to be well versed in technology and knowledgable on all components of their job.
Perhaps your school district doesn’t hire certified librarians. Sometimes they use teachers in those positions or hire “library” aides to run the school library. Maybe your librarians are responsible for numerous schools and don’t have time to be more than a keeper of books. Running a good library program requires a full time librarian as well as a library clerk to keep up with the volume of circulated books in order to leave the librarian free to plan (with the teachers) and implement appropriate lessons.
It’s unfortunate you’ve had bad experiences with the library program at your school. Most librarians are intelligent, capable people who are conscientious in their work, but just like any profession, there are some who are along for a free ride, doing as little as possible to get by. However, when it comes to libraries, even the bare minimum takes a lot of effort.
Volunteer in your school library for a bit and you’ll see what I mean.
M –
I’m getting the feeling that your child fell through the cracks. I had two children who had difficulty with Central Auditory Processing, one who is
also dyslexic. My daughter fought hard to overcome her disability and graduated from college. She loves books.
My son was a harder sell. With a mom who had a degree in education and was a librarian, I pulled out all the stops and was lucky that my district provided numerous services which helped him get through eighth grade. He can read well enough to get through life, but not well enough to go to college. I was happy he got his GED. While he won’t be reading Moby Dick anytime soon, I did teach him an appreciation for books.
Sometimes as a parent, you have to go the extra mile, especially in the current school climate. Demand the services your child deserves, but also expect that you’ll have to put in a lot of effort at home. My kids had to work twice as hard to get half as far, and that was with me smoothing the way so they could be successful in their efforts.
Good luck and remember, even when they graduate, your children still will need your love and guidance (even the highly successful ones).
Mother of four
And all under the control of Democrats…