Nancy Bailey writes here that one of the sources of reading failure is the disappearance of libraries and librarians.
Ironically, I just learned that New York State adopted the edTPAassessment for librarians, and it is not liked by those in the field. Excellent would-be librarians, I hear, are not likely to pass it, while it favors those who give scripted responses. Is the goal to create s shortage of librarians? Ask the state commissioner.
Bailey writes:
Poor students attend poor schools where they miss out on the arts, a whole curriculum, even qualified, well prepared teachers. Students might end up in “no excuses” charter schools with only digital learning.
But, next to hunger and healthcare, one of the worst losses for children in poor schools is the loss of a school library with a real librarian.
Stephen Krashen, a well-known reading researcher and advocate for children, provided a study he and his co-authors did as proof why school libraries help children be better readers. He is adamant that children need access to books, and he believes good school libraries are “the cure.” We often hear that getting books into the hands of very young children is important. It’s also critical to ensure that children who are in fourth grade and beyond have access to books!
Many poor schools have closed their school libraries, citing a lack of funding. Oakland, California lost thirty percent of their school libraries. Cities from Los Angeles to New York report library closures.
Chicago has lost school libraries. Some there blame the teachers union who pushed not to replace the librarian at one elementary school with volunteers. But good school libraries require good librarians.
School districts in many places keep school libraries open, but they let go of their certified librarians. This is a loss for children.
In 2013, when I started this blog and website, I listed under “Reading” a link showing a map of all the schools in the country that no longer have certified school librarians. That link began in 2010, and sadly the list has grown!…..
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Can we say poor schools vs. affluent schools instead of poor vs. good? Poor schools certainly can be just as good – if not better – than affluent schools.
Do you have any evidence that you can cite, to back up your assertion? How can (financially) poor schools be just as good, if not better than affluent schools, who can afford the costs and salaries for top-notch teachers, and modern equipment and facilities?
If you have discovered something, you need to share it.
I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but here’s a well documented example of a very good urban school that serves poor kids:
Mission High School, San Francisco
Good g-d but you are arrogant, Charles.
We no longer have a school librarian. We have an aide they took off some other job and she seems like a very nice person but she’s just not trained in how to do this job.
It’s a shame. I think what people don’t realize about public school disinvestment is it happens in EXISTING schools. One can compare if one has children in the system over a period of years. One can watch the slow erosion. Researchers take snapshots but if you’re settled somewhere for decades it’s a much more depressing picture.
I remember THE YEAR they went from an art teacher in lower grades to an “art cart” with a volunteer. Younger parents don’t know this, because they weren’t around when it was different. They literally don’t know what we lost. It was all loss, too. They never added anything, other than Chromebooks which is such a cheap, rip-off “trade” for students. They got a 200 dollar device in return for the loss of whole areas of study.They were robbed. Lower income kids at our school won’t get art and music and libraries anywhere else. They got it at school and when it’s gone from school they don’t get it.
YES: “One can watch the slow erosion. Researchers take snapshots but if you’re settled somewhere for decades it’s a much more depressing picture.” When the modern-day approach to “research” and “journalism” often arrives only in snapshots, the larger picture is carefully obscured. And always we hear the argument that we should “move forward, forget the past…”
Starting yesterday, EVERY TIME I write to my legislators about education, I’ll include a demand for a library and a trained librarian in every school. SCHOOLS NEED BOOKS, LIBRARIES, and LIBRARIANS, not standardized tests.
Go ahead and take a page out of Trump’s Twitter book. When you make this demand, use all caps. Trump uses capital letters for a reason. And he often ends with something he wants his followers to REMEMBER and REPEAT.
The effort to restore and expand CHILDREN’S ACCESS TO BOOKS, has to be concentrated, widespread, and systematic.
Until this movement picks up steam, we can support Dolly Parton and others who know more about helping kids than all the bogus reformers put together…
https://imaginationlibrary.com
KIDS NEED BOOKS, NOT TESTS.
Here’s a program that puts books in kids’ hands:
https://barbershopbooks.org
CNN article on the Barbershop Books program:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/03/03/living/barbershop-books-alvin-irby-feat/index.html
According to my local paper, there are only 875 teacher librarians left in the state of California. In my school district, there are tech people in the libraries, but no librarians, and there is no budget left for printed books. Not surprisingly, the book checkouts have dropped (meaning students are not reading fiction). The district has moved to online resources for research, all in the name of “21st century skills.” In fact, the administrators are proud of this. Tragic.
21st century skills is a farce. The branding mechanism invented by Key Kay a lobbyist for the tech industry who twice tried to get federal legislation that would give corporate tax breaks to those who would endorse his word salad. A close look at the construct shows that most of the skills are not unique to the 21st century, least of all the four C’s — collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. KEN KAY, FAILED FEDERAL LEGISLATION: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/s1483 and http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s1029
The decline in libraries coincides with the rise of tech as if a panacea and also the Common Core/College-Career agenda with close reading of texts that met technical and ideological criteria for that effort, with professionals largely out of the loop in making recommendations.
The techies seem to think Chrome books and search engines make libraries unnecessary. Teach to One, a middle school math-only program has persuaded 52 schools to dedicate library space to math-only instruction. The space is converted to fit computer “playlists” for each student displayed everyday on large screens (think large airport departure arrival screens). The 90 minute classes (over 50 students per class) have four “learning modalities” that are supposed to make the computer-selected content more “personalized.”
Now the tech industry is complaining about the few states that have not yet made computer science a formal requirement. And the financial industry is complaining for the same reason.
This is to say that the deep pockets are having too much say about education for all. Tech has a place but the objective is to make everything tech-mediated so money can be made from sales and, especially from the data gathering enabled by the deliberate by-passing of privacy laws.
You are absolutely right on. It happened in my district, right down to the “four Cs.” Yes, we even have a showplace high school with 60 kids in a class, all very tech oriented. We have a $12.5 million deficit, too.
“In fact, the ADMINIMALs are proud of this. Tragic.”
There, corrected your statement, Cindy.
Libraries, both public and school, are essential to producing a well rounded, literate electorate. I am again reminded of Frank McCourt’s powerful statement, “Libraries and public schools are the most democratizing elements of our nation.” Libraries are even more important to the poor than the middle class as the poor lack access to reading material at home. I collected old magazines and catalogs in my ESL class. I used them for a variety of sorting activities in my class. When students had class projects where they were required to make a poster or diorama, students headed to my class as they had no magazines or even shoe boxes at home. Poor students that live in cramped quarters do not have access to a variety of reading materials at home.
Tech expansion has led to the false assumption that libraries are no longer relevant, but they are. While technology is a wonderful research tool, I do not believe that they are adequate replacements for fiction. While Kindles may be convenient, real books are much more personal and enjoyable. Good readers reread passages that may have caused confusion, and books lend themselves to this type of interaction. This rereading component of good readers may be a factor in why students score lower on standardized tests in computer formats. In fact, Krashen’s research has shown that recreational reading is as effective in contributing to reading improvement as reading instruction. Recreational reading promotes good reading habits that will transfer to more academic types of reading. We need librarians to cull collections, order materials and guide students in selecting books. If we want students to get excited about reading and books, we need the assistance of librarians to set the stage.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I was a kid I used to love to wander through the library and look for interesting books. I must have driven the librarians crazy because I would take so many books off the shelves just to look through them.
It used to amaze me — and still does — how much knowledge and imagination was contained in such a relatively small space.
To this day, I still enjoy browsing in the public library.
It’s tragic that many schools have lost this — and lost the librarians to help kids find books that they will find interesting and enjoyable.
I did too, and I hated to see the card catalogues go.
Where did all the card catalogues go anyway?
Is there a card catalogue graveyard somewhere?
SDP: I had the very same experience. My first trip into a real library was like a trip into a medieval cathedral for me. Some weeks ago I took one of my seniors down to college for a visit. Naturally, I walked him through the library. It was a real treat to watch his eyes grow wide with wonder at the rows of books, all 973s, his favorites.
Since her second birthday, my daughter has been consumed by the library. Watching her go through and discover interesting covers is a contact sport.
When electronic libraries capture the essence of walking through the stacks, I will buy an e-reader.
“To this day, I still enjoy browsing in the public library.”
Ditto.
Don’t get me started on online reading and testing. As much as I appreciate the convenience of a Kindle, I will take a hard copy over online any day. It is so much easier to revisit and reread hard copy. As for teaching little kids to read, planting them in front of a screen just is not the same as enjoying a picture book or easy reader together. Testing is particularly annoying especially when you cannot skip around the way you can on a paper copy. I can choose to answer the questions in any order that makes sense to me. I can easily change answers. I can skim to get a feel for the format and content. The adaptive tests were particularly inappropriate for my special ed students who were often impulsive with their answers and had no opportunity to reflect on previous choices. That first jab at the enter key sealed that answer forever. All the strategies I could teach them to help them demonstrate what they really knew became useless online. It’s no wonder that online scores are lower than for paper and pencil assessments.
I’m sorry to belabor this, but: I work in a school in Lower Manhattan, right in the Financial District, and we lack a librarian here.
Yep..we are in a very wealthy DC suburb in MD. No librarians at my kids schools (HS or MS). The library MAY be open at times if there is an aide or teacher able to give the time.
Diane, I just spoke with Virginia Governor Northam on a live radio talk show. (WTOP FM). I asked him if he would support school choice/vouchers for Virginia families, and also support expanding the charter schools in Virginia (there are only 8 currently operating).
He basically told me to go to hell. He did it tactfully. He stated that Virginia teachers are getting paid $8k less per year than the national average. He stated that until Virginia public education is “shored up”, that school choice/vouchers would take money away from public education.
School choice/vouchers and charter expansion are DEAD in Virginia, while we have this governor.
Wonderful news, Charles! Thank you for sharing. Governor Northam is one of the best governors in the nation on the subject of education. He understands that school choice is a direct descendant of opposition to desegregation orders and that it drains resources from the public schools that serve the vast majority of students. Why pay Peter (who has a tiny school) to starve Paul (who enrolls 90%)?
The station hung up the call, before I could mention the other side of the equation. School choice/vouchers do indeed “drain” funds from the public school system. What he did not mention, and most people do not mention, is that school choice/vouchers also drain students from the public school system. Just like when a family moves to a different state or a different district, the public school loses the per-pupil expenditure, and it loses the student. Same phenomenon occurs when a student drops dead.
Opponents to school choice need to be fair, and examine all sides of the school choice equation. They keep inferring that school choice is going to rob money from the public school systems, and fail to mention the loss in student population! The inference is that the public school systems are going to have to perform the same tasks, and teach the same number of students, with less money. That is a false assertion.
School choice is selfish and steals money from the public system that enrolls 90% of students to prop up private institutions that should be self-supporting.
Q Why pay Peter (who has a tiny school) to starve Paul (who enrolls 90%)? END Q
I do not get this. When a family withdraws a student from a public school, for any reason (death, family relocation,etc) the public school loses the student and the per-pupil expenditure. The public school still must pay the fixed costs, like utilities, janitors,etc. But class size is reduced. (Which most public-school advocates say they want!)
Will someone explain to me, what is the difference between a family/student transferring out of a public school, and moving across the state, or to a different state, and the family/student withdrawing from the public school, and going to a non-public school with a voucher? No one claims “robbery” when a family transfers.
I have found that voucher opponents like to bring up the “race” card, regardless of the fact, that many (not all) minority families support school choice.
All people agree that school choice “drains” resources from the public schools. That is exactly what school choice is intended to do! The student departs the public school system ,and the money departs as well.
Charles, I have had it with you. This is a blog about better education for all. Vouchers do not provide a better education for anyone. Charters pick and choose which students they want. Public schools are for all. Give me a break and stop commenting here 10-12 times daily. Go do your work. You have a day job. Do it.
Charles, I take it you aren’t a school finance expert, or someone who understands the concept of fixed costs.
It’s funny (not ha ha) because I bet Charles understand the concept and reasons behind mergers and acquisitions quite well. Why have ten different companies with ten different accounting, marketing, HR, etc. departments when you can merge and have one company with one accounting, marketing, HR, etc. department?
But Charles likes to play babe of the woods and pretend he doesn’t understand how that would apply to having ten different school systems funded by the same pot of money that is supposed to fund one school system. I guess we can believe you’re that stupid if you really want us to…..
Q Charles, I take it you aren’t a school finance expert, or someone who understands the concept of fixed costs. END Q
I am a telecommunications engineer. I am not an economist. I work the 3-11 shift, so I have plenty of free time during the day.
Charles:
That’s my point. You’re either ignorant of school operations and of how public schools can be financially gutted by charters and vouchers (in that you make simplistic arguments that won’t pan out in real life), or you’re being disingenuous. Or worse, you’re not even trying to disguise your hope that public schools will fail. I think I’m starting to get the picture.
@icompleat:
Q You’re either ignorant of school operations and of how public schools can be financially gutted by charters and vouchers (in that you make simplistic arguments that won’t pan out in real life), or you’re being disingenuous. Or worse, you’re not even trying to disguise your hope that public schools will fail END Q
I am not ignorant of school operations. I have as good an idea, as any layperson. I have not seen publicly-operated schools “gutted”. Indiana has the largest per-capita voucher program in the USA. Still, spending on public education in Indiana continues to rise (on a per-student, constant dollar scale). If this is “gutting” other states should take this example. Public school teachers in Indiana are not striking, that should tell you something, right there.
I am an honest man. I do not post falsehoods. Fact is, I often accompany my posts with the URL, with the background.
I am NOT hoping that public schools will fail. I live in Fairfax county VA, which has some of the finest public schools in the USA. I hope that every student in the USA could have access to excellent schools like we have here in Fairfax. My only difference, is that I do not pin my hopes on public schools only.
Wrong, again, Charles.
Every school district in Indiana lost funding due to vouchers.
Vouchers cost $150 million for 35,500 students.
Indiana has 1 million students.
The 1 million students are losing school funding so that 35,500 can attend religious schools at public expense.
http://www.journalgazette.net/opinion/sunday-centerpiece/20180325/cumulative-effect
Well, one thing’s for sure. You don’t know the differnce between fact and opinion. My opinion is that if you and Betsy DeVos have their way, and more and more funds are siphoned away from public schools, the gutting I referred to will eventually become obvious to all. Public schools worthy of the name, the kind that gave me a great education, won’t be sustainable. In fact, that kind of school–with experienced, well paid teachers and a comprehensive academic program and a big range of extracurriculars–doesn’t even exist in the typical charter system.
Outright funding cuts have already stripped urban schools of essential programs. If even more funding is removed via charters and vouchers, crumbling schools, reduced school days (as in Oklahoma), underpaid teachers, and worse problems are likely to be the norm–nationwide. Affluent areas will be able to maintain programs through independent fundraising, as is now the case in states like Florida and California.
“Same phenomenon occurs when a student drops dead.”
Really???
Are you really that effin tone deaf to not understand what you just wrote?
Have you ever had to conduct class the next day, first hour, with the empty seat staring everyone in the face, after a student “dropped dead” the evening before??
I know you haven’t, you tone deaf, insensitve stupid assed SOB.
Well said.
I was speaking in the economic context only. I understand how it is to lose a student to death, one of my friends died in my senior year of high school.
I could have said “The same economic phenomenon occurs if a student would beam up to the planet Krylox”.
The point I was trying to make, is when a student departs a public school , FOR ANY REASON, the public school is faced with both the loss of the student, and the loss of the funding.
Yes, it happens, Charles, students leave for another school, another state. That’s life.
But public officials typically are not supposed to create a duplicate system of schools in order to starve the public schools. That is just plain stupid. That’s not life. That’s poor leadership and bad policy.
This is such a great video of Ray Bradbury talking about the importance of books and libraries. I show it to my French students because he was influenced by Beauty and the Beast (French!) stories and their many retellings. It’s funny and heartwarming! Enjoy!
Man there are some great quotes in that clip. Thanks Mamie for sharing it!
“If you didn’t have any books or the ability to read, you couldn’t be a part of any civilization or you couldn’t be a part of a democracy.”
Thank you for sharing this, Mamie! Absolutely love!
This is a very dispiriting subject to a childhood bookworm like myself. There was no library in my rural elem sch, but teachers’ classrooms were lined w/a few hundred books; you signed them out & there was free reading time during the school day. After reading every one of my mom’s Oz books multiple times, I became I public-library junkie by age 10. In jr hi I volunteered at the sch library & when biz was slow, devoured every scifi book in the section. Spent much of free time in my 20’s in nbhd branches of the public libraries– they started closing down in the ’80’s in NYC.
The elem sch libraries in our rich district began cutting staff hours in the ’90’s; our schs share a few certified librarians. On the bright side: one of these librarians single-handedly established a classroom-sized library at the town’s early-childhood sch (all public PreK & K students are now corralled under one roof) on shoestring budget, mainly thro book drives run by hisch students [her former elem students]. And a big bright spot: the town public library has picked up the slack: well-staffed, now takes up most of the 1st floor (in a 2-fl library), runs all kinds of reading events.
“Billyanaire Philanthropy”
Imagine if Bill
Instead of on Core
Had focussed his will
On books and on more
On libraries full
All up to the brim
With books you can pull
From shelving within
On science and fiction
Poems and drama
Emily Dickinson
“Dolly the Llama”
On staffing to help
The kids to explore
The books on the shelf
With stories galore
If Billy had taken
The Carnegie rout
He’d really be makin’
A diff’rence, no doubt
“If Billy had taken”
My former school hadn’t had a librarian since the 1980s but we always had a teacher who manned the library and had a cluster position so that the children could use it st least once a week or whenever they needed it. Two years ago it was closed down and no one manned the room. I also had a large early childhood library in my classroom that I gathered over 34 years of teaching. (It was large because it was the old library room). I left the bulk of them for the current teachers to use. Sadly books have been thrown out wholesale from both places. Our children would love to get books to keep. But they wound in boxes and bags with only a few rescued by caring folks. We have a JHS with no public library close by and these children now have little access to books. I’m retired now and don’t have any input. But it’s just maddening that administratiors have done this and staff members have said little to nothing. And the use of the Commin Core Curriculae has contributed to the non use of good literature or the desire to have it available for our children.
I know a school that got rid of most of its books and librarian and put in a few computers and aides to watch over the place. The blinds are always closed and the lights are low and the kids look depressed. The inside of a coffin is more exciting. I know another school that has a plethora of books and computers and magazines and a librarian who interacts with students. It’s bright and welcoming with student work on the walls and students reading or playing chess or scrabble or even practicing speaking other languages.
Bill Gates has fake (electronic) paintings in his house, so that tells you what we are up against.
The techy types that are driving the current trends can no more appreciate the value of a book and a library than they can appreciate the value of a real painting.
Does he eat electronic food? Does he have electronic children? Electronic emotions?
Microchips and salsa.
I worked at a middle school in Oakland that had no library. Well, actually there was a big library at the front of the school that kids walked past every day — but it was permanently locked closed.
This post fits right in to both the previous post (“Fair Test”) & the following post )”The Queen Eva…”) just like a puzzle piece. Actually, it IS a piece of a puzzle–why do we not have school libraries? One of the results of the money drain on the publics by the charters, added to the additional wasting of money on “$tandardized” te$ting, & all the bells & whistles (i.e., te$t prep material$). Wasteful spending of OUR taxes, taxes that are meant to be used for schools, parks, libraries, maintenance of roads & bridges–all public entities, all for the use of the public, all for the public good.
&–with oligarchs like the Kochs, the Waltons, the Gates–with organizations such as ALEC–there is the belief that there be no good for the public…for “other” people.
“Other people’s children” should not have fully funded, functional schools with materials,supplies, libraries and books. No–students must be subject to te$ting & te$t preps (even if you opt out, your student is still subject to test prepping day in & day out).
“Other people’s children” do not need books; they should be robotized; they should not read books, which might give them ideas, lead them to critical thinking, analysis &–gasp!–asking questions!
No, only 1%ers children, children who go to private schools, can imagine, create, question, think. They are “entitled” to have school libraries. When they grow up (& they will have been told this by their parents & by their teachers), the can be anything they want to be.
“Other people’s children” can grow up to…work at Walmart (if they’re lucky).
The rest will join or be drafted into the armed forces so the military-industrial complex
fortunes will soar.
“they should not read books, which might give them ideas”
That’s it, in a nutshell.
“Fahrenheit 451”
Thinking’s a threat
So books are too
Firemen, you bet
Know what to do
In Los Angeles, the independent charter schools don’t even have libraries. It’s difficult for me to understand how any parents who can read would send their children to a school without a library.
Click to access CC0211Presidents.pdf
This is an important document! You deserve credit for sounding the alarm back in 2011. NCTE needs to get the bandwagon moving again.
This, the Opt-Out movement, and resistance to charters and vouchers are the most important causes in education today. (Oh, and the move to restore sane practices to early childhood programs, and student privacy, and on and on.)
Interestingly, this article was written SEVEN years ago! Things have declined since then.
A long way, you can finish step by step, and then you can’t reach without a foot