I am often asked what billionaires should do with their money if they stopped investing in privatization.
Here is a small project for billionaires in California.
Los Angeles may close its elementary school libraries.
Can’t afford them.
Where are you, Reed Hastings? Eli Broad? Bill Bloomfield? Arthur Rock? Mark Zuckerberg?
You give millions to charters and TFA, and what good have you done?
Do something real.
Be the Andrew Carnegie of LA.
Support libraries for elementary schools.
No, it won’t transform everything. But it will change lives.
Steve Lopez wrote in the LA Times:
Here we go again, tumbling down the shaft and into a bizarro world in which school libraries lock out students who need them most.
L.A. Unified elementary school libraries are on the chopping block once again, and library aides, many of whom could lose their jobs, are screaming for justice.
Some L.A. Unified board members, meanwhile, have made passionate pleas to keep the doors open.
“If you’re not reading by grade level by third grade, you’re going to struggle for the rest of your life,” said board member Scott Schmerelson, who has introduced a resolution calling for the district to come up with the necessary funding.
But just a few months after the L.A. Unified teachers’ strike drew strong public support for better pay and more resources for the struggling district, budget woes are forcing miserable choices that will hit students hard.
“An elementary school library is one of the more magical places in a child’s life,” said Meredith Kadlec, a second-grade parent who has been writing letters in the campaign to ward off cuts. “Imagination is born from books, and what about the kids who don’t get that enrichment at home? I feel like we’re going the wrong way in America when libraries are at risk.”
They’ve been at risk for years now in L.A. Unified. Many years ago, every school had a fully funded librarian. But as budget problems became more severe, teacher-librarians gave way to library aides, who then got laid off by the hundreds before being rehired. In the recent past, some libraries have been locked up despite the district having spent millions on new books. Typically, elementary school libraries are open only every other week as it is, and aides split their time between two schools
The strike settlement earlier this year resulted in teacher raises and promises of eventual reduced class size, nurses on every campus, and a commitment to have a teacher-librarian on every middle and high school campus.
But elementary schools got no commitment on library aides. In recent years, those positions — which used to be directly funded by the district — became optional expenses made at the discretion of principals. But those principals have to make gut-wrenching decisions with limited discretionary funds at their disposal. And the needs, in a district in which 80% of the roughly 600,000 students live in poverty and 90% are minorities, always exceed the available money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Cutting school libraries is a false way to economize. Access to school and public libraries is essential for poor students. Unlike middle class students, the poor have few ways to read for recreation. Self-selected, recreational reading helps students about as much as reading instruction. (Krashen) Its power should not be ignored. If we believe in democracy, then we should support libraries. How can we expect students to develop an appreciation for literature unless we provide them with the opportunity to read? We hear so much about the “skills gap.” Access to books is one of the most cost effective investments schools can make. Public schools need libraries and professional librarians.
Kraken is a huge supporter of school libraries, especially a large collection of books which encourages “free” reading (unassigned literature).
Once again, what billionaires should do with “their” money is pay their taxes. The last thing we need is school libraries to be dependent on the “largesse” of billionaires.
Sure would help.
Today’s Billionaires are not interested in funding libraries.
That’s so yesterday.
Anrew Carnegie already did that over 100 years ago.
Gates, Zuckerberg and the others want to be remembered as trailblazers not copycats.
I agree with the basic ideas of the article–of course closing elementary libraries is a sad statement on the sorry state of pubic education. I teach at a Title I public school, where well over 90% of students qualify for “free” breakfast in the classroom, lunch and now afterschool “hot supper” programs, in addition to many other compensatory state, federal and local programs. Title I has been around since the Great Society era (LBJ administration). Love of stories and reading begins in the home, whether in book form or in the form of an oral tradition, ie. family storytelling. Of course, great teachers use great books daily in their classrooms and should not be bogged down with the nonsensical big tech testing garbage which has been dismantling the teaching profession since 2001 (No Child Left Behind, but Teaching Profession definitely Left Behind!) I have observed many students who don’t have or want library cards, don’t order books from book clubs, don’t seem to be interested in reading books of any type. When I talk to their parents, they often say they “can’t afford” the books. I let them know that a library card is free and as long as books/materials are returned by the due date, remain free. Those same students who “can’t afford” books almost all have videogame entertainment systems, plenty of video games, computer devices, etc., which costs far more than a book. Reading and literacy are a value, not “built in”, and must be taught and modeled. It’s far beyond merely a supply issue.
The Hunger Games ….
Two of my most favorite places are libraries and book stores.
DeVos just announced that any school that is publicly funded with vouchers is now “public”
This is always where ed reform had to end up. It was inevitable, because none of their theory holds together without redefining “public” to mean “publicly funded” . All the people who predicted this was where they would end up and who were told they were over-reacting have now been proven right.
There won’t be public schools anymore. There will be publicly funded schools.
No school will remain a public school. Why should they? They can get the same public funding and not have to comply with any of the mandates public schools do. Private schools will have an enormous advantage. They don’t have to take any students they don’t want, they don’t have to comply with any transparency or governance rules, and they get the same public funding.
The ed reform agenda puts public schools at such a huge competitive disadvantage no school in their right mind will remain public. You could privatize every school in a district, exclude half the students in an area, get the same funding as a public school, and not have any of the duties of a public school. It’s a no brainer. Privatize.
In rural areas you could end with 4 private schools who exclude 20% of students, and no public school at all. To ed reform this would be a “public education system”, because they have no other requirement other than “publicly funded”. 20% of families would have no school. This is completely possible within their ideological vision.
They don’t care, so married are they to their ideological theories that they are willing to throw the whole “universal” idea in the trash along with everything else they’ve discarded.
They have such utter contempt for public schools, yet all of their ideological theories ASSUME public schools, because without public schools none of their schemes work.
DeVos can’t fund the private religious schools she prefers UNLESS someone somewhere supports and invests in the public schools she disdains, because without the public schools she’s just got a collection of private schools that don’t (and won’t) serve all families. And no matter how they twist words and redefine things, that ain’t a public school system.
Here’s the United States Department of Education position on what they admit is the “90% of families who attend public schools-they offer us nothing. Read the speech:
https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/prepared-remarks-secretary-devos-education-writers-association-72nd-national-seminar
They offer public school students and families absolutely nothing. In fact, this entire year Betsy Devos has not offered one single plan, idea or proposal that in any way benefits public schools students, or is even relevant to them. It is wholly directed to private school students.
There isn’t a public school student or family in this country who would notice if none of these people came to work anymore. They simply don’t serve public school students. They don’t even pretend to. So confident are they we’ll continue to pay their salaries they don’t even speak to our kids or our schools are all.
How awful! How dreadfully awful! I hope Measure EE the parcel tax passes in June and LAUSD doesn’t do this. IPads are no replacement for a school library.
Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell on why we need libraries – an essay in pictures:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2018/sep/06/neil-gaiman-and-chris-riddell-on-why-we-need-libraries-an-essay-in-pictures?fbclid=IwAR0x1j_6006QOq3_jBxtIUdSD79gDUqcg5zz0ZSHy4sURnYPVnenkk0nNUo
Libraries are like sharks.
Why school librarians matter: What years of research tell us:https://www.kappanonline.org/lance-kachel-school-librarians-matter-years-research/
“what billionaires should do with their money if they stopped investing in privatization”
How about repay all those from whom they stole the monies.
As a library aide of this district & employee of the public library I can tell you many students are not able to make it to the public library. Even the one across the street from one of my schools. Parents work long hours and there’s no time. I do my best to provide a safe haven for our students, where they can read to puppets, look at pop up books, build with makerspace or check out. Thank you for sharing, many people do not understand, today I had to explain to a teacher’s aide on campus what is happening, she had no idea.
In Buffalo they closed many of the neighborhood public libraries or cut their hours/days of service. Since the elementary school libraries are only open part time, many kids are out of luck as far as access to books is concerned.
In the meantime, in the upscale suburb of Amherst, all four libraries remained open – several every day of the week, including Sundays during the school year. Additionally, the three school districts located in Amherst have full time librarians, library aides, and well stocked libraries.
Guess which School Districts are highly rated?
The aides twho are at risk of losing their jobs were put there to replace credentialed librarians who were excessed in demeaning and unprofessional ways in 2012. They do not begin to provide the services trained librarians do such as develop collections, support curricula, collaborate w/ teachers, and teach students. If they do any of those things, the union should be complaining big time.
Students in Los Angeles schools deserve to have certified teachers in their school libraries. Besides fiscal mismanagement for which the district is known, too much funding goes to charter schools instead of public schools. If that money were available to the public schools. there would be enough for both credentialed librarians and support personnel which is the correct and best way to staff a school library.
As a reminder, https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2011-may-13-la-me-0513-tobar-20110513-story.html
Rosemary, the Library Aides did NOT replace a single credentialed Teacher Librarian in elementary schools. You have your history all wrong. Our position was created in 1997 to be in every single elementary school in LAUSD, to open and create librRies giving equity in access to all students. We do not do a TLs job nor purport to do so, but we do a fabulous job of introducing the children to literature and the libraries every day and week.
I remember vividly the inquisition and horrible treatment of the TLs, but we ALSO were on the chopping block as well. I have been laid off 4 times since 2009. There were over 500 of us in 2007, now we are 325 with the majority splitting our time between two schools. You do not know what we do in our libraries and how we work to keep the collections vibrant with no money. We are very creative and this does not help you or us.
Keep the Elementary School Libraries open! It is a student’s civil right to have an access to the books.
LA’s situation here makes me want to scream.
For confirmation of the bizarro backward world of school funding, consider my local elemsch in a wealthy NJ district. We too “cut back.” When my kids attended in ‘90’s, there was a FT librarian; kids spent an hour there per week. She stayed on past retirement age, gradually cutting back hrs, & was replaced w/a part-timer in mid-2000’s. But that libe is still open 3 days/wk today; students get 30mins/wk formal instruction/ checkout time there, staffed by fully-qualified children’s librarian.
Here’s what makes that really “in-your-face” for low-revenue districts whose kids get maybe one library period every 2 wks staffed by an aide: our elemsch is ¾ mi from the town library. It has a huge children’s section w/its own librarian & many kid-friendly events. All the parents in my nbhd can walk (or drive there in 1 min) w/their kids on wkends, or send a babysitter to do it weekdays. And they are educated/ motivated enough to do it. [Heck I used to double-stroller my kids regularly the 1 mile to Bklyn Central Library when they were little.] It could be argued our elemsch could get by w/one library-aide-directed 30mins every 2wks: send the excess $ to poor districts.
Another thought I had: if today’s pubsch elem teachers weren’t bogged down w/ too-large classes& the inflexibility that comes w/ “accountability” admin oversight/ data-input/ testing duties, they could manage library science the way it was done in the tight-budgeted rural elem schools of my upstate-NY childhood. Our classes were very small; typically 2 or 3 grades to one teacher for a total of 20-25 students tops. The way that worked: kids had more individual responsibility; there was more proceed-at-your-own pace; gifted kids led some of the reading/ math circles, etc. Every classroom I attended, 1st-5th, was lined w/shelves of books, each w/its sign-out card & index-card box; we were taught how to use the system & let loose on it… [And of course, our elemschs were staffed by top-notch well-qualified experienced teachers who could make that happen.]
They will complain about literacy rates then close school libraries at the elementary level (the best time to foster a love of reading in children). The argument is that teachers have classroom libraries, but that can’t compare to the variety of materials available in a school library, not to mention the expertise of a certified school librarian.