Diane Ravitch says schools need librarians!

Sometimes Diane Ravitch sounds like the only voice of reason rising out of heated debate over public education. Recently, I interviewed Ravitch for Salon about charters, vouchers, Big Data, Teach for America and her new book, Reign of Error.

Here's one section of the interview that didn't make it into the Salon piece -- Ravitch on school librarians:

DMO: Since I am a public school librarian, I do have to ask about libraries. A lot of people have lost faith in libraries and they say that everybody can just Google everything anyway and so we don't need libraries. You do think we need librarians, and I'm wondering why?

Diane Ravitch: Well, I've always been a supporter of librarians and libraries because I think that libraries are the place where you learn how to use information. You learn how to use information in the classroom, but librarians are skilled — and much more so than when I was in school — in teaching you how to access information and provide tremendous resources.

I love the idea that you can go into a library and I have to say I still like books, no matter how much technology I use, no matter how many times I go to the Internet. I think that some of the most important learning experiences for me personally came from browsing in the library and finding unexpected things, and you don't find too many unexpected things on the Internet – you find what you look for. In the library, you can find things you didn't know you were looking for.

I think libraries are important because librarians are skilled in technology – they don't just file books away, they teach kids how to use the technology and how to use it responsibly.

Final layoff

The process of getting laid off in education is like water torture. First, there are the rumors, then the pink slips, then the meetings, then the rumors, then the final layoff notices. And then the talk of alternative funding.

My principal came over to my library yesterday to hand me the final layoff letter and to give me a hug (which was much needed).

As a librarian, this "termination" symbolizes so much more than the loss of a single person. The space that I'm in charge of -- as humble as it may be -- includes the work of decades of culling, buying, and protecting. It's a living thing; it moves and flows, it provides a safe haven and a place for collaboration. The closure of a library is a death.

This article in the Huffington Post by one of the good guys in this battle -- Peter Dreier is a prof at my alma mater Oxy and someone who tried to get the parcel tax measure passed -- made me feel a whole lot better.

At least we're discussing the problems in this whacked system. Here's Dreier on what's wrong:

"The harsh reality is that, like every school district in California, Pasadena schools are still suffering from the shock waves produced by Proposition 13, the statewide initiative passed in 1978 that put a ceiling on local property taxes. Since then, school districts have been almost totally dependent on the state for school funding. Once among the best public education systems in the nation -- from kindergarten through college -- California has now sunk to one of the worst.

California is the 7th wealthiest state in the country (in per-capita income), but it ranks 46th in per student spending, according to Education Week -- $8,164 compared with the national average of $10,557. It ranks 42th in the number of students per teacher, resulting in large average class sizes. California has 20.9 students per teacher, compared to a national average of 15.5. It is at the very bottom in the ratio of counselors, school nurses, and librarians to students." 


That's the bad history; but there's good news here, too. Most of the people in Pasadena voted for the parcel tax measure, and that many others are talking about the serious inequities in this screwed-up system. 


Here's the entire Huffington Post article.

The crumbling of public schools

Enormous cuts are beginning to make people take a good hard look at our education system, especially in our divestment from it. Others are shining a light on certain practices that should probably be abandoned (like the seniority system).

Two pieces that came my way today should be read by anyone who cares about education.

The first is an article co-written by a colleague, Tyler Hester--a second-year teacher at Blair IB Magnet in the Pasadena Unified School District who has been pink-slipped (along with all of the district librarians). Check out "Letter from a Laid Off Teacher" here.

Another was a gut-wrenching opinion piece by Derrick Z. Jackson called "The Death of Public Education" that ran in The Boston Globe. Here's an excerpt:

"Beneath the numbers is the resegregation of children on the basis of
class, race and immigration status. Prison spending soared so much,
that by 2007, five states spent as much or more on corrections than on higher education, according to the Pew Center on the States."



It's a fascinating and terrifying look at how the U.S. has given up on public education and on the kids in the system. Read the entire piece here.