While I was out walking this morning, I heard a story on NPR about school librarian positions being cut in the Chicago Public Schools.
Find radio story here
Chicago Public Schools has delegated staffing decisions to local school councils, supposedly a good thing. But the councils are frequently cutting their librarian positions, not a good thing at all. The Chicago schools CEO isn't helping by mis-stating the issue.
Research studies have shown that active school libraries with teacher-librarians boost reading achievement. Those of us who've worked in schools know that librarians also give teachers a hand in offering kids some particularly wonderful learning experiences. School libraries are far more than a roomful of books for kids to check out. As just one example of what a school library offers that a classroom teacher may not: Many kids don't even know about nonfiction books until their first encounter with a school library. Even the most wonderful teachers tend to read story books when they read to kids because nonfiction isn't always suitable for this. For many kids, the nonfiction books they find in the school library give them their entry point to reading.
School libraries are now the high-tech, complex sister of public libraries, and volunteers can rarely staff them at the level needed to complement and support classroom learning. A school librarian is an investment in student achievement that is next in importance only to the classroom teacher.
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