"A Librarian in Every School, Books in Every Home"

Joyce Valenza tweeted about this excellent and moving editorial by Bob Peterson regarding the loss of the sole librarian at the elementary school in Milwaukee where he works: "A Librarian in Every School, Books in Every Home: A Modest Proposal." This was the 2d of two things that made Peterson angry. The 1st was "...the release of scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) that showed African American 4th graders in Wisconsin (most of whom live in Milwaukee) had the lowest reading scores in the nation." He goes on to say, "Research shows school libraries are related to better reading achievement. The reason for this is obvious: Children become better readers by reading more, and for many children, the library is the only place they have access to books."

Sadly, there have been no librarians in public elementary schools in California for a very long time. We may still be 50th out of the 50 states in terms of the number of librarians in public schools. Perhaps Bob Peterson's call-to-arms article will help draw attention to this issue throughout the country.