Worried about proposed cuts to school librarian positions? How to help.

[Anonymous]

Here is the letter I wrote to the council, not the form letter but it has more power if you put it in your own words. Next will be the art and music teachers. All of us that pay for extra positions in Ward 3 is this is not a road we want to go down.

To whom it may concern:

I read with great concern Chancellor Henderson's characterization of school librarians as an experiment that did not increase reading scores and thus were expendable luxuries for school budgets. This statement made me question much of the decision making crushing our schools. I support testing that helps schools find deficits focus on building them, but the blind focus on the DC CAS disables our children from getting a full education that will actually make them educated citizens. This statement about librarians is a perfect example of this blindness. Librarians are uniquely qualified to help our children negotiate the knowledge economy in a way that not a single teacher I have met in my 6 years of DCPS has been capable of helping their students. Librarians don't just introduce you to that amazing book that will entrance you and make one feel the power of reading. They guide you in learning how to be a skilled user of the internet, validate a website, use a database, learn how to integrate a book and article and website into a skilled reference paper.
They help guide our children on a complex information highway that includes all the usual villains of the streets and even worse many predators by teaching internet safety.

Eliminating librarians is like saying well you can get full at McDonalds but you are not eating a healthy meal. Librarians are the slow vegetable stew that provides critical and healthy fuel for growing minds and bodies. Ms. Henderson seeks lots of happy meals as solutions, but those solutions are not helping our children.

It is time for the city council to question these short-sighted cuts.