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Los Angeles school librarians must prove they are qualified to teach students if they want to save their jobs.
How will students learn key information literacy skills, and how will teachers get help with integrating digital resources into their instruction, without a full-time media specialist in their school?
That’s the question a national school library group has asked the nation’s second largest school system as it prepares to cut dozens of school librarians in a high-profile example of a trend that is occurring nationwide.
The American Association of School Librarians[1] (AASL) has issued an open letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District[2] (LAUSD) urging the district to avoid cutting school media specialist positions, which would leave thousands of students and teachers without guidance on digital content, reading lists, and research options, the organization says.
The letter, addressed to LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, Chief Academic Officer Judy Elliott, Board President Monica Garcia, and all LAUSD board members, expresses concern over LAUSD’s current budget crisis and layoff notices that went to more than 80 school librarians.
“If the elimination moves forward, only 32 of approximately 700 schools will have full-time school librarians and only 10 will have part-time school librarians. This means that approximately 600,000 students will be deprived of one of the most valuable educational resources needed for students to compete in today’s 21st-century workforce—a school librarian,” wrote Roberta Stevens, president of the American Library Association[3] (ALA), and Nancy Everhart, president of AASL.
In a vetting process that has come to resemble an inquisition, Los Angeles school librarians must prove they are qualified to teach students if they want to save their jobs. (Editor’s note: For a riveting first-hand account of these events, click here[8].)
School librarians teach students how to use the internet and evaluate content for research purposes. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards “recognizes them as teachers, and their efforts can be measured to meet standards for professional teaching excellence,” Stevens and Everhart wrote.
The letter notes that classroom teachers and librarians work together to incorporate learning and research skills into the curriculum, and school librarians help students learn how to use technology to gather information effectively and make informed decisions—information literacy skills that are vital in today’s digital world.
“School librarians are there to guide students through the Information Age, and these things don’t come naturally,” Everhart said in an interview with eSchool News. “Kids know how to use Google, but do they know how to use the information they get back from Google?”
School librarians collaborate with educators, help to evaluate learning and teaching resources, and “teach 21st-century skills that students need in order to go out into the workplace,” she added.
If the district’s budget cuts are deep, some librarians might be transferred to classroom teaching positions after proving they are qualified to teach in a classroom. But as the Los Angeles Times reported, LAUSD approves such transfers only if the employee in question has taught students for the past five years. This rule pits the school district’s attorneys against librarians who say they teach many students and many topics every day.
The situation in Los Angeles has garnered national attention, but it’s emblematic of what AASL calls a national trend: School media specialist positions are being deemed expendable as districts continue to grapple with budget shortfalls.
On an advocacy page of its website[13], AASL has created a Google Maps depiction of communities across the U.S. that have eliminated certified school librarian positions or that require one school librarian to serve two or more schools throughout the week.
In Los Angeles, education advocates have protested the threat of severe cuts to the district’s budget.
Education leaders have asked the state’s Republican lawmakers to pass temporary sales tax increases that would help ease the pain of budget cuts. California Gov. Jerry Brown has said the state’s budget situation would force him to make drastic cuts to public schools.
The pink slips are the “ugly reality of the state budget” and a “direct result of the state’s refusal to make education a priority,” said Robert Alaniz, LAUSD’s director of communications.
Alaniz said LAUSD officials hope the governor’s budget proposal will place K-12 education as a priority, and they hope to rescind the termination notices.
Alaniz noted that although much of the media focus has been on librarians, budget woes and layoff notices are affecting teachers, school counselors, and other school employees as well. More than 7,000 pink slips have been issued to district employees in all, he said.
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Apple fans’ brains react in a way similar to religious people
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Apple devotees are notorious for their steadfast dedication to the computer and gadget manufacturer, standing in line for hours and sometimes days just to be the first to try out a new piece of hardware, Tecca reports. According to a new study, the areas of the brain which produce that tenacity in Apple fans are the same spots that fuel religious fervor. Scientists using an magnetic resonance imagine (MRI) machine presented Apple fans with images of the company’s popular gadgets. Upon doing so, they found brain activity that mirrors how a religious person’s brain reacts when presented with a picture of their chosen deity…
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Amazon.com Inc. on May 19 said that, after less than four years of selling electronic books, it’s now selling more of them than printed books, the Associated Press reports. The online retailer said that since April 1, it has sold 105 eBooks for every 100 printed books, including printed books for which there is no electronic edition. The comparison excludes free eBooks, which would tip the scales further if they were included. Printed books include both hardcover and paperback books. Amazon said in July that eBook sales had outstripped hardcover sales. It’s now selling three times as many eBooks as it did a year ago. Analysts estimate that Amazon accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. eBook sales…
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A for-profit university operated by real estate mogul Donald Trump is being investigated by the New York Attorney General’s office, the Associated Press reports. A spokesman for the Trump Entrepreneurial Initiative acknowledged receiving an inquiry from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office and said the organization would cooperate with the probe. A person familiar with the situation tells the Associated Press that Schneiderman’s office is looking into clams that the developer and TV host exaggerated Trump University’s success. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe hasn’t yet been made public. The person says Schneiderman is investigating four other for-profit schools in a case looking at deceptive business practices. He’s found more than a dozen credible complaints…
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Republicans and Democrats agree that NCLB is broken, but they remain divided over how to fix it.
The long-awaited overhaul of the nine-year-old No Child Left Behind law has begun in the U.S. House of Representatives with the first in a series of targeted bills—but a bipartisan, comprehensive reform of the nation’s most important education law still appears far from the finish line.
Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said there’s no chance of meeting President Barack Obama’s August deadline.
“I’ve been very, persistently clear that we cannot get this done by summer,” Kline said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It is just not going to happen.”
Republicans have been divided by new lawmakers who tend to oppose any federal role in education and fiscal conservatives who want greater efficiency but are open to giving Washington some input. On the other side, some Democrats favor incentives like merit pay for teachers, while others are advocating for the more traditional education establishment.
“There are some areas of focus that I think you can get some consensus around,” said Sandy Kress, who served as an education adviser to President George W. Bush in the passage of NCLB in 2001. For example, he said, there’s agreement on the need to better prepare high school students for college and careers, create measures that improve teacher development and effectives, and prune back federal intrusions into the classroom.
“But after that, the differences come out,” Kress said.
Republicans and Democrats agree the law is broken. The Bush-era legislation has accountability provisions in which even schools that are making improvements can be labeled as failures and has had a discouraging effect on the adoption of higher standards.
The law sets a goal of having 100 percent of students proficient in math and reading by 2014, but states set what is considered proficient and how much schools must improve each year. Many left the biggest leaps for the final years, anticipating the law would be changed.
Because it has not, the number of schools not meeting annual growth benchmarks is likely to increase. Failing to meet the targets for several consecutive years leads to federal interventions that can result in staff replacement and school restructuring.
“It’s going to be more and more difficult for schools to make the targets,” said Diane Rentner, director of national programs for the Center on Education Policy.
Two approaches have emerged to restructuring the law. The House plans to introduce several targeted fixes through multiple bills, starting with a proposal to eliminate 43 federal K-12 education programs. The Senate still aims for a more comprehensive legislation.
“We will hopefully have a bill that may not be what everybody wants, but I hope it will be broadly supported,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Harkin said he is hopeful the bill will appear before the committee before the July recess and will include systems for teacher and principal evaluations; metrics for success that include student growth and school gains; and some federal accountability and intervention in the bottom 5 percent of schools, as well as those with significant achievement gaps.
Potentially, a Senate bill could be aligned with the House proposals in a conference committee, but analysts say that would be difficult to pull off. House Republicans, wary of any broad-reaching federal legislation, might balk at a comprehensive education bill.
“The politics of education are in a place where the stars are not fully aligned yet,” said Vic Klatt, a former GOP staff director for the House Education Committee.
Passing a series of small, targeted bills isn’t necessarily easier, either.
“We’re fully prepared to proceed in that fashion; it just makes it a little more difficult because you don’t have all the pieces on the table at the same time,” said Rep. George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the Education Committee.
Kline said he plans to introduce a second bill soon that would give school districts more flexibility in how they spend federal dollars. A third bill could be introduced before the August break, and at least one more, addressing how schools should be held accountable, would follow.
“I think it makes it easier for everybody to understand,” Hunter said of the piecemeal approach, whereas for big bills, “I think people have an aversion to them now.”
Neither of the first two bills addresses Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s concern that 82 percent of schools could be labeled as failures next year under No Child Left Behind. Kline said the accountability question is a difficult one.
“This is going to be a challenging prospect for us, no question about it,” Kline said. “Schools are going to be accountable for what? And to whom? That’s an ongoing question.”
Many education experts have questioned Duncan’s prediction. A study by the Center on Education Policy in April found that 38 percent of schools failed to meet adequate yearly progress in 2010, meaning the number failing would have to more than double.
Duncan has the authority to grant waivers to meeting the law’s requirements. In 2009, he granted more than 300, significantly higher than the number granted a year before by his predecessor. The department says the number was higher in part because officials invited states to submit several waivers, including those related to stimulus funding.
Kress said that not passing a reauthorization isn’t as serious as the administration has suggested and that there are many policy fixes that can be done under the current law. The political consequences for not passing a reform might not be steep for either party, he said.
“I think it’s inconsequential,” Kress said. “The issues that separate them are so great. To come to an agreement on a modest bill that is restrained and modest, I don’t think anybody runs on that.”
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Don Bosco Charter High School, which already announced that it would close in June, needs to return $256,000 in allegedly misappropriated federal funds, the state announced on May 18. The Kansas City Star reports that state officials informed the charter school that an audit found that some Title I funds were used inappropriately to help cover staff salaries and benefits and to purchase materials in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years. Title I distributes federal funds to public schools to help provide extra services for students from low-income families…
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Hearing gossip about people can change the way you see them — literally, NPR reports. Negative gossip actually alters the way our visual system responds to a particular face, according to a study published online by the journal Science. The findings suggest that the human brain is wired to respond to gossip, researchers say. And it adds to the evidence that gossip helped early humans get ahead. “Gossip is helping you to predict who is friend and who is foe,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University and an author of the study. Barrett is part of a team that has been studying how gossip affects not just what we know about an unfamiliar person but how we feel about them. The team has shown that getting secondhand information about a person can have a powerful effect…
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UC Irvine recently upgraded its campus's digital signage.
Budget-conscious colleges and universities are finding digital signage not only helps them improve their campus-wide communications and emergency messaging, but many discover that it’s cost-effective and eco-friendly. And the signs might just make students glance up from their smart phones.
The need for improved communications is driven by a consumer electronics industry that has created a generation bombarded with engaging messages all day, every day.
As a result, students tend to ignore messages that don’t meet their high standards for media and its messages.
A new study from Platt Retail Institute[29], “Communication Effectiveness in Higher Education,” reveals the significant role of digital signage in communicating on campus.
According to the report[30], 97 percent of students responded that they prefer to receive information via digital channels, rather than from a non-digital source. Students indicated that digital channels are effective for communicating school-related messages.
