Adkins on libraries: baby steps
June 14, 2008
Thanks to reader gp who points out Ruth Adkins’ Tribune op-ed published yesterday.
Ruth clearly describes the issue, which disproportionately affects low-income students. And she correctly characterizes the district’s moves to address the crisis as “baby steps.”
Libraries are a priority going forward, writes Adkins, and will be more fully addressed in next spring’s budget.
It is clear the school board fails to see this as a crisis needing immediate attention.
So yet another class of thousands of PPS students will be added to those who have already been denied library staff through crucial years of school.
Libraries remain the critical unfunded element of the ongoing PK8 crisis, but the school board has placed higher priority on spending $1.2 million on new text books for middle schoolers than on providing them with library staff.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
