The Capitol Hill Public Schools Parent Organization (CHPSPO) has spent the past seven months pushing Washington, DC, to open its coffers to school libraries to replenish shelves, upgrade library spaces and hire more librarians for K–12 students.

“We wanted to get librarians restored but also get District of Columbia Public Schools to make a commitment to get school libraries on their feet,” says Peter MacPherson, a member of CHPSPO and a parent of a 10th grader in public school.

MacPherson and his cohort are reacting to a decision last spring from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to pull dedicated funding from schools with fewer than 300 students and also allow schools with 300 or more students to divert funds for librarians to other purposes. That led to 58 of the 124 schools in the DCPS to start this fall without librarians — nearly double the 34 from the 2011/2012 school year. (DCPS did not respond to a request for information.)

Parents pushed back, asking for a meeting with Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who agreed to form a task force, says MacPherson, which is to be co-chaired by Barbara Stripling, former director of library services with the New York City Department of Education and current president-elect with the American Library Association. (Stripling did not respond to an interview request by press time.)

And CHPSPO has found other allies, namely Council Member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) who has proposed a bill, “The Public School Librarians, Art and Music Teacher Act of 2012,” requiring every DC public school to have a full-time librarian, art and music teacher. However a hearing has not yet been scheduled for the bill and if not set by early January, when the council period ends, the bill would have to be re-introduced next term, according to Council Member Phil Mendelson’s office, who chairs the committee considering the bill.

A $140 million budget surplus announced by D.C. finance officials last month is also cause for hope. CHPSPO would like $23 million of that surplus to be used for school libraries, to restore high school and middle school materials, purchase new ereaders, magazine subscriptions, and 40,000 ebooks, upgrade school library and hire 57 new full-time librarians.

With 2,758 signatures on their online petition demanding for a minimum of part-time librarians in each school, and a second protest scheduled in front of the Wilson Building at City Hall this Friday October 19, CHPSPO expects to bring more energy to the effort to restore school libraries for the betterment, they say, of student learning.

“We hope to have teachers, students and parents come to support our effort,” says MacPherson.

The government agency hopes to strengthen the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by including social networking sites, apps, and other platforms that weren’t around when the act originally passed in 1998. That law requires parental approval for kids under the age of 13 if they want to use sites aimed at children. Facebook and other sites can avoid complying with the law by opting to ban minors altogether.

But new rules, first proposed in August, seek to require that sites with “a disproportionately large percentage of children” —whether they’re aimed at children or not—also be required to follow COPPA. It also proposes that app developers, whose codes are used on sites aimed at children, also comply with COPPA’s rules. This could include sites like YouTube and Wikipedia, which, while not expressly aimed at children, often are used by them. Collecting information from those who use such high-trafficked sites could create privacy concerns that deter users from these sites rather than protect young users.

“We commend the FTC for trying to keep up with web technology, smartphones and apps,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director for the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. “But what we’re concerned about is the First Amendment, and verifying age and identification might mount barriers to freely access information on the Internet.”

Since COPPA is aimed at commercial sites, it doesn’t impact public or school libraries. (Although, the ALA does suggest librarians understand the law so they can explain it to parents and children). However, the ALA is monitoring developments of the proposed rules and did sign on with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and added comments to the proposed rules last month.

“Both of these proposals are too vague to give operators and developers a clear understanding of their obligation under the law and would create significant burdens on free expression and innovation,” write the two groups.

To Anne Collier, the problem also involves privacy and data control. With parents having to submit information in order to open additional sites, more data is collected on minors, thus creating more opportunities for the data to be used or potentially taken.

“You have that data spread in more places,” says the co-director of ConnectSafely.org. “If you require parents’ permission at every layer in the food chain, you have more data and more storage—and that makes people’s information more vulnerable.”

The FTC closed the public comment period on September 10, with the commission aiming for a final vote by the end of this fall.

NBC’s Brian Williams (left) with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“Education is about teachers, great leadership, and parents.” the Republican presidential candidate told those gathered at NBC’s third annual Education Nation Summit in New York this week, which many say outlined his education policy for the campaign.

Romney proposed that the nation follow Florida’s lead by grading schools so that parents would have more choice for their kids. Moderator Brian Williams, who noted that the current tuition for Romney’s alma mater, Cranbrook School, an elite all-boys prep school in Bloomfield Hills, MI, is $38,900, and asked if every child deserved that kind of education. Romney said his support for a voucher system included using Title I funds to support school choice. When 17-year-old Nikhil Goyal, a senior from Syosset High School in New York, asked about standardized testing, Romney said he supported teaching to the test.

Many educators attending the event took interest in Romney’s opposition to a “national curriculum” and his stance against allocating federal dollars to support the Common Core State Standards.

“I don’t subscribe to the idea of the federal government trying to push a common core on various states,” he said. “It’s one thing to put it out as a model and let people adopt it as they will, but to financially reward states based upon accepting the federal government’s idea of a curriculum, I think, is a mistake. And the reason I say that is that there may be a time when the government has an agenda that it wants to promote.”

The three-day event from September 23to 25 was hosted at the New York Public Library’s 42nd Street building and brought together NBC journalists Williams, Tom Brokaw, Rehema Ellis, and others along with governors, mayors, commissioners of education, and teachers to engage the public in a solution-focused discussion with the goal of improving education and preparing American students for jobs of the future.

The summit failed to mention the importance of libraries in education, and they weren’t even mentioned in a session called “Early Literacy Imperative: Central Falls (RI) Collaborates to Improve Reading,” which was moderated by Chelsea Clinton.

“Every classroom in our school has its own library, and those books travel home with students daily,” said Kath Connolly, spokesperson for the Learning Community,a featured charter school in an email to School Library Journal. “A central book room is constantly stocking and restocking those classroom libraries so that the content and the reading level remain engaging and challenging for students,”

Anthony Marx, New York Public Library’s president and CEO, welcomed everyone at a lunch where he emphasized the library’s goal to offer all children quality programming. The library system just went through a major reorganization, which eliminated the position of assistant director for public programs and lifelong learning for children, teen and families, which was held by Jack Martin, the current president of the Young Adult Library Services Association.

When questioned about the reorg, Marx stressed the library’s commitment to youth services and added that the library is currently recruiting a director of education programs, which will be a senior management position.

“Once that position is filled other positions will follow,” Marx told School Library Journal.

The summit presented 10 case studies and presented toolkits for educators. Zoran Popovic, director of the Center for Games Science at the University of Washington, used a crowd-sourcing exercise in which attendees helped to create a digital game called Wiznapped.

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UK Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson fights library closures and cuts.

the eve of a six-week library tour, sent an open letter to the newly appointed Culture Secretary Maria Miller, urging her to save Britain’s libraries.

The Gruffalo author, who embarked on her tour of England, Wales, and Scotland on September 10, says she’s promoting the value of libraries at a time when so many of them are under threat of closure. Donaldson also plans to visit libraries in Northern Ireland in March 2013.

“Libraries are very close to my heart; not only do they provide a wonderful opportunity for adults and children to browse, borrow and engage with books, but they are also great community centers,” Donaldson says. “This tour is my way of celebrating libraries, to highlight all that they do and offer—from lively baby and toddler rhyme-times and book club discussions to calm spaces for study and contemplation—and to protest against the cuts and closures, which are threatening so many of them.”

Donaldson’s letter to Miller criticizes her predecessor Jeremy Hunt and Libraries Minister Ed Vaizey for not acting on violations to the 1964 Libraries Act, which states that “every authority must provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient’ library service. Donaldson says she hopes her tour will draw attention to the “erosion of the library service which is happening in so many local authorities, and to the current government’s utter refusal to intervene or to provide any leadership.”

A spokesperson with the UK’s Department for Culture Media and Sport told the BBC that Miller would be happy to meet with Donaldson, but added that libraries are funded and run by local authorities rather than the central government—and that it was up to local authorities to decide the best way to provide library services to their communities.

Donaldson cites a recent survey by Public Libraries News, which shows that since April 2012 nearly 250 UK libraries are either under threat of closure or have been closed. Another survey by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals estimates that during this fiscal year 2,159 library positions out of a total of 20,924 will be cut—which is on top of huge cuts made in previous years. Library cuts have varied from region to region, with some places suffering budget cuts of up to 35 percent and “cuts in book stocks of up to 90 percent,” Donaldson’s letter reads.

Donaldson asserts that Vaizey denied any problems with library services in the UK. “This may be because he is happy with the idea (now a reality in some areas) of libraries being run entirely by volunteers,” Donaldson says, adding that she hopes this is only a short-term measure. “This summer, while visiting France, I had an engagement in a village library whose users were thrilled because at last they were getting a professional librarian. Yet we are going in the opposite direction.”

Donaldson’s letter goes on to day that she’s particularly concerned about the impact of library closures on children’s reading. “Today many towns have no bookshops,” she writes. “If they also have no library, where are children to find books?”

Donaldson’s tour will include bringing some of her stories to life through acting and singing. She will also visit local independent bookshops, as well as celebrate community relations among libraries, bookshops, and schools.

Donaldson joins other high-profile British authors, such as previous Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne, Philip Pullman, and Alan Gibbons, who have spent years championing school and public libraries in the UK.

Mary Kay Biagini, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, presents her study to PA State Legislators.

media centers are in Philadelphia, says a new study that was presented to state legislators on August 22.

Only 128 schools are without school libraries—and 103 of them are in Philadelphia, says Mary Kay Biagini, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, who presented her study to the State House of Representative’s Education Committee on School Libraries. The hearing was a result of an almost two-year process that began with the passage of House Resolution 987 in 2010, which called for a study of Pennsylvania’s school libraries.

The report also found that in schools with librarians, only 44 percent of them were employed full time. Biagini said 75 percent of elementary school librarians had fixed schedules and lacked the time to collaborate with classroom teachers.

In her testimony, Eileen Kern, president of the Pennsylvania School Librarian Association, spoke about the October release of researcher Keith Curry Lance’s Pennsylvania School Library Impact Study, which examines the gap between existing school library programs in Pennsylvania and what’s needed to help students develop 21st century skills.

Meanwhile, Sandra Zelno of the Education Law Center shared school library initiatives from other states and pointed out that while Pennsylvania doesn’t require librarians for public schools, it mandates them for private schools and prisons.

Matthew Hutcheson, superintendent of the Jeannette City School District, spoke about his anguish over budget cuts, which have make it difficult to provide leisure reading materials for students.

“When you remove a qualified librarian from the library, I believe that the library begins to cease to exist,” said Graig Henshaw, a librarian from the York City School District. He and Allison Burrell of the Southern Columbia School District testified that they’re now forced to work at multiple schools. Burrell said she was the “solo librarian” for the district and pointed out that there are at least 25 other school librarians in the state in a similar situation. She called for more assistance for those like herself who struggle to meet the needs of students spread across multiple schools. Henshaw stressed the difficulty school librarians face covering numerous subject areas with so many students.

Former students also had a chance to voice their opinions about the importance of library instruction and the impact teacher layoffs have had on them. Kristy Oren said her high school librarian introduced her to databases and helped her prepare for university-level research at Hamilton College, where she now attends. During Sean Gregory’s four years at Danville High School, he “noticed a subtle but steady decrease in that trademark ease of access” that he came to take for granted in the library when its staff was reduced and eliminated.

Legislators welcomed the various testimonies, with Representative Paul Clymer, who chairs the Education Committee, saying, “I was concerned to learn through the study that, on average, staffing, funding, access, and resources are inadequate for achieving optimal benefit from these specialized educators.”

“This study clearly illustrates that we need to look more closely at this issue and make sure that our school libraries are being used in a way that most benefits the students,” he added.

The study outlined six recommendations, which included restoring the state-level Division of School Library Media Services in the Commonwealth Libraries and appointing a director; creating an information literacy curriculum; having an annual assessment of school library programs; making the state Guidelines for Pennsylvania School Library Programs available to administrators; and providing guidance in the selection of adaptive technologies for the visual disabled and materials in languages other than English.

Representative Mark Longietti, who sponsored the resolution authorizing the study, said he and his colleagues would examine the recommendations to see what could be implemented.

Clymer added, “With the information contained in this study, we can now present a strong case when discussions begin for the 2013-14 state budget for the necessity of providing additional funding for this important educational component.”

School librarian Sara Stevenson in front of the White House.

librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, TX is well-known in educational circles for her opinion pieces and letters to the editor which appear in her local Austin American-Statesman, and nationally in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She hopes her succinct and well-sourced points will give readers an educator’s point of view as they shape their own opinions about the educational reform movement.

Fans include author Diane Ravitch, who tweets about her pieces to the Twitter masses, and even Stevenson’s own colleagues, who she says may not feel as free to voice their opinions as she does.

“My principal has said, ‘Go for it,’” Stevenson says. “But I think there’s a lot of fear with the economy struggling and people with young children [who don’t want to lose their jobs]. I think I’m in a fortunate position to really speak out.”

And speak out she does. She considers the “letter to the editor” one of her favorite platforms, calling them her “therapy,” where she gets to “say my piece,” she says. While she has written a couple of pieces on libraries and education for her local paper, Stevenson says her real push came in 2011 when the Austin Independent School District planned to cut school librarians in secondary schools. Stevenson wrote an opinion piece, tweeted about the issue, and encouraged readers to write to the superintendent of schools. Three weeks later, the positions were reinstated—and a writing warrior was born.

The thread that runs through Stevenson’s pieces is educational reform—the push in our nation for more testing, rating teachers by how their students score on standardized exams, a rise of charter schools, vouchers for private schools, and the opinion that larger class sizes don’t matter if teachers are effective. The issue is bipartisan, believes Stevenson, citing that even President Obama’s Race to the Top grants, created to spur innovation and reform, encourage more testing. And she wonders why people, including Bill Gates, have become voices in this movement, superseding those in the trenches with real-world experience in education.

“Where are we in the discussion?” she asks. “Bill Gates is great guy, but why is he leading the discussion when his children go to private school?”

A former teacher, who’s now in her tenth year as a middle school librarian, Stevenson says she’s not against testing, explaining that evaluating where students stand can be both “useful and wonderful.”

Her objection is that the pendulum has shifted too far, with an emphasis only on programs that improve test scores, with other areas—even physical education—being dropped as extraneous. And while she has no plans to lay down her pen, Stevenson believes real change can only happen when more parties speak up in support—in particular, she says, students.

“Students say they’re sick of it, that they don’t want more testing,” she says. “I’d like to see high school students writing letters. That’s what I think some of the reformers and politicians have lost sight of—what’s good for kids.”

President Obama tapes the weekly address in the State Dining Room of the White House. Photo: White House Photo: Chuck Kennedy.

President Obama’s weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday focused on the critical role that education plays in our country’s future—and the need for Congress to pass his proposed jobs bill to help states prevent teacher layoffs and rehire them.  But he made no mention of school librarians.

Obama said several thousand educators would not be returning to school in September. And due to budget cuts at the state and local level, some 300,000 education jobs have been lost since the official end of the recession in 2009. As a result, the student-to-teacher ratio has increased by 4.6 percent from 2008 to 2010 and that number is expected to grow.

“Think about what that means for our country,” Obama said. “At a time when the rest of the world is racing to out-educate America; these cuts force our kids into crowded classrooms, cancel programs for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and shorten the school week and the school year.”

While Obama made no mention of school librarians in his address, a White House report on this subject, “Investing in Our Future: Returning Teachers to the Classroom,” references several newspaper articles that illustrate the effect of education cuts on libraries as well.

In Sacramento, CA, for example, the Sacramento Bee reported that this upcoming year, area students returning to school should expect another year of large class sizes, fewer teachers, and reduced resources, as a result of four consecutive years of state budget cuts. In addition to the nearly 650 teachers in Sacramento County who received final termination notices in May, “district’s students can expect larger class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, fewer arts and music programs, and fewer assistant principals and librarians.”

In Cleveland, OH, the school board voted in April to trim about a sixth of its teaching staff in the upcoming school year because of budget troubles and a falling number of students, says Cleveland Plain Dealer. The district plans to lay off more than 500 teachers at the end of this school year, as well as shorten the school day through eighth grade by 50 minutes. It will also “cut the number of music, art, library, and gym classes for those students as part of the shuffling of staff to handle the layoffs.”

It’s no surprise Obama left out libraries in his address. In May 2011, the Department of Education eliminated funding for the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program, the only federal program that was solely devoted to school libraries. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI),with strong grassroots support from educators, parents, and students, managed to replace some of that money late last year by securing $28.6 million in federal funds for school libraries and literacy programs for FY 2012 in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. President Obama signed it into law on December 23, 2011.

“We would like the President, along with all administration officials and members of Congress, to include school librarians when they are speaking about educational professionals at any type of school,” says Jeff Kratz, the American Library Association’s assistant director of the Office of Government Relations.

Federal cuts to school libraries trickle down to school districts nationwide, says the American Library Association. As a result, California has been one of the hardest hit, where the number of certified teacher-librarians has dropped to 895 this school year. The Los Angeles Unified School District also laid off dozens of its library staff, interviewing them for a chance to be reassigned to a classroom.

The Investing in Our Future report offers the President another chance to push a year-old jobs plan he proposed last September, which provides money for states to keep teachers, police officers, and firefighters employed—and comes during an election year.

Cutting teachers is “the opposite of what we should be doing as a country,” Obama said in his address. “States should be making education a priority in their budgets, even in tough fiscal times. And Congress should be willing to help out—because this affects all of us.”

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel responded to Obama’s address, saying, “we applaud him for that [because] Gov. Romney has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in the impact of keeping class sizes small, despite evidence to the contrary and despite what parents across this country know.”

Van Roekel went on to say that class size is a “critical piece of the school improvement puzzle and we cannot ignore the positive effect that personalized learning has for kids.”

“This report reminds us that we have a choice to make in November between two visions for America. President Obama’s, in which all students deserve a great education; and Gov. Romney’s, in which kids get the best education their parents can afford,” Van Roekel said.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten urged Congress to pass the American Jobs Act.  “These cuts come at a time when we should be increasing our commitment to children and to the public schools that educate 90 percent of them,” he said. “With poverty spiking and student enrollment increasing, it’s more important than ever that every student in our charge is prepared for life, college and career.”

NYPL’s 42 Street Children’s Center.

New York Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr. of Queens have asked the New York state legislature to pass a law barring sex offenders from children’s reading rooms in libraries.

In addition to proposing a City Council resolution, de Blasio and Valone sent a letter to Sheldon Silver, speaker of the Assembly, and Dean G. Skelos, majority leader of the Senate.

The two are targeting children’s rooms specifically because complete bans on sex offenders in libraries have been held unconstitutional, as LJ reported. “We suspect a law along these lines recently passed in the State Senate will face similar legal challenges,” the two said, referring to S3744-2011, which passed the Senate but died in the Assembly.

However another bill that focuses only on children’s areas of libraries already exists: called S7823-2011 and sponsored by Senator John L. Sampson, it was referred to the Senate rules committee on July 11.

Read the full story on Library Journal.

House Bill 2712 gives Arizona the authority to enforce filtering requirements in both school districts and public libraries that accept funding from the state. While Arizona already has laws in place requiring libraries and schools to filter, the new ruling goes further by allowing lawmakers to withhold 10 percent of their monthly budget, says Aiden Fleming, legislative liaison for the Arizona Department of Education (DOE), explaining that the new law now has “some teeth.”

Federal law already requires K-12 schools and public libraries to comply with filtering laws as set forth in the Children Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Those who don’t comply risk losing federal e-rate funding, which provides for certain technology services such as Internet connections.

Arizona lawmakers, however, felt the need to update current laws to ensure they were being enforced. The bill’s new language specifies, in part, what content schools and libraries must block, describing it now as “visual depictions that are child pornography, harmful to minors or obscene.” The law also states that schools and libraries must create a policy to enforce the ban on these materials, and they must make the rules available to the public. Libraries can unblock filters if an adult needs to access blocked material.

If a school or library doesn’t comply, it has 60 days to change the policy. After that, the state can withhold up to 10 percent of funding until the problem is resolved.

Still, Fleming notes that there’s no way for the DOE, in particular, to monitor whether schools, at least, actually place filters on computers, which could add a wrinkle to the law’s new tough stance.

“We don’t have any official way of finding out, unless a school is turned in,” he says.

While the penalty for noncompliance is steep, Fleming says the DOE doesn’t know of any school without filters. And so there’s little concern that the new law will catch anyone by surprise.

“Every district complies with CIPA,” he says. “So there shouldn’t be any school in the state that is not complying.”

The Phoenix Public Library also says it’s been complying with CIPA and works with the company, Websense, to block harmful sites.