Library cuts deny children glorious addiction

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

There is no official procedure, or protocol. Since all libraries are free to choose which books to carry, school libraries have sometimes been ordered to withdraw certain books from general circulation, usually after some parents' complaints. Librarians often simply comply instead of arguing the case (easier that way). Here's a list of frequently challenged books, 2000 - 2009.

PS: Am I the only one who this thread's title reminds of something written by The Onion?

oh, thanks! i usually become more interested in a book after hearing that it has been "banned" in the US talk about asking for trouble!

[Barty]

You need the get 'em when they're young. The tobacco industry gets it. Why doesn't the book industry?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

PS: Am I the only one who this thread's title reminds of something written by The Onion?

Something like this? (Warning, pics may not be safe for work depending on how uptight your employer may be.)

Or more likely this is where it's all leading to.

[rogue_librarian]

I was referring to the "glorious addiction" part, mainly, but your links are funny, too. Thanks

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It won't work. The push toward private schools is just an attempt from right-wingers to allow religion into the classroom.

I'm sure those libraries suck. The problem I'm having is a duplication of resources from two governmental agencies. The result is a waste of tax dollars. Consolidate those resources and only have one agency provide the books for children.

Oh please. The push towards private schools by "right-wingers" (like me) has nothing to do with religion. My family isn't even close to being religious. It has everything to do about education quality. I'm lucky that I can afford to send my kid to private school and am not stuck with the crap school assigned to me by where I live. It's a shame the poorer people, the ones liberals supposedly care about, don't get the same choice.

http://nevadanewsandviews.com/2010/1...sort-industry/

Link showing how asinine our current system of school assignment is.

The original suggestion of kids getting books from the school libraries is silly. A school library serves a small group of children, maybe 500-750 in a large elementary school. Each school can have a small collection of books, but there's no way they could come close to the amount of books available in a full community resource like a library that serves all the children in a community.

According to census data from 2000 (way out of date) my town has about 24000 children under the age of 10. Our town libraries are accessible to each of those 24000 children, no matter what school they attend. Split that collection up among the 40 or so elementary schools in the town and each school library now only carries 2.5% of the books as the library system. Do you only duplicate popular books? Does each school library carry different books? If so, do children from other school have access to the books not available in their school?

School libraries are a great resource for kids to easily get books without needing a ride to the library, but expecting them to have anything close to the selection of a community library is ridiculous. I used to take books out of my school library every day I was in school, but still looked forward to my family's once a week trip to the community library where I had a much bigger selection of books to choose from.

-Marcy

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Marcy

I'm lucky that I can afford to send my kid to private school and am not stuck with the crap school assigned to me by where I live. It's a shame the poorer people, the ones liberals supposedly care about, don't get the same choice.

The same choice? and with what funding? School vouchers won't work. If we eliminate public schools in favor of private ones, we'll quickly see private schools for well-to-do kids and private schools for poorer kids. We'll be right back where we are now.

Education is a proper role for government; as much as police and fire services.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Marcy

School libraries are a great resource for kids to easily get books without needing a ride to the library, but expecting them to have anything close to the selection of a community library is ridiculous. I used to take books out of my school library every day I was in school, but still looked forward to my family's once a week trip to the community library where I had a much bigger selection of books to choose from.

School libraries are a duplication of governmental services and should be eliminated. Public libraries are sufficient.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The same choice? and with what funding? School vouchers won't work. If we eliminate public schools in favor of private ones, we'll quickly see private schools for well-to-do kids and private schools for poorer kids. We'll be right back where we are now.

Education is a proper role for government; as much as police and fire services.

Exactly. The real complaint behind the push for vouchers and private schools comes down to this. The more affluent just don't want to pay not only enough in taxes to support quality schools for their children, they resent being taxed the additional amount necessary to fund schools of the same quality for children of the less affluent who otherwise would not have access to such schools.

American's are inherently a individualistic selfish “what's in it for me?” bunch.

One of the big reason libraries are under such financial stress and budgets are tight is that taxes are at the lowest levels that they have been in 30 years. Yet people still compain at being over taxed.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

School libraries are a duplication of governmental services and should be eliminated. Public libraries are sufficient.

School libraries are more accessible to kids than public libraries.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by jkeene

Wow! I looked up my county's budget lines for library services. $6.3M for a population of 400,000, or about $15 per capita. We have no DVDs at all, no Overdrive either, just NetLibrary for ebooks. The core physical book selection is decent, but all the branches are completely closed every Friday.

I've twice written my county commissioner to protest proposed library cuts, looks like I should be pushing for an increase.

Wow, that seems small - my county has a population of just over 900,000, giving us a per capita cost of about $45, and while I think our libraries are good, I think that there's a lot of room for improvement, too.

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Exactly. The real complaint behind the push for vouchers and private schools comes down to this. The more affluent just don't want to pay not only enough in taxes to support quality schools for their children, they resent being taxed the additional amount necessary to fund schools of the same quality for children of the less affluent who otherwise would not have access to such schools.

American's are inherently a individualistic selfish “what's in it for me?” bunch.

Some of this is true, but it's more complicated than this. Some schools, especially inner city schools, are just disaster areas, having dropout rates of well over 50% - in some cases over 70%. The wealthy and upper middle class who live in these areas either move to suburbs or send their kids to private schools. The middle class who can't afford private schools have moved to the suburbs. This leaves the lower middle class and below with no option but to send their kids to these horrible schools. That's why there is also a lot of support for voucher-type programs among lower middle class and below parents.

One of the big reason libraries are under such financial stress and budgets are tight is that taxes are at the lowest levels that they have been in 30 years. Yet people still compain at being over taxed.

This is true enough. But in a democracy you have to justify expenditures, and convincing the 80% of people who don't read much that they should pay $150/year to subsidize the reading habits of others can be a hard sell. I'm amazed that libraries have done as well as they have, frankly.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Oh please. The push towards private schools by "right-wingers" (like me) has nothing to do with religion. My family isn't even close to being religious. It has everything to do about education quality. I'm lucky that I can afford to send my kid to private school and am not stuck with the crap school assigned to me by where I live. It's a shame the poorer people, the ones liberals supposedly care about, don't get the same choice.

-Marcy

That's what charter schools are about, right? See the Waiting for Superman documentary.

Problem with charter schools: 1) the premiere "model" schools cost a LOT, as much as 35k per kid per year. Holy cow, for that kind of money, we could send the kid to a good college. 2) many of them end up performing no better or only marginally better than the public schools. 3) getting in some requires a lottery (this provides the drama for the aforementioned doc). 4) the school can kick the kid out for poor performance. What? I could run any school and make it better if you let me kick out the sucky students!

We spend like 3% of the federal budget on education and there are talks of eliminating the dept of Ed altogether. Yes I know most funding comes locally, but still, that says something about priority. Imagine if the federal gov spent only 3% on Medicare, most of which money went to writing guidelines and testing local hospitals to shut down the crappy ones. Oh, and seniors, like kids, were not allowed to vote. I'm sure healthcare for the elderly would totally kick ass then.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Some of this is true, but it's more complicated than this. Some schools, especially inner city schools, are just disaster areas, having dropout rates of well over 50% - in some cases over 70%. The wealthy and upper middle class who live in these areas either move to suburbs or send their kids to private schools. The middle class who can't afford private schools have moved to the suburbs. This leaves the lower middle class and below with no option but to send their kids to these horrible schools. That's why there is also a lot of support for voucher-type programs among lower middle class and below parents.

The system needs to be fixed.

[pietrocrazy]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

This is true enough. But in a democracy you have to justify expenditures, and convincing the 80% of people who don't read much that they should pay $150/year to subsidize the reading habits of others can be a hard sell. I'm amazed that libraries have done as well as they have, frankly.

I don't think it's really that much of a mystery. My taxes (if I had a job and paid taxes) would go to many thing I don't use: roads on the other side of the county, schools my non-existent kids don't go to, parks I don't frequent, etc. If we paid only for the services we use, then there would be many things that wouldn't get paid for at all, and we would all suffer as a result.

The reason all of these things exist even though a large percentage of a region's population may never use them is because we see very clear advantages in having them exist. Libraries do so many things. They create life-long reading habits in children, provide immigrants with free books for learning English, give students a place to study and material to study with and do research, offer free internet access (access to a computer and the internet has become a necessity, no longer a luxury, in our society), etc. etc. etc.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by Barty

That's what charter schools are about, right? See the Waiting for Superman documentary.

Problem with charter schools: 1) the premiere "model" schools cost a LOT, as much as 35k per kid per year. Holy cow, for that kind of money, we could send the kid to a good college. 2) many of them end up performing no better or only marginally better than the public schools. 3) getting in some requires a lottery (this provides the drama for the aforementioned doc). 4) the school can kick the kid out for poor performance. What? I could run any school and make it better if you let me kick out the sucky students!

We spend like 3% of the federal budget on education and there are talks of eliminating the dept of Ed altogether. Yes I know most funding comes locally, but still, that says something about priority. Imagine if the federal gov spent only 3% on Medicare, most of which money went to writing guidelines and testing local hospitals to shut down the crappy ones. Oh, and seniors, like kids, were not allowed to vote. I'm sure healthcare for the elderly would totally kick ass then.

Private schools spend less per student then public schools do. Private school teachers get paid less than public school teachers. Despite that they still give students a better education than 90% of the public schools out there. We have many charter schools here as well and they get exactly the same amount per pupil as the public schools, and again educate children more successfully. We even have a popular charter school that specializes in kids with ADHD, behavior problems and learning disabilities, all those "sucky students" someone mentioned in a prior post.

The article I initially pointed to, shows the solution--empower parents. Attach the $10K/year not to a school but to an individual child. Let that child's parents pick which school they want to go to, irrespective of address. Good schools will have full enrollment and full funding. Bad schools will be closed eventually because no one will choose to go there.

They already do this in several European countries, where school compete for pupils instead of pupils being forced into a school simply by address. Why should your address determine what school you are forced into? This dooms inner city children to crap schools. Just look at the successful voucher program in Washington DC that Obama, the supposed defender of poor and minorities, canceled against the pleas of many parents, instead caving into teachers unions.

-Marcy

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Attach the $10K/year not to a school but to an individual child. Let that child's parents pick which school they want to go to, irrespective of address.
-Marcy

Would vouchers include funds for transportation to and from said schools?