Many of our state leaders will be pushing for cuts to school libraries when budget time comes around. Without school libraries and school librarians to teach students about information literacy in the news, we face a grim future in which misinformation distorts our mutual understanding of reality.
We must make sure that our state leaders know that we believe that school libraries are a critical resource for America’s children. Please take a moment to send an email to your state representative asking them to support funding for school libraries.
Even before the pandemic, school funding and subsequent school library funding has been a major inequality of American education.
School libraries are critical to supplementing the education of students in public schools all across the country. Unfortunately, they have been cut and eliminated in many of the nation’s largest school districts. As a result of schools closing their doors, millions of children will fall behind in their individual educational attainment. This fall-off is not due to their failings, but rather the failings of the adults who are supposed to look out for them. We must not allow a pandemic to further deepen the inequality faced by millions of students in America.
If we are to emerge from this pandemic stronger, we must realize that real, consequential funding of school and their libraries is critical to keeping our everyday lives functioning.
We are asking our state lawmakers to keep schools and their libraries in mind when they go to their next round of budget negotiations in a post-shutdown world.