First of all,
no matter
what the economic ups and downs may be at any given moment, public
school libraries in destitute communities need
not just sufficient but
extravagant funding. If there’s a single thing
our state and federal governments
could do
to stir up a love of learning in our poorest children, it would be to
take a good big chunk of the massive sum of
money that’s now being wasted on the
testing
industry and use it, instead, to flood our students’ lives with the joys
and
mysteries of authentic culture—and not only Western culture but, in the
case
of, for instance, Hispanic
children, their culture,
too.
"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."