[LM_NET] Gen: Senate education committee wants librarians' feedback

[Beth Yoke <byoke@ALA.ORG>]

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is
seeking input from the educational community's key stakeholders
including parents, teachers, librarians, students & administrators on
needed changes to the current federal education law, feedback on the
Obama Administration's "Blueprint for Reform" and any other education
related ideas stakeholders may want to share. HELP is a bipartisan
committee that has started the process of reauthorizing the federal
education bill, known as Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
The "Blueprint for Reform" can be accessed at

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/blueprint.pdf 

Individuals are invited to submit comments until Friday, May 7th by
sending them to ESEAcomments@help.senate.gov. This is a key opportunity
to let elected officials know about the essential role that school
librarians and school libraries play in student achievement.  Please
take a few minutes to email your comments to the Senate committee and
encourage library supporters to do the same.  

For help with developing your comments, you may want to read the
testimony of Jaime Greene, a school librarian who testified before the
HELP Committee earlier today: http://tinyurl.com/34xahs2 .  Other good
resources with information about the important role school libraries
play is www.ala.org/additup and AASL's advocacy page on their web site:
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslissues/advocacy/advocacy.cfm


One important issue to include in your comments is to let the Committee
know how important the highly rated Improving Literacy Through School
Libraries program is.  In his FY2011 budget request, President Obama
consolidated Improving Literacy Through School Libraries with five other
literacy programs. This would mean that the only federal funding
specifically earmarked for school libraries would disappear.  Instead,
school libraries will have to directly compete with dissimilar programs
to receive federal dollars under the President's plan.  However,
Congress is drafting their own budget for FY2011 right now, and there is
no word yet if they will go along with President Obama's recommendation
of consolidation.  Hearing from you could help save the Improving
Literacy Through School Libraries program.

Please pass this email on to friends, colleagues, etc. and encourage
them to send their comments to the HELP Committee.  Thanks for all that
you do to ensure young people have access to excellent library staff and
resources!

 

Beth Yoke, Executive Director

Young Adult Library Services Association

50 E. Huron St. Chicago, IL 60611

1.800.545.2433 x4391

fax: 312.280.5276

Get tools to weather the recession at

http://tinyurl.com/YALSAhelp

byoke@ala.org <mailto:byoke@ala.org> 

 


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