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Jane’s post (on advocacy and social networking)
A few weeks ago, I asked for help in leading and energizing our TeacherLibrarianNing.
Among the brave souls who responded was Jane Lofton who suggested that we devote some Ning space to sharing our experiences with advocacy. Jane promptly started an advocacy group on the Ning.
I asked Jane to share her concerns, as well as her invitation to join our new group, in a guest post. (BTW, if you haven’t yet seen it, please check the AASL Advocacy Toolkit Jane mentions in her post.)
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These are extremely difficult times for education and school libraries everywhere, as school districts face budget cuts for the coming year. The situation in my state of California is especially dire. California already ranks 47th in the nation in education spending and 51st in the nation for its ratio of 5,124 students to each teacher librarian compared to the national average of 916:1 reported in 2004 (2006-07 CBEDS Report and Digest of Education Statistics Tables and Figures 2006, National Center for Education Statistics. And, with billions in cuts to education in our newly-passed state budget, we are faced with huge potential cuts to school library staff and an even worse ratio for next year.
Still, rather than give into gloom and doom in California and around the nation and world, we need to hone our advocacy skills and do all we can to fight cuts to the essential services we provide to students.
I keep telling myself that, yes, the fiscal situation is worse for education than ever before, but teacher librarians in my district have faced cuts three times before in my seven years there, and, every time, we all survived. And, a great reason for our survival was due to advocacy on our part.
We spoke and wrote to teachers, parents, students, administrators, and board members, both formally and informally, and rallied every stakeholder we could to speak and write on our behalf. It’s exhausting, frustrating work, but we can all make it easier for each other if we share all our good ideas and resources together for this round facing so many of us around the country.
California School Library Association, AASL, and ALA are all providing us with toolkits to help us with our efforts to fight budget cuts. The AASL talking points might be There are probably many others I haven’t yet discovered.
When Joyce asked all of us who read this blog to join in and help the TeacherLibrarianNing grow, I thought that those of us facing budget cuts could use a discussion forum to help us gain help and strength from each other.
So, I have started a School Library Advocacy Group as part of Joyce’s TeacherLibrarianNing where we can gather links to resources, ask questions, share successes, and have conversations about what works.
I don’t intend to compete with any of the great resources out there from CSLA, AASL, and ALA, and other organizations, but to offer a complementary gathering place for discussion, questions, and good ideas. Please check it out, join, and share your good letters, speeches, successes, good ideas, and questions. I, for one, am not going down without kicking and screaming, but would truly appreciate all the support and good ideas everyone can offer!
Thanks for the “guest” opportunity to write this, Joyce!
Jane Lofton
Teacher Librarian
Lindero Canyon Middle School
Agoura Hills, CA
jane@lofton.com or jlofton@lvusd.org
Filed under: Uncategorized
About Joyce Valenza
Joyce is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at Rutgers University School of Information and Communication, a technology writer, speaker, blogger and learner. Follow her on Twitter: @joycevalenza
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