[CALIBK12] Comment posted on an Ed Week blog: How about libraries?

[Stephen Krashen]

A comment on an Ed Week Blog

NCLB: Act II, 
David Hoff
July 22, 2008
Extra Time: Is It the Solution for Raising Achievement?

With the goal of dramatically improving student achievement, many people are asking: What can schools do?

Offer extra time, some say.

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress released two reports on the topic. In one, Elana Rocha gives a sample of what more than 300 districts have done to expand learning time. In the other, Marguerite Roza and Karen Hawley Miles explain how districts can pay for such projects.

At a session discussing the reports, a key aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said on Monday that there may be federal help on the way. This week, Sen. Kennedy plans to introduce a bill that would authorize grants to states to support districts' efforts to increase learning time, said Carmel Martin, the general counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

The program would authorize $150 million a year for the grants. District grants would add between $1,200 and $1,400 per pupil in districts (about what Massachusetts districts are given to expand learning time in a private-public program). States would need to match the federal dollars. The authorization would grow over the five-year life of the bill.

The object, Martin said, is to "get this seeded throughout the country and have people trying different models that we can study."

The program may have the added benefit of answering the critics' assertion that NCLB has narrowed the curriculum, particularly in high-poverty schools, she added.

The program could give students "more time on task to reach high standards ... without sacrificing art, music, and other enrichment activities," Martin said.





http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/NCLB-ActII/

Comment. 

Stephen Krashen

How about doing the obvious first – how about more money for libraries?  Studies show that children of poverty have very little access to books, given access most children read, and when they read their reading, writing, spelling, grammar and vocabulary get better. And of course we know that children of poverty score lowest on reading tests.  Gerald Bracey has shown that when we control for poverty, American children look good on international reading tests: Poverty IS the problem.

Our recent research (with Syying Lee and Jeff McQuillan) shows that library quality is a significant predictor of reading test scores, even when we control for poverty.  This is true in the US (NAEP scores) and is true of the PIRLS test, given fourth graders in 40 different countries.

Clearly, children of poverty need more access to books.  

The research is overwhelming. Yet we are always ready to consider any other possibility other than libraries. 

The feds just announced grants totaling $18.2 million for school libraries in high poverty areas. There are about 13 million children in poverty – that's less than $1.50 per child. 

At the same time, we have wasted 6 billion on Reading First, with no positive results, and we are now ready to spend up to $1500 per child into extending the school day. The sum of $1500 per child, invested properly, enough interest to support and improve school libraries in high-poverty areas forever, and help end our literacy problem once and for all.