Potter-Thomas Elementary gets a Library!

Target has a program called the Target School Library Makeover, in which they spend $200,000 to renovate a few chosen school's libraries. One recent school was Potter-Thomas Elementary in North Philadelphia. Potter-Thomas's 400+ students received a brand new library, about 2,000 new books, and each student got 7 books to take home.This is a fantastic gift from Target!

But unlike Potter-Thomas, hundreds of schools in this district are still struggling to teach reading and writing, help their students attain literacy, and instill a love of learning without school libraries or librarians.

As we at Library Build know, and as Philly.com says, "In the late 1990s, a time of huge budget deficits, the school district began eliminating librarian positions and failed to replace those who retired or found other jobs." Now schools don't have librarians, and they don't have libraries.

In some ways the Philadelphia School District is trying: they allowed Target to help out Potter-Thomas, they are spending money on the Promise Academies to increase standards and resources at 6 under-performing schools, and they are working with the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences to provide students at Drexel's School of Information Science with scholarships.

Of course, even with these plans in motion there is still a lot of work to be done.

Here's the two articles about Potter-Thomas's new library!:
Excited for School Library

Happy Ending

No more books in 5 years?

Here we go again!

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, was recently on CNN claiming that laptops containing digital books are better and more cost effective than physical books, and that physical books will be gone in 5 years. Hmmm....

First a sidenote, his nonprofit's goal is to ensure that every child in the world has a laptop. However, when I went on the webpage for One Laptop Per Child, it was very heavily focused on Africa - no surprise there. Not that children in Africa don't need or deserve laptops, but I'm tired of organizations claiming broad goals such as "all kids will have laptops!" and then not helping out US kids.

Anyway, will physical books be gone in 5 years?


I think I've already given my opinion on this one.


CNN: Will Physical Books be Gone in 5 Years?
One Laptop per Child - Negroponte's nonprofit

Quick Update

The past few weeks have been extraordinarily busy.

Briefly, in the past few weeks Library Build has:
1) Continued talks with a school in Philly that we hope will be our pilot school for Working Libraries and Library Fellows. Stay tuned for an official announcement, which we hope to make by the end of the month!

2)Met with community building/revitalization/organizing nonprofit organizations in Philly. One of the organizations believes that it can meet our need for office space - an extremely pressing need at the moment!

3) Begun applying for grants. Unfortunately, it take the IRS 100 days (according to their website) to update their electronic database which lists organizations who have 501c3 status. This means that we are still ineligible for the majority of grants (particularly corporate) since most grant-makers use this database as an initial verification step.

4) Secured a pro-bono auditor and have begun the audit process for last fiscal year (an important step in order to qualify for grant money).

5) Suffered catastrophic laptop failure which is currently being resolved. Fortunately, we have been diligent about creating backups to store both on and off-site but unfortunately, the failure hit us during a particularly vulnerable period.

Tonight we are going to a see Waiting for Superman (playing at the Ritz East in Old City) which is a documentary about the state of the American education system. Geoffrey Canada, probably the most innovative and successful educator in the US right now, features prominently. The movie also covers the charter school movement and the lottery admission systems used by charter schools - similar material covered in the movie we recently wrote about, The Lottery. Later this week, we will do a post on the movie.

Geoffrey Canada was on The Late Show last night - great opportunity to raise awareness of the challenges facing education right now.

Philadelphia Reads was featured prominently in the Inquirer yesterday as they face funding challenges for one of their literacy programs that provides books for teachers' classroom libraries. The program is based at MLK High. Read about it here: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/20101011_Teachers__book_bank_in_danger_of_closing.html

A Whirlwind!

It seems like a common refrain at this point, but again I have been slow to post updates. Fortunately, that is not because there is nothing to talk about, but rather, because we have been extraordinarily busy!

In the past two weeks, we met with a potential school, met with a community development organization with whom we hope to partner, have come close to finishing our search for Library Build office space, began the process of our first audit (fun!) and have been working hard to identify the most promising sources of grant money.

Again, we expect to have multiple official major announcement by the end of the month! Stay tuned!

Library Build is Now a Tax Exempt Nonprofit Organization!

We found out today that the IRS has officially declared Library Build, Inc to be 501(c)(3) tax exempt! We are now fully recognized as a public charity.

We were shocked to receive the determination letter so soon, we had been warned that it might take as long as 8 months, but were hopeful that we would receive it before the end of 2010. To receive our letter and status in 2 months might be a record!

Please look forward to another official announcement coming from Library Build in the next few weeks!

The lost opportunity of school libraries

A friend recently sent Jeff and I an article in the BBC about a report on school libraries in Britain. The School Library Commission released a report arguing that many schools waste the potential of their school libraries by: 1) not having library staff who have knowledge of children's literature (I would include Young Adult literature in that as well); 2) not having a clear designation within the school of who is in charge of the library; 3) not having library staff who routinely work with teachers to create holistic lessons and activities; and 4) not promoting the resources of their school libraries.

These are all issues that we at Library Build have been working to answer and plan for. A key compenent of our plan from day 1 has been that there needs to be multiple librarians who are the face of the library to teachers, administrators, parents, and most importantly to students; and that these librarians work closely with teachers to devise lesson plans and to create a cohesive learning environment within the school.

As the head of the School Library Commission stated, "[school libraries] have to be more than just places with books."

School libraries are an opportunity to provide the books, resources, and learning environments necessary for the success of our students.

Check out the article in the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11304759
Check out the British Literacy Trusts' site: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/policy/nlt_policy/school_library_commission

Why cant U teach me 2 read?

I recently finished a book by Beth Fertig, “Why cant U teach me 2 read?” about three students from New York City schools who sue the school district over “educational neglect” (or as its also sometimes called, “compensatory education”).  All three had been in the NYC public school system for the majority of their lives, and yet none of them had learned how to read (one had even graduated from high school!). Their stories also serve as a parallel to Fertig’s dissection of Mayor Bloomberg’s takeover of the school system, and his appointment of Joe Klein to be the Chancellor of NYC Schools in 2002.

            Yamilka, Alejandro, and Antonio all struggled early on in their lives with low comprehension problems – either as a result of their parents not speaking English fluently, or growing up impoverished. All three were regularly transferred between public schools (Yamilka was transferred between NYC schools 12 times). Once a school discovered the depth of the learning problems, most would rather transfer each one out than deal with the problem – because low performers pull down test scores (this is especially important now with No Child Left Behind, though as Fertig uncovers, schools in NYC are not allowed to transfer their students anymore). Because Yamilka, Alejandro, and Antonio each struggle they are also each in turn labeled as mentally disabled – an unfair label for kids who are just struggling to read, or who have minor learning disabilities.

Their stories bring up important questions. How does our public school system account for slow learners, or students with learning disabilities? Similarly, do school districts have an obligation to ensure that every student can read at a functional level?

Obviously, Library Build believes that with the right tools – libraries – combined with great schools, and great teachers, that all students can read. Ultimately there shouldn't be stories and books about kids who have to sue their public school districts in order to get intensive private tutoring to learn how to read.

There's a lot more in Fertig's book about different methods for teaching literacy as well as a long history and discussion about Klein's job as Chancellor of the NYC School District, so if you're interested, check it out!

Here’s a short interview with Beth Fertig about “Why cant U teach me 2 read?”: http://www.usatoday.com/LIFE/usaedition/2009-10-15-readbook15_VA_U.htm?csp=outbrain&csp=obnetwork

Here’s a short article on USA Today about one of the boys from the book: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-10-14-illiteracy_N.htm