Don’t cut library funding
The COVID-19 pandemic is going to force school districts everywhere to make difficult decisions. Cutbacks will be necessary for many schools. But those cuts should not come at the expense of core educational resources, like the library.
In the South Park School District, the libraries are on the chopping block. The district is considering making cuts to libraries at every level, and has eliminated librarian positions in the high school and middle school, according to sisters Sarah Eileen and Emily Linder.
The sisters have launched a petition to protect the district’s libraries, securing nearly 3,000 signatures. The district should take heed.
Studies have regularly shown the benefit of well-funded libraries. Research funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services that was conducted in dozens of states, including Pennsylvania, found a direct link between an increase in library funding and resources and student reading scores. Schools with robust collections, up-to-date technology and adequate staff score higher on standardized tests. The correlation is particularly strong for students in poverty and children with disabilities.
Despite this, libraries are often targeted for budget cuts, though most districts usually try to cut corners by shrinking collections and eliminating positions. Administrators often try to assert that the digital world has reduced the need for librarians and libraries.
But libraries and trained librarians are essential to a quality education. Students can use them to check out books, but also to develop technology skills, meet with tutors, learn about information literacy and use unique resources to create projects.
Cuts to libraries are short-sighted, to say the least. Whittling libraries down, or eliminating them altogether, is a recipe for disaster that will have long-term effects on the test scores of students. And the South Park School District, which somehow found the funds to adopt resolutions to hire new coaches for cheerleading, track and field and football, as well as install new cameras to record athletic events, should reconsider how it spends its money to help its students.
Budgets are sure to be tight in the wake of COVID-19 but, to quote the late, great journalist Walter Cronkite, “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”