Washington School Teacher Librarians

Education reform is a series of battles. Some are won, some are lost, and some take a long time to make a difference. Defining teacher librarians as a core component of basic education is battle won. So is a set of school library standards (California now has the go-ahead to work on library standards).

The economy is taking its toll on education reform and other battles. For example, this just arrived from American Libraries Online: "Basic education reform came to the state of Washington May 19 with the signing by Gov. Christine Gregoire of a bill (PDF file) that adds a credentialed, but not necessarily funded, teacher-librarian in every K–12 school to the definition of what constitutes a basic education. The timing was wrought with irony, however: Several weeks earlier lawmakers had responded to the nation’s ongoing economic crisis by slashing $1 billion in state aid to education for FY2010, triggering the reduction in force of several thousand teachers—among them school librarians—in Bellevue and elsewhere in Washington State...."