What do Laura Bush, No Child Left Behind, & Patricia Polacco Have in Common?
I was a childrens' librarian. I love good books for kids. The best of these were just plain good books, no matter who they were written for. One of my favorite authors is Patricia Polacco. She not only is a talented writer, but illustrator, too. This is a rare combo. Many who like to do both, are truly only good at one.
But Patricia was an exception! She even came to Middletown once to speak with students. Right now she probably commands the highest fees with a tight schedule because she's won so many awards. So she was scheduled to go to an International Reading Conference. Who attends these things? Mostly teachers & school librarians. Some administrators. At these conferences they traditionaly have top-notch authors who discuss their books & autograph them. Since librarians/teachers rarely have enough $ to bring renown authors to their districts, these are rare treats.
Patricia was invited to speak. McGraw-Hill (publisher) was going to subsidize her fee. Remember, the attendees buy books or assist in purchasing decisions. The link gives the story of how she started receiving e-mails & then an outright demand for a copy of her speech. It seems that she has been an outspoken critic of No Child Left Behind. McGraw Hill/SRA makes a lot of money from this act. They also supply the tests that your kids MUST take. Big Bucks. They wanted to make sure that the award-winning author/illustrator wouldn't say any words against their cash cow. After all, this company is also intimately tied in with the Bush admin.(awards, jobs, etc.)
So to make a long story short, she was cancelled. What a tragedy! It's more than that, really. Big business, politics, national policy, control of free speech, and chilrens' books - all part of the same old tired Republican administration. Where is former childrens' librarian Laura Bush when you need her? Yeah, a sixty plus art history major can be VERY SCARY indeed.
No Child Left Behind, indeed. Now this is VERY SCARY. Many children left behind unless you live in a very wealthy school district. Books for libraries? Forget it. They're barely mentioned in this act. And when they do mention school libraries at all, they refer you to your town's library. And if you find the bucks, they'd better be formulaic books that fit in with so-called "standards." School libraries are pitifully funded. And forget any real staffing. Good literature - like Patricia Polacco books - is strictly optional. So what should all 3 - Laura Bush, No Child LEft Behind, & Patricia Polacco share in common? Quite a lot. What do they share? Not a damn thing.
6 comments:
Then you can appreciate the irony a product of private education has on being supported by union leaders of public education.
I personally know the impact when little has been done to ensure there's enough funds for our school books and libraries.
Eileen, Wow, very strange and unfortunate that this enormous corporation felt it necessary to crush the voice of a valued children's literature author.
Just curious: did sra/mcgraw-hill find your blog post and contribute their rebuttal spontaneously or did you seek out their comment? I am always wondering how/why people are tracking information in blogs.
McGraw Hill must be trolling because I sure didn't ask. They've posted this on a few other teacher/librarian websites. I do believe that they're afraid of an underground boycott. Librarians/reading specialists buy books. Polacco is a VERY popular author & librarians aren't fond of No Child... and they love First Amendment rights. They're also upset that Laura turned out to be a big bust
I'm going to have to send my good friend Kathryn Kulpa over here to read about this. She's a librarian and author -- her book is adult fiction, but she is something of an expert in teen fiction. Recently, she passed all the auditions to be on Jeopardy! Maybe when she goes on the show she can use the Patricia Polacco debacle as her quirky little anecdote to discuss with Alex Trebec on National Television. Just a little wild librarian's revenge fantasy...
My Mom informed me that there will be an article in Publishers Weekly (which she receives) about this next week.
When Laura Bush graces Rhode Island to raise funds for Lincoln Chafee (oops I almost typed in Neil...then almost typed in Jeb!), we could ask her about this.
Laura,
Please don't leave the Providence Public Library .behind!
This doesn't fly with me--and their excuse about her not sticking to the 'script' is completely in keeping with the carefully bland, inoffensive pablum that seems to end up in 'standards'-driven curricula. I've seen too many school libraries where Russia is still the Soviet Union and electronic information resources aren't even a blip in the budget. I find it pretty amazing that libraries are so often left behind when schools plan funding, despite tons of evidence showing the positive correlation of professionally staffed, up-to-date libraries to increased student achievement.
But never mind all that, Ms. Polacco--just put on your dang happy face and talk about your childhood heroes!
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