Our Voices
This is the text of spokesmom, Suzie Kabeiseman's speech in Olympia...
'I am a mother, a constituent and an educator in the state of Oregon and I'm concerned about the dangerous direction Oregon school are headed.
I live and work in Portland - Oregon's largest school district. In Portland, 2/3 of our public schools have no librarian. In some cases the library is closed. If there is a librarian, they are often half time, or an untrained volunteer. I spoke with a High School librarian recently and she reported that her budget for new books this year was $0. She has no staff and is left to do a job normally filled by five people. Consequently, she cannot teach literacy, she cannot support the staff in her building with technology and resource information. She cannot do her job.
Often times, if the library services are sufficient, it's because the school community has raised the money on their own initiative. Why should we have to hold a bake sale every year to keep our buildings running at an acceptable level? Additionally, some school communities are better fundraisers, better grant writers and more empowered to make change. This creates tremendous disparity from building to building. This inequity from school to school is unacceptable.
We are here to support and congratulate Washington on their monumental effort to get the message out about the importance of school libraries. Research shows that student achievement goes up when there is a full time librarian. In our minds this is a non-issues. All schools, and all children, in Washington, Oregon and across the country deserve a quality education which includes full time librarians. Oregon supports Washington in their efforts and would like to announce the beginning of fundourfutureOregon. Thank you.'
Consultant to Fortune 100 Companies: Why this issue Matters-Now.
'For background, I am a local business person. I run a management consulting firm in Seattle, and am on the boards of both a local professional services firm and an offshore software firm in India. I have started multiple companies in technology, financial services, and manufacturing. Our companies depend on having employees with an excellent grasp of English. In order to find qualified employees, we routinely recruit in other states outside of Washington. We do not find an adequately qualified labor pool here in our home state. Additionally, we routinely recruit offshore, primarily from western Europe and Latin America, where we find the level of English literacy equal to what is available here. In addition, when we need high-quality editing done in English, we use a vendor in Shillong, India, where we find superbly qualified grammarians of a level not available locally. Clearly, we are not doing our job as a society in preparing our sons and daughters to qualify for the jobs that I am able to create.I believe that the library system in our public schools could contribute to better preparing our children for success in a global economy. I also believe that we have under-emphasized literacy and language as a priority in preparing our children for good jobs. The primary characteristics I am looking for are critical thinking, and the ability to read, write, and speak well. In my experience, the best critical thinkers, with the best communication skills, are those who read frequently and passionately. Without excellent libraries and librarians, our children will not have access or guidance to help them find a passion for words, concepts, and the worldly attitudes that will make them employable by companies like mine.
We need more, better, well-funded, and well-staffed, libraries.'
Carl Albrecht
The Arnold Group