Northwest Voices | Letters to the Editor
Welcome to The Seattle Times' online letters to the editor, a sampling of readers' opinions. Join the conversation by commenting on these letters or send your own letter of up to 200 words opinion@seattletimes.com.
Comments (2)
E-mail article
Print view
Share
School librarians in Bellevue: Are they needed?
Posted by Letters editor
Principals know what's best for students
Editor, The Times:
Professor Michael Eisenberg of the University of Washington's Information School uses inflammatory rhetoric ["Librarians are not optional," Opinion, guest column, June 25] to criticize the decisions of nine middle- and high-school principals in the Bellevue School District to reassign their school librarians to work in the classroom. Eisenberg calls this decision a "scorched-earth policy," even though not one librarian will lose a job and every library will remain open and staffed with library assistants. Eisenberg claims these decisions will prevent the schools from preparing their students for success in the 21st century.
What is most significant to us at the Washington Policy Center is that the Bellevue School Board has decided to allow its principals to decide how to use their staff dollars. The key recommendation of our Center for Education's reform plan is to let school leaders lead by giving them authority over their budget and staff.
Literacy and research skills are certainly important for students to acquire. But nine school principals have decided their students are best served by placing librarians in the classroom. We agree with School Board President Carol Marks, who observes that "building administrators are in touch with their student population and know what student needs are."
-- Liv Finne, Washington Policy Center director for education, Seattle
Ask my kids: Libraries are a waste of funds
Both of my daughters graduated from the International School in Bellevue, one of the schools about to lose its librarian. The library there was always regarded mostly as a joke and played a minimal role in the excellent education they received. Their reaction to this news is the same as mine -- about time.
Paying a full-time teacher to manage the library was an egregious waste of money and seemed to serve mainly as paid retirement for a burned-out teacher.
-- Alan Davidoff, Bellevue
Teachers can't adequately cover for librarians
While I heartily agree that research skills must be taught and are important generally, the districts' good teacher-scholars should be able to handle this. I admire the innovativeness of administrators in finding ways to cover bases in difficult budget times, but I think keeping the library expertise available, without asking librarians to teach the whole day in the different role of classroom instruction, is valuable.
Working with individual topics and students on their research is too time-consuming with everything else classroom teachers do. Also, the best research skills in the world are difficult to employ as effectively for learning if there is no one available to catalog and keep the library in order. If less librarians are available than previously, a larger group of library assistants and tutors may be needed to supplement the efforts of head librarians, though some benefits will be lost probably due to their less-relevant training.
It seems a shame to lose any librarians, and certainly there are large numbers of unemployed teachers and instructors to draw upon to cover classroom needs as well.
I do agree that in terms of priorities classroom instruction must come first, but I don't think the library is the place to cut in order to maximize student learning. I think Michael Eisenberg is right -- librarians are not optional.
-- Robin Poling, Seattle
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
Nov 7, 09 - 4:00 PM
Fort Hood rampage: A dozen soldiers dead
Nov 7, 09 - 3:59 PM
Wrapping up the election: most results are in
Nov 7, 09 - 3:58 PM
Week in review
Nov 6, 09 - 4:01 PM
Atheist bus signs appearing around Seattle
Nov 6, 09 - 4:00 PM
Carbon pawprints worse than carbon footprints?


- Flags were key link to cop slaying, bombings
- Suspect shot as city mourns slain officer
- Briefs | Soccer: New Mexico suspends hair-pulling player Elizabeth Lambert
- McGinn pulling away as late ballots come in
- Using anti-shooter tactics, civilian Army police officer brought down gunman
- Huskies suffer another heartbreaking loss to UCLA
- Consortium on verge of owning Eastside railway land
- Suspect in officer's slaying shot by police
- Heavy snow in Cascades shuts down roads
- Stormy weather to continue today in the Seattle area
- UCLA game thread
937 - Suspect shot as city mourns slain officer
389 - Weapons, bomb-making materials found in suspect's apartment
331 - Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect
285 - Decision day for health care in the House
192 - McGinn widens lead over Mallahan in Seattle mayoral race
183 - Schools emerge as new tactic in gay marriage votes
98 - Huskies suffer another heartbreaking loss to UCLA
86 - Using anti-shooter tactics, civilian Army police officer brought down gunman
71 - Referendum 71 show's Washington's strategy for marriage equality is working
70
- Suspect shot as city mourns slain officer
- Recipe: Penne with Smoked Turkey Sausage
- Suspect in officer's slaying shot by police
- Flags were key link to cop slaying, bombings
- Nancy Leson | An elegant offshoot of Seattle's Wild Ginger in Bellevue
- Voters expand same-sex rights
- Shoreline man killed when struck by falling tree part
- Tim Lincecum charged with misdemeanor possession
- Do It in a Day | Spend a cozy, homey day in Edmonds
- Green River Valley: Anxiety ebbs over flooding potential



