I’m struck by an article in today’s New York Times that discusses how children are marching to bring attention to the need for increased educational funding.   Their past advocacy efforts brought seniors in one high school a science teacher (so they could pass the national science test).

Today’s story quotes a marcher as saying, “We want more knowledge and information.” They want libraries and librarians, say the article.

In our school district, we are engaged in many conversations about who our graduates should be: their curiosity, academics, socialization, citizenship, etc. We talk about what it would take for our students to become engaged adults and, in our high-income school district, how we can encourage real-world opportunities.

We have heard this week that a state committee has passed a resolution to remove over $200 in promised school aid per student.  We hear that our suburban school district of 7000 students will, even after 5+ years of budget cuts (about $3 million a year), need to cut EIGHT million dollars for each of the next two years, for a cumulative budget slash of over $30 million.

Yet I wonder how many of our students would march so they could learn more. 

Kids’ Lit points to this article from the Guardian (UK) announcing that Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High series will become a movie. 

Do you think they’ll still wear matching lavalieres? When I was a tween, I hardly knew what a lavaliere necklace was, but I sure did want one!

Cathy Jo Nelson has a nice blog post about our Nudging Toward Inquiry series for School Library Monthly.  Read it here!

Image from Life Photo Collection, accessed in Google Images; doctored up at BigHugeLabs.com