The Inquisition Begins Again 2012

Last time I wrote it was June 2011 after the inquisition of my Teacher Librarian colleagues by the LAUSD lawyers.  Starting this Monday, April 23, my friend will once again be interrogated by the lawyers in a hearing to defend their right to keep their jobs, or any job for that matter.  The district has decide not to fund:  any Libraries, any Adult Education, any Pre-K programs, and much much more. 11,000 teachers apparently received the notorious "pink-slip".

The scary part this time is that our new Superintendent John Deasy is such a bully that no one has planned any actions, no one is sending letters, no one is speaking out except for a few isolated demonstrations on behalf of Adult Educ. or Pre-K.  This is not a way to win.  But Deasy et al have threatened to use any action or writing or speaking out against an employee.  He has already proven what a bully he is when he entered the classroom of a substitute teacher and didn't like what she was doing and said so. She politely asked him to leave.  He fired her immediately.  Substitutes have little protection.  Outrageously Deasy had the nerve to show up at the free screening of the movie "Bully" shown to 6000 LAUSD students.  I guess being top bully he should have had a lot to say.  He constantly lies and changes direction to suit his needs. After all, he purchased his PhD.  What does that say about him or about Monica Garcia who chose him along with her Gates/Eli Broad lackey friends.  Recall Monica Garcia is in full swing right now.  We need to elect at least one more decent educator to help Bennett Kayser and Marguerite LaMotte defeat the forces of privatization.

This Book Is Overdue!!

Marilyn Johnson has written a book in defense of librarians for the 21st century called This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. CSLA has recommended that all of us read this book for the November conference. I was reading it and trying to pull quotes from it that might be useful. The problem is that every page contains numerous useful quotes than we can use to defend our jobs. Page 1 - "In tough times, a librarian is a terrible thing to waste." This speaks to the great leveling force that librarians play to bring information and materials to everyone, not just the rich. Marilyn Johnson wrote a book about obituaries that she had researched. She says she became interested in librarians because their obituaries stood out among all that she perused. She speaks of "visionaries like Frederick Kilgour, the first to combine libraries' catalogs in one computerized database back in the early seventies." And Judith Krug who "fought censorship for four decades while running the Office for Intellectual Freedom in the Chicago headquarters of the American Library Association (ALA)."
My favorite quote so far is "In a world where information itself is a free-for-all, with traditional news sources going bankrupt and pulishers in trouble, we need librarians more than ever." Librarians can help save democracy from its worse excesses, from the oligarchy of the corporations that it has become. Our value is inestimable. We must continue to fight to save our school and public libraries. In Los Angeles that means supporting our LAPL librarians - www.savethelibrary.org/ Writing letters to Superintendent Cortines and the Board Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District. www.lausd.net Writing letters to the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News are also very helpful. Keep up the fight!! We must win this fight for all of us!!!