Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to urge all of my colleagues to support the Reed-Cochran amendment to encourage States and school districts to integrate school library programs into their plans for improving student academic achievement. I would first like to thank Senator Cochran for his longstanding partnership in supporting school libraries. He has been a steadfast champion for ensuring that students have access to these vital resources. Fifty years ago, when President Lyndon Johnson urged Congress to enact what would become the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, he specifically called for an investment in school libraries, saying that school libraries were simply ``limping along'' and insisting that we do better. Sadly, this ``limping along'' is still true for too many communities in our United States. This spring, the Washington Post ran articles on the inequitable access to school libraries in public schools in our Nation's Capital, reporting that one school library in a wealthy part of town had 28,000 books in a library that spanned two floors, while 12 miles away, in a school in a poorer part of the town, the school library had only 300 books along two walls. If that is not a stark example of one of the things we hope we can fix through this act, I cannot think of anything more direct and to the point. Recently, noted author James Patterson made a pledge to help school libraries. More than 28,000 applications came in.…”