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By Carrie Marovich
Monday, September 30, 2013
Districts that slashed jobs for teacher librarians in recent years may soon regret that decision – especially as schools in California transition to the Common Core standards, which put new emphasis on students developing good research skills.
“We have many schools, districts, and some counties in California that have no teacher librarians at a time in education history when our kids, our state, and our county desperately need them,” said Glen Warren, a certified teacher librarian from Orange Unified. “Their expertise is crucial to the transformative implementation of both 21st Century Skills and Common Core State Standards.”
Given the enormous number of layoffs experienced by school librarians since the onset of the recession, it may appear that these information specialists are considered non-essential personnel on California campuses. But a close look at Common Core, with its emphasis on information literacy, may be challenging that assumption.
The Common Core standards for English language arts were adopted by California in 2010 and are currently being implemented in California schools. They call for students to be adept at accessing, evaluating and using content from