A Message from Bob "Doc" Roth, chair of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Legislation Committee:

Please support AASL's efforts to have Congress enact the Strengthening Kids' Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act.  One way to do this is to send requests on your listservs for other school librarians, parents and other supporters to ask their Senators and Representatives to co-sponsor the SKILLs Act.  In the Senate the bill number is S. 1699.  In the House it is H.R. 2864.

The ALA Take Action webpage makes this easy.  Just go to http://www.capwiz.com/ala/issues/alert/?alertid=9951101&PROCESS=Take+Action and enter your zip code.  You get links to your Senators and Representative; and space to add a personal message if you wish.

People who prefer to send their own message independent from the Take Action page can find their Senators' contact information at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and their Representative's contact information at http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml   The Take Action webpage can still be useful for finding the names of Senators for each state and Representatives for each district.

The Take Action page also gives you more information about the SKILLs Act.  For example, the first paragraph says this:

On Tuesday June 26, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) introduced the Strengthening Kids' Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act that guarantees students across America will be served by highly qualified, state-certified school library media specialists and will have the library resources they need to succeed.

Among other things, the Take Action page also says:

Because NCLB does not highlight the direct correlation between competent school library media specialists and increased student academic achievement, library resource budgets are increasingly being used to mitigate the effects of budgetary shortfalls. . . . A substantial body of research since 1990 shows a positive relationship between school libraries and student achievement. The research studies show that school libraries can have a positive impact on student achievement – whether such achievement is measured in terms of reading scores, literacy, or learning more generally.

For these and other reasons spelled out on the Take Action page, the SKILLs Act will require "school districts, to the extent feasible, to ensure that every school within the district employs at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in each school library."

To help move the SKILLs Act through Congress and into law, please encourage the librarians in your state association to Take Action now, and to ask parents and friends to Take Action, too.

Thank you for your help in gaining support for this important new legislation.