When will the New York Times begin to care about what is happening in American classrooms?
For example, parents might find it useful to know if classrooms have an adequate number of books. At one point, the New York Times discovered that classroom libraries mattered. Classroom libraries influenced students’ ability to read, but there has been no follow-up to this story for years.
Here is the story from the reporter who found the gold. He learned what was needed to improve reading achievement in a school district.
“District 19 in East New York, Brooklyn, is one impoverished district with a history of low reading scores where book expenditures may have started to make a difference. Over the last three years, the district has spent an average of $111 a student per year on textbooks and library books, the city’s highest rate, and 50 percent more than the citywide average of $74 per student.
“Joan E. Mahon-Powell, the acting superintendent of District 19, said much of the spending had gone to stocking classroom libraries, collections of 200 to 300 books in each classroom that are available to students to supplement their lessons. Getting books into children’s hands ─ a continuing problem in many districts ─ has made a big difference in how the students react to reading exercises, she said.
”When children can talk to you about reading and writing, you know you’re moving in the right direction,” Ms. Mahon-Powell said. She acknowledged, however, that the district, which still ranks near the bottom in reading scores, had far to go. ”Are our scores zooming through the roof?” she said. ”No, they are not. But we do know that they will.
Mr. Kreinik of District 28 in Queens says he, too, has emphasized spending on books and classroom libraries as well as software and other classroom supplies that do not show up on the book budget line. That money, he said, has definitely helped to improve the district’s test scores.”[i]
So, if classroom libraries and spending on books matter, certainly the New York Times would provide its readers with regular follow-ups on this information. Sadly, there have been no regular follow-ups. The Times has published two stories about ‘classroom libraries’ in New York City public schools. Both were in 2001.
The coverage or the lack of coverage by the Times matters. It needs to give space to its education writers to investigate what is happening in city classrooms. It needs to start shining its light on classrooms where students are reading and where they do not have reading materials. What influences academic achievement? the article asks. What is the proper use of resources? These questions matter.
[i] Edward Wyatt, “Success of City School Pupils Isn’t Simply a Money Matter” New York Times,
June 14, 2000, Section A, Page 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/14/nyregion/success-of-city-school-pupils-isn-t-simply-a-money-matter.html
Mississippi Notebook: Freedom Summer June-August 1964 by Nicholas Von Hoffman
in African-American History, For Young AdultsDownload a copy in epub format for your Android or Apple device:
Download a copy in mobi format for your Amazon device:
One of those who watched and was watched in the turbulent summer of 1964 was Chicago Daily News reporter Nicholas von Hoffman. Through ten tense weeks and over 6000 miles of dusty roads and highways, from the Delta to the piney hills to the Gulf, von Hoffman studied the state of mind of the State of Mississippi.
Mississippi Notebook is his vivid and entirely honest record of that summer, a summer that was marked by murder, violence, and intimidation on a scale that is difficult to grasp for any but those who witnessed it, or—and worse—for those who were made to suffer it.
Sometimes it is the way people talk, how they look, the small but illuminating incident overlooked in the broad sweep of the news that really tells the story and makes a complex social crisis understandable.
Such is the case with Mississippi Notebook. It is a finely detailed and deeply disturbing report on a state and its people, white and black, who are playing a major role in the greatest domestic crisis now facing the nation.
Thaddeus Stevens: Militant democrat and fighter for Negro rights
in African-American History, Biographies, For Young Adults, Free EbooksDownload the epub version for your Android or Apple device:
Download the mobi version for your Amazon device:
The writer makes the political energy and moral intensity of Thaddeus Stevens clear to readers in this short, 40 page pamphlet. What was the fate of the Freedmen after the Civil War? What economic opportunities were available to them? What were Stevens’s plans for Reconstruction? Were they enacted?
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. He was one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African Americans, Stevens sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, leading the opposition to U.S. President Andrew Johnson. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee during the American Civil War, he played a leading role, focusing his attention on defeating the Confederacy, financing the war with new taxes and borrowing, crushing the power of slave owners, ending slavery, and securing equal rights for the Freedmen.
As the most powerful leader in Congress of the Radical Republicans, he asked the nation what would political rights mean after the Civil War “without jobs, land, bread and shelter.”
Asleep at the Wheel: The New York Times and Classroom Libraries
in Asleep at the Wheel: The Press and American Classrooms, For Young Adults, Free EbooksWhen will the New York Times begin to care about what is happening in American classrooms?
For example, parents might find it useful to know if classrooms have an adequate number of books. At one point, the New York Times discovered that classroom libraries mattered. Classroom libraries influenced students’ ability to read, but there has been no follow-up to this story for years.
Here is the story from the reporter who found the gold. He learned what was needed to improve reading achievement in a school district.
“District 19 in East New York, Brooklyn, is one impoverished district with a history of low reading scores where book expenditures may have started to make a difference. Over the last three years, the district has spent an average of $111 a student per year on textbooks and library books, the city’s highest rate, and 50 percent more than the citywide average of $74 per student.
“Joan E. Mahon-Powell, the acting superintendent of District 19, said much of the spending had gone to stocking classroom libraries, collections of 200 to 300 books in each classroom that are available to students to supplement their lessons. Getting books into children’s hands ─ a continuing problem in many districts ─ has made a big difference in how the students react to reading exercises, she said.
”When children can talk to you about reading and writing, you know you’re moving in the right direction,” Ms. Mahon-Powell said. She acknowledged, however, that the district, which still ranks near the bottom in reading scores, had far to go. ”Are our scores zooming through the roof?” she said. ”No, they are not. But we do know that they will.
Mr. Kreinik of District 28 in Queens says he, too, has emphasized spending on books and classroom libraries as well as software and other classroom supplies that do not show up on the book budget line. That money, he said, has definitely helped to improve the district’s test scores.”[i]
So, if classroom libraries and spending on books matter, certainly the New York Times would provide its readers with regular follow-ups on this information. Sadly, there have been no regular follow-ups. The Times has published two stories about ‘classroom libraries’ in New York City public schools. Both were in 2001.
The coverage or the lack of coverage by the Times matters. It needs to give space to its education writers to investigate what is happening in city classrooms. It needs to start shining its light on classrooms where students are reading and where they do not have reading materials. What influences academic achievement? the article asks. What is the proper use of resources? These questions matter.
[i] Edward Wyatt, “Success of City School Pupils Isn’t Simply a Money Matter” New York Times,
June 14, 2000, Section A, Page 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/14/nyregion/success-of-city-school-pupils-isn-t-simply-a-money-matter.html
Why Reading Volume Matters: Read Anne E. Cunningham and Keith E. Stanovich
in For Young Adults, Free Ebooks, UncategorizedSee an excellent article titled “What Reading Does for the Mind” that could be used in professional development, or to help convince a school board that the volume of reading should matter in secondary schools.
Online at
https://scholastic.vo.llnwd.net/o16/teacherdashboard/live/c13_s2_t1_pa3.pdf or https://www.aft.org/ae/springsummer1998/cunningham_stanovich or https://ebooksforstudents.org/whatreadingdoesforthemind/ in case one of the earlier sites disappears.
Your Comments Please
in Free EbooksWe would like to know how you and your students are doing with the ebooks we have produced so that we can share this information with new readers.
Please tell us about your experiences teaching the ebook/s you have chosen for your classes. And if possible, ask your students to write with their opinions of the ebooks they are reading.
Please send your comments to support@ebookforstudents.org and we will add them to the new Reading Experiences post. And let us know if you want your name and the name of your school district included.
Thank you.
Convince your staff that the volume of reading matters.
in For Young Adults, Free EbooksAsk teachers if print exposure can make students smarter. Consider the ideas of Keith Stanovich at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF6VKmMVWEc
If they agree with Stanovich, where will more print exposure come from? Will students reading below grade level enjoy World History textbook paragraphs about people of the river in Mesopotamia, or do they need something more engaging?
Share the work of Anne Cunningham and Keith Stanovich with them which shows how the volume of reading influences reading comprehension.
Kindles in Schools
in For Young AdultsKindles go to Canton-McKinley High School in Ohio.
Kindles at Clearwater High School in Florida.
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in For Young Adults, Free EbooksYour help can speed up the creation of new ebooks. Please donate now to help pay for formatting and proofreading as we add new titles to the catalogue of free ebooks. As you may know, the scanning of the original manuscripts creates many errors that need to be fixed manually by reading line after line in page after page, a time-consuming and expensive process.
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Adding Files to your Kindle
in How To Share Ebooks with Your StudentsTo add a mobi file to your Kindle for PC software to read the chapters on your computer, see instructions at http://tinyurl.com/y8gsazq.
To add a mobi file to your Kindle ereader or tablet, see instructions at http://tinyurl.com/c4xduhn.
The Kindle Personal Document Service allows teachers, or librarians to send a mobi file to up to 15 student Kindle email addresses at a time.
With the Whispercast Service from Amazon, you can provide copies to as many students as you want instantly. And this service is not limited to books purchased on Amazon. You can share documents such as ebooks which you have purchased from other vendors such as Ebooks for Students using Whispercast.