Advocacy Rant

I am a big believer in taking responsibility and advocating for what I believe in.

That is why I was glad to hear that as a major theme at the ALA Washington Briefing and at the AASL meetings attended. I am probably naive to think it actually matters, but there are time I feel that I actually might be making a difference - ex. the CPSC calling ALA and saying "call them off!"

Yet then there are times I read things like this post on the GaMedia listerv on proposed budget issues for Ga. school library media centers:
Mr. Perdue is prosing to place a temporary (yeah right) waiver on the expenditure controls found in GaCode that state that money designated for media centers only be used to buy items for the media center. So yes that means that media centers will never see that money.

So I immediately go to email and call House and Senate Appropriations Education Subcommittee members to explain the importance of expenditure controls to them.

THEN I see the following post and want to scream:
"What concerns me is this: in this economic crisis. . .if we raise our visibility by complaining about waivers and cuts and such, I wonder if they'd decide to just cut media programs and media specialists completely, but I'm wondering if, in this present situation, staying under the radar and accepting what comes down might be the best course. AND another one agrees with him saying "why are we complaining? Everyone and all programs will need to make sacrifices, including school library media programs. In my humble opinion, GLMA paid lobbyists need to tread lightly in these economic times or we could all be out of a job."

(hmmm fear and panic seems to have been a theme last week in our discussion)

YES of course if we all hide our heads in the sand it will be much better....come on!