Just as AASL announced the creation of a special task force to combat the quickly-growing 65% Solution and its exclusion of school libraries from the instructional category, yesterday"s ASCD brief included an Atlanta Journal and Constitution article about the march of the 65% Solution through Georgia:65% bill advances in Georgia legislature A Georgia measure mandating that at least 65% of school budgets be spent in the classroom passed the state Senate 32-18 on Tuesday. Democrats and some educators object to the bill"s classifying field trips and athletics as classroom expenditures, but not the salaries of librarians and other support personnel . The article is at: AAA replica watches and requires free registration (I have so many of those out there to read one article!) fake montblanc replica rolexes . The Georgia library advocates were able to convince enough legislators that school libraries are crucial that an amendment was proposed to include school libraries as instructional rolex fake watches for sale , but it failed to pass. This shows the need for AASL"s Taskforce to work quickly and powerfully for all the rest of the affiliates who are next in line--and we know there will be more. Ann Dutton Ewbank will chair the taskforce and it will have a lot of support from AASL staff and the AASL Board cheap rolex . But, my question is whether any of the actions described in the recently-passed Council resolution can make an immediate difference for Georgia"s advocacy in the House? swiss replica watch How quickly can those letters from Keith Fiels on ALA"s behalf get to the Georgia governor and Georgia legislators? In other words, are there AASL and ALA actions that can help right now with the House? Perhaps a national focus on Georgia"s debate might help swing enough votes to add library programs to the instuctional side in the House. After a meeting of state library officers at Midwinter, Colorado"s Gene Hainer noted that individual states have that option (they don"t HAVE to follow the NCES definitions word-for-word but can use them as guidelines") and this is obviously one of those opportunities to do so. One more tool for the taskforce and all of us who advocate for strong libraries was recently released. On the Public Education Network web site , you can download a copy of the recently released Adolescents Read study. It"s anecdotal but maybe it will help a legislator somewhere make the connection between equal access to strong school libraries with well-chosen resources and students" love of reading. Teaching students to love reading is one of those instructional pieces of our job! Reading DOES count! Ann Dutton Ewbanks is smart, savvy and has lots of energy. She and her taskforce will work as fast as they can to give other states the tools to fight this movement"s devastation of school libraries and library positions. High quality rolex replica watches. Saturday Night Kristina Morales The Bayou Shufflers