And I'm Back

My husband's library is still in turmoil, we had a baby in January and she got medavac-ed to Chicago when she was two weeks old.  So it's been a busy few months but things are settling down.

I may be around here more. I may not, since I'm still working and I'm trying to find other forms of income just in case La Porte County Public Library lays everyone off again in March. We'll have to see - because I have opinions, and they have to go somewhere, right?

Income Gap? Or Something Else?

The Education blogs have been abuzz with a story from the New York Times about the growing income gap in educational outcomes. While the racial gap is steadily shrinking, the gap between rich and poor has been growing.  Is it IQ? Selective mating? Extra curricular activities? Better school districts? Or is it something else.  According to the Times (emphasis mine),

One reason for the growing gap in achievement, researchers say, could be that wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children (in weekend sports, ballet, music lessons, math tutors, and in overall involvement in their children’s schools), while lower-income families, which are now more likely than ever to be headed by a single parent, are increasingly stretched for time and resources. This has been particularly true as more parents try to position their children for college, which has become ever more essential for success in today’s economy.

Is it really an income gap? Or is it just the marriage gap in a different form? More educated parents are more likely to earn high incomes. They’re also less likely to bear children out of wedlock or to divorce. Single parents are more likely to live in poverty, and the children of single parents are more likely to remain poor.  The problem may not be a lack of cultural opportunities or summer enrichment programs. It may just be the lack of fathers.

La Porte County Public Library Makes the South Bend Tribune

It's in yesterday's edition.  Once a story gets picked up by the SBT, it gets picked up all over the state.  I'm especially amazed that Mark Phillips, the lawyer for the library, considers these violations a 'mere technicality.'  The law specifically forbids budget-related personnel discussions in a secret meeting.  The La Porte County Public Library discussed budget-related benefit cuts, branch closings, etc.....in secret meetings. 

It's only a 'technicality' if you imply that the Indiana Legislature didn't really mean anything by the Open Door Law.  And, in fact, the legislature is set to put more teeth in the Open Door Law, at least according to a report from the Hoosier State Press Association.  Apparently, Open Door Law related legislation tends to pass unanimously.  In the South Bend Tribune article, Mark Phillips expresses an intent to appeal the court's decision if it goes against the library.  He doesn't seem to understand - the higher up you go in state government about this, the more serious officials and judges get. 

The people I've talked to in state government all see Indiana's open access laws as the only way to clean up corruption at the local level. The laws empower citizens of the state to keep an eye on their elected and appointed officials. Basically, it's up to us to make sure that the people spending our tax dollars spend them wisely. And it was this taxpayer oversight that Fonda Owens, Mike Essling, and the rest of the La Porte County Public Library Board tried to avoid in their secret meetings. 

Why? Well, this is just my opinion, of course, but I think it's because they don't actually care what the taxpayers think. They've been treating the library as their personal fiefdom for too long. Fonda Owens and her companions seem to think that the taxpayers of La Porte County will put up with eliminated departments, diminished services, fewer programs, fewer materials and a closed branch so that she and her cronies can give themselves raises and rearrange the library to suit their convenience. Fortunately, the patrons of the La Porte County Public Library have the Open Door Laws at our disposal. It's our library. Fonda Owens works for us. We need to speak up and remind her that the Library Director of the La Porte County Public Library is not a divine right monarch, but a servant of the people.

Not the Background I Promised on the La Porte County Public Library

Because the La Porte Herald Argus just put the latest installment of the La Porte County Public Library saga online!  In a nutshell, Fonda Owens was director of the La Porte County Public Library, but now she's back to interim director. It's even crazier than that though, because she's also the woman who orchestrated the coup to get the last director fired.  Mike Essling is the chairman of the La Porte County Public Library Board.  It's a volunteer position - his day job is with INDOT. He's the one Fonda Owens persuaded to fire the previous direction, and, in the meeting of October 27, he claimed that he was personally involved in choosing which employees to cut.

But the biggest issue is that they did everything in secret, with no chance for taxpayer comment.  Indiana Open Door law forbids this.  But I'll have a crash course on the Open Door Law in the next post, followed by a transcript of the meeting where they broke it, so you can see for yourselves! (I'll also post the audio of the meeting.  One great thing about Indiana law is that citizens are strongly encouraged to tape all public meetings and disseminate the recordings to the public at large. )

She's Ba...ack

Wow. It's been a long time since I blogged!

At the moment, I am about a month away from having a baby, have a new part-time job that pays well but keeps me from blogging (because I'm being paid to write!) and am involved in a huge library scandal that has totally turned our lives upside down.

However, I'm starting up the blog again, mostly because I need a place to compile news and links about the library scandal.   For those of you who aren't from Indiana, I'll also provide a little background in the next post.

But just a heads up-- I'm back in business, at least until the latest short person is born...

Getting Your Child to Read Good Books

Wow, I'm just a font of unsolicited advice this morning, aren't I? (Who am I kidding? I'm always a font of unsolicited advice!)

My oldest daughter (age 7.5) has really changed in the last year.  At this time in 2010, getting her to struggle through an "I can read" book was pure torture.   She hated reading. It was slow. It was boring. It was a waste of time-- why should she have to groan through Green Eggs and Ham when I could read her Narnia?  

Less than 12 months later, she devours books.   She worries that she won't be able to give up TV for Lent this year, because she doesn't even really like TV anymore, except for Antique Roadshow.  She doesn't just read many books, she reads good  books.

So, how do we get her to read really good literature in addition to Choose Your Own Adventure and Magic Treehouse? 

It's actually pretty easy.  First of all, we ask for good books for Christmas, and we look for good books at library sales. (Last year my parents got us several Betsy-Tacy books.  I'd loved them as a kid, and my daughter loves them too.)  Then, I gave my daughter two "Big Girl" shelves of her own on one of the parental bookcases.   There are still low shelves filled with picture books for the younger kids, but she's the only kid who can easily browse the special shelves, and they're filled with books she likes.   I keep the shelves filled with a mix of classic children's literature and the goofier stuff (like the Choose Your Own adventures I mentioned earlier.  My husband apparently owns ALL of them, and a couple of D&D based ones as well.)   I don't have room for all the books we've accumulated for our kids, so I cycle through them.  Once a week, I move some of the ones that she's read and doesn't feel like rereading back to the tubs, and I replace them with a new mixture of books. 

I don't force "Good Literature" on her for its own sake-- I try to pick the books that suit her current interests or that I remember as being especially wonderful.  And I throw some I didn't like into the mix too, since she's not my clone.  (I hated Misty of Chincoteaque.  She adores it because she likes horses more than I did.)  

After she reads a book, she usually wants to talk about it, and we're working in one book report a month (August's was Homer Price, another of my childhood favorites)  She picks the book she wants to report on and fills in one of the forms from this site. 

I think the key to introducing your child to good literature is to like it yourself.   A good book has to be a treat, not a punishment.  And if your child is a reluctant reader (as my oldest was) and doesn't want to try harder books, read them to her.  If you pick books she enjoys hearing, eventually she'll start reading them too - if only because a chapter a day seems WAY TOO SLOW.

Teaching the Faith to teens

It seems like every few months I get involved in a discussion about teenagers and catechesis. (Which is funny, since my kids are all under 8!)  Today it's going on over at Simcha Fisher's blog on the Register.

Anyway, I wanted to point you all to a great article by Fr. Dwight Longenecker on teaching teens about the faith.  Some of the advice applies to non-Catholic families as well, so if you plan to have teenagers some day, it's probably worth a read and a bookmark for future reference!

Longenecker focuses on what I think is a huge problem for many families trying to raise children in a society that seems hostile, or at least indifferent, to their faith:

Many parents view the teenage years as difficult. They are usually so if the parents have not understood how the critical instinct is crucial to positive adolescent development. Oppressive parents continue to use methods that were appropriate for young children. They expect their teenagers to obey without question and to accept the authority of their parents blindly. This is a recipe for disaster.

 He gives concrete advice on how to handle a teenager's questions, and how to give your kids a faith that we'll be theirs,  not a punishment forced on them by overly authoritarian parents.   And while he draws heavily on the work of Msgr. Guissani, the founder of Communion and Liberation, I think the  approach to catechism and doubts would work for anyone raising kids in the Judeo-Christian tradition.   (I don't know enough about Eastern Religions to know if a Hindu or Buddhist would find this helpful.)

Anyway, give it a read! I apologize in advance for the lousy choice of text-color.  I used to be able to find this piece on other sites, but it seems to have disappeared!