Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Splendid new libraries for NY City schools

Petrified Truth has a post about the new libraries that the Robin Hood Foundation is building in some NYCity schools. The joy in the children's voices made me cry.
A new library feeds a boy's dreams. "When this library first opened," said Isaiah Ross, a fifth grader, "I promised myself I'd read every dinosaur book here."

As Petrified Truth says: Here's a big part of The Answer for what ails public education: the library as the best reason to come to school.

When the Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit agency that fights poverty in New York City, was looking to help the schools, it decided on libraries, because a library is the one academic place every child in a school uses. Since 2002, 31 new Robin Hood libraries have been built at some of the poorest elementary schools citywide, and they are spectacular to behold, every one different and all worthy of an Architectural Digest spread.


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