Lack of Library Access Cited
in Suit Against Calif. Schools
Charging that lack of access to a library is one of the basic resources denied public school students in minority, low-income, and immigrant neighborhoods, a coalition of 10 civil rights advocates has charged the State of California with reneging on its constitutional obligation to provide the bare essentials necessary for education.
One of the plaintiffs, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, issued a statement calling the class-action suit filed May 17 the most comprehensive ever to be brought against a state concerning minimum education standards.
“These are schools that shock the conscience, schools where students can’t learn and teachers can’t teach,” Mark Rosenbaum, the organization’s legal director, said in the May 18 Los Angeles Times. “If these schools were housing, they would be treated as slums.”
The suit, which alleges that the schools lack materials and basic resources such as textbooks, cites the sacrifice of library space, as well as gymnasiums and auditoriums, to create more classrooms in at least 131 school districts.
Posted May 22, 2000.
|
