Cuts spell needed end to literacy program

This is one kind of bookkeeping that the Los Angeles County Public Library does not relish.

Library executives, like their counterparts in other departments, are being called on to help the county close a $500-million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year. For the library, this means reducing hours at some branches and ending its long-running Adult Literacy Program—a move that would seem, on the surface, to run counter to a library’s calling.

In reality, however, the elimination of the literacy program was overdue, according to County Librarian Margaret Donnellan Todd.

“I’m not happy to make any cuts,” Todd said Wednesday as the Board of Supervisors began hearings on the proposed 2010-2011 budget. “But this one, I think, was best for taxpayers.”

The program, which served between 200 and 250 participants, cost the library $555,000 a year. That price was hard to justify, Todd said, because the program was based on an outdated state model from the 1980s that emphasized one-on-one tutoring and failed to incorporate advances in technology and teaching.

During the past two decades, the participants also changed dramatically, a change that Todd said was not reflected in the program’s approach. In earlier years, she said, most people seeking adult literacy services simply had not learned to read. Today, most participants want assistance in improving their skills in English as a second language. “That’s a huge change from the ‘80s,” she said.

Complicating matters, some participants also had “significant learning disabilities” and were referred to the library’s literacy program from adult schools and other outside agencies, Todd explained, adding that the library staff does not have the necessary skill set for that kind of challenge.

“We can’t give false expectations,” she said. “We need to be more honest. We’re not the right place for these people.”

Todd said that, beginning with the new fiscal year in July, the nine staffers assigned to the adult literacy program will be transferred to other areas of the library system. The program’s participants will be referred to private agencies, said Todd’s chief deputy, Terri Maguire. The library also will continue to offer literacy services on its computers.

In the longer term, Todd said she and her staff will take a year to reevaluate how it confronts literacy issues in ways that are cost effective and programmatically successful.

A key component of that effort will likely be to identify the best practices of online adult literacy instruction and implement it throughout the county library system so it can be accessed at home and at individual branches. Todd said the library also might consider partnering with longstanding literacy programs or holding larger classes, rather than the old, costly model of individual tutoring.

Given its costs and shortcomings, why wasn’t the literacy program eliminated sooner?

“Sometimes people think with their heart rather than the hard data,” Todd said. “They want to help. But now’s the time to think with our heads.”

For a more comprehensive look at the library’s literacy plans, as described in a letter to L.A. County CEO William T Fujioka, click here.

Posted 5-12-10