Clock Is Running Out on Federal Funds for School Library Materials

Staff -- School Library Journal, 7/1/1999

If the current administration has its way, the only federal legislation providing funding for school library materials will vanish in FY2000.

The Department of Education is thinking of tucking the portion of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that refers to school library materials into a new section of a reshuffled, renamed piece of legislation.

The administration's proposal would rename ESEA the Educational Excellence for All Children Act of 1999. It would also move the section of ESEA that currently refers to school library materials -- Title VI -- into a section called Title II, Part A, Teaching to High Standards. In the reworked act, however, the legislation loses language that specifically mentions school library materials.

What's prompting the reshuffling is that 1999 marks the five-year point at which Congress must either reauthorize ESEA or let it expire.