Literacy Tutor Training at Rockville Library

I remember a man who worked for my father when I was a kid. He was one of the best mechanics and he had a country western band that played parties at our house. He also couldn’t read. When my dad needed him to run an errand, he would write the first letter of the business on a piece of paper and send him down the street to match it to the correct sign. As a kid I couldn’t believe a grownup was unable to read.>
So, I was struck by the fact that today, right here in Montgomery County, our Literacy Council (LCMC) estimates that 1 in 8 adults are functionally illiterate. They are unable to complete an application, understand a package label, or even read this blog. LCMC helps by providing volunteer tutors, but it has over 200 adult students on its waiting list. They will continue to wait 6 to 12 months.

LCMC provides some other literacy facts:

-Children of parents who are unemployed and have not completed high school are five times more likely to drop out of high school.

-Annual health care costs in the U.S. are four times higher for individuals with low literacy skills than they are for individuals with high level literacy skills.

-Women in the U.S. who have little formal education are more likely than educated women to be in abusive relationships.

-One-half of all adults in U.S. federal and state correctional institutions cannot read or write at all; 85 percent of juvenile offenders have reading problems.

-A one percent increase in high school graduation rates would save approximately $1.4 billion in costs associated with incarceration.

Obviously, it’s much more than just reading.

LCMC is holding tutor orientation right here at our new Rockville Library on Tuesday, October 2, 2007 from 7:30 PM – 9 PM. Tutors teach an adult to read, write or speak English either one-on-one or with small groups. They meet with students in libraries or community centers at mutually convenient times.

Since 1976, LCMC has tutored more than 9,500 native and foreign born students, with the aid of over 6,800 volunteers. If you have the time to volunteer, you could change someone’s life for the better.

Registration is required. Call 301-610-0030 or email info@literacycouncilmcmd.org After the orientation session, potential tutors attend a two-day, 12-hour training workshop. There is a $25 registration fee to defray the cost of the workshop.

Update: City Council Wants "Memorial" Library

As you may know, there is a move afoot to name the new Rockville Public Library in honor of former Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan. This has become a controversy. See the >earlier post on this subject here.

On Monday, according to the Gazette:

The [Rockville city] council voted 4 to 1 to send a letter to County Executive Isiah ‘‘Ike” Leggett (D) asking that a five-year county waiting period, designed to delay naming a building after a person until a handful of years after his or her service ends, not be waived. Leggett has the final say on the matter.

Their vote, instead, is to name it the Rockville Memorial Library, in honor of local soldiers kiled in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Councilwoman Susan R. Hoffman cast the dissenting vote. ‘‘Naming the library after our native son, I think, is perfectly appropriate,” she said, reports the Gazette.

Duncan Library?

If you read the Gazette or the Washington Post, >you know it is possible that the new library in Rockville Town Center could be named for the former Montgomery County executive and former Rockville mayor (and West End resident) Doug Duncan.

The new MoCo executive, Ike Leggett, is set to make the decision after a board (stacked, critics say, with Duncan supporters) has recommended to go with the name. This would make it one of the few libraries in the county that has a person’s name affixed (usually they are named after the place they are) and Leggett would have to waive a county policy that requires people for whom buildings are named to have been away from public service for at least five years.

[edit] According to WaPo, “Duncan backers said that he was a supporter of public libraries and that he increased funding, expanded library hours and fought for state money for the Rockville project during his 12 years in office.” [/edit]

Critics say that Duncan did not push hard enough, when MoCo executive, for library funding and so it would be wrong to name a library after him. Among alternatives that have been proposed is “Rockville Memorial Library,” to honor fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What do you think?