Not, one for the books

In an effort to prove her superiority in the education debate, Indiana Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Jill Long Thompson recently proposed that all Indiana children from birth to age five be sent one free book each month. She thinks this plan would help improve Indiana’s literacy rates, which admittedly could use some work.
Now forgive us for being skeptical – after all, we know there is nothing that two-month-olds love more than a good book: They taste so good – but it appears that Long Thompson is desperate to prove she has ideas about education reform, even if they don’t make any sense.

At least she’s not proposing tax money to fund it (yet). According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Long Thompson said she would “ask” book vendors to give the books away for free. But why – unless they were forced – would book vendors want to give away 12 books per year to every child under five? The money has to come from somewhere, and we’re not convinced that taxpayers won’t eventually get stuck with the bill.

But there are other problems. For example, who would decide which books would be sent out? As silly as some objections may seem, parents are bound to be protective over the types of reading material that enter the home. Whether real or perceived, parents are certain to find religious or political biases in the books and will accuse the government of trying to brainwash children at the very earliest ages. The potential problems a program like this could cause seem to quickly overshadow the small benefits it might provide.

Some might suggest that a solution to this problem is to simply send families a voucher so they could purchase a book of their own choosing. But of course there are already public libraries even the poorest people can use to access books for free. Any parents who don’t care about reading enough to use libraries are unlikely to redeem free book vouchers or to take the time to read the books with their children.
Knowledge, as students know so well, is not transferred from books to brains by osmosis, and there is nothing about simply having more books in the home that will encourage literacy or a love of learning. Children must still be taught and mentored by caring adults in their lives, not by a monthly book in the mail.

So while Long Thompson’s plan would allow us to tell some cool stories to our grandchildren – “Why, in my day we didn’t have any fancy books mailed to us by the government to learn how to read! We had to walk in the snow uphill both ways to borrow books from the library!” – we think this is one education plan that doesn’t deserve a passing grade.