Libraries, especially in poor, urban areas have been long neglected. This problem is particularly acute in California, which has ranked near the bottom in library funding for more than 35 years. Some schools have as little as 3 books per child and these books are old and outdated. In the absence of poverty, the quality of the school library is the best predictor of reading scores. There is a huge disparity among children in access to books. Affluent children have more books at home, better public libraries and, often go to schools with better school and classroom libraries. So many children in inner-city schools simply do not have anything to read. ACCESS BOOKS is changing that one library at a time.
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