“Why were you lurking under our window?"
"Yes - yes, good point, Petunia! What were you doing under our windows, boy?"
"Listening to the news," said Harry in a resigned voice.
His aunt and uncle exchanged looks of outrage.
"Listening to the news! Again?"
"Well, it changes every day, you see," said Harry.
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

I was born 50 years after slavery, in 1913. I was allowed to read. My mother, who was a teacher, taught me when I was a very young child. The first school I attended was a small building that went from first to sixth grade. There was one teacher for all of the students. There could be anywhere from 50 to 60 students of all different ages. 
                                                   -Rosa Parks

 
Here are the hours my local library, which looks pretty substantial in a New York City kind of way in this photo, is open. Notice the hours don't allow school kids to study there at night. In the suburbs the libraries are open at night. Notice that two days it doesn't even open till noon. Bars in the neighborhood open earlier. Notice that it's not open on Sunday. The pols must think everybody is in long brunch lines all day Sunday. If the city is progressive enough to scare Amazon away, for now anyway; if it's enlightened enough to vote 9-to-1 against its own Donald Trump, then you'd think it would be of a mind to have a vigorous library operation. You'd certainly think so in a city where people live in apartments and might not have a study space for their school kids.

 

Regular hours:

Day	Hours
Sunday	Closed
Monday	12 PM–7 PM
Tuesday	10 AM–6 PM
Wednesday	12 PM–7 PM
Thursday	10 AM–6 PM
Friday	10 AM–5 PM
Saturday	10 AM-5 PM

'A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.'
― Arthur Miller 

No matter that we're asking Alexa all sorts of things in more and more of our homes. Or that my 10-year-old-grandson here in the city was on a computer in his bedroom playing Fortnite most of the time I stopped by there last evening. And no matter that Netflix is huge and getting huger. And so is the TV screen in most living rooms. No matter that it really is becoming the world Ray Bradbury predicted. Johnny still should learn to read well. 

'Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society.'
                                 -Sonia Sotomayor 

Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/sonia_sotomayor_454926

Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society. Sonia Sotomayor
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/sonia_sotomayor_454926

Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society. Sonia Sotomayor
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/sonia_sotomayor_454926

This week the news reported that Mayor de Blasio had ended the Renewal program. It was his plan to improve schools that were having trouble. He didn't want to close schools that consistently did poorly like Mayor Bloomberg had. Bloomberg didn't just close schools, he built new smaller ones around the city, with some mixed results. de Blasio put more resources into the schools that needed more resources to make things better. It didn't work. 

When I get into a conversation with different people who stop by my sign to talk about school things, I frequently point down at the sign where it says 'read' and say if this was the acknowledged center of everything, which you'd think it would be but is never said to be, then things would fall into place. Sometimes I say it would be like plugging a new number into a spreadsheet. Everything would change. They'd then know what teachers and other staff to hire. There would be a direction. A plan. I even say sometimes that it would improve discipline. You could say Shh, people are trying to read, rather than be quiet because I said so.

Maybe you could call schools reading academies.