I believe my fellow Nebraskan Warren Buffett could find the resources for David Rothman’s modest proposal:
Andrew Carnegie was a social Darwinian. He wanted to give the fittest the tools to rise to the top. Public libraries — as spreaders of skills, knowledge and culture — advanced his goal.
Often hailed as Carnegie II, Bill Gates is if nothing else a champion of standardized testing and other forms of meritocracy. So here’s a not-so-modest proposal for one of planet Earth’s richest people, now worth around $78.5 billion.
Update Carnegie’s vision. Work toward a national digital library endowment, which, as I’ll show, could boost K-12 test scores.
The endowment could help buy e-books and other items and finance the hiring and professional development of school and juvenile librarians and family literacy workers in the very poorest areas. It could also narrow the library-related digital divide — $38 tablets already exist, and better econo-models for e-books are ahead.
Read the full proposal @ The Baltimore Sun.
