Schools operate under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was first signed into law in 1965. Prior to this time, many schools did not have libraries, did not have well-stocked school libraries, or did not have a librarian.
It was this act that led to the tremendous growth in publication of nonfiction for students to meet curricular requirements and gave a boost to the publishing industry for children and adolescent literature.
The former No Child Left Behind Act did much harm to schools and was the first rendition of this act that did not include specific funding for libraries.
The new ESSA law recognizes the need for well-stocked libraries as well as for those libraries to have teacher-librarians: teachers with teaching degrees and a Masters in Library Science. The new law expects schools to have strong library programs. Those programs are to include a great deal of teaching the staff and students about digital literacy and information literacy. It also renames school librarians as essential learning specialists. Title funds may be used to support the library programs. School librarians are not luxuries, but critical human resources in this effort.