Despite plummeting test scores and mounting pressure to meet the higher academic demands of the new Common Core Learning Standards, the Department of Education is asking the state to waive requirements for school librarians. Angry parents, librarians, teachers and community leaders are demanding that State Education Commissioner John King reject the request.

Crowding the steps of DOE headquarters on Aug. 21, protesters called for an end to the DOE’s decimation of school libraries — today more than half the city’s high schools have no libraries — and instead demanded more libraries and librarians to support student needs.

Natasha Capers, a Brownsville parent with two sons in public school, said that given mounting concerns about the test scores and new standards, “the DOE should be doubling down on what works and not taking it away.”

Liz Goldfarb, a librarian at MS 54 with 42 years of experience, labeled the DOE waiver request “absurd” when the Common Core standards are emphasizing critical thinking skills.

“Students don’t know how to be critical,” Goldfarb said. “They think the first thing that pops up [in a Google search] is the answer. They learn analytical skills in the school library.”

The UFT has twice filed complaints with the state to end the DOE’s history of violating state librarian requirements and in June filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court when the state neglected to enforce its own regulations.

State regulations require a full-time librarian for every 700 or more students. Middle and high schools must provide a librarian for part or all of the day, depending on enrollment. Smaller schools are required to have a certified librarian assigned to library duties for part of the day.

The DOE is the only school system statewide to seek a waiver. Scores of New York City high school campuses with enrollments of more than 2,000 students have no librarians. There are only 333 librarians in schools today, down from 399 four years ago. Seventeen librarians remain in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool even as schools continue to close libraries for budgetary reasons. The city would have to hire 280 librarians to bring it into compliance with state rules.

In its request for a waiver, the city said that it would require schools without a certified librarian on staff to submit reports detailing how they are filling the gap. The city also said it would train teachers in librarian services and permit smaller schools on the same campus to share librarians.

Sara Kelly John, the president elect of the New York Library Association, insisted the DOE “alternatives” to librarians would not adequately support the more rigorous Common Core standards. Citing evidence from 22 studies indicating that certified school librarians made a 15 to 20 percent difference in test scores, she said, “Kids may know how to Google but they don’t know how to research, and every student deserves the opportunity to learn that skill.”