WHO Will Enforce Model School Library Standards?

The California State Board of Education requested draft Model School Library Standards in 2009. The Standards should be approved in May 2010. Once the Standards are approved, districts will have blueprints for assessing and building strong school libraries. This is excellent news. Unfortunately, there will be no funding nor requirement for schools to read or implement the Standards. Here are some questions:

• Who will effectively communicate and promote the new Model School Library Standards?
• Is there one individual or organization that school districts respect or listen to?
• Once a district learns of the Standards, how will they use them? Will they be sent to a district curriculum director or planning committee? Or sent to the person in charge of each individual library? Many school districts have systematically reduced library funding, staffing, and programs -- thus there is a need to rebuild California school libraries.
  
• Will the school accrediting commission WASC [Western Association of Schools and Colleges] use the Standards to evaluate and strengthen public school libraries? If so, how?
• Will California colleges or universities call upon "feeder" high schools to provide information and digital literacy graduation requirements?
• Will high schools call upon "feeder" middle schools to provide information and digital literacy instruction so students will be prepared for the rigors of high school research and use of digital resources?
• Will our next Governor or any of today's candidates for Governor call for the Model School Library Standards? Meg Whitman? Steve Posner? Jerry Brown? WHY NOT? What an opportunity to say and do the right thing.
  
• Other questions?
  

In the meantime, four diverse groups are using the Draft Standards for curricular guidance:

1. Universities/Colleges. Higher education is experiencing an increase in students who are not ready for college because they are not information literate; students are arriving under-prepared in research and information literacy skills. The University Association of the University of California officially endorsed the Standards.
   
2. Educational Technology Leaders. District technology leaders are frustrated in establishing digital literacy guidelines for 21st century digital learners that are grade level specific. Computer Using Educators (CUE) officially endorsed the Standards.
   
3. Parents. California parents have a profound interest in keeping their children safe on the Internet and prepared to be good cyber citizens. California PTA and many national cyber safety organizations endorse the Standards.
4. Teacher Librarians. Overwhelming research shows a strong correlation between school libraries staffed with Teacher Librarians and student achievement. California School Library Association (CSLA) strongly endorses the Standards.

Circulate This: Stories from the School Library

Listen to this: A just-released audio journal from the California School Library Association, "Circulate this: Stories from the School Library" is packed with powerful stories about school libraries.

High School Teacher Librarian/CSLA Past President Connie Williams and songwriter/storyteller/public radio producer Joe McHugh collaborated on an audio journal project to capture stories from teachers, school administrators, children's authors, legislators, parents, and students about how school libraries and librarians make a difference in the lives of children. Connie orchestrated and arranged the project, Joe interviewed and captured the stories; both made magic happen when they put it all together. Listen to and share the stories!

Says Connie: "We have created an audio magazine in which we tell the stories of the importance of school libraries and teacher librarians via interviews with teacher librarians, library staff, teachers, community members, parents, administrators, and most importantly, students. The format is along the lines of a 'This American Life' type of audio journal with a narrator, who sets the tone, describes the dilemma, and sets the stage for each interview. Each is short but dramatic and powerful. The intent is to distribute the audio journal widely on radio and across the Internet -- go 'viral' -- and to create CDs to hand to legislators and decision-making administrators. Teacher librarians and others are able to download the journal and burn CDs to distribute to their local administrators and parents".

Joe McHugh, a talented Washington State storyteller and audio producer points out that "stories are effective because they deal in specifics, not generalities, and the best, in terms of persuasion, are told by those who have first-hand knowledge of what they are talking about.'"

Many came forward to tell their stories. Among those presented here are stories from: Dr. Doug Achterman, Glen Warren, David Burt, Winny Duffy, Heather Keaton, April Wayland, Manuel Perez, Dr. Lesley Farmer, Donald Gill, Jeanne Nelson, Anne Birchfield, Hannah Jackson, Kathy Green, and Sophie.

This project was sponsored by the generous donations of long-time school library advocates DEMCO, Follett Software, and Gale Cengage. Thank you for your support!

NOTE from Connie: "California schools are in deep trouble, with the state budget in tatters and education taking the brunt of the cuts. This impacts school libraries all over the state. The California School Library Association has been exploring a variety of venues and strategies to bring school libraries out of these depths and into the limelight so that the services provided by strong school libraries can be in the forefront of any school reform." The good news is that the State Board of Education has requested Model School Library Standards.

For more information on the project or how you can best support school libraries, contact csla2team@yahoo.com

Primary Sources: America's Teachers on America's Schools

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic Publishing are good friends of education and libraries, so it is a disappointment that the Primary Sources report on America's Teachers on American Schools overlooked a very important finding. See Question 1505 on independent reading. Dr. Stephen Krashen alerted school librarians to the omission (see below).

"I just finished reading "Primary Sources: America's Teachers on America's Schools" which was published by Scholastic and the Gates Foundation. This report has been discussed in newspapers all over the country. Not mentioned in any of the media reports, and not mentioned in the summary section of the report is an interesting result about where students get their books for their own independent reading. This result was not discussed in the text but is buried deep in the appendix.

Q1505 Where do your students get books for their independent reading most often? Select all that apply.

1. school library: all levels: 83%. high school 80%
2. my classroom library: all levels: 68%, high school: 31%; elementary school 87%
3. public library: all levels: 38% high school: 46%
4. retailers: all levels: 20%, high school: 35%

"This is similar to what has been reported before in the professional literature, as I reported in The Power of Reading, but shows the impact of the school library far more clearly than ever before. If independent reading is a major source of our competence in literacy, this confirms that school and classroom libraries are very very important."

"Unfortunately, the study did not look at differences in level of poverty."

Primary Sources: America's Teachers On America's Schools
Scholastic, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
http://www.scholastic.com/primarysources/download.asp


The California School Library Association wrote and reminded media representatives of the two organizations that research shows a strong relationship between strong school libraries and student achievement, regardless of the income level of the community. Here are two recent reports and one somewhat dated but very relevant research:

1. Achterman Study on “Haves, Halves and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement”
2. School Libraries Work by Scholastic.
3. Differences in Print Environment by Courtney Smith and Rebecca Constantino (1997) - Changed my life and made me an advocate for strong school libraries.
   

In California, students are having their school libraries and teacher librarians reduced or eliminated. "Pink Slips" go out on March 15th. It is both tragic and counter-productive. Building and funding strong school libraries is an investment strategy the Gates/Scholastic study should be recommending, but given the overwhelming ratio of classroom teachers to teacher librarians, that recommendation will never see the light of day without assistance from important organizations. Here's hoping the Gates/Scholastic researchers and others will take another look at the research findings and address Q1505 in more detail.

Today's school teacher librarians teach online research and cybersafety skills, in addition to carefully selecting and sharing good books for students to grow on! Today's leaders need to better understand and actively promote the key role of school libraries.

School Library Advocacy in Action

"School Library Advocacy in Action" is the title of Teacher Librarian Tom Kahn's post, after he spent a day at California State University East Bay campus, promoting the importance of strong school libraries in increasing student academic achievement. Hundreds of middle and high school students attended a morning "education summit" to learn more about how and why to successfully go on to college. All got 2 handouts:

• "Haves, Halves, and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement" by Dr. Doug Achterman
• CSLA "Best Sellers" Campaign for Strong School Libraries.
  

In addition to California School Library Association's table, each northern California CSU and many community colleges staffed a table. Another organization there was Project SOAR, a program funded by the U.S. Department of Education GEAR-UP initiative. GEAR-UP programs provide after school programs for at-risk middle school and high school students. GEAR-UP programs all SHOULD have school library/research skill components, but most overlook the obvious. CSLA should be able to collaborate and upgrade grant requests.

Out of circulation: School librarians are in short supply

The California School Boards Association (CSBA) published an excellent article in California Schools Magazine titled "Out of circulation: School librarians are in short supply" by Pamela Martineau about California teacher librarians. The author interviewed California School Library Association president Connie Hamner Williams, California Department of Education School Library Consultant Barbara Jeffus, San Benito High School Teacher Librarian Dr. Doug Achterman, and Fullerton Joint Union High School District Teacher Librarian Marie Slim.

Digital Literacy -- the Role of Teacher Librarians

California School Library Association member Richard Moore posted a notice on the California school library listserv about an upcoming presentation on digital literacy and urged colleagues to consider attending in order to position teacher librarians in their role as teacher of digital literacy (included under information literacy). Thanks to Richard's "heads up", several librarians attended the presentation and successfully made their point about Teacher Librarians as part of the solution for increasing digital literacy in the state.

On Thursday 6/25, Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Research Associate Dean Bonner presented findings of PPIC's Statewide Survey on Californians and Information Technology. The survey alines well with the national Pew survey on Information Technology, so we can see how California compares with the nation. See the PPIC website for video and handouts. Here are some highlights:

• The percentage of Californians with Internet and broadband access at home has increased since last year. Although the urban/rural digital divide has narrowed, demographic disparities persist.
• Many cell phone users, including most under age 35 are sending and receiving text messages. About 3 in 10 use cell phones to access the Internet or email.
• More than half of California’s Internet users access the Internet using a laptop through a wireless connection, while fewer do so using their cell phones or a computer at a public library.
• Six in 10 California parents with school-age children visit their children’s school websites and one in three get their children’s homework assignments via the Internet or by email. [Therefore about 40% of parents do not get school or student information via Internet access, presumably because they lack digital literacy or access to the Internet from home.]
• Majorities of Californians think that residents in lower-income and rural areas have less access to broadband Internet technology than others; At least half of Californians are concerned about this (inequity).

Sponsors of the PPIC event included California Emerging Technologies Fund (CETF), Zero Divide, and the State Library’s California Research Bureau. CETF President and CEO Sunne Wright McPeak spoke about the $60M her organization has to spend over five years to increase digital literacy in the state. She referenced a focus on government-led wireless research, used expressions such as “[solutions] driven by data” and “Children’s future”. She also indicated that Federal stimulus dollars to California would support Internet instruction targeted to populations needing digital literacy skills. For example, she stated that CETF has a goal to increase by 10% the number of Latinos who are online.

When the audience was invited to ask questions, the first hand up was Jennie Rae Davis, representative for Perma-Bound Books and a former school library employee. She expressed her concern that school libraries, a key part of the technology infrastructure, are losing teacher librarians, the ones who teach students how to use the Internet. The California School Library Association followed up with an offer to identify school teacher librarian (TL) data if we could get technical assistance on data mashing of CDE information showing where TLs exist and where they are missing. Sunny and others immediately understood the value of having visual data to show where TLs are most needed, and asked for assistance by GIS (Geographical Information Systems) expert Michael Byrne of the state information office. CSLA also provided Michael, Sunne, and others with a copy of Doug Achterman’s executive summary of “California’s School Libraries Make a Difference”.

There is a lot to be said about "being there".

Haves, Halves and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement

It’s about equity. Strong school libraries help give our students the best chance to succeed says Dr. Doug Achterman in “Haves, Halves and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement.”

California schools are making their lists of where to cut, so they can give the legally required pink slips so employees know their positions might be eliminated. March 15 is Pink Slip Day for many schools. Teacher Librarians (and music, reading, special ed, sports, and other at-risk teachers, administrators, and employees) are making their cases for keeping themselves on the payroll. It is a sad and desperate time. Doug's doctoral research and handy one-page document is timely. Below is Doug's findings:

California’s School Libraries Make a Difference
California public schools with strong school library programs outperform those without such programs on the state’s STAR tests. This is true regardless of the school community’s parent education and poverty levels, ethnicity, and percentage of English language learners. Increases in the following library program elements correspond to increased STAR test scores at the elementary, middle school and high school levels:
· Total hours library open
· Total technology available through the library
· Total services provided by library staff
· Offering a program of curriculum-integrated information literacy instruction
· Informally instructing students in the use of resources
· Providing teachers with information about new resources
· Providing reference assistance to students and teachers

A strong school library program is one that provides
· A full-time teacher librarian and a full time paraprofessional.
· A robust, up-to-date collection of digital, print and media resources with a budget to support it.
· Liberal access to the library’s facilities, technology, and resources.

Greater Staffing = Stronger Impact
Our research shows that the strongest relationship between school libraries and STAR test scores occurs at the high school level, which has, as a percentage, over 3 ½ times more fully-staffed libraries (a full-time teacher librarian and a full time clerk) than the middle schools, and over 25 times more fully staffed libraries than the elementary schools.

The school library program is a better predictor of scores on the high school English Language Arts STAR test than other school variables such as teacher experience and teacher salary. On the U.S. History test, the library program is a better predictor of scores than both school variables and community variables, including parent education, poverty, ethnicity, and percentage of English language learners.

Nearly every element of a high school library program positively correlates with STAR test scores, including all of the elements listed above, as well as
· Teacher librarian staffing levels
· Total staffing levels
· Budget
· Collection size
In elementary, middle school and high school libraries, teacher librarian staffing and total staffing are strongly related to the level of services provided. What’s more, increases in library services are related to higher STAR test scores. Staffing is key in creating strong school libraries.

The bottom line? It’s about equity. Strong school libraries help give our students the best chance to succeed.

See Ph.D. dissertation by Doug Achterman, “Haves, Halves and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement,” University of North Texas, December, 2008.