Gutting school libraries shortchanges all students

Are public school libraries fast becoming the neglected and mistreated bastard children of our state’s and nation’s educational priorities? A passing glance at recent trends of inadequate funding and insufficient staffing for them make that distressing question a compelling one. Consider:

In the past 10 years, the number of full-time certified librarians in Ohio’s public schools has dropped by 43 percent, from 1,628 in the 2004-05 school year to 923 in the 2013-14 year, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

The once-robust commitment to school libraries from Uncle Sam has evaporated. President Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget reduced the 2015 $25 million allocation for the Innovative Approaches to Literacy school-library grants from $25 million to zero, zilch, zippo.

Many school districts are replacing licensed librarians with aides, volunteers or substitute teachers. As the Columbus Dispatch reported this week in an investigation of the woes befalling school libraries in the Buckeye State, those replacements often aren’t qualified to teach such subjects as media literacy and database research, or aren’t licensed to teach at all.

BUDGETING QUANDARY

These disturbing trends are not products of any mean-spirited ire toward the important role libraries or media centers play in the academic and intellectual development of today’s youth. Instead, the neglect stems from the struggles school districts face balancing budgets amid declining state and local support, increasing costs and mandated commitments to grow such chosen initiatives as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics disciplines or passing standardized tests.

Superintendent Steve Larcomb of the East Knox district in central Ohio said his district’s last librarian retired four years ago, and a group of aides now staffs the elementary and high-school libraries. The district’s budget was cut by $1.3 million, and it simply couldn’t afford to hire anyone full time, Larcomb told the Dispatch.

“The district has had to make those tough choices,” he said. “We’d love to be able to offer those services, but it’s the unfortunate reality.”

Another unfortunate reality in East Knox and hundreds of other school districts throughout the state has been an erosion of the proven benefits top-notch school libraries provide to students.

Numerous studies show a clear link between the quality of school-library programs staffed by a state-certified school librarian and student academic achievement. School libraries have contributed to improved performances by providing up-to-date instructional materials tied to the curriculum and instructional practices, guiding youth through understanding modern online research strategies and in collaborating with and supporting teachers, administrators, and parents. Some forward-looking districts even extend their school-library hours into the evening and weekends to maximize those benefits. Sadly, such districts are the rare exceptions, not the general rule.

IMPACT IN POOR DISTRICTS

The boost that school libraries provides all students is compounded for those in urban high-poverty districts such as Youngstown and Warren. According to the 2015 ‘‘Washington School Library Impact Study: Certified Teacher Librarians [CTLs], Library Quality and Student Achievement,” the five-year graduation rate for students in high-poverty districts with CTLs is 78.8 percent compared with 43.2 percent at those without.

Clearly, as educators and policymakers search for strategies to enhance student achievement, downsizing and dumbing down school libraries should not gain traction.

Keith Curry Lance, a consultant to the Washington study, makes an apt analogy between libraries and life: “Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, around the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realizing that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open.”

School administrators and budget-makers in districts throughout the Mahoning Valley and the state should take that analogy to heart the next time the temptation arises to squeeze a few dollars and cents from their budgets by raiding the quality and professionalism of those gates to students’ future success.