Please go to this article and respond with the research and the evidence to make it obvious that school librarians matter...This needs to be an overwhelming response.
Calling out the troops!!! Please read Ze’ev Wurman’s reply to my comment below. I know many of you have done research to refute his reply. This could be an important moment for School Librarians to step out of the shadows and take on the kind of establishment views this man espouses. Pass this around. Include public librarians, because the national conversation about cutting library services is related to the conversation about cutting school librarians. Let’s hear you!
Melissa
This is the sequence of comments - Please respond to Wurman
In reponse to this article:
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/fewer-schools-keeping-librarians-staff-13857 Particularly this paragraph:
“You have to make choices sometimes, and the importance of librarians is a bit less than it used to be,” said Ze’ev Wurman, a Silicon Valley executive who participated in the development of California education standards and served as a policy adviser for the U.S. Department of Education. “In the elementary grades especially, librarians are essentially teachers' aides, doing a variety of things that have little to do with books or literacy, per se.”
Melissa Heckler, NY school librarian replied:
Melissa.Heckler@CHUFSD.Org Message
Mr. Wurman,
How sad that you should be
allowed, without any library background or experience, to pass judgment on our work as school librarians. I teach six classes a day. My library curriculum includes (a partial list) research skills, elements of fiction and nonfiction, library skills and is closely aligned with Common Core State Standards as well as College and Career Readiness Standards. In fact, the 28 state study by Keith Curry Lance found that the single most important factor in student achievment when all other variables are considered, is having a fully qualified School Library Media Specialist with an up to date library collection. I hold two Masters degrees and am not any teacher's "aide". Teachers, administrators, students and parents come to me as a resource. Librarians are one of the cornerstones of democracy (free and open access to information)and ensure, more than any institution, that all students have equal access to information. Please take the time to do your reseach
before passing such harsh, rash, and inaccurate judgment.
Sincerely,
Melissa Heckler
Librarian, Croton-Harmon Schools, Croton, New York
And Wurman responded:
Dear Melissa,
I hope you understand the difference between passing judgment on an overall characteristics of a group versus individual characteristics. While I don't doubt your (or anyone else's) qualifications, it has little bearings on what the majority of elementary librarians actually spend their time.
Keith Curry Lance's research is interesting, but not very robust. For example, while he tried to disentangle general measures of wealth from library/librarian activity, he did not consider generalized indicators of effective school operation. It is reasonable to assume that generally effective school operation -- that may be independent of wealth -- positively affects both the availability of library services and academic achievement. Further, his
sampling selection is not necessary the best -- this can reflect, to a degree, the nature of his research sponsors. To illustrate this, he finds positive correlation between checking out of library materials and academic achievement (as well as between spending on libraries and academic achievement). Yet nationwide study (mentioned in that article) did not find increased checkout of library material despite multiple-fold increase in spending on libraries and increase in availability of library materials.
In other words, being a practitioner may provide one with unique bottom-up insight into the daily practice but does not necessarily translate into an increased understanding of the broader picture.
Finally, please note that I do not doubt the importance of school libraries. Yet when one must make a budget cutting decisions one is often forced to choose between the important and the very important. In my judgement professional librarian services
at the elementary level fall into the former, while availability of qualified teachers into the latter. I'd rather not be forced to make such choices, and I can certainly understand your unhappiness with my position, yet you should not assume it is necessarily based on ignorance or ill will.
Regards,
Ze'ev Wurman
--
Ze'ev Wurman
zeev@MonolithIC3D.com
www.MonolithIC3D.com
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