[CALIBK12] CA educator?

[Jeanne Nelson]

Lesley,

Thanks for bringing up a good question, the image, or lack of image, of the
school library media program in the literature.

I've been doing a lot of reading over the past two years about teaching and
learning, PLC's, interventions and schools that "work" in situations where
socioeconomics would appear to be a barrier.

In the literature written by people who are not library professionals,
mention of the school library was generally confined to using it as the
location for meetings, though occasionally there would be a mention an
outstanding library/media teacher making contributions to student outcomes.
Even these mentions implied that this was unusual.

The NELS (National Education Longterm Study of 1988) database, a huge,
detailed collection of information on 24,599 students in all fifty states,
begun in 1988 on 8th graders and followed up in 1990, 1992 and 1994. The
study only mentions the school library under the heading "got a pass to the
library."  OK, what did those students DO when they got to the library?
There is no library data in that study.  Why not???

When you read practitioner publications, there is so much happening in
school libraries that benefits students, and extensive studies in other
states support the contention that school libraries impact student
achievement.  

I am mystified by this mismatch between what school library personnel state
is happening, and what is being published-- or rather not being published--
in other educational literature.  It feels like the school library/media
center is the "elephant in the room" when discussing student achievement.

-Jeanne Nelson
Murrieta



-----Original Message-----
From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu
[mailto:calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu] On Behalf Of Lesley Farmer
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 12:35 PM
To: calib at demeter.sjsu.edu; CALIBK12
Subject: [CALIBK12] CA educator?


I just received the Sept. issue of California Educator. 
The cover story is "The Information Age: Teaching and 
Learning on the Cutting Edge."  What a great way to start 
the school year, I thought. Well, the school library/media 
center was edged out and cut off. No mention of 
information literacy, no school libraries or library media 
teachers covered (the closest was CSU Fresno's 
Instructional Technology and Resource Center in their 
School of Ed). Plagiarism was noted -- and TurnItIn was 
praised; hmm, let's teach by punishment rather than 
construct plagiarism-proof assignments. Prove me wrong, 
folks, but am I -- or we -- or they -- missing something? Lesley Farmer

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