Where's the Evidence? Understanding the Impact of School Libraries

The third SLJ Leadership Summit brought 250 librarians and vendors to the Arizona Biltmore, beautifully decorated for Christmas, complete with a huge gingerbread house. Arizona has been in a drought for many years as they have not received their annual 5" of rainfall. Surprise -- here we were in the hot desert and during the three days we were there it rained 2". Now, we were glad to "help out" but being rainy and cold did not allow us to take advantage of all the things to do in Phoenix, the Biltmore and nearby Scottsdale. We would have preferred warm and sunny conditions, but with such a wonderful event taking place it was really not an issue.

Speaking of Issues -- as a candidate for ALA President, during the vendor presentations on the second day, Gale's David Schroeter, presented me with a Gale tee-shirt with a great slogan, which should be mine! (see photo). I also want to thank Roger Rosen of Rosen Publishing for his very generous support.

The summit focused on Evidence-Based Practice as a way to understand the impact of school libraries on student achievement. Attendees had the opportunity to meet with their colleagues from across the county to learn, discuss and develop new practices. To paraphrase Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief, School Library Journal, Understanding and applying this methodology will allow building level library media specialists, district supervisors and state-level coordinators to answer the question "What differences do our school libraries and their learning initiatives make to student learning outcomes?" To implement Evidence-based Practice, we need to know and evaluate existing educational research, combine this with an effective library media program to collect the evidence that the school library is making a difference in student achievement. Using research in this way allows us to look beyond traditional measures and focus on information literacy, knowledge building and engaging students in reading.

The agenda was filled with well known names in the research field and users of Evidence-Based Practice. Opening remarks from Congress member Raul M. Grijalva praised school libraries and the future of the SKILLs Act. Linda Perlstein, author of Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade presented the Keynote Address. She spent three years researching this book at a poor elementary in my school district. The book needed to be written and should be a reading requirement for all educators and parents. It is a story of meeting the requirements of NCLB -- both the good and the not so good. Yes, the students' scores went up -- but did the students learn?

Dr. Carol Gordon, Rutgers University moderated an Evidence Across the Profession Panel, which included participants from the medical , architectural, and health sciences fields and the Director from the Center for the Advancement of Evidenced-Based Practice. There were three Case Study sessions, covering a variety of topics, which participants selected to attend. Opening the second day of the summit, Peter Pearson, President, Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library gave an informative presentation on Just Because They Love You, Doesn't Mean They Will Fund You. Dr Ross Todd, Rutgers University closed the two-day summit by summing up all the sessions and presentations and forming work groups for applications of the major concepts. I do hope SLJ continues this yearly leadership summit - it is the most thought provoking two days I have spent in a long time. -- Interestingly enough, I can see many areas where Evidence-based Practice can be applied in the ALA Organization to gain the evidence of what works best and how we can apply the evidence and what we know to make things work better -- hmm -- what a concept!