Our first 1000 signatures!

Wow! Over 1000 signatures in two weeks, since our launch on 20 October. This is something surely every Australian parent and bookseller and author and teacher and teacher educator and teacher librarian should support. So don’t just sign, but pass on the petition to your Australian friends, relations and colleagues who will support a qualified teacher librarian in every school.

For parents: Research has shown that qualified TLs increase literacy and student achievement. It is important that parents take an interest in this important area of the school at a time when funding and staffing has been reduced for so many school libraries in Australia.

For teachers: Research has shown that qualified TLs increase literacy and student achievement. They provide resources to classroom teachers, helping them keep the curriculum up to date with new information and new technological tools. Teacher-librarians take extra university courses beyond that needed for their teaching certificate to gain the qualifications and skills to help students and teachers. (see What a TL can do for you

Join our campaign now.  Comments add value on the petition. Write to you local federal and state member and sign our petition too.

Qualified TLs support authentic, constructivist quality teaching and learning. Qualified TLs are trained to be leaders in collaborative, whole school literacy and information skills programs. Qualified TLs keep up with the latest in publishing for young people, in IT and learning, and in curriculum developments.

Our students deserve no less than a qualified TL in every school library.

Sign our petition now

Sign our petition now

According to a recent survey of Australian school libraries, 35% of Australian public school libraries have no professional staffing. Tas, WA, Vic and the NT had the lowest number of teacher librarians (TLs) employed.

Yet, “a strong library program that is adequately staffed, resourced and funded can lead to higher student achievement regardless of the socioeconomic or educational levels of the adults in the community” (Lonsdale, ACER, 2003).

We, at the Hub, call on the federal government to ensure that all Australian primary and secondary students have access to a school library and a qualified teacher librarian.

As it has done in the past, the federal government is in a position to influence state school library funding and staffing. To do this, they can: collect national data on school library staffing, funding, and scheduling; tie funding so that states can and must adequately staff and fund school library programs and services; require that literacy programs and other national curricula should explicitly recognize the central role school libraries have in student achievement, literacy attainment, and preparation for post-secondary success; develop national school library standards; increase teacher librarian training positions in university programs.

All Australian students deserve 21st century schools staffed by 21st century professionally qualified teacher librarians.

Join us in our petition to the federal government. (Write your own state petition!)

This petition will be presented through MP, Sharon Bird, to the Minister of Education, Julia Gillard and her counterparts, Christopher Pyne and other parties’ education spokespeople, to the House Standing Committee on Education and Training.  Ms Bird is chair of this committee.

Signatories are urged to add their own comments for stronger impact. Please spread the word to teachers, parents, principals, authors, librarians, booksellers, and all those who support strong, well-staffed school libraries.

The Hub at ASLA XXI

Well, in 24 hours I will know if it was standing room only, or if the room echoed with the sounds of me rustling my notes.  Yes, The Hub is appearing in person tomorrow at the ASLA XXI Biennial Conference.  We were a last minute entry,   due to the late cancellation of some other presenter. Whoever and wherever you are, I hope you are okay, and thanks so much for the spot.  It also means that fellow hubber Georgia had made other plans, so it’s just a solo presentation.

So if you would like to hear more of what we’re on about, get some inspiration for singing the praises of TLs,  have any questions you would like to ask in person,  or even if you’re itching to put me in my place for a previous blog post that didn’t sit well with you, come along.   We’re all about TLs speaking up, so bring your interactive self and add your voice to the discussion.

Getting the word out, G Phillips and L Paatsch

ASLA XXI Biennial Conference, Thursday Oct 1,  11am (concurrent session D)

LP

Opportunity for Action at ASLA conference

The Australian School Library Association Conference next week in Perth is an opportunity to rededicate ourselves as teachers, librarians, parents, writers, and citizens to reversing the decline of school libraries in this country.

The Australian School Libraries Research Project (ASLRP) by ALIA, ASLA and Edith Cowan University, provides us initial “snapshots” on the current state of school library services in Australia (Barbara Combes, 2008) .

What it shows is a great inequity between school library staffing and funding across Australian schools.

Budgets abysmal

The survey found that the majority of school library budgets are abysmal! Half of the government school budgets are under $5000, and one in six budgets are under $1000. In  NT schools, most of which are remote, over half have budgets under $500!

Staffing in declline

The survey showed that 35% of government school libraries have no teacher librarians.  Approximately two thirds of all schools have either no teacher librarian or less than one Full Time Equivalent (FTE) working in their school library. After the Northern Territory (5%), Tasmania (50%), Western Australia (almost 60%) and Victoria (65%) have the lowest number of TLs employed K-12 across all sectors. Instead there are high numbers of library technicians in Tasmania and Victoria and library officers in Western Australia.

Previous state surveys illustrate the downward slide. A discussion paper from the State Library of Tasmania noted a decline of nearly fifty per cent in the number of teacher librarians in Tasmanian schools in the period 1996-2000. (“Enhancing Student Outcomes with Improved Information Services and Provisioning”, 2000).

A position paper by the AEU Tasmanian Branch noted in 2000 that teacher aides were increasingly replacing teacher librarians, with one third of schools surveyed not having professional TLs. (“Leading the way: The changing role of the teacher librarian”). The ASLRP survey now places this at almost 50%.

While the ASLRP survey shows Victoria employs TLs in 65% of its schools, figures for Melbourne metropolitan primary schools may be even lower.   Reynolds and Carroll in 2001 found  that only 13% of primary schools had teacher librarians. (“Where have all the teacher librarians gone?” Access May 2001)

In South Australia in 2002, apart from those very small schools with no teacher librarian entitlement, a third of school libraries around the state were understaffed and/or staffed with unqualified personnel (Spence, “Survey highlights major problems with library staffing”, AEU Journal, 4 December 2002).

As Michelle Lonsdale stated in 2003, the “devolution of financial management to schools means that funding for school libraries relies on the resource allocation priorities established by the school community, which might or might not place a high priority on the need for a well-staffed library system.”  (Impact of school libraries on student achievement, ACER). There is pressure in all state departments of education for this devolution, flexibility and choice in school staffing. Teacher librarians, where they have existed, are often being “cashed in” for classroom or other specialist teachers, or pushed increasingly into the classroom themselves.

In 1988, the Australian Library Summit deplored the lack of statistics relating to school library services. There is still no systematically collected national data. ALIA and ASLA together with ECU have given us the beginning of those statistics to work with. The ASLRP has provided a complex set of results, with many variables yet to be analysed, but little in it paints a good picture of the state of school libraries in this country, especially government schools.

Anne Hazell stated in 1988, after the initial regression of the 1980s in school library staffing, that unless (TLs) … act as advocates for their chosen profession, it is unlikely that the profession will survive into the 21^st century.”   We are well and truly on that edge.

So, here is a preview of The Hub’s conference paper, Getting the Word Out.

Support Indigenous Literacy in NT schools by staffing them with TLs

It can’t hurt Indigenous Literacy Day that they have the Prime Minister’s wife as a patron.  I wonder if she knows how poorly off school libraries are in the NT?

95% of NT schools have NO school librarians!  which may go a long way towards explaining illiteracy.

Most schools in the NT have budget of less than $1000 per year for their libraries.

School library collections in NT remote schools (the majority) do not have a large range of resources often used to develop pre-reading skills such as  big books, games, puzzles, posters and charts. Students in these schools do not have access to magazines, maps,  or newspapers which are especially useful for reluctant readers (often boys) and teenage readers.

Nearly half the schools in the NT do not have access to traditional learning technologies such as videos, DVDs, CDs and CD-ROMs.

So is it any wonder that we must try to do something to help indigenous students to learn to read?

Our own local teacher librarians group did its bit by purchasing donated books of local children’s literature reviewer, Dr. Kerry White (The Source).  The book sale that kicked off at the Illawarra School Librarians Association meeting on 2 July at Wollongong Public School finished with almost $2000 raised for the Indigenous Literacy Project, http://www.worldwithoutbooks.org/.

We can also help by supporting our colleagues in the NT in lobbying federal members regarding staffing and resourcing of school libraries there.  They have written to their local minister of education:

The Australian School Libraries Association: Northern Territory Branch (ASLA NT) wishes to bring to your attention the growing trend towards the removal of teacher librarian positions in many schools in the Northern Territory.  We are very concerned about the negative impact this trend will have on student learning.

Let’s support them with a message to our local federal members to let them know there are many ways we can support indigenous literacy. The most significant one would be by resourcing quality school libraries staffed by certified teacher librarians.

Tell them that studies in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK have provided strong evidence that school libraries with certified teacher librarians can have a positive impact on student literacy and learning (Jones 2007, Lance 2000, 2002, etc., Small 2008, Todd 2003, and others). These are some of the findings: Student reading scores increase. Students read more. Students say they enjoy reading more. Students are provided with “materials that present more diverse points of view and that better support the curriculum.” Students score higher in (US) English Language Arts tests. Students have increased cultural identity. Collections of print and digital resources to support teaching and learning are more dynamic. Students value teacher librarians as teachers, when they are helped to become independent critical information seekers. (Further reading at http://hubinfo.wordpress.com/background/research/)

Indigenous Literacy Day?

A good day to write a letter!!  Perhaps project manager, Karen Williams  karen@indigenousliteracyproject.org.au would also forward a letter to patron Therese Rein (I don’t suppose anyone would have her email address?).  Perhaps Ms Rein could gain someone’s ear to support our colleagues in the Northern Territory in making sure every school has a well-resourced library and a teacher librarian to support indigenous literacy.

Cheers,

Georgia

BC children don’t want to lose their teacher librarians

I’d love to hear what our children might say in the 35% of government school libraries where students don’t have a teacher librarian?  (In Tasmania the number is close to 50% of all schools, Victoria 35%, WA 40% and the NT almost 95%! See Barbara Combes’ report on the Australian School Library Research Project.) Have these children ever had a teacher librarian? If they had they might be writing stories such as those of British Columbia students who don’t want to lose their teacher librarians.  Go to http://www.bccsl.ca/letters.htm to read some of their letters and stories which were used in April as part of packages sent to education department decision-makers as part of an ongoing campaign to fight school library funding and staffing cuts.

“…the BC Coalition for School Libraries joined with the Children’s Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia (CWILL) for the press release, ’Children and Children’s Authors Rally Behind School Librarians’.”  Children were asked to respond to the possible loss of their teacher librarians. “Some of the letters and stories were faxed to all schools in B.C., to the attention of the principal”!

What might our children say if anyone cared to ask?

(BC teacher librarians also have their say!  See the videoclip at http://schoollibraryprogram.pbworks.com/Video-Project)

School Libraries, the Hub of the School

I continue to be impressed with the great work being undertaken in by the Ontario Library Association for school libraries.  Earlier this year they commissioned a study by the coalition People for Education and researchers at Queen’s University  on exemplary libraries.

As stated in their media release, “Libraries should be the “hub” of the school. For this groundbreaking Queen’s University/People for Education study, researchers examined a number of school libraries to find out what made them more effective than most. Though each library was unique, there were ten essential characteristics that made them “exemplary”:

1. The school library acted as a “hub” of teaching and
learning for the whole school. Both the library and the teacher-librarian
were recognized by the rest of the school staff as playing a critical role
in supporting the educational outcomes of the school.

2. The principal regarded the teacher-librarian as a key
teaching member of the staff and allocated adequate resources to the
library.

3. The principal expected classroom teachers to partner
with the teacher-librarian.

4. The teacher-librarian collaborated with classroom
teachers. They planned lessons together, cooperated on professional
development, and even taught classes together.

5. The principal and classroom teachers understood how to
work with a teacher-librarian.

6. The teacher-librarian did not have to cover excessive
amounts of other teachers’ preparation time.

7. The teacher-librarian was full-time.

8. The teacher-librarian was an active, dedicated and
effective teacher.

9. Classroom teachers and the administrators considered
the library a classroom and a place for learning.

10. The school library had multiple roles, beyond book
selection, reading and research.”

As in Australia, policy and funding have focused for a number of years on literacy teaching paradoxically neglecting the integral role of school libraries.  The situation in our government schools is very similar.

The release goes on to say

1. Funding is the biggest challenge facing school libraries. It determines the amount of time the teacher-librarian can devote to teaching.

2. There is no provincial policy to ensure all schools have fully-functioning libraries. As long a school libraries are not an integral part of the educational system at the provincial level, through provincial funding, and staffing policy the school library cannot realize its full potential

3. A lack of experience and an unawareness of how school library programs can contribute to education often prevents teachers, administrators and policy makers from considering school library programs as an essential component of education. Many principals and classroom teachers have not had the experience with library programs which would allow them to understand how well-supported library programs can contribute to the school’s educational goals.

4. Principals in the study identified the use of the teacher-librarian to cover preparation time as an increasing pressure. Preparation time must be covered by other qualified teachers in the school, and teacher-librarians are frequently assigned this role. The greater amount of time that a teacher-librarian must devote to prep coverage the more restraints there are on instructional collaboration with teachers and the more restrictions on open scheduling

Sound familiar?

For a powerful powerpoint to present to your principal, see the OLA’s

Presentation of the Exemplary School Library Report, Jan. 29/09 at the Library Superconference.

Submissions

Some examples of submissions which have been made to government bodies regarding school libraries.

The Submission from the School Library Association of South Australia to the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, 2005

Submission to the 2020 Summit on behalf of The Hub, 2008.

Submission by SLASA to the National Enquiry into Teacher Education, 2005.

Submission from NSWTF re joint use libraries to the Committee on Public Libraries, 1980’s

Submission from ALIA to the National Enquiry into Rural and Remote Education, 1999

Submission by Sharon McGuinness to the ALIA Workforce Summit 2008.

Submission by the Council of School Library Associations of South Australia to the Senate Inquiry into the Role of Libraries in the Online Environment, 2001.  Submission from School Library Association of Queensland (sub 97) to same.  Submission by ASLA (Sub60) to same.  Sub from WACSSO to same .  All at http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/ecita_ctte/completed_inquiries/2002-04/online_libraries/submissions/sublist.htm

Are there others we should know about?

I hate radio interviews

If you’re lucky and your local radio station has responded to your media release, the interviewer rings you up, tells you they will ring back in 5 minutes to record the interview.  Then you might only get 3 minutes of air time.

It takes some getting used to, and I was always nervous.  Even though I prepared  my 3 or 4 points and had my sound bites, I was still inclined to rattle on with platitudes and clichés, letting the interviewer lead me into wormholes I never wanted to enter.

So how do the successful ones do it?

Practice!

Practice out loud, to a family member or colleague.  Have them listen closely and have them ask the hard questions, the ones you don’t want them to ask, but they inevitably will. Time yourself.  Tape yourself and listen.

Be prepared!

Have three or four points ready and make sure you get them in.  Answer a question briefly and then, before you are interrupted, go on to make the points YOU want to make.

Make your point again!

Have sound bites.  Have key facts ready.  Thanks to ALIA, ASLA and ECU, we have some Australian stats now.  The results of the ASLRP survey are starting to come in:

Over a third of school libraries in Australia have no teacher librarians. (Note: one third of Anglican schools have two OR MORE teacher librarians.)

Half of our government schools  have budgets under $5000. A quarter of these have budgets  of less than $1000! And half the schools in the NT have budgets under $500! (Compare this to those independent schools with budgets of over $100,000!)

If we are talking about equity, we must talk about equitable funding and staffing of government school libraries.

Or use the copious US research.

Do unsupervised library clerks make a difference in academic achievement?

What does make a difference?

• Teacher Librarians planning and teaching cooperatively with classroom teachers.
• Teacher Librarians providing in-service training to classroom teachers.
• Teacher Librarians meeting with the principal, attending faculty meetings and serving on curriculum committees.
• Teacher Librarians managing computer networks that provide remote access to the library’s resources.

None of these activities is properly in the job description of a clerk.  Thus, hiring only a clerk, produces a false sense of economy.  Unsupervised school library clerks do not engage in activities that make a difference.  See the Lance study in Alaska, 1999.

Think about your audience.

Drive radio?  Parent at home radio?  Talk to that person driving to the office.  Talk to that mom or dad at home.

Australia has fallen behind in the OECD league tables for literacy.  We have also fallen behind in our staffing of school libraries.  Is there a correlation?  Well, the research shows having a teacher librarian makes a difference in the amount read. Larger school library collections  with exciting reading materials  increases borrowing.  Larger school library collections mean higher reading scores. (Krashen, Stephen.  The Power of Reading; Insights from the Research. Englewood, CO:  Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1993.)

Want to see your son or daughter achieve their best at school?

Research shows the highest achieving students attend schools with good school library programs.

Scores tend to be 10-20% higher in schools with stronger libraries.  It’s worth the investment! (Lance and Loertscher. Powering Achievement. 3^rd ed. 2005).

Make sure your school has a qualified teacher librarian.

Paint a picture

We’re finding it difficult to meet twenty-first-century demands with nineteenth-century budgets (ALA)

Think before you answer. Buy yourself time by saying, “Do we have many TLs in training? That’s a good question. There actually isn’t any data available, and there needs to be.” Pause before you begin your answer to get your thoughts in order.

Flag important statements by saying, “The most important thing here is . . .” or “The real issue here is . . .” you not only get the reporter’s attention, you get the audience’s attention too. These are also good transitional phrases when you want to redirect the interviewers  question to your key message.

Stay on message. If an interview starts on the wrong topic, be sure to bring it back to what you’re really there to discuss. You can do that by “bridging,” such as, “Well, that’s an interesting question, but what I really hope you’ll understand about school libraries is they are the centres for teaching and learning about finding and evaluating information.  Teacher librarians are our specialists in information literacy. ”

Hook your interviewer by saying “There are three important points here . . .” the interviewer (and the audience) is automatically waiting for those three points. It grabs the interviewer’s attention, and they can’t cut you off before you finish the three points without annoying their audience.

Be concise. Avoid jargon and clichés. Don’t give a speech.

Speak with a smile. Your voice will sound warmer!

These and several other techniques can help you keep control of the interview, make sure you get your points across, and speak directly to the audience. Your conversation must always be geared to the listener—not the interviewer.

Well, those are some of the tips from experts.  And I never became one.  I’m leaving that up to you  My greatest admiration to anyone who gives it a go!  Listen to a successful interview on Life Matters ABC Radio National 22 July, ‘Teacher librarians are a dying breed in the education system’. Richard Aedy interviews Mary Manning, Executive Officer, School Library Association of Victoria.  It may help that Richard’s mother was a TL!!

Sources: ALA A Communication Handbook for Libraries, 2004

AASL Crisis Toolkit, 2008

Let’s say it again

Has mid-winter malaise set in with you too? Hard to take myself away from a good book in front of the fire, until I rouse myself to remember every Australian child needs a good book too!  And someone to recommend it.

So let’s say it again.

We need to let politicians and the public know how inequitable school library services are in Australia, whether we have nice new BER “infrastructure” buildings or not.

Northern Territory remote schools have no teacher librarians (TLs). Western Australian primary schools have no TLs appointed. Victoria and the ACT count TLs as part of teaching staff, may or may not have a teacher deployed in the library and do not require that teacher to be a teacher librarian.  Probably one in ten public primary schools in Victoria have TLs and more and more secondary teacher librarians are being replaced by less expensive librarian options.

An Australian Education Union survey of South Australian government school library staffing in 2001 found that “a third of all schools are understaffed and/or staffed with unqualified personnel” (Spence 2002). South Australian teacher librarian positions are under further threat in current enterprise agreement negotiations. Even in Tasmania and Queensland, principals are being forced by inadequate staffing budgets to downgrade staff in school libraries, often to clerical positions.

It’s not good enough.

Meanwhile, since the early 1970s, NSW primary schools have been staffed with trained teacher librarians.  While too often used for teacher relief planning time (and therefore unable to easily plan collaborative teaching themselves), they nevertheless are professionally trained in collection management, literacy support, leadership, collaborative teaching and other unique whole school skills.

If we are talking about equity, if we are talking about improving literacy and information literacy, if we are talking about authentic, resource-based learning and quality teaching, we must agree that ALL Australian students deserve professional school library services managed by professionally trained teacher librarians.

Write to your federal and state representatives now. Write to your national and state parent associations. Write to your national and state teacher unions. Write to your capital city and local newspapers. Pass this message on to your friends, colleagues and decision makers now.

And don’t be fobbed off by federal members who say it’s the state’s responsibility.  In the past, immense measures were made federally to improve Australian school libraries. In the present, here are some questions to ask your local federal member.

What can and will the federal government do:

• to assess the current quality of all school library staffing, funding, and scheduling?
• to tie funding so that states can and must adequately staff and fund school library programs and services?
• to ensure inclusion of the role of teacher librarians in all literacy, information literacy and quality teaching and learning policies and documents?
• to develop national school library standards?
• to increase teacher librarian training positions in university programs?
• to include an understanding of the collaborative role of teacher librarians in preservice teacher training?

Ask direct questions, until you get direct answers.

Now to copy and paste a few letters, and get back to my good book.  Lucky me.  I always had a good school librarian.

georgia