Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor of your local paper are read by many in the community. Oppose school autonomy with letters like these:

TL Inquiry Report examined in Education Review

Two articles this week in Education Review are available for you to circulate with permission far and wide.

They are:

Darragh O’Keefe’s report on reactions to the Inquiry Report, TL report a good start, says sector  and

Protecting an endangered species, where Georgia Phillips critiques the Inquiry Report.

Also this week’s Australian Teacher Magazine:

• ASLA President Darlene Hill’s excellent article, “It’s clear – Australian teacher librarians are worth their weight in gold.”
• an excellent Editorial “Wanted : Teacher Librarians”
•  The Jewellery Box Mystery (Online research task set by a Queensland TL)
• and a report on Simultaneous “Storytime Success” with a photo of Penrith PS library and teacher librarian, Ian McLean.

Everyday advocacy

Carolyn Foote, an Austin, TX teacher librarian who will be part of the upcoming Your School Library advocacy online conference, recommends creative use of web tools in fighting cuts to staffing and funding to inform your community and politicians of your value.  They include student made websites to “Save Our Library”, online petitions, wikis and blogs to Rescue Our Librarians. “It’s time to use the tools at our disposal to demand equity for students in our own districts and across the country. And we have to be willing to take matters into our own hands,” says Foote.

“When communities accept library closings as ‘the new normal,’ then all libraries are in trouble,” says Lori Reed, learning and development coordinator at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library in North Carolina.” Reed started the site Save Our Libraries where anyone can share their story of library funding and staffing cuts and the strategies used to stop them.

What can you and your students do to save your library, now and for the future?

See Foote’s School Library Journal article, “Everyday Advocacy,” for the full story.

Media Release: Inquiry reopened

Members of The Hub and the wider education and library communities are ecstatic that the Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, has asked the Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians to be reopened.  The new House Standing Committee on Education and Employment will pursue publication of its report next year.  After 12 hearings in state and territory capitals and 382 submissions, the previous committee had asked many hard questions about the decline of qualified teacher librarians in public schools. And they had been looking for answers.

Devolution of staffing along with insufficient budgets have caused principals in Victoria, Tasmania, ACT and South Australia government schools to opt for less expensive staffing options.  Western Australia has never mandated primary teacher librarians. Queensland teacher librarians are increasingly being placed in classrooms, while the Northern Territory has teacher librarians in only 5% of its schools.  Only NSW staffs all of its schools with trained teacher librarians.

Yet direct links have been found between school library staffing and funding and student academic achievement in over 60 international studies. In its inquiry submission, Softlink included its own survey results linking  qualified teacher librarian staffing and funding with NAPLAN results. A strong correlation exists.

The federal government is well placed to provide national school library standards, as it has in the past.  It can link resource funding of new BER libraries with the provision of qualified teacher librarians.  It can collect data on school library funding and staffing and publish this on the My School site. It can fund research and leadership programs on the contributions of teacher librarians to educational outcomes. It can support the re-introduction of tertiary TL training programs and sponsor tuition. These are just some of the recommendations which we hope to see in the Committee’s final report.

Our public school children should not lose out. The Hub has also made a submission to the federal review of school funding which shows the discrepancies between government and non-government school library funding.

Parents can learn more about the value of teacher librarians and school libraries at our My School Library site.

Georgia Phillips

for The Hub

Teacher librarians are…vital…, especially in schools where home literacy practices don’t…support school literacy practices.

Bendigo Advertiser 1 November 2010  excerpt from  “Storytime in Eaglehawk” by Lauren Mitchell:

Fellow lecturer and Bendigo Regional director of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Sarah Mayor Cox says if parents read one story per day to their child, by the time the child starts Prep, they will have heard more than 1800 stories.

“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see how much more familiar those children will be with a really important and fun part of the school day,” she says.

“They will be able to sit and listen for longer, and will be able to discuss more confidently the story they have just heard.

“Who wouldn’t want to give their children a head start like that?”

Sarah says local schools are working very hard to make sure they are offering the best literature programs possible, however governments needed to do more.

“I think the biggest contribution the community can make is to urge politicians to put education at the centre of all their policies and to fund education better,” she says.

“The federal government is currently conducting an inquiry into the state of libraries in schools.

“Twenty years ago, most schools had a qualified teacher librarian. Their role was to connect students with books and resources, needed for pleasure reading and for educational purposes.

“This isn’t the case anymore, and I don’t think many of the community realise this.

“Teacher librarians are of vital need, especially in schools where home literacy practices don’t value or support school literacy practices.

BER libraries not value for money without qualified TEACHER librarians

Media Release from The Hub

20 October 2010 (Please forward to your local, regional newspapers, if you are in Victoria)

246 new government school primary libraries are being built with BER funding in Victoria. Most cost $2,000,000 or more. This infrastructure is long overdue, but without qualified staff, these schools will not be getting value for money, according to Georgia Phillips, co-founder of The Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia.

Says Mrs. Phillips, “Recent research has shown that only 13% of Victorian primary schools are staffed with qualified teacher librarians. This is a decline from 55% in 1983. Many schools employ library technicians and librarians (not certified as teachers) to run school libraries. 12% of these are managed by someone with no formal qualifications of any kind, including volunteer parents.”

“In NSW we haven’t seen volunteers running school libraries since before the 1970 Commonwealth grants,” says Phillips. “In NSW all schools are officially staffed with teachers who are also trained as librarians.”

“Since the early 1990s there has been no government requirement in Victoria regarding school library staffing. With declining budgets, schools are often forced to go for cheaper options, even when they know that teacher librarians make a difference to student learning.”

Award winning children’s author, Phil Kettle, knows teacher librarians make a difference.  Yet in his travels to schools, he too has seen their numbers diminish. “Teacher librarians are essential in ensuring children are provided with diverse reading opportunities. They encourage the wide reading which increases literacy levels.”

Nathan Godfrey, of Softlink International, a leading developer of library systems, confirms this. Softlink has undertaken a study of NAPLAN results and school library resourcing and found a strong relationship between the two. These findings were included in the Softlink submission to the recent federal Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in Australian Schools.  Mr Godfrey said “These results are of interest to the whole education community.  There was a significant positive correlation between a school’s library budget and NAPLAN Reading Literacy scores. Importantly, there was also a significant positive correlation between the number of school librarians employed in the school and literacy scores.  As a result of this research, Softlink’s own product development is focused on using the school library system to provide additional guidance to teachers on student literacy levels.”

The Federal Inquiry took evidence of over 60 studies internationally confirming this. Dual qualified teacher librarians make a difference to student literacy and learning. Reading scores rise. Students read more.  Their writing and spelling and vocabulary improve. Academic results improve regardless of socio-economic considerations.

“Yet, the Victorian government seems unaware of the research.  They refused to appear at the hearings,” says Mrs. Phillips. “While we still await the federal inquiry report, interrupted by the election, the Victorian government must take the initiative. If they truly care about literacy and student achievement, they must require and support the staffing of their school libraries with qualified teacher librarians.”

Contact: Georgia Phillips, The Hub, 0419423570, https://hubinfo.wordpress.com

Contact: Phil Kettle   0417663396

Contact: Nathan Godfrey, Softlink Chief Operating Officer  07 3124 6111

While we wait for the Inquiry report, NSW burns

Media Release

27 August 2010

The Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia/

Illawarra School Libraries Association

NSW government to cut teacher services to save money

In yet another attempt to bring its financial house in order, the NSW government has ordered a review of services, including those to schools and school libraries.  The proposed restructuring to save on duplication will instead eliminate some vital services entirely.

In the past, NSW School Library Services had 10 education officers, 4 librarians and 8 support staff. Both Liberal and Labor governments terminated many such central support services, including regional consultancies. The School Libraries and Information Literacy Unit which remained has had a manager and review coordinator, journal editor, 3 librarians and 2 technicians. Its journal, SCAN, remains the only state teacher curriculum support journal. Its contribution to the national schools cataloguing database is the largest, along with Western Australia.

“In an attempt to save some 7% in costs, half of these positions will be lost,” says Georgia Phillips, co-founder of the Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia. “Not of ‘duplicate services,’ for there is no other body providing advisory services to schools concerning their libraries or reviewing teaching resources.  No other body runs professional development targeting teacher librarians and school libraries. No other body advises the NSW DET on library and resource policy.”

“The recent DET exercise in envisioning the future of 21^st C school libraries,” says Mrs. Phillips, “was a lengthy collegiate online forum led by overseas and Australian academics. It now seems a wasted effort, its recommendations ignored. Once again money comes before teaching and learning.”

Margaret Cooper, President of the Illawarra School Libraries Association says, “I have been a teacher librarian for 20 years and I am horrified to think that DET will be withdrawing specific support for school libraries under the proposed restructure.”

“Teacher librarians,” says Mrs. Cooper, “are unique members of school staffs. We are virtually on our own and without the support of the School Libraries team, teacher librarians will struggle to provide many learning opportunities.”

“The Unit provides website development support and promotes new digital learning tools to enable students to make sense of the vast amounts of information available on the internet. Having attended one of their courses this year, even my experienced eyes were opened and I have started using new digital tools that I had not had time to research on my own. Yet their training role has been eliminated.”

“Many teacher librarians,” says Mrs. Cooper, “have very limited administration time and without the training and support of the School Libraries Unit, teacher librarians will not be providing the services that 21st century schools need, which is, ironically the aim of the restructure. Why would anyone consider removing the very leadership that will ensure that teachers adopt and use the digital learning tools that our students deserve to encounter in our schools today?”

Jane McKenzie, teacher librarian and assistant principal at the small country school of Quirindi, also expressed her concern. “The Department’s own submission to the federal Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians now looks a sham. It affirmed the vital role of school libraries in learning and the need to ‘ensure equity and capacity for libraries as dynamic, high-tech 21C learning centres’ yet now it proposes to undermine these.”

“The unit gives statewide policy and procedural support to school leaders, holds purpose built workshops and generates teaching and learning support materials statewide for teachers,” says Jane.

And Jane asks, “Aren’t all public schools, even remote ones, entitled to quality digital and book resources, advice and support on 21st century resource and information services, the best in terms of literature and non-fiction books (e-books and databases) that support authentic, enquiry based learning?”

“Is the name of the game” says Mrs. Phillips, “really about improving learning and literacy, quality teaching and school leadership, or is this only another cost cutting exercise to save a government on its last breath?”

Contact

Georgia Phillips, The Hub 0419423570, 42942966

Margaret Cooper President ISLA, 4295 1334, 043-837-7391

Jane McKenzie, Quirindi PS (02)6746 5748,  0429074443

Write a Letter to Your Editor Today

A Template Letter to Your Local Newspaper:

Australia has lost over one third of its qualified teacher librarians under the policy of empowering local schools. Once a world leader in school libraries, we are about to lose our standing and our profession. How will Julia stop the decline and still extend the Empowering Local Schools policy she announced last week? The answers can be found in an inquiry she requested as Education Minister.

The report from the four-month long House Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians, interrupted by the election, awaits completion. After 382 submissions and twelve hearings in all states and territories, the cross party House Committee on Education and Training chaired by Sharon Bird, MP, has come to grips with the complex issue of declining numbers of qualified teacher librarians in our state schools.

The loss of tertiary training programs, inadequate staffing budgets, lack of national standards, ignorance of international research linking well-staffed and well-supported school libraries with student literacy and learning and the loss of state school advisory services and their corporate knowledge are just some of the causes which state and federal governments must address. Ask what your candidates will do to facilitate this report. Every Australian student deserves a quality school library with a qualified teacher librarian.

(Include your name, address and contact phone number.)

My letter published in Illawarra Mercury 11 Aug 2010.

Hearings end: Will our profession be allowed to die?

Media Release
The Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia
14 July 2010, Australia

The last of 12 hearings for the federal House Education Committee Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians ended 13 July, in Perth. Dr. Dennis Jensen, deputy chair of the Inquiry, has stated, “There almost seems to be a systemic and deliberate policy of running down the teacher librarian profession. It is staggering that of the places we have been, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are the two that are the most rundown.” Later, Dr. Jensen reiterated, “The interesting thing is that some of the anecdotal evidence that we have been getting, particularly in some states, is that this is a profession that is being allowed to die. Whether it is passive or active is another question.” (See Brisbane transcript)

“Unless parents and the federal government can intervene, it’s possible that teacher librarians will disappear in Queensland by 2013,” said Georgia Phillips, co-founder of The Hub, Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia, and one initiator of the federal inquiry. “NAPLAN test results have shown Queensland schools are well behind the other states in tests of reading, writing, spelling and grammar. If the government is looking to improving these results, there is a specialist available to every school who can help – the teacher librarian.”

Over 60 studies have shown a direct improvement in student academic achievement when school libraries were staffed by qualified teacher librarians

The Inquiry heard in Brisbane of preliminary findings from Softlink, provider of library managment systems (sub255), demonstrating a correlation between higher NAPLAN literacy scores and school library staffing and budgeting. Yet state departments of education, with the exception of NSW, no longer require the staffing of their school libraries with qualified teacher librarians, nor are any ensuring that budgets continue to match even 1970 levels.

Departments of education witnesses appearing at each state hearing (except for Victoria, which refused to appear) admitted their lack of knowledge of the evidence. What would these studies tell them?

In regard to literacy alone, studies replicated in 19 US states and one Canadian province show that test scores rise with the development of well-funded school library programs headed by certified teacher librarians. The relationship between library program development and test scores is not explained away by other school or community conditions at the primary level. (Summarized in School Libraries Work! Scholastic,2008)

What are principals, who in almost all states now determine their school staffing, told of such studies? Despite the federal government’s Quality Teacher reforms,
o no PD for principals has focused on supporting school libraries or the development of excellent TLs to improve student academic achievement;
o no federal program has examined staffing, training needs, or use of teacher librarians to improve student learning and literacy;
o no summary of the international and national research on best practice in school libraries has been made available to school leaders for decision-making
What do students lose when they have no teacher librarian?

With no professionally qualified TL, what do students lose?
They lose:
o A trained professional who develops a targeted collection of print and digital resources to support teaching and learning
o A teacher who can coordinate a whole school approach to developing student information literacy skills
o A specialist in children’s literature who can excite and encourage the love of reading
o An information specialist who can provide IT, literacy, information literacy, copyright and plagiarism PD to teachers
o A specialist staff member who research has shown can make a difference to student literacy and learning

“You must wonder if state education is really about improving student learning. Or is it strictly about money? Private Anglican schools, for example, often have two teacher librarians, along with numbers of other support staff, and at least twice the budgets of state schools. Where is the equity?” says Mrs. Phillips.

The hope is that the report from this inquiry will provide some answers.

Georgia Phillips
co-founder
The Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia
https://hubinfo.wordpress.com/
0242942966
0419423570

Qld: “Get rid of teacher librarians”

Media Release 11 July 2010

It is possible that teacher librarians will be gone in Queensland by 2013.

Following Tuesday’s hearing in Brisbane, 10th out of 12 in the House Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians, it was revealed that several Queensland regional executive directors of education have endorsed the decision of their principals to “get rid of teacher librarians.” One reason may be lack of funds for Curriculum leadership positions necessitated by the National Curriculum and the National Partnership Agreements.

Education Queensland abandoned a central school library service in the 1980s. The curriculm support service it evolved into ended in 1991.The last position of Education Officer-Curriculum Resources who had liaised, monitored and contributed to policy in all resource service matters in schools is gone.

Education Queensland ended scholarships for the training of teacher librarians in 1992, while Cath Ed have sponsored the training of more than 55 TLs between early 1990s and 2010 with more planned for 2011.

Education Queensland has increasingly allowed teacher librarians to be taken from the library and put into classrooms. Retiring teacher librarians are not being replaced. Now, with support from the centre, seven high schools on the Gold Coast have no teacher librarians.

Under school based management, state school library budgets, for the most part, have remained static or decreased in real terms.

This is in total disregard for the plentiful international research linking teacher librarians with increased literacy and academic outcomes. Research which the Qld DET director of Workforce Futures, Gary Francis, couldn’t say he has heard of.

Dr. Dennis Jensen, deputy chair of the inquiry, stated, “There almost seems to be a systemic and deliberate policy of running down the teacher librarian profession. It is staggering that of the places we have been, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are the two that are the most rundown.” Later, Dr. Jensen reiterated, “The interesting thing is that some of the anecdotal evidence that we have been getting, particularly in some states, is that this is a profession that is being allowed to die. Whether it is passive or active is another question.” (See Brisbane Hearing transcript)

Georgia Phillips, co-founder of The Hub, Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia, and one initiator of the federal inquiry, says, “You must wonder if state education is really about improving student learning. Or is it strictly about money?”

“Private Anglican schools for example, often have two teacher librarians, along with numbers of other support staff, and at least twice the budgets of state schools. Where is the equity?” says Mrs. Phillips.

The hope is that the report from this inquiry will provide some answers.

Further Hearings are scheduled for Adelaide on Monday and Perth on Tuesday.

Transcripts and Hearing programs available at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/schoollibraries/index.htm

Contact Georgia Phillips
0419423570