Quality in school library media programs: focus on learning - Perspectives on Quality in Libraries

Library Trends, Wntr, 1996 by Barbara Stripling

Abstract

The quality of school of library media programs is inextrically linked to the quality of education offered in the schools. In a school-reform effort to enhance that quality, schools have evolved to a focus on learning. Following a similar pattern, school library media programs have changed in focus from collections to programs to instruction and, finally, to learning. Research about learning indicates that it must be constructed by the learner and facilitated by a teacher in a caring environment. School library media specialists have pivotal roles in creating a culture in the schools that is learner centered. If that culture is created, validation of the quality of school library media programs will occur in the hearts and minds of children as they discover the joys of learning.

Introduction

Libraries are educational institutions; their quality may be judged according to their fulfillment of that role. But school libraries, perhaps unlike other types of libraries, cannot be judged independently from the schools in which they exist because they are inextricably linked. The success of school libraries depends on the quality of education offered in the school. The definition of quality education' has been undergoing challenge and revision since the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), which sounded a national alarm about the mediocrity in the nation's schools. The immediate (and continuing) reaction of many policymakers has been to demand more in order to boost the quality of the educational system: more time in school, more core subjects, more testing of students, more national curricular standards (Wood, 1992, p. xx).

Many education and management experts have rebutted this policy trend, arguing that what is needed is not more low-quality work but a renewed emphasis on high-quality education. One such expert, William Glasser (1992), has recognized the applicability and value for the schools of the emphasis on quality being adopted by the nation's businesses: "In today's competitive world, only organizations whose products and services are high quality thrive, and our schools are far from thriving" (p. 2). Glasser has noted the power of the emphasis on quality that has emerged from the work of W. Edwards Deming, whose ideas transformed Japanese industry and are now being adopted by American business.

Certainly the first step in raising the quality of education is defining the purpose of education. Education cannot be limited to academic pursuits. It must focus on teaching students how to learn, linking them to the community, and showing them that they can make a difference Wood, 1992, p. 59). Wood has summarized the power of schools to transform lives: "Elementary school can be a place where, in addition to and beyond the mere memorization of facts, children learn to think, to cooperate, and to be actively engaged. It is the place where we can lay the foundation upon which democracy is built" (p. 9). Educators have realized that a focus on learning (as it is broadly defined above) should provide the basis for educational reform; a focus on learning will lead to high-quality schools and student success. Glasser (1992) has summed up this focus in a powerful statement: "Education is the process through which we discover that learning adds quality to our lives" (p. 174).

The organization of schools has not always been built around learning. When public schools first became a national system, they were modeled after factories. Industry had learned how to mass produce items efficiently and effectively; surely children could be most efficiently educated using the same paradigm. Although that model has proven to be flawed for organizing effective education, it has been difficult to replace. Fortunately, the school reform movement has been building in momentum over the past fifteen years. School leaders are again looking at business (as businesses are turning to models based on quality, not mass production); the leaders are blending those ideas about quality with what they know about how children learn and what the primary focus of our educational system should be.

School libraries have evolved in philosophy much as the schools themselves have changed, from a concentration on the "things" of schools (buildings, textbooks, schedules, library collections) that make the system manageable and efficient to an emphasis on individual needs of students and learning supported by caring school communities. The public schools have been slowly evolving since they became widespread early in the twentieth century; school libraries have changed much more quickly because they essentially did not even exist during the first half of the century.

In 1954, only 37 percent of public schools even had libraries, and there were one-third less school librarians than libraries ("In Service to Youth," 1994, p. 26). In 1991, the number of public schools with library media centers had risen to 96 percent, although 17.9 percent of those had no librarian (Ingersoll, 1994, pp. 14, 21). The well-established public library probably provided a model initially, but today's school library media programs have evolved more in concert with educational reform principles than with changes in public library service. A look at the major developments in school libraries since 1950 reveals the evolution of a learner-centered philosophy that will lead schools into a model of quality education for all students.