Smart State Shortchanges School Libraries

That's one of the findings of a recent study sponsored by the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The good news? The study also found a direct link between high scores on the Massachusetts achievement test and high-quality school libraries. Indeed, like the now-famous Colorado studies (see "Dick and Jane Go to the Head of the Class, April 2000), Massachusetts researchers proved that students do better academically when they have good school library programs.

The Simmons group set out to prove that connection again because they wanted to coordinate their findings with results on the new Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), a darling of state politicians eager for educational reform. James Baughman, director of the school library program at Simmons and co-author of the study, says that strategy was affirmed by a Massachusetts legislator, Sen. Susan Tucker (D-Middlesex, Essex), a school library supporter. According to the senator, Baughman says, "one of the most important things we did is tie in the school library program with the MCAS. She said politicians will listen to that."

Getting politicians to listen was the chief goal of Baughman and his co-author, Mary Eldringhoff. The idea was to wake them up to the dismal state of school libraries in Massachusetts, which, among other things, ranks 49th out of the 50 states in the number of schools that have libraries and 38th in the number of schools that have certified media specialists per student. At the same time, the study found, for instance, that students in schools with library programs scored higher than those without libraries and that students whose libraries have more books per pupil scored higher than those with fewer books.