Teacher-Librarians a Requirement in Iowa (Again)

This article originally appeared in SLJ’s Extra Helping. Sign up now!

Jennifer Pinkowski -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2006

Because of a "clerical error" in 1995, a long-standing requirement that each Iowa school district have a media specialist somehow was left out of the state's education law. Now, 11 years later, it's finally back.

Included as part of the Student Achievement and Teacher Quality Program signed into law by Governor Tom Vilsack on July 1, the mandate requires that each school district have a licensed teacher-librarian. (Districts can get a waiver until 2011 if they already have a staff media specialist who is pursuing certification, or if the librarian or media specialist has an MLS degree but is not certified to teach.)

Iowa librarians are thrilled with the reinstatement. During the mandate's absence, "we lost 195 full-time librarians from Iowa schools," says Susan Craig, president of the Iowa Library Association. "Eighty-five districts had no MLS librarians at all."

Another new element is the language change. No longer are school districts required to have "media specialists." Now they must staff "teacher-librarians."

Librarians say it's not just a matter of semantics. "It's a real change for students," says Kristin Steingreaber, chair of the Iowa Association of School Libraries. "A media specialist focuses in part on maintaining the collection and electronic resources. But a teacher-librarian changes that role. That professional title, 'teacher-librarian,' focuses on instruction."

Craig agrees. "'Teacher-librarian' is more descriptive of what the job is. Each librarian has a teaching license and an MLS degree," she says. "Information literary skills, cooperating with teachers' lesson plans, electronic information: These are all things teacher-librarians are skilled at, and things our students need to know for higher education, the workplace, and lifelong learning."

Overall, the librarians see the new law as a triumph, for recognizing the crucial role librarians play in education. Numerous studies have shown that reading scores improve at schools that have a media center staffed by a licensed librarian. "If the goal is to have an information-literate citizen at the end of an education, it's going to take all of the educational professionals to achieve that goal," says Steingreaber. "We librarians are not just 'keepers of the books.'"