Gotham's Grand Vision

There's no mistaking the newly built Clara Barton School library in the South Bronx. Its bright orange path, with matching "L!brary" sign and double doors, stands in vivid contrast to the school's drab pre-1920s interior. Students ranging from pre-kindergartners to sixth graders gladly trek to the fifth floor, to an oasis where books and computers are set amid comfy chairs and tables in a space bursting with color and creativity. Growing up in this economically depressed neighborhood of New York, many of Clara Barton's students would not expect to read from new books or have access to a state-of-the-art library created expressly to raise their level of academic achievement. But now their library is the centerpiece of an ambitious plan to reinvent the role of school libraries.

It's not often that the nation's largest school system—with 1.1 million students and an estimated $11 billion annual budget—is handed an attractive idea on a silver platter. But that's exactly what happened in the spring of 2000, when the Robin Hood Foundation, a private charity committed to helping New York's poor, approached the Board of Education's Jonathan Levi, an executive assistant to Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy. Robin Hood and its board of directors—a high-profile who's-who that now includes head of Miramax Films Harvey Weinstein, billionaire hedge-fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and Good Morning America cohost Diane Sawyer—came to the conclusion that one of the best ways to combat poverty was through education. And what better way to improve the education of New York's children, reasoned Robin Hood, than to transform all 656 elementary school libraries. To help accomplish that formidable goal, Robin Hood offered the city's Board of Education one dollar for every three that the board committed. The foundation also guaranteed that every participating library would receive a generous supply of free books, as well as the expertise of a team of top education consultants, a training program for teachers interested in becoming librarians, and a complete facelift courtesy of some of the city's best architects. It was an offer the city simply couldn't refuse.

Since reopening last fall, Clara Barton's expanded 2,100-square-foot library (it used to be a dreary 1,000-square-foot room) has been buzzing with eager kids perusing the metallic stackable bookshelves, jumping onto one of the Apple computer terminals, or attending a performance or reading in the library's mini-theater. Many of the school's 920 pupils have also been making a beeline to the library's 10,000-title collection—more than three times as many books as before. "I consider it a major coup if I can get [the boys] to trade in their basketballs for books," says school librarian Elliot Gorlin. "They haven't traded in their basketballs for books, but they carry books as well as basketballs now."

The library's price tag? About $450,000, and that's not counting the many materials that were donated, says Henry Myerberg, the project's chief architect. But as Myerberg, a partner in Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer, points out, a library occupies only five to 10 percent of a school's total real estate, but serves 100 percent of its students and teachers, as well as parents and local neighbors. "Now that's leveraging dollars," says Myerberg, who easily persuaded nine of his colleagues to redesign other school libraries throughout the city.

Those familiar with New York City's ailing school libraries may view Clara Barton's exceptional library as little more than a pleasant anomaly. But for the many community leaders, parents, and educators long acquainted with the school, its vibrant, high-tech library most resembles a miracle. Perhaps equally surprising, the largesse that helped its metamorphosis into a hip destination for learning has its roots in an unexpected source: the private sector.

It's a blustery January day, and Lonni Tanner, Robin Hood's director of special projects, and some of her colleagues—Myerberg, Pam Berger, an educational technology consultant, and Carol Blumenthal, an education consultant—have gathered to discuss the program's unfolding plans. Six more cutting-edge school libraries are expected to roll out in March and three more will be launched later this spring. If the project is fully successful, almost 600,000 elementary school children will have access to top-of-the-line educational facilities and resources in what would amount to the largest school library reform project in the country. Equally important, the revolutionary joint venture could provide a successful example of public and private collaboration for the rest of the nation.

"We're not in the library business," says Tanner, when asked about the ambitious project. What Tanner means is that school libraries are not an end onto themselves for Robin Hood—they're merely the best vehicle for achieving a greater goal: raising the literacy level of New York's public school kids. "Our dream is that every child will read at least at grade level," she explains, emphasizing the statistic that approximately 60 percent of the city's students read below grade level. "Our goal is really to get kids to read and to become lifelong learners and to improve."

Founded 14 years ago by three high-powered Wall Street execs, Robin Hood was quick to recognize the empirical link between good school libraries and superior reading skills. As recent studies such as library researcher Keith Lance's have concluded, a surefire way to improve student academic achievement is to create a great school library—simply stock it with good books, staff it with qualified librarians, and standardized test scores will rise.

Still, Robin Hood left little to chance. The philanthropic organization carefully studied everything from the best methods to train librarians to the most effective ways to create physical spaces that promote learning by virtue of their innovative designs. (For more on library design and learning, see "The Shape of the Tomorrow .") "One of the really significant things about this project is the fabulous marriage between us, instruction, the architecture, and the training of the would-be librarian in a very new way," says Blumenthal, former head of the Nassau (NY) School Library System. "This whole initiative has a lot of elements; we're designing a place that supports a new way of looking at libraries holistically. Every piece fits together, and our bottom line is how can we help kids learn."

A significant piece of that puzzle includes building stronger relationships between school libraries and principals. Robin Hood's team, for example, has required that each school receiving help create a library advisory group—a board of directors that meets regularly to ensure that the library becomes an integral part of the school and community. The committee is to be made up of important "stakeholders," including the school librarian and principal, teachers, parents, representatives of the local public library and, in some cases, officials from the nearby zoo, botanical garden, and museum.

Robin Hood has already embarked on a massive effort to train librarians in developing collaborative curriculums and integrating information literacy and technology skills into the classroom. Curriculum mapping—working with individual teachers to integrate library resources with the year-round academic agenda—is already in place at the Clara Barton School, with Gorlin at the helm. A group of experts, including Berger, Carol Kuhlthau, chair of the library and information science department at Rutgers University, and Jackie Mancall and Sandra Hughes of Drexel University's College of Information Science and Technology, provided 50 days of preparation to Gorlin and nine other librarians before their libraries were even rebuilt. Why such an emphasis on training? Unskilled librarians staff many of the city's public school libraries, and there are less than 30 school librarians with master's degrees in library science because graduate education is not mandated. In order to build a great library project, Berger cautions, "You can't have the philosophy of 'build it and they will come.'"

Clara Barton has already seen some compelling anecdotal evidence that its library is worth its weight in gold. Teachers there, for example, had considered Nico Perry an average student. But since the library opened six months ago, the once-reluctant fifth grader has become an avid reader and writer, says James Parker, the school's principal. Perry now regularly scores higher on classroom exams, and his principal predicts he'll score level four, the top ranking, on this year's citywide math and reading exams. Parker's enthusiasm might not be too pie in the sky: there's already quantifiable evidence that the library is playing a key role in improving students' academic test scores. Last fall, fifth graders at the predominantly Hispanic and African-American school demonstrated a 12 percent hike in their citywide social studies achievement exams. "The library has directly impacted our academic success," Parker says. "It is without question the most important component of a school; there's nothing worse than a school without a library." The principal credits Gorlin, who helped students prepare months in advance, by integrating their classroom curriculum on the American Revolution with library activities and resources.

That's exactly the kind of talk that Tanner wants to hear. After all, Robin Hood's donors and the city have put a lot of money into bankrolling this project. The initial pilot program has secured close to $7 million: Robin Hood vowed to put up $1.8 million in cash ($1.15 million of which came from Credit Suisse First Boston and $250,000 from Barry Diller's USA Networks), and the Board of Education committed $5 million. The next 15 to 20 schools already have $17.5 million in the pipeline ($5 million each from Robin Hood, the Board of Education and the city, and $2.5 million from the New York City Council). Then there's about $20 million of in-kind contributions from the likes of HarperCollins, Scholastic, Follett, Cisco Systems, Sagebrush, and Apple Computers.

Tanner spearheaded this entire effort in 2000 without fully realizing what she was getting into. "At the time, you don't think about all the barriers to that success," she says. While the foundation has spent the last 14 years trying to improve the quality of life for poor New Yorkers and their children, it hadn't ventured into fixing school libraries as a way to foster education. And Tanner didn't realize what an enormous undertaking it would be.

Soon after Tanner received a guarantee from Scholastic to donate one million books to the cause, she approached Schools Chancellor Levy in June 2000 with a proposal to build a new generation of school libraries with architecturally innovative designs. But there were two caveats: not only was this an unproven experiment, but making it work would require a long-term commitment from everyone involved. So Tanner made sure the offer was irresistible. In addition to its financial backing, Robin Hood promised to ensure that all new libraries would be fully rewired, and equipped with books, computers, and other instructional resources—if the city arranged to pay for the salaries of a full-time certified librarian and a paraprofessional for each of the schools in perpetuity. Such a pledge doesn't come cheap. Those salaries, including benefits, and the cost of extended weekday and weekend library hours, which the city also agreed to pay for, will run well over $100,000 per school annually, says Craig Levine, the Board of Education's director of special projects. Staying true to character, Tanner kept pushing and got the city to double the annual state-mandated library book budget: now instead of receiving $6 per student, the libraries will receive $12 per student. In another coup, she convinced the city to pick up the $12,000 tab for each school librarian to obtain a master's degree in library science from Syracuse University.

Robin Hood and the Board of Education started with 10 schools in the city's poorest areas, where 60 to 80 percent of the kids were reading below grade level and at least 75 percent were receiving federally subsidized free lunches. Other criteria for participating in the program included having a willing, supportive principal, an energetic school superintendent, and a minimum of 1,400 square feet of space for the architects to work their magic. While months of careful planning went into designing the visually spectacular sites, Robin Hood took just as much time creating an intricate system to ensure that the overall concept would work.

"What we're doing from scratch is trying to figure out what the library of the future should look like," says Tanner. "More importantly, we're trying to figure out how the library supports and strengthens and leads in other school reform activities too." That's a tall order, considering that the initiative includes convincing the public that libraries are a vital and necessary link to a school's success.

It's not surprising that roadblocks have emerged. The project's biggest challenge is raising enough money to fund the remaining school libraries. "We're desperately working to try to figure out the right structure to support this initiative," Tanner says. The timing couldn't be worse. New York is struggling to recover its fiscal bearings in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, while also dealing with the economic drag brought on by the recession. In the last six months, about $500 million has been slashed from the Board of Education's budget and another wave of substantial cuts are expected in the next few months, Levine says. Chancellor Levy says the Board of Education is still sticking to its $5 million commitment, but a separate $5 million promise from former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani to rebuild the next wave of libraries is less certain. "We've taken very severe budget cuts, and this program has not been diminished one dollar by the Board of Education," Levy says. "If that isn't a commitment, I don't know what is." Levy predicts the project will go forward, but not within the five-year time frame originally expected. The good news is that both Robin Hood and the Board of Education are committed to building another batch of 15 to 20 school libraries. The objective is to institutionalize a process that will hopefully make it a success. "You can't just build 650 individual little entities and think that they're going to thrive," Tanner says. "There needs to be something central that is supporting their sustainability."

The Board of Education obviously lacks the infrastructure to pull off a deal of this scope and magnitude, and Levine admits that the city might not have dared to venture into such a labor- and resource-intensive plan on its own. That's precisely why Robin Hood took so many of the project's crucial support structures into its own hands. Take, for instance, the supply of books: after Tanner acquired a donation of one million books from Scholastic, HarperCollins matched the deal, and both publishers allowed consultants like Barbara Kiefer, an associate professor of education at Columbia University, to handpick the titles with help from school librarians, teachers, and principals. Librarians also have the option of selecting books they feel fulfill the special needs of their communities. Follett, a major book distributor, has also volunteered to process and catalog the books for free.

To ensure accountability, Robin Hood hired Policy Studies Associates, an independent research and evaluation firm based in Washington, DC. Through surveys and classroom observations, the firm will determine how the libraries support, influence, and shape the schools' other instructional programs, as well as how their activities contribute to improving reading and literacy skills, says Bruce Haslam, the firm's managing director. Since this is a long-term proposition, the process isn't expected to yield results until at least a year after the libraries open, at the earliest. However, there are some things about evaluating a library that are simply immeasurable, such as the look on the face of a young boy reading his favorite book or a girl jumping for joy over being surrounded by so many books. Tanner says there's already evidence of change because kids have been swarming to the new library and principals call her at 11 o'clock at night to talk about the project. "This is the most challenging thing I personally have ever done in my life," she says. "This is a 24/7 project. Every principal has my cellphone number and my home number, and I have theirs."