Pennsylvania

=Pennsylvania = =In 1999 a study of 435 Pennsylvania schools focused on student performance in grades 5, 8, and 11 on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment reading scores.=



=**Study Findings**=
 * Scores on the reading tests increased 10 to 15 points (between 4% and 8%) in schools with adequately staffed school libraries where the school librarian had time to spend on instructional activities.
 * Test scores improved over time when SLMS spent more time teaching collaboratively with classroom teachers, taught information literacy, taught teachers in in-service classes, worked on curriculum and standards committees, and managed technology that supported information tools.
 * Access to databases and the Internet, information resources, and integration of information literacy with the curriculum also were factors in improved student success because of well-developed school library programs.
 * These predictors of academic achievement cannot be explained away by school differences such as: school expenditures per pupil, teacher characteristics (education,experience, salaries), teacher/pupil ratio, student characteristics (poverty,race/ethnicity), or by community differences, adult educational attainment, families in poverty, racial/ethnic demographics.

=**Recommendations **=

The study concludes with five specific recommendations for Pennsylvania school decision makers:
 * 1) School libraries should have funding **for adequate professional and support staff, information resources, and information technology.** Such conditions are necessary if not sufficient alone to generate higher levels of academic achievement.
 * 2) **School librarians** must assert themselves as **leaders** in their schools. It is their responsibility to take the initiative required for **information literacy** to become an **integral part of the schools’ approaches to both standards and curriculum.**
 * 3) Principals can do much to make this possible, including adopting **policies and practices** and communicating **expectations** that encourage **school librarians** to act as professional educators and **classroom teachers** to accept them as **colleagues**.
 * 4) The school library program cannot be limited to the library as a place. Just as school librarians must involve themselves in the design and delivery of instruction, **information technology** must be used to make information resources **available to teachers and students wherever they may be** in the school.
 * 5) While Internet access is important, the school librarian has an important role to play in ensuring that teachers and students have access to **high-quality licensed databases** (such as available through the POWER library project) from which current, authoritative information may be obtained.

[] www.lrs.org/documents/lmcstudies/**PA**/pabrochure.pdf
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