Oh, the places you'll go with a school library

By David W. Brown,

Jessica Kahn,

and Greg Moore

On Monday, adults throughout the country will don oversized red-and-white hats to read their favorite Dr. Seuss book to thousands of eager schoolchildren in honor of Read Across America Day. This annual event featuring The Cat in the Hat was created by the National Education Association to celebrate Dr. Seuss and encourage students to read.

While reading to children is always an activity worth pursuing, this occasion is also an opportune time to note that too many books remain out of reach to our kids because they attend schools where the libraries have been closed or are barely functioning.

The situation is most dire in Philadelphia.

According to the School District's own assessment, about 206 out of 218 schools in the district have no librarian, 200 have no functional book collection, 140 do not have updated technology, and 200 do not have appropriate spaces for library. This has all come about as a result of having to choose from a number of bad budget options while trying to educate our children in a time of diminishing resources.

We have come into this desperate situation from a variety of paths, but have all arrived at the conclusion that more help is needed than we as a community have been providing. We are a nonprofit exec whose mission is to re-open formerly closed libraries, a retired educator donating books to schools, and a concerned parent trying to engage students to reclaim their underused library space. We believe we have made an impact in a handful of schools but always learn the same harsh lesson: "It's better than nothing, but not nearly what our kids need."

"Better than nothing" should never be an option for children when it comes to education. And, for at-risk students, we do them a disservice by depriving them of a resource that is considered standard elsewhere.

Student access to a school library and diverse reading materials correlates strongly with improved reading scores. Research has shown that print-rich environments are essential for students' literacy development, and this is all the more true for students from low-income neighborhoods. In fact, studies have confirmed that poor children get a larger percentage of books from the school library than their more affluent peers.

Further, the Pew Research Center has found that 81 percent of parents value school libraries because they offer resources and access to information that they do not have at home. Finally, in the most comprehensive study of school libraries to date, the Pennsylvania State Board of Education found that higher standardized test scores were highly correlated with greater library access, more flexible library scheduling, more collaboration between librarians and teachers, and larger book collections. In other words, children do better when they go to a school that has a library.

But simply having books on the shelf does not a library make.

We need library professionals as partners to really make this work. In 2012, a Pennsylvania research study examined the scores of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) reading and writing tests, and reported that students perform better in these tests when their schools have libraries with certified librarians. The study also found that school library programs with certified librarians have an even greater impact on students who are black and Hispanic, as well as those who have disabilities or are economically disadvantaged. Everyone does better when there is a librarian in their school, but at-risk kids benefit even more dramatically.

There is some momentum in Philadelphia around reviving in-school libraries as part of an overall child literacy strategy. But frankly, it can't happen fast enough. While we're all proud of the dozen or so schools in which we've been able to put library programs, it is equally frustrating to admit that we're barely running in place as our children are falling further behind. It's time we rewrote a happier ending to this sad fairy tale. Maybe something like this:

One fish, two fish.

Red fish. Blue fish.

From here to there and from there to here. . .

Libraries are open everywhere.