Doug Johnson

The “M” Word
Head for the Edge Jan 2003

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence…on pain of liquidation. George Bernard Shaw

If the current economic trends continue, I expect this spring to be preparing for yet another storm of budget cuts swirling around my district. This is no isolated shower. This weather front runs across the nation. As the clouds gather, listen carefully, and throughout the maelstrom you’ll hear it: the M-word in loud and rueful voices. “What we really need our legislature to do is mandate that every school have a library media program!”

Ah, those magic mandates. Let’s require by law that every student in our state have access to a good school library collection and librarian. The research says it’s a good thing for a whole raft of reasons. Isn’t there a way we can simply circumvent, with a good law or two, these local troglodytes who refuse to be enlightened about school libraries?

To be honest, I am not terribly excited about mandated anything. I think we all agree that strong school library media programs are in the best interest of students, teachers and communities. It’s how to achieve this effectively that I worry about.

As I hear about cuts in library positions being made across the country, this is what I would be asking of those whose jobs are in jeopardy: “What tasks were you doing that were so important that it will be a huge problem for administrators to find others to do them?”

Minnesota has not had mandates for school library programs for many years. When we did have “The Rule,” it was so routinely ignored that it was nearly meaningless. That is why, like it or not:

• Our district’s elementary librarians teach and assess a required part of the state standards and give grades to all students on information literacy, technology skills, life-long reading behaviors, and appropriate use.
• Our district’s elementary media specialists cover prep time.
• Our district’s media specialists are the webmasters for their buildings.
• Our district’s media specialists have network administration duties.
• Our district’s media specialists are in charge of Accelerated Reader in the buildings that use it.
• Our district’s media specialists do staff development in technology.
• Our district’s media specialists serve on building site teams.
• Our district’s media specialists go to PTA meetings.
• Our district’s media specialists serve on curriculum committees.
• Our district’s media specialists meet each year with their building principals to make sure they know their buildings’ goals and work with the building leadership to make sure the library’s goals and budget directly support the building goals.

If they fire our district’s librarians, I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing the principals will suffer too because they will need to find others to do these critical tasks.

It is also why, like it or not, every librarian takes personal responsibility for making sure that as many people as possible (especially those in our community) know about the research that ties library and technology programs to improved academic performance and what our own school’s programs are doing to improve student learning.

I don’t think I am overly idealistic in my mandate-free approach to keeping library positions. Two years ago, our district formed a “choice” elementary school of about 90 students. It’s a model for many new schools we are seeing here in Minnesota - very small, project-based, hugely individualized, teacher-led. The first year they chose to staff a .1 media specialist position. The next year they decided they did not need the position. When they struggled that year with many tasks that that person had done the prior year, they reinstated a .25 media position this year.

When one works without a net (mandate), one tends to pay more attention to the needs of those one serves and perhaps a little less attention to theoretical “best practices.” Best practices are those that keep school libraries vital and indispensable by providing the services that are seen as important by the entire institution. We need to acknowledge that other people in education also have valid perspectives about what is in the best interest of the children we all serve. I know it is exceedingly hard to admit, but we school library media specialists may not always have all the answers. (However, we do have them a frighteningly high percentage of the time.)

We also need to recognize that many, many people resent mandates and the people who are in schools as a result of them. Mandates don’t insure quality, only quantity. And mandates can give the person mandated a false sense of security and an excuse for not providing indispensable services. Mandates can protect the less competent in our profession whose image then reflects on the rest of us. In an “image challenged” profession, who needs that? Even great programs can be endangered by mandates if the need for good communications is not seen as critical and they slip into invisibility.

There are lots of things I’d love to mandate. But expending huge amounts of energy and political capital in trying to get them is akin to spitting in the wind. State library media organizations should look carefully at national and state trends in education. Fewer and fewer mandates and other requirements are coming to schools from all levels of government. All types of requirements are being replaced by accountability reporting. In other words, states and the feds are saying - “Here is what you have to do and how to prove it. We don’t care how you choose to get it done.”

Our profession needs to recognize this trend and prepare our members to meet the challenges this political wind is blowing in by providing tools, techniques and training to empower the building-level librarian. Help is available. Check out the AAL Advocacy Toolkit at < www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/index.html > As the Arab proverb reminds us, “It’s easier to steer the camel in the direction it is already running.”