[LM_NET] Validity of Library Research

[Laura Brooks <BrooksLa@NORTHVILLE.K12.MI.US>]

Hi all,

At the risk of rankling all of my colleagues, I'm going to assert that
the truth lies somewhere between Dr. Friedman's analyses and Shonda's
heartfelt response. I think we have to be aware that  all research
contains biases and that good researchers publicly acknowledge this and
do not let it color the results or interpretation of data. Furthermore,
I'd admit that I've been hesitant to use the "state studies" we so
heavily purport as the gospel truth because I <gasp> do not feel that
they are statistically significant enough: either they use too narrow a
pool of subjects (students from primarily only poor socioeconomic
groups) or they are too broad in scope. The MI report finds that
students who score the highest on the state standardized were 4 times
more likely to have a flexibly scheduled library- is that at  the
elementary level? In my district, I am an elementary media specialist,
we are on a very rigid fixed schedule,  and the students score in the
90th percentiles on tests. The average IQ of our 3rd graders is 120. We
have a very affluent community with a high level of parental
involvement. Sad to say, but I don't  always think we can take a huge
amount of credit for results like this. Do these studies account for
anomalies such as this? I just don't think there is a concrete
correlation between media specialists and student achievement except for
high need districts. We need to face that the research summaries like
"School Libraries Work" have their own agenda and biases just as Dr.
Friedman does. To be taken seriously as professionals, we need to own
this  and start conducting more statistically significant (larger scale)
studies that take into consideration the "nurture" variable. Just my 2
cents.

Laura Brooks
Library Media Teacher
Northville, MI
brooksla@northville.k12.mi.us 

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