Student Achievement

Begins in the
School Library Media Center
F A M E 2 0 0 7 L e g i s la t i v e P la t f o r m

“Increases to school library media centers

positively influence test scores,
while overall school expenditures do not.”
—Dr. Donna Baumbach
Making the Grade: The Status of School Library
Media Centers in the Sunshine State and How
They Contribute to Student Achievement

School Library Media Materials
We Know:
• Only one in five of the nonfiction books in Florida’s school libraries were
published in the past five years, and more than one in five of the nonfiction
books in our school libraries were older than 20 years old. Nonfiction
books need to support learning of today’s information, not the facts as
they were understood in the 1980s.
• Higher quality and larger quantities of books are needed to support
Florida’s reading initiatives.
• Recent state funding for school library media materials has remained
constant at $15 million since 2000-2001.
• While per student funding for materials has decreased by 12.6% in the
period 2000-2001 to 2006-07, the average price of a book for school
libraries during the same time period has increased by over 20%. This
combination of decreased funding per student and increased cost per book
continues to erode the quantity, currency, and interest value of books that
are available to Florida’s students.
• Florida schools lag far behind the national average in number of books
available per student in the school library media center and in spending
per student for library books.
We Need:
• At least $18 million to be earmarked for school library materials in the
instructional materials line item.
“[Florida] elementary and middle schools have about 1/2
the number of books per student as the national average;
high schools have about 1/5 of the national average.”
—Dr. Donna Baumbach
Making the Grade: The Status of School Library Media Centers in the
Sunshine State and How They Contribute to Student Achievement
“More interlibrary loans is a correlate of student success in
Florida high schools. Students in the top third of FCAT scores
had a library where 66% more interlibrary loans took place.”
—School Library Systems Advocacy Toolkit
www.crbsls.org/slsa/student-achievement.html
Performance Funding for Teachers
We Know:
• Library media specialists are teachers and are critical to successful
schools.
• Provisions of the STAR Plan as established by the 2006–2007 legislative
budget were at least fair to all instructional personnel based upon job title.
• Repeated studies in Florida and around the country prove that a university
trained library media specialist directly correlates with higher student test
scores in reading supporting the need to recruit, retain, and reward high
performing school library media specialists.
We Need:
School library media specialists to be included in all programs designed to
recruit, retain, and reward classroom teachers. Specifically, the Legislature
should:
• Permit districts to rehire library media specialists after only 31 days after
retirement, with both salary and retirement benefits payable, as is allowed
for classroom teachers; and,
• Include library media specialists in any new performance or differentiated
pay programs.
SUNLINK — The Florida K-12
Library Union Database
We Know:
• SUNLINK stretches the school budget
by promoting resource sharing.
Over 70,000 interlibrary loans were
reported last school year; at an
average cost of $20.52 per title, this
amounts to over $1.5 million in savings.
• SUNLINK promotes high quality materials and up-to-date resources
through collection development efforts and age of collection data.
• SUNLINK helps locate materials in many formats wherever they may
be to help all students to be successful in meeting the Sunshine State
Standards in all subject areas.
• SUNLINK now has over 1.7 million unique titles from 2,695 schools in
every district in Florida; it also contains 25,000 reviewed web sites, over
396,000 book jacket cover images, 500 images from Florida Memory, and
almost 2,000 streaming video segments.
Visit SUNLINK at www.sunlink.ucf.edu.
We Need:
• SUNLINK funding to be restored to $1 million.
Instructional “When school libraries have higher levels of professional
and total staffing, larger collections of print and electronic
Technology resources, and more funding, students tend to earn higher
scores on state reading tests.”
We Know:
• Integration of instructional technologies —Dr. Keith Curry Lance, Director
into the teaching/learning process is a key Library Research Service, Colorado State Library
to student preparation for higher education www.laurabushfoundation.org, 2002
and the world of work.
• Networked information technologies are
critical for linking media center sources of safe, reliable information with K-12 Online Resources
students in their classrooms and their homes.
We Need: We Know:
• The public school instructional technology categorical to be recreated at a • The Department of State’s Florida Electronic Library (FEL) has provided on-
line resource licenses for K-12 student access for the past two school years.
minimum of $51 million.
• For 25% of this funding to be directed for staff development. • The databases provided for K-12
students through the FEL are
only a small percentage of the
cost of the system and provides
“Schools should provide teachers with abundant opportunities
a majority of the hits to the FEL.
to become fluent in using technology to bolster instruction
and help students develop higher-order thinking and • Sharing database licenses by
problem-solving skills.” purchasing them on a state-
wide basis saves significant
—National Staff Development Council per student costs and provides
Plugging Educators Into Technology, 1999 better equity for students.
• The Department of Education is interested in expanding the databases
provided through the FEL by licensing for complimentary databases.
Certification of
We Need:
Library Media • The Florida Electronic Library’s access for all public school students to be
Specialists continued as requested by the Department of State.

We Know: • Support for the Department of Education’s request for $1.2 million for
expanded database licenses.
• Teachers who have been licensed as
library media specialists by merely
passing an exam without any training
do not meet the minimum needs of
students for learning, reading, and
research skills.
• There is NOT a statewide shortage of library media specialists as Intellectual
evidenced by a DOE survey that showed that there are currently 115% Freedom
of the needed instructional personnel with the library media specialist
subject area certification currently employed by Florida school districts
compared to the number of library media specialist positions. FAME supports the right

• Taking a fully trained classroom teacher out of a classroom and placing of students and teachers
them in the school library without training doubly reduces the effectiveness
to access information on a
of our needed workforce.
• Multiple statewide studies of school libraries including a Florida specific wide variety of subjects
study demonstrate the value of university trained library media specialists with differing points of view.
on improved student reading test scores.

We Need:
• University training in addition to passing an exam to be required for
obtaining the library media specialist subject area certification.

“Schools at all levels with a university-trained certified

library media specialist and better staffing (more than
60 hours per week) have higher FCAT scores.”
—Dr. Donna Baumbach
Making the Grade: The Status of School Library Media Centers in the
Sunshine State and How They Contribute to Student Achievement
 Florida Library Association (FLA)
Legislative Platform
FAME acknowledges the irreplaceable role that all types of libraries play
in the intellectual, cultural, social, and recreational lives of Florida’s
citizens, and endorses FLA’s 2006-2007 legislative platform positions
and funding priorities for the State Library, school libraries, public
libraries, university libraries, community college libraries, talking book
libraries, and the regional multi-type library cooperatives.

FAME Mission Statement:

FAME advocates for every student in Florida to be involved in and have open access
to a quality school library media program administered by a highly competent,
certified library media specialist.

2006–2007 FAME LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE

Debbie Svec, Chairperson, North Palm Beach
Marian Cannon, Orlando
Jane Claud, Pompano Beach
Sandra Dunnavant, Green Cove Springs
Louise Freeman, Tallahassee
Roberta Mann, Tallahassee
Sandra McMichael, Jacksonville
Miriam Needham, Ocala
Judith Weaver, Gainesville
Helen Zientek, Palm Beach Gardens

EX-OFFICIO
Dr. Nancy Teger, DOE Liaison, Tallahassee
Belinda Vose, FAME President, Gainesville

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Bob Cerra, FAME Legislative Consultant
Cerra Consulting Group, Inc.
206-B S. Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301
(850) 222-4428 – bobcerra@comcast.net

Florida Association for Media in Education

PO Box 560787, Orlando FL 32856-0787
(407) 275-3777 – www.floridamedia.org
email: info@floridamedia.org