The West Aurora School District in Illinois is attempting to cut its school librarians to be replaced with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education. This move is shortsighted at best and lacks an understanding of the importance of Information Literacy Skills for students who are growing up in the “Information Age.” Not only do school librarians teach children to love reading, a critical foundation skill for education of all kinds, but they also teach students to critically analyze the information that they are being constantly inundated with. Without this skill, students will not have the skills they need to navigate an information saturated world.

PARCC Scores

What is even more frightening is that these cuts to the library are coming at a time when the students in West Aurora are drastically underperforming in the English Language Assessment of PARCC. It has been proven through a multitude of studies that a strong library program has a direct and drastic positive influence on student test scores in areas of reading, English, and literacy. This means that these cuts to the school library in West Aurora are even more devastating for the students and further ensuring that they will not gain the skills that they need in this district.

The Importance of School Libraries

School libraries staffed by full-time professional staff are incredibly important to academic life and study after study have proven that fact. Over the past 20 years, numerous studies have shown that elementary schools with at least one full-time certified teacher-librarian performed better on state tests. In a 2010 study conducted in Colorado, more children scored "proficient" or "advanced" in reading in schools with a full-time, credentialed librarian than those without. In an article published in 2015, the authors reviewed a multitude of studies that consistently show that students who have a full-time librarian in their schools perform better on their reading and writing scores than those who don’t have one.  One study, "Pennsylvania School Libraries Pay Off: Investments in Student Achievement and Academic Standards", revealed that students with full-time librarians in their schools are almost three times as likely to have “advanced” writing scores, compared to those students without full-time librarians.

For more information about the importance of school libraries, please take a look at this website.