The Role of the Media Specialist to Improve Academic Achievement and Strengthen At-Risk Youth

by Jami L. Jones and Alana M. Zambone, April 2008

American education is failing many students, but especially students of color, from low-income families, with disabilities or those who have limited English proficiency. These students are the focus of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the 2001 revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), which was signed into law on January 8, 2002. As much as educators complain about NCLB, it is difficult to argue against its purpose that all students will succeed regardless of race, ethnicity, family income, dominant language, or disability.

NCLB as a Positive Force

From the passage of ESEA in 1965 to its latest version—NCLB, the goal is to ensure that students who have previously been left out, pushed to the side, and received inadequate schooling will no longer be ignored (Thernstrom and Thernstrom). The message to educators is that they must find ways to reach all students. There are numerous examples of other education legislation aimed at improving educational opportunities for all students, most notably, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which established educational opportunities for students with disabilities. Despite over 40 years of legislative efforts to resolve the conditions that place students at-risk for low achievement and school failure, America continues to face a growing crisis in education. Oftentimes, we blame educational laws such as NCLB and IDEA for the increasing decline of education for at-risk students; however, these laws are not the problem, although regulations and procedures for implementing them may obscure their intent to provide all children with a high quality, appropriate education.

The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives each state the power and the responsibility to provide benefits such as education, while the federal government provides funds for specific services, such as those required by NCLB and IDEA (Yell and Drasgow). Historically, education was the responsibility of each state and they set their own standards and designed their own educational systems. The Federal government has increased its role in response to changes in student populations and growing numbers of at-risk students and has attempted to reform education through legislation and funds to more effectively meet the needs of at-risk students.

States cannot pass education laws that require fewer services than those provided in federal laws, although they can pass laws that require more services than are identified in the federal laws. All school personnel are responsible for implementing educational services that satisfy the intent and the letter of the federal and state laws that govern education. Although media specialists might not be specifically named, they are nevertheless in a powerful position to truly implement the intention of these laws to improve academic achievement. Media specialists are in a strong position to strengthen at-risk students through mentoring, making connections with them and helping them connect to others in the school, and supporting their learning in creative and motivating ways.

What Is the "Turnaround" Media Specialist?

In the book, The Power of the Media Specialist to Improve Academic Achievement and Strengthen At-Risk Youth, Jones and Zambone identify affective and instructional strategies for working with low achieving students. They introduce the concept of systems change to transform the school library into a "turnaround place" for students and schools, and the media specialist into a "turnaround teacher."

What is a "turnaround teacher?" In their renowned longitudinal research to identify the protective factors that contribute to resiliency, Werner and Smith determined that the participants often named a teacher who had "become a role model, friend, and confidant for them" (57). The connection with this teacher gave them the strength to become resilient adults despite childhood traumas and trials. Bonnie Benard coined the term "turnaround" to describe a teacher who could promote resiliency by providing the at-risk student with three crucial environmental protective factors: connection, competence, and contribution (Benard).

The "turnaround" media specialist cares about students and connects with them. She is proactive, creative, and able to think divergently to create a school library program that benefits each of the diverse students in her school. The "turnaround" media specialist analyzes, synthesizes, and applies research findings to build a library program that meets the unique needs of students in the school and community.

The First C: Connection

The first of these "turnaround" qualities identified by Benard is connection. One example of a "turnaround" media specialist is Nelle Martin of West Palm Beach, Florida. When Martin noticed that the same students came alone to the school library every day during lunch instead of spending time with friends in the cafeteria, she sat down and talked to each of them. Martin learned that most were new to the school and had not yet made friends. To help them with this transition, Martin encouraged these students to eat lunch together in an out-of-the-way spot in the school library. She purchased games for them to play during lunch. Sometimes "The Lunch Bunch" students helped Martin by performing minor chores around the media center. Martin was truly astounded to see how these students flourished as they developed friendships within the group and connected to the school through the library. Media specialists who recognize the importance of helping youth develop social skills, make friends, and establish connections can easily replicate the supportive program that Martin developed in other schools. This program won Martin the Florida Association for Media in Education's (FAME) first Amanda Award in 2002. The Amanda Award recognizes media specialists who develop programs that strengthen and develop the self-esteem of students. If Martin had not intuitively understood the value of spending time with students, she would not have learned about their sense of isolation, thus starting a program to strengthen their connection within the school. Often, students at-risk for academic failure are those who do not connect with school.

The Second C: Competence

The second "turnaround" quality identified by Benard is competence. "Turnaround" media specialists use research-based instructional strategies that make a difference. Research identifies a core of effective instructional and behavioral practices and strategies that help students achieve. Marzano, in reviewing his own and others' research, found that "if we follow the guidance offered from 35 years of research, we can enter an era of unprecedented effectiveness for the public practice of education—one in which the vast majority of schools can be highly effective in promoting students learning" (1). In What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action, Marzano organizes research findings into three categories: school-level factors, teacher-level factors, and student-level factors. He writes, "We know what works in education. The research is prolific. The question today is not what works or what does not work. Rather it is why is it that we know what constitutes good teaching and effective learning and yet we fail to implement what we know?" (16).

Let us consider one way that media specialists can combine the "turnaround" qualities of connection and competence to influence what is perhaps the biggest academic shortcoming faced by students—reading. For children to become literate they must have the vocabulary to understand ideas, concepts, and experiences, but many of the students who are the focus of NCLB come to school without the background knowledge to support vocabulary development and literacy. Even the most carefully chosen collection is not going to improve this situation, but a proactive media specialist who connects with students, identifying their interests and strengths as well as their needs, will be able to use her competence to build the students' background knowledge. Interestingly, Marzano found that one way to develop background knowledge is through mentoring. In their resiliency research, Werner and Smith found that mentoring was the most significant way to strengthen struggling youth.

The Third C: Contribution

A third quality of the "turnaround" media specialist is contribution. The impact studies by Keith Curry Lance and his colleagues clearly show how media specialists contribute to the school's academic climate. Although socioeconomic status (SES) is perhaps the most significant predictor for high school dropout and low student achievement, Lance and his colleagues found that after accounting for socioeconomic status, "library media predictors almost always outperformed other school characteristics, such as teacher-pupil ratio and per pupil expenditure" in improving student achievement" (6). The message for media specialists is that an effective school library benefits students. He and his colleagues identify those predictors in the summary of their research, noting that "reading scores increase with increases in the following characteristics of library media (LM) programs: LM program development, information technology, teacher/library media specialist (LMS) collaboration, and individual visits to the library media center (LMC). In addition, as participation increases in leadership roles, so does collaboration between teachers and LMSs. The relationship between these factors and test scores is not explained away by other school or community conditions" (3).

The message for media specialists is that an effective school library benefits students achievement and increases the resiliency of at-risk students. According to Lance, the school library contributes to student achievement when the media specialist collaborates with classroom teachers to deliver instruction; develops and manages quality collections to support the curriculum; integrates state-of-the-art technology into learning and teaching processes; and cooperates with other types of libraries, especially public libraries.

The Media Program as a Tipping Point

If the media specialist doubts her power to serve as the "turnaround teacher" for at-risk students, they need only to look at Gladwell's notion of a "tipping point"—a small focused effort that leads to big changes. In The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Gladwell describes how the theory of "Fixing Broken Windows" can turn around negative situations. Epidemics, which he defines as negative situations affecting a large number of persons [authors' note: low test scores and significant gaps in achievement fit this description], "can be reversed, can be tipped, by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment" (146). One example he offers is his description of how, in the 1980s, one small change turned around the impending collapse of the New York City subway, which was overwhelmed by crime, filth, and trains that did not run on schedule. At the urging of a consultant, the New York Transit Authority focused on eliminating graffiti. Singling out this problem may seem inconsequential compared to other challenges facing the subway system, but the graffiti was viewed as the "symbolic collapse of the system" (142). Eradicating graffiti was the tipping point—the small change—that transformed a beleaguered subway system into one of the world's best. "Turnaround" media specialists recognize the importance of implementing the small changes—the tipping points—that can transform low-achieving students into high-achieving ones. For media specialists, the tipping point for at-risk students is not graffiti, but rather the 3 Cs: connection, competence, and contribution.

Works Cited

Benard, Bonnie. "How to Be a Turnaround Teacher." Reaching Today's Youth: The Community Circle of Caring Journal 2.3 (1998): 31-35.

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2000.

Jones, Jami L., and Alana Zambone. The Power of the Media Specialist to Improve Academic Achievement and Strengthen At-Risk Youth. Worthington, OH: Linworth. 2007.

Lance, Keith Curry. "How School Librarians Leave No Child Behind: The Impact of School Library Media Programs on Academic Achievement of U.S. Public School Students." School Libraries in Canada 22.2 (2002): 3-6.

Lance, Keith Curry, Marcia J. Rodney, and Christine Hamilton Pennell. How School Librarians Help Kids Achieve Standards: The Second Colorado Study. Denver, CO: Colorado Department of Education, 2000.

Marzano, Robert J. What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2003.

Thernstrom, Abigail, and Stephan Thernstrom. No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Werner, Emmy, and Ruth S. Smith. Overcoming the Odds: High Risk Children from Birth to Adulthood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.

Yell, Michael, and Erik Drasgow. No Child Left Behind: A Guide for Professionals. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.