Parent Outreach Toolkit
Existing Resources & Organizations
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The 21 Century Skills Map
(Partnership for 21st Century Skills)
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education. The organization brings together the business community, education leaders, and policymakers to define a powerful vision for 21st century education and to ensure that students emerge from our schools with the skills needed to be effective citizens, workers, and leaders in the 21st century. -
What the research says
School Libraries Work
by Scholastic
Studies talk about student achievement while principals and schools look at test scores. This research foundation paper, updated from the 2006 edition of School Libraries Work!, brings together position statements from a variety of organizations and findings from nearly two decades of empirical studies that cite the measurable impact school libraries and librarians have on student achievement. -
State School Library Associations
This is a list of school associations and their Web addresses. -
AASL's Learning Standards and Guidelines
The Standards for the 21st-Century Learner offer vision for teaching and learning to both guide and beckon our profession as education leaders. AASL's guidelines, Empowering Learners, advances school library programs to meet the needs of the changing school library environment. Finally, Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action includes indicators, benchmarks, model examples and assessments to support school librarians and other educators in teaching the essential learning skills defined in the learning standards. -
AASL Position Statements
You will find AASL’s position statements on this page on many topics such as, School Librarian's role in reading, strengthening student interest in learning and access to resources and services in the library program. -
Institute for Library and Information Literacy Education
(ILILE)
The Institute for Library and Information Literacy Education provides local, regional and national leadership in fostering valuable collaboration among teachers, school librarians and academic faculty who work together to promote information literacy in the K-16 classroom. -
Learning4Life
Learning4Life (L4L) is a national plan for implementation of Standards for the 21st-Century Learner and Empowering Learners: Guidelines for the School Library Media Program.
Important AASL/ALA resources for advocacy:
- AASL: Crisis Toolkit
- AASL: School Library Program Health and Wellness Toolkit
- ALA: Add it Up! Libraries Make the Difference in Youth Development and Education
- ALA: Know Your Stimulus
Other resources for advocacy:
Standards per state model (are very different). You can find these models by going to state department of education Web sites.
Question to ask, Who is teaching our students research process skills?
- Empower yourself like the Spokane Moms did.
- What skills do our students need as they enter the work force right out of high school?
- " Seven skills students desperately need," by Meris Stansbury, assistant editor, eSchoolNews
ALA Press Release: Spokane Moms Win State Funding for School Libraries
ABC Channel 5/KSTP TV INVESTIGATION: Outdated library books
NY Times article and video: "In Web Age, Library Job Gets Update"
YouTube: Letter to Governor John Corzine
New Jersey Association of School Librarians : This wiki is designed for librarians to advocate for their libraries but has useful talking points and templates for letters to legislator's, etc.
