Impact of Literacy Programs

District Dispatch has posted a new item, 'Department of Education Evaluation Highlights Success of Improving Literacy Through School Libraries Program'

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA) today hails the Second Evaluation of the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries (LSL) Program released by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month, which indicated that students attending schools participating in LSL are performing higher on state reading tests than students in schools that do not [...]



The District Dispatch states:

The Second Evaluation of the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries Program (2009) provides findings on how grant funds are targeted to schools, uses of the grant funds, staff collaboration and professional development, and the relationship between participation in the program and reading achievement scores. The report analyzes data from a survey of school libraries, district performance reports, case studies and test scores.


The study found that grantees roughly tripled their expenditures on books and subscriptions and computer hardware, while nongrantees showed little change. In the first evaluation, grantees roughly doubled their expenditures on these items. In schools that participated in LSL in 2003-04, the percentage of students who met or exceeded the proficiency requirements on state reading assessments increased by an extra 2.7 percentage points over the increase observed among nonparticipating schools during the same time period. However, some or all of the increase may be associated with other school reform efforts that also appeared in the schools. Thus, no definitive statement can be made based on these data on whether LSL participation was associated with improved test scores that was separate from these other programs.