The disappearing librarians

This morning's paper has an article about the increasing number of Milwaukee public schools with no librarians (often called "media specialists") on the premise. This has been a long-running issue, with a small but well-organized group of librarians demanding that every school have one.

While it is hard to argue against having librarians, the campaign runs up against several problems. A school forced to add a librarian must then cut somewhere else to balance its budget. Presumably this may be a teacher, unless the librarian does double duty as both a teacher and a librarian.

It is not evident that having a librarian makes a difference in student outcomes. The last I looked, I could not find a difference in outcomes between those schools with librarians and those without. Perhaps if we had information on how well the librarian was integrated into the school's educational program, we could find a measurable difference.