The effect of the process of collaboration among elementary school library media specialists, teachers, and principals on student achievement in Georgia elementary schools

Student achievement and its measurement is an issue of contemporary importance. Today, the public and politicians tend to rely upon standardized testing as the most dependable measure of teaching and learning. Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, the guidelines for school library media programs, characterizes student achievement differently from the legislators' more narrow view of standardized testing. The foundation for student achievement with Information Power is the information Literacy Standards for Student Learning and indicators that describe core learning outcomes. This study used the legislators' definition of achievement.; Information Power states that a school library media center program based on collaboration, leadership, and technology provides strategies for improving student performance. Collaboration is defined as a partnership that requires a commitment to shared goals and the mission of the school. A shared sense of responsibility for improving instruction should result in better outcomes for all students.; The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of collaboration among elementary school library media specialists, teachers, and principals on student achievement in 40 Georgia elementary schools, including four Library Power schools. The study sought to determine if the use of collaboration affects student achievement as indicated by the Reading Comprehension scores on Iowa Test of Basic Skills test for 3rd and 5th grades for the years 1994–1999. Forty principals and forty media specialists were surveyed to determine the existence of collaboration in their schools. These data were compared with student ITBS test data to determine if there might be an association between collaboration and student achievement, defined by legislators as standardized testing.; Although this study failed to support any effect of the relationship between collaboration and student achievement in Georgia elementary schools, the most significant finding was the pattern revealing that the higher the percentage of free and reduced priced lunches, the lower the scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in Reading Comprehension.