The Missing Chapter in America's Literacy Conversation

Everyone is talking about the literacy crisis. After reading The Atlantic's recent article, I couldn't stop wondering why one part of the story keeps getting left out.

The Article I Couldn’t Stop Thinking About

Editor’s note: I usually don’t write a full article on Friday, but I thought this topic was too important to wait.

I read The Atlantic’s article on America’s literacy crisis the other day, and I found myself thinking about it again today. It tackled many of the issues educators have been talking about for years, including declining reading scores, changing reading habits, shrinking attention spans, and the growing influence of technology on how we consume information. I agreed with much of what the author had to say because these are conversations many of us have been having in schools for a long time. It is exactly the kind of conversation we should be having.

But one thought kept coming back to me.

Over the course of the day, I realized I had spent the entire article waiting for one conversation that never really happened. I kept expecting someone to talk about school librarians.

Maybe this is because I’ve been a school librarian for more than twenty years. Don’t ask me how that’s possible since I’m only twenty-five. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t waiting for someone to defend librarians. I was waiting for someone to ask why, in a national conversation about literacy, we weren’t talking about one of the professions that has spent decades helping children become readers.

The article wasn’t wrong. In fact, I agreed with much of it. It simply felt incomplete because it focused on the literacy crisis without spending much time talking about one of the professions whose work has always centered on helping children become readers. That doesn’t mean librarians are the only answer to the literacy challenges facing our schools. They certainly aren’t. Reading achievement depends on excellent classroom teachers, strong curriculum, supportive families, early literacy experiences, and a long list of other factors. Still, I couldn’t help wondering why librarians seemed almost absent from a conversation about literacy.

If you’ve worked in education for any length of time, you’ve probably seen the same cycle I have. Every few years there’s a new literacy initiative. A new curriculum promises to improve reading scores. Districts invest in intervention programs. Consultants are hired. Professional development is scheduled. New assessments are adopted. Today we’re even asking what role artificial intelligence might play in literacy instruction. Some of those efforts are worthwhile. Some of them absolutely help students. That’s not really what I’m questioning.

What I keep coming back to is something much simpler. If we’re willing to invest millions of dollars in new literacy initiatives, why does the conversation almost never include school librarians? We seem to keep searching for the next solution while quietly overlooking one we’ve had all along.

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I Kept Coming Back to the Research

That question stayed with me long after I finished reading the article. I already knew the research existed because I’ve cited many of these studies over the years in presentations, workshops, and previous newsletters. What I hadn’t done recently was step back and look at the entire body of evidence together. I wanted to know whether the research still pointed in the same direction or whether our understanding had changed over time.

As I started digging into the research, AI actually became incredibly helpful.

I wasn’t looking for AI to tell me what to think. Anyone who has followed my work knows that isn’t how I use AI. I wanted it to do what it does best: help me gather the research faster so I could spend my time doing the part I actually enjoy, reading the studies, comparing the findings, and thinking about what they mean. I used SciSpace to help pull together decades of research so I wasn’t spending hours hunting down articles one at a time.

I’ll admit, I expected to find a much more complicated picture than I did. Educational research evolves over time, schools today look very different than they did twenty or thirty years ago, and I assumed I’d find conflicting conclusions. I expected some older studies that no longer reflected today’s reality, some newer studies pointing in different directions, and probably quite a bit of disagreement among researchers.

That’s not what I found.

Instead, I found more than 30 peer-reviewed studies, conducted over several decades and across multiple countries, that kept pointing in remarkably similar directions. Different researchers used different methodologies, examined different student populations, and asked different research questions, yet they continued reaching many of the same conclusions. Schools with professionally staffed libraries and certified school librarians consistently demonstrated stronger reading achievement, higher levels of reading engagement, improved information literacy, and stronger academic performance.

One study that particularly caught my attention analyzed approximately 2.5 million student assessment results from nearly 1,400 schools. Another study, published in 2023, used a much stronger statistical design to compare similar schools and again found higher reading achievement among students who had access to full-time certified school librarians. By the time I finished reading through the research, I wasn’t surprised by what I found. If anything, I was surprised by how consistent the findings had remained for so long.

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The Research Didn’t Tell Me Anything New

As I worked my way through those studies, I realized something I wasn’t expecting.

The research wasn’t telling me something I didn’t already know.

It was putting evidence behind the experiences I’ve had throughout my career.

I’ve watched students walk into the library convinced they hated reading and leave carrying a book they couldn’t wait to start. I’ve watched reluctant readers become regular library visitors because someone took the time to learn what interested them. I’ve celebrated with students who came back asking for another book by the same author because, for the first time, reading had become something they enjoyed instead of something they simply had to do for school.

Those moments don’t usually show up on a benchmark assessment. They don’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet, and they’re difficult to measure with standardized tests. But they’re the moments that create readers, and that’s exactly what struck me as I read through study after study. The research wasn’t changing my mind. It was validating what I’ve been fortunate enough to witness for more than two decades.

The more I thought about those studies, the more another question began to emerge. If the research has remained this consistent for this long, what has happened to school libraries during that same period? I stopped reading studies for a while and started looking at the numbers instead.

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Then I Started Looking at the Numbers

After spending several hours reading through study after study, I found myself asking a different question. If the research has remained this consistent for so many years, what has actually happened to school libraries during that same period? I stopped reading journal articles for a while and started looking at staffing data instead. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I was simply curious whether the investment we make in school libraries reflects what the research has been telling us for decades.

I kept looking at those numbers, and the more I looked at them, the more I realized they weren’t simply staffing statistics. They were literacy statistics. Every librarian position that disappeared represented students who no longer had regular access to someone whose job is to connect them with books, collaborate with teachers, teach research skills, and help them become lifelong readers. Those numbers don’t explain the entire literacy crisis, and I would never suggest they do. But I also don’t think we can have an honest conversation about literacy while pretending they aren’t part of the story.

Those numbers don’t prove that librarians alone solve literacy challenges. What they do raise is a question I couldn’t stop thinking about. If decades of research continue pointing in one direction, why do our staffing decisions often seem to move in the opposite direction?

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We Keep Looking for the Next Big Solution

The more I thought about that question, the more I realized I’d seen this pattern throughout my career. Education has never lacked people who want to solve problems. Every new literacy initiative begins with the best of intentions because everyone involved wants students to become stronger readers. Teachers want to help. Administrators want to improve outcomes. School boards want to make responsible decisions. Parents want their children to succeed.

That’s why every few years we find ourselves talking about the next big answer. We adopt new curriculum. We invest in intervention programs. We hire consultants. We schedule professional development. We analyze benchmark data and look for better ways to move reading scores. More recently, we’ve begun exploring how artificial intelligence might support literacy instruction. Some of those initiatives are excellent, and many of them absolutely help students. This isn’t an argument against any of those efforts.

What I keep wondering is why school librarians are so rarely included in those conversations. If decades of research continue identifying school libraries as an important part of literacy, shouldn’t they be discussed alongside curriculum, intervention programs, and instructional strategies? It seems odd that we are willing to invest millions of dollars searching for new answers while quietly overlooking one that has been sitting in front of us for decades.

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We Measure What We Value

As a librarian, I spend a lot of time teaching students how to evaluate evidence. I ask them to support their arguments with reliable sources, compare multiple perspectives, and avoid jumping to conclusions based on a single article or social media post. Those aren’t just research skills. They’re habits of mind that I hope stay with them long after they leave school.

It’s interesting to me that education asks students to think this way while we don’t always apply that same standard to ourselves. We talk about evidence-based instruction. We encourage teachers to use research to guide their practice. We expect curriculum decisions to be supported by data. Those are all good things. But shouldn’t staffing decisions be part of that same conversation?

The more I read, the more this article stopped feeling like it was about librarians. It became a much bigger question about whether education follows the evidence when making decisions. If the research consistently points in one direction, shouldn’t that evidence at least have a seat at the table?

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What I’ve Seen in My Own Library

One of the reasons I found the research so compelling is that it gave language to experiences I’ve had throughout my career. I’ve never believed students become readers simply because someone tells them reading is important. Most students already know that. What changes everything is when they discover a book they genuinely connect with and suddenly reading stops feeling like another assignment.

I’ve watched that happen more times than I can count. Sometimes it’s the student who insists they hate reading until they discover graphic novels. Sometimes it’s the athlete who finds a sports biography they can’t put down. Sometimes it’s the student who has never seen themselves reflected in a story until they find the right book. Those moments don’t happen because librarians have some magical ability. They happen because relationships matter. They happen because someone takes the time to listen, understand what a student enjoys, and connect them with something meaningful.

That’s one of the reasons I struggle when librarians are left out of literacy conversations. Curriculum teaches students how to read, and that work is incredibly important. Librarians help students discover why reading matters in the first place. Those aren’t competing priorities. In my experience, they’re two pieces of the same puzzle.

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I’ve Sat on Both Sides of the Table

I’ve also had the opportunity to serve on a school board, and that experience has shaped how I think about this issue. I understand budgets. I understand that every district faces difficult decisions and that every dollar can only be spent once. It’s easy to criticize budget cuts until you’re one of the people trying to balance the budget.

That perspective is exactly why I keep coming back to this conversation. If literacy is truly one of our highest priorities, then shouldn’t we be asking whether our spending decisions reflect that priority? I’m not suggesting every district can immediately hire librarians or that one position solves every challenge schools face. I am suggesting that when we make decisions about literacy, the evidence surrounding school libraries deserves to be part of the discussion rather than an afterthought.

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This Isn’t Really About Librarians

Some people will probably read this article and think, “Of course a librarian would say this.” That’s a fair reaction. I am a librarian, and I care deeply about school libraries. But if I had spent the last day reading more than thirty peer-reviewed studies and they had pointed in a different direction, this article would have looked very different.

What I found instead was decades of researchers, working independently and using different methodologies, continuing to arrive at many of the same conclusions. That doesn’t mean librarians are the answer to every literacy challenge. It does mean they deserve to be part of the conversation. To me, that’s not advocacy. That’s simply following the evidence.

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Maybe We’re Asking the Wrong Question

By the time I finished reading the research and looking at the staffing data, I realized I had been asking the wrong question. Instead of asking why librarians weren’t mentioned in one article, I started asking why they seem to be missing from the broader national conversation about literacy. We spend so much time debating curriculum, instructional strategies, technology, assessments, and intervention programs that we’ve almost stopped talking about the people whose profession has always centered on helping children become readers.

I don’t think school librarians are the only answer to America’s literacy crisis, and I don’t believe the research makes that claim. Reading achievement depends on great teachers, supportive families, strong curriculum, early literacy experiences, and many other factors working together. What the research does suggest, however, is that school librarians have consistently been part of that equation for decades.

As I thought back to The Atlantic article, I realized it wasn’t that I disagreed with it. I simply felt like there was a missing chapter. If we’re serious about improving literacy, then librarians deserve more than an occasional mention. They deserve to be part of the conversation because they’ve been part of the solution for a very long time.

Maybe the next literacy initiative isn’t something we need to buy. Maybe it’s someone we need to bring back.