Kathy Lester is a school library media specialist with Plymouth-Canton Community Schools and past president of the Michigan Association for Media in Education (MAME).

My association, the Michigan Association for Media in Education, appreciates the hard work and in-depth research done by the Education Trust-Midwest in its recent report “2018 State of Michigan Education Report: Top Ten for Education: Not by Chance.”

That report has gone a long way to bringing attention to the facts that “Michigan third-graders are the lowest performing students in the U.S. among peers, based on the state’s assessment; and, Michigan is one of only a few states in the country that has actually lost ground in third-grade reading in recent years.”

Our group supports all the recommendations in that report to improve education and literacy in Michigan. But we believe there is one more important recommendation that should have been included: “Michigan MUST support effective school libraries supported by certified school library media specialists in order to improve literacy in our state.”

Source: School Media Specialists Critical for Resolving Reading Crisis – The Education Trust – Midwest