California school libraries are losing online resources

from Carolyn JonesCalMatters

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California librarians were stunned when a last-minute budget change deprived elementary and middle schools of an abundance of research materials, potentially leaving thousands of students without resources to complete reports, projects or homework.

Without notifying schools or librarians, the Legislature last week waived $5.5 million to pay fees for online access to Encyclopedia Britannica, the New York Times, PBS videos such as Ken Burns documentaries, scholarly journals and thousands of other online materials used by students and teachers. The reduction will take effect on July 1, 2027.

“We had no idea this was going to happen,” said Greg Lucas, director of the California State Library, which helps oversee the program for California’s 10,000 public schools. “This will have a huge impact on California students.”

The program called Compass is an online database of research and teaching materials reviewed by teachers and librarians. Compass is also available in public libraries, but most of its users are in elementary and middle schools. Since its launch in 2018, the show has received almost one billion views.

Students use Compass for school work and also for leisure. Many of the materials are available in multiple languages. Popular features include National Geographic Kids; Pebble Go Science, which features hundreds of science activities for preschoolers through second grade; and Alexander Street, which offers videos of cultural performances such as the Joffrey Ballet and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Compass is especially important at a time when fewer and fewer schools have libraries — and librarians — to help students with their research. Although nearly 90 percent of schools have physical space on campus for books, journals, and other research materials, only about a quarter of these spaces are staffed by librarians. The rest are served by volunteers, administrative staff, or no librarians at all. California ranks 49th nationally in the number of school librarians, with nearly 10,000 students for every librarian, according to a study of the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Compass is available free of charge to all California schools. If schools subscribed individually to Compass materials, they would spend more than $216 million annually, according to State Library Report . A typical medium-sized school district can pay $100,000 or more for services, an expense that less affluent districts are less likely to face.

The loss of service raises concerns about Internet access.

Without access to Compass materials, students will likely turn to free online resources. However, these materials often contain advertising or track user data, which is a violation of state student privacy laws. They are also less likely to be verified for credibility, a particular danger in the age of artificial intelligence.

“The loss of Compass is catastrophic for the state of California,” said Kate McMillan, coordinator of library services for the Napa Valley Unified School District. “This service is vital. I can’t believe the Legislature allowed this to happen.”

Funding for Compass was included in earlier versions of the budget the Legislature debated over the past few months. However, the final version eliminates funding for Compass after July 1, 2027. Instead, it allocates $5 million to new state screening test for dyslexia and $60,000 for technical support for an online lesson-sharing platform called California Educators Together.

Legislators and Education Budget Committee officials contacted by CalMatters would not comment on why the money was cut.

Meanwhile, librarians are waging an aggressive campaign to save the program. They are emailing Newsom and the Legislature and trying to bring attention to the issue.

Connie Williams, a retired school librarian and former director of the California School Library Association, said losing Compass would exacerbate inequities in the state’s education system. Low-income schools will lose vital teaching resources, while better-off schools will be able to pay the fees themselves, without government assistance.

“The discrepancy will be extremely obvious,” Williams said. “We’re leaving students at the mercy of everything that’s free on the Internet.”

According to her, it is particularly outrageous that this measure is happening just as the state is promoting media and digital literacy in schools. In 2023, California passed a law requiring schools teach media literacy in all subjects, with a special emphasis on teaching students to spot fake news, determine whether a source of information is reliable, and generally think critically about what they see and read on the Internet.

“We want students to think critically, get off their phones and know how to do research,” Williams said. “And we’re taking away some of the best training tools we have.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under license Creative Commons Attribution/Attribution-Noncommercial.