Election Year Update: What NCTE Constituent Groups
Can and Cannot Do When Advocating
for Our Professional Community
by Kent Williamson, NCTE Executive Director
January 2008 Council-Grams

Who does NCTE endorse for President? Which party platform do we prefer? Which senatorial candidates' beliefs about the federal role in education are closest to our own? Which candidate's comments on literacy education will be featured on our website?

The answer to all of the above is, we can't answer. And neither can our constituent groups (conferences, associations, affiliates, assemblies). As organizations that are recognized as "public charities" or 501 [c][3] corporations under the IRS code, we are prohibited from engaging in partisan activities or taking action which appears to support or oppose any candidate for public office.

Too often, this stark prohibition against partisanship in electoral politics is over-generalized by association leaders. We certainly have a role to play in policy formation and even policy advocacy. Our authority to do so is grounded in expertise -- who knows more about which kinds of governmental support and initiatives will advance literacy education than the teachers and scholars who belong to the National Council of Teachers of English? Far from "staying about the fray," our duty is to participate -- to inform those who make policy about what really happens in literacy classrooms and what types of government intervention advance -- or inhibit -- learning.

Gray Areas
Here are a few "close call" scenarios that an NCTE or constituent group leader may face in an election year -- and some ways to be effective while keeping your group out of trouble.

A journalist calls and wants to know how you feel about the gubernatorial candidates' plans to improve reading scores and get more schools off the AYP "failing schools" list.

• First, if you hold a "named role" in NCTE or a constituent group, you should assume that the journalist is contacting you because of your role in the association, and that your remarks probably will be interpreted as reflecting the views of your organization. Even if you try to qualify your remarks as strictly reflecting your personal views, your organization will be implicated if the journalist uses your title or affiliation in the story.
  
• Don't compare and contrast the views of candidates, even if you think you are doing so objectively. What you can do is answer underlying questions -- how do teachers and schools best advance reading? What is good or bad about having a "failing schools" list? What should really be considered "adequate yearly progress" anyway?
  
• Draw upon research or even personal experience with schools or programs that are doing an excellent job supporting readers, and speak up for policies that support these schools. Just don't end your remarks by tying these policies back to the positions of a particular candidate.

Your group finds out that a senatorial candidate wants to drop by your annual meeting to make some remarks about literacy education just a few weeks before the election.

• Having a single candidate for office speak to your organization during an election cycle is a red flag to an auditor. It could easily be interpreted as partisan political activity or an implied endorsment. If, however, you allowed all major candidates for an office to speak and ensured that the questions or topics selected were free from bias or partisan influence, you can avoid regulatory problems. You can further insulate yourself from the appearance of impropriety if you invite a non-partisan organization like the League of Women Voters to moderate or supervise the event.
  
• What you don't want to do is have members speak as surrogates or representatives of the views of candidates in an election. This can easily be misinterpreted as a partisan activity. On the other hand, if you held a workshop or session where video presentations of all candidates' views on literacy education were featured and members were invited to discuss ideas and positions, you can justifiably claim that the organization was not engaging in partisan politics.

For more information on permissible and impermissible activities, see "Staying Legal While Engaging in Election-Related Activities," an article by John Pomeranz in the January/February 2008 issue of Board Member (volume 17, number 1), published by BoardSource.

An NCTE Advocacy Update
I have just returned from NCTE's third annual legislative platform writing/policy prioritization exercise. These meetings, conducted over three days, feature conferences on Capitol Hill with a range of key legislative staffers, leaders from other policy organizations or policy analysts, and the NCTE Presidents and members of the Executive Committee subcommittee on education policy and governmental relations. These trips have become enormously useful. Patterned on a process used by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), we seek a range of views to better understand which literacy education measures are likely to be acted upon by federal officials in the year ahead, and what policy provisions are "in play" or subject to negotiation.

Following a full day of meetings on Capitol Hill, NCTE leaders spend a day and a half writing and revising our own policy platform (see the 2007 NCTE Legislative Platform). These tend not to be new policies for the Council, but rather are ways of casting our positions so that they will influence legislation or regulation before it is enacted. As I write this, the draft is being sent to the full Executive Committee for consideration at its February meeting in Atlanta. Once a platform is enacted, it will guide the work of the NCTE Washington-area office for the next year, and will serve as the cornerstone for materials prepared for Education Policy and English Language Arts Advocacy Day (April 17) and Advocacy Month.

I hope that you'll have a chance to get involved in Advocacy Month this year. We're encouraging members to visit their congressional representatives during the spring recess (late March/early April) and to consider travelling to Washington, DC, for Advocacy Day. Watch in late February and March for supporting materials, policy research briefs, and talking points you can use to help policymakers better understand the work and expertise of literacy educators. Watch, too, for invitations to participate in policy discussions, send letters to policymakers and local media, and take part Web seminars on timely topics that NCTE will be offering throughout 2008. By working together, we can ensure that the Council's voice will be heard at the state level, and by a new administration in Washington, DC!