Let Your Voice Be Heard!
NCTE Celebrates Literacy Education Advocacy Month in April 2009
Join us for NCTE’s Literacy Education Advocacy Day on Thursday, April 23, 2009, in Washington, DC
This event, free to all NCTE members, will allow participants to:
- learn how educational policies affecting English language arts teachers are shaped;
- hear key educational policymakers discuss English language arts legislation issues and participate in question and answer sessions;
- gain a deeper understanding of trends in federal legislation;
- receive a briefing from NCTE legislative counsel; and
- share NCTE positions with legislators.
You might be thinking, "Advocacy isn’t for me!" and you can't come to Advocacy Day. Yet, there are many ways you can make a difference. How about calling or emailing your Representatives and Senators with a message from NCTE (see sample messages and tips for making phone calls and sending email messages).
Read accounts of members' visits to Capitol Hill during the 2008 Advocacy Day:
In Mr. Barton Goes to Washington, Fred Barton tells us that "to be successful, advocacy must build from what the two sides have in common rather than center solely on their differences. This is the only way to move from talking at one another to talking to one another."
Anne Cognard reminds us that "though the legislators and I inhabit different spheres, there is good in talking to one another. Even though we may be in the sometimes surreal surroundings of Washington, D.C., as we attempt to find a way to negotiate different perspectives on education we enact those early values of American culture affirmed through its literature again and again and again."
"Legislators want to hear from the classroom teachers," Janice Suppa-Friedman tells us, "making it critical that we write letters voicing our concerns when new issues arise. Better yet, if we could gather even a larger group from the Virginia Association of Teachers of English (VATE) next year and teachers from different districts, we could make a greater impact on policies."
"Sometimes the best laid plans not only go awry, but they march, or run, to the beat of a different drummer," explains Shelah Novak in NCTE Advocacy Day -- So Easy, Even This VATE Member Can Do It. Novak and her VATE colleagues were waiting to meet with their congressman when he came into his office and told them that the meeting would be on the run, literally. He had three minutes to make it to the Capitol Building for a vote and they could talk along the way.
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