SLATE Newsletter, August 2007

From the Editor
Fred Barton, Michigan State University, East Lansing
Chair, NCTE/SLATE Steering Committee

“May you live in interesting times” is a curse I’m told, but curse or not, one thing we can all agree on is that these days “interesting” is an adjective that has to do with a lot of work. Now, I don’t want to harsh your late summer mellow, but I fear we share a common fate with our over burdened little part of speech.

What I’m saying is there are big doings on the horizon. First, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is the reauthorization of NCLB. Whether you’re a pre-k--16 teacher, administrator, director, or specialist this law affects you because it affects your students -- often adversely. Jim Cummins, author of Language Power and Pedagogy said, comparing the research into instructional methods that work with what actually happens today in the schools, particularly in inner cities, it is "very clear" that the current approach is 90% ideology and 10% science. Research is ignored, misunderstood, misinterpreted, and distorted to favor that ideology.

Commenting on a recently concluded three-year study of the publics’ views on NCLB Wendy D. Puriefoy, president and CEO of Public Education Network, said “Over three years, and at every hearing site, the public supported the goals of NCLB. However, until the Act addresses the realities of inequities, limited expectations of student and teacher capacities, and the isolation of parents and communities from school reforms, it will engender more rhetoric than real difference in the success of all students. The public voice must be part of the process used by policymakers if they want to be trusted on behalf of the nation’s children.”

NCTE has also been a strong voice in the debate over whether children should be taught or tested. The Council has made five specific recommendations to improve the current law.

Politicians are notoriously thick in off-election years though, so merely providing critiques, research reports, and position statements isn’t enough. As my students say, we need to get all up in their grill. That’s where you come in. NCTE has developed several resources to help you become an activist for your students -- and yourself. Check out the links in this newsletter and get involved in some click-through advocacy.

NCTE Executive Director Kent Williamson has a few things to say about NCLB and there are lots of links for you to browse through that can help you develop you own click-through advocacy.

Of course NCLB isn’t the only thing going on. Read Millie’s report on the continuing challenges to media in the classroom and other threats to academic freedom.

Think you can’t make a difference? So did middle school teacher Susan Houser, this issue’s "First Person" writer. Here’s what struck her: “While talking with Representative Bilirakis from Tampa, Florida, he asked what I would do if I could change NCLB. A bit dumbfounded, I hope I recovered quickly enough to respond with something that made sense. I can’t remember exactly what I said. But I do remember that when I said that I had been a classroom teacher for 25 years, he put his pen down, stopped what he was doing and he looked me in the face and listened.”

Yeah. He listened. Interesting.