Can't
Make It to DC for Advocacy Day?
Show Your Support for Literacy Education
Right at Home!
Advocacy can happen
from home! Legislators and their aides value the classroom
experiences and literacy education expertise that NCTE members offer
and you can share what you know with them right from your home
computer! So
if you won't be in DC for NCTE's Literacy
Education Advocacy Day, send your message to DC.
No
Place Like Home: Florida Holds Its First Advocacy Day!
The Florida Council of Teachers of English (FCTE) sponsored its
inaugural Advocacy Day at the Capitol in Tallahassee on April 7.
More than 25 college students, classroom teachers, and FCTE board
members met with representatives and aides throughout the day; they
also left information with members of the Education Committees and
with the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. See
Clarissa West-White's summary of FCTE's Advocacy
Day, her tips for
planning a successful local event, and her video account of the day's activities.
Above, Florida Representative Alan
Williams (in center of back row, in front of window) poses for a
picture during his April 7 meeting with members of the Florida
Council of Teachers of English and students from Florida State
University and Florida A&M University.
Other NCTE
Members Are Connecting
with Policymakers at Home
Patricia Shall and Joseph
Pizzo of the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English
will visit their local legislative offices as an NCTE/NJCTE
team.
Richard
Lloyd-Jones of Iowa City, Iowa, past president of NCTE,
will host a fund raiser breakfast this week for his Congressman,
Dave Loesbeck, a former professor from Cornell College who, says
Lloyd-Jones, "is generally sympathetic and aware of education
issues from the inside."
Joe Milner
of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is having a
gathering for Tom Hackelman who is running for the local School
Board. Joe says, "Tom is the husband of a wonderful teacher I have worked
with for ten or more years. Raleigh had a devastating School Board election recently that brought in virulent anti-busing people who threw
out a fine Superintendent who has integrated and improved those schools
on an SES basis so that there were no high poverty schools. I am focused
here to try to prevent that happening to Winston Salem schools."
Marilyn Hollman
of the Illinois Association of Teachers of English met with
her State Representative in March; she also tells us that her
Representative became a fan of the IATE Facebook page!
Carol Pope
of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, will work with
her Teachers as Leaders class on Advocacy Day on communicating with policy
leaders.
Chuck Bazerman,
past chair of CCCC, will meet again with his Representative, Lois
Capps of California. In the past two years (with meetings in DC
and a chance encounter on the plane going to DC), Chuck has
developed a dialogue with Capps and her education staffer; they are
"now aware of NCTE positions and concerns, and they have
confirmed their commitment to most views and legislative initiatives
consistent with our views." Chuck adds, "While I doubt
that I changed any views, I think I have given them a stronger sense
of the views of the profession, perhaps strengthening their
commitments. I hope by meeting in the district I might be able to
have more face time with the Representative and be able to follow up
in more detail on our current issues."
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