On Friday, October 7, members of NCTE, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the National Writing Project (NWP), and the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) visited the White House. The delegation included:
Dominic DelliCarpini, Linda Adler-Kassner, Chris Anson, Susan Miller-Cochran
(in photo at right, front row, left to right);
Kelly Ritter, Rita Malenczyk, Charles Paine, Keith Rhodes
(in photo at right, back row, left to right); and
Charlie Lowe, Barb L'Eplattenier, Duane Roen, and Dave Blakesley
(not pictured).
During the morning, we met with officials from the current administration to discuss a range of initiatives. We had lively interactions with
- Michael Strautmanis, Deputy Assistant to the President;
- Mark Doms, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Commerce;
- Brad Cooper, Executive Director, Join Forces;
- Stephanie Valencia, Deputy Director, White House Office of Public Engagement;
- Sam Kass, Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives;
- Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor;
- John Kelly, Policy Advisor, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; and
- Jon Carson, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director, White House Office of Public Engagement.
The group of people who spoke with Education Department officials -- some of whom were there with the CWPA contingent, and some of whom weren't (e.g., the Chair of the Seattle School Board; her son [a law student at George Washington]; a high school history teacher from Kentucky) -- conveyed a consistent message: That students need to develop the habits of mind outlined in the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, and that the battery of tests currently shaping K-12 curricula (and here the visitors mentioned state exams and AP tests) are not contributing to the formation of those habits.
This message became the basis of some conversation with the ED officials about ways in which the administration is trying to create opportunities for alternatives to NCLB policies, and the intersections between those opportunities and our ideas about college readiness/postsecondary success. They mentioned the newly-announced NCLB waiver policy and the Common Core (a lot); we mentioned the Framework, intersections (sort of) with the Common Core ELA/writing standards, and issues we saw on the horizon with PARCC and SMARTER Balanced. They suggested we work with the consortia.
In the afternoon we met with Chad Aldeman, Policy Advisor, US Department of Education, and several of his colleagues. Here we had an opportunity to talk about the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. We raised awareness of the CWPA, CCCC, NWP, NCTE, as well as some topics that are important to the organizations -- e.g.dual-credit/concurrent-enrollment writing courses, standardized high-stakes tests. During the meeting the DOE staff mentioned Barbara Cambridge several times, which indicates that NCTE has been heard.
The meetings reminded us that individuals and organizations need to work with policymakers at the national, state, and local levels to help them craft policy that shapes writing instruction in K-16 settings.
We left the meetings feeling that we had opened some doors.
Linda Adler-Kassner and Duane Roen
(left to right) Keith Rhodes, Duane Roen, Linda Adler-Kassner, Charles Paine, Kelly Ritter, Charles Lowe, David Blakesley