Act now!

(I'm writing this post as if someone is reading it, though I may just be writing to myself... who knows?)

As some of you know - those of you who know me, anyway -- and who else would be reading this blog? -- I'm quite involved with the effort to affect public policy regarding writing and writers. Of course, this extends to education more generally. I do some of this through the WPA (that's Council of Writing Program Administrators) Network for Media Action, which provides WPA-authorized position statements, tips on writing for mainstream media, and more. (If you want to see that stuff you have to be a WPA member - if you're not, you can join right on the site.)

But yesterday I got the first ever (!) e-mail from NCTE (that's National Council of Teachers of English, the mother ship of professional organizations for those of us in English/Comp) SLATE, which is NCTE's public action arm, on the
Spellings Commission on Higher Ed. This is a nasty piece of work; one of the things - and a big, big thing - that constitutes the steam roller I mentioned in yesterday's post. The e-mail prompted three actions: writing to the commission, contacting senators to meet with them (as experts in higher ed), and/or attending the hearing (which is in Indianapolis, so I can't do that).

I'll paste the letter I wrote to the commission below. If anyone else is interested in writing, NCTE has some valuable resources:Action Alerts, tips on meeting with Senators/Congressfolk, and more. This is great material. Right now it's pretty deeply buried in NCTE's web site, but I hear they're working to change that.

Because I've spent far more of my morning on this than I intended, I'll say no more now. However, DO write to the Commission, to your Senator, to others about this - it's important that we make our voices heard on this!!

To the Commission:

As a college composition professor and director of a large first-year writing program, I am pleased to see that articulation between high schools and colleges is of interest to the Commission.

Through research and assessment, we know that good writers are able to adapt to a variety of audiences and purposes for writing. College writing classes help students to become good writers. In these classes, students learn to assess the expectations of the various audiences they encounter in school and in the workplace and to meet those expectations in their writing.

To ensure that students are prepared for such courses, high school classes also should involve students in studying purposes and audiences for writing.
Preparing for high stakes assessments that emphasize single purposes and audiences for writing do not achieve this kind of preparation.

Articulation can best be achieved, instead, through active, voluntary collaborations among teachers and administrators in high schools and colleges.
The federal government has a role to play in supporting partnership grants that fund the development of replicable model programs drawing on the skills and insights of educators, administrators, and those outside the education sector to design enriched curriculum, more meaningful assessments, and expanded out-of-school learning experiences that will fully prepare students for success in college and beyond.

Sincerely, (etc.)