"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

National Council of Teachers of English continues to support LEARN (sic) Act

The NCTE website contains an action alert urging us to tell our legislators to vote for the LEARN Act (HR 4027; S2740). http://www.ncte.org/action/alerts.
I think the LEARN Act is a disaster. It will work against everything NCTE has ever stood for. It extends the painful and failed methodology of Reading First to the entire language arts curriculum and calls for even more testing than we are doing now. Please see my analysis at: http://www.elladvocates.org.

The announcement on the NCTE website that promotes the LEARN Act also, in the same sentence, asks us to "Support Teachers as Professionals in Defining Teacher Effectiveness."

What does this mean? By supporting the Learn Act the NCTE and its emphasis on direct instruction and massive testing, the NCTE is NOT "supporting teachers as professionals." Under LEARN, teachers simply administer a detailed set of exercises for all aspects of literacy, and prepare students for frequent testing. LEARN would interpret "teacher effectiveness" as faithfully following the prescribed program.

You don't believe me? Take a good look at the LEARN Act.

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