NCTE Weighs In on the TEACH Act

Over the next few weeks, members of Congress will be hearing from NCTE about provisions of the Teacher Excellence for All Children Act (TEACH Act) of 2005. The bill was introduced in the House (H.R. 2835) by its author Representative George Miller (D-CA), and in the Senate (S. 1218) by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL). It’s an ambitious piece of legislation that seeks to amend the two most powerful laws influencing education today—the Higher Education Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind). And, in its current state, it has no chance to become law.

So, why bother? Why tie up NCTE resources to improve a bill that almost certainly won’t revolutionize NCLB, access to higher education, or regulation of teacher education programs?

I think it was that wise sage Woody Allen who once said that 80% of success is just showing up. When you look at some of the legislation enacted this decade, it’s easy to see how this old maxim applies in Washington DC. Just this week, an energy bill that had failed in two consecutive Congressional terms suddenly became law. Passage of a bill like No Child Left Behind would have been very unlikely in the mid-1990’s, but by 2001, it was the law of the land (as we know too well!). The policy pendulum will, inevitably, begin to swing the other way. So, we must not only be present, but influential, when opportunities for real reform emerge.

The TEACH Act could be a blueprint for substantive changes in how federal monies can be used to support student achievement, entry into the teaching profession, and lifelong learning across a teaching career. A group of NCTE leaders gathered at a summer meeting of the College Forum to discuss the merits of the TEACH Act, among other matters. They offered suggestions to Anne Gere, Director of the Squire Office for Policy Research in English Language Arts, and Anne backed their points with research culled from recent policy studies. Working with NCTE legislative consultants Ellin Nolan and Lyndsay Pinkus, with Federal Relations Program Officer Sandra Gibbs, and me, Anne pulled together this letter and research summary that will go to Congressional leaders next week.

In the past, this was as much as NCTE could do to "show up" in deliberations about federal policy. But since we opened our Program Office in Alexandria, Virginia in early July, we are now positioned to do much more. In August, program officers Sandra Gibbs (Federal Relations), Paul Bodmer (Higher Education), and Barbara Cambridge (PreK-12 Education) will be arranging meetings with congressional staff to help them understand our positions on the TEACH Act, the Higher Education Act, Striving Readers legislation, and other pending bills. We can all learn from their experiences by monitoring their blogs, and the blog maintained by the NCTE West Office Director, Dale Allender.

You’ll still be hearing from me, too. NCTE will only really begin to show up on the policy radar when we get active at the grassroots. So watch for calls to action, newsletter postings, and e-mailed invitations to join us in helping our professional community begin to steer literacy policy (rather than being run over by it!). Many thanks for doing all that you can to ensure that the knowledge and sensibilities of English language arts teachers shows up in federal policy on literacy education.