Friday, May 25, 2007
TIME for NCLB
The cover story of TIME this week is about No Child Left Behind. The kind of people who read this blog won't learn anything new from it, but it's interesting to see how the mainstream press handles the story. As far as I can tell, there's not a lot of momentum on either side. The supporters of the law know they are shackled with all of its messiness and with its underlying blame-the-teacher bias, while opponents haven't been able to come up with a narrative that's compelling enough to convince those who aren't education insiders that the law is genuinely destructive. So here's a question for CEE types: What do you (and your colleagues) teach your students about NCLB?
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While I appreciate Don's concluding question about what we teach our students about NCLB, I'd like us to take Don's comment about the fact that "opponents haven't been able to come up with a narrative that's compelling enough to convince those who aren't education insiders that the law is genuinely destructive" as a charge as to how we might start to both conceptualize and actually produce texts targeted specifically for NON-Academic audiences, particularly community members and parents of K-12 students. How do we come up with and disseminate a narrative that is compelling for mainstream America. While I think that op-ed pieces are great, I really want the CEE to consider one (or both) of the following two ideas:
1. Hiring a film producer/director to put together a documentary film that would really present this narrative to a wide audience.
2. Hiring a community activist consultant who can really help our organization think about how we can mobilize and disseminate what we know to the public.
In terms of what we teach our students about NCLB, in addition to talking with them about the content of the policy I'd also like us to talk with them about how they can, from their position as k-12 teachers educate the public about the particulars about NCLB as well as the nature of education policies in general. In other words, I'm interested in what we are doing to prepare our students to become public participants around issues of educational policy and activism.
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