National Council of Teachers of English

2012 NCTE Legislative Platform

Literacy education is a civil right and civic responsibility that is integral to building our nation’s capacity for innovation, economic success, and global leadership. Consequently, we are collectively responsible for providing optimal conditions for literacy learning in our education system. Under such conditions, not only will schools become richer learning environments, teachers accomplished professionals, and students engaged learners — our communities will re-discover the initiative to overcome poverty, inequity, and economic stagnation. By investing in the conditions for enhanced learning, we secure our collective future.

 

We can sustain improvement in our education system by fostering evidence-based teacher decision making, school innovation, and integration of learning opportunities across every student’s daily life. Educators working in teams better understand how to teach the literacy practices needed for academic success in all content areas. To ensure that all students are college- and career-ready, we call upon policymakers at all levels to:

 

Support a comprehensive, cross-curricular literacy policy that:

Invest in systematic, team-based professional learning that results in increased student engagement and learning by:

Support equitable, fair, and valid assessments that advance, not merely measure, student learning by:

Fund teacher evaluation systems that move beyond student test scores by basing evaluation on clearly defined standards of professional practice measured by the following:

Invest in an education system that prepares all students to become college- and career-ready by providing:

Invest in a higher education system that sustains and increases student literacy and advances preparation for participation in society as productive citizens by:

*Taken from the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing [1] (2011)

2/18/12

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