NCTE Statement (February 4, 2025) - National Council of Teachers of English

 

Early last year, we began taking a thorough look at NCTE’s communications program. To that end, we issued a survey among current and lapsed members. We learned through that data that members wanted better platforms and visibility for content, easier access to resources and professional learning opportunities, and clearer and more current information related to the teaching profession. Additional data compiled throughout 2024 supports these needs identified in the survey. The response from members stated that we need to create a user-friendly platform to create content that is useful to the membership.

With this in mind, last summer we decided to invest further in our member communications team. In August, we posted a job for the first new role on this team, and we are currently advertising an additional position. This team was and will continue to be charged with reviewing our entire web presence.

We are an organization that stands for intellectual freedom and the rights for all teachers and all students to choose the content and instructional materials that best fit their classrooms. Teachers and educators know their students, parents, and communities; they are the experts. We are here to support our membership with professional development, ongoing dialogue, and community learning. Accordingly, over the next year we will be making significant and meaningful changes to our web presence to better meet the needs of our members. One of our first steps has been to start with our blog and strategically align it closer to our NCTE mission, priorities, and goals.

Looking back, however, we acknowledge that this decision was not relayed in advance. Over the next two weeks we will restore content that was archived in the process of transitioning the blog, again making it accessible to our members. We apologize to those authors whose content was affected by this change.

Going forward, continuing the work that we began in early 2024, we will be restructuring parts of the website to better serve our members and the organization. These changes will be the first in a series of new opportunities to create space for member voices. We are also working toward a new website to best communicate NCTE’s mission, initiatives, and opportunities to engage with the organization. Should you have questions, you can always email or call us.

We look forward to sharing more about these developments and others in the year to come.