[NLA] flying behind radar

[George E. Demetrion]

Colleagues:

Has anyone from MA or elsewhere heard from Senator Kennedy's office about
the field's concerns on the NIFL board nominees?  The sense that I'm
getting is that this is a non-issue for the Health, Education, and Human
Services Committee, if I have its name right, perhaps the most liberal
committee in the Senate that include the likes of Dodd, Wellstone,
Harkin, and Clinton.

If that is the case, that would be most unfortunate.  My sense is that
Kennedy brokered a compromise deal with Bush on education to get some of
what he wanted, financial resources for impoverished urban schools. 
Perhaps the Committee, not necessarily looking in depth at the underlying
presuppositions of the Bush-led USDOE, have missed some of the
ideological undertones of the Department's pronouncements on
"evidence-based" research, phonics, character education, and the
promotion of "traditional" U.S. history.  

Perhaps the Committee had also missed the polemical dismissal of
educational scholarship in placing scientists in supervisory positions
over educational proposals seeking funding.  Thus, perhaps the Committee
only views the compromise as simply agreeing to compulsory standardized
testing and have missed some of the more deeply rooted Rightward turnings
of the USDOE. 

 Perhaps the Committee has missed that the great transformation proposed
by and for the USDOE reflects a potent neo-conservative ideology
reflective of the view of Lynn Cheney, .E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and others.

In any event, perhaps the Committee is missing the connection between
these factors and the NIFL board nominees, to say nothing of the
appointment of the next NIFL Director.

A final observation.  

Part of the "ideology" that neo-conservative educational policy makers
critique is that of constructivism.  They do not view the positivistic
empirical research tradition as ideology but as legitimate (the only
legitimate) science. Constructivism is not viewed as a legitimate
research/theoretical position, but a form of  value laden subjectivism
which has infected the progressive educational establishment. 
Neo-conservative ideologues seek to eradicate or marginalize such
influence from public education.  To what exact degree the current USDOE
is operating under these neo-conservative precepts, I do not know, but in
reading the documents and reading between the lines, it is reasonable to
assume that the neo-conservative influence is strong.

In short, what is up for challenge with the NIFL appointees (Board and
Director) is the very viability of constructivist-based education, which
in our field can be codified in three short letters, EFF.

Though I'm assuming that the Committee members are not necessarily
informed about these more subtle field concerns, it is important that
they look beyond the issue of test scores in scrutinizing the ideological
implications of the Department's proposed great transformation. 

 It is also important that the Committee take a close look at the
concerns of the field that NIFL remain focused on adult literacy and
lifelong learning and that "literacy" does not become defined as
"reading," but as learning and knowledge that includes a strong focus on
reading and writing pedagogy, particularly as promoted in the balanced
theories of reading articulated by Victoria Purcell-Gates and others.

Of all the committees in the Senate, Senator' Kennedy's should be the
last one that is hoodwinked by the ideological right parading itself as
"bi-partisan.".

George Demetrion
Sophocles5 at juno.com


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