Why Writing and Educational Policy?

As the reader(s) of my previous short-lived blog (last changed in 2008) may recall, education policy is a particular interest of mine. In fact, for the last five or so years, it has been the focus of a lot of my research life. As a writing teacher, the director of a writing program, and an active member of an organization representing people with an interest in postsecondary writing instruction and program direction, I'm pretty attuned to things that might affect (in many ways, good and perhaps not so much) the experience that students might have in our postsecondary writing classrooms.

There's a lot happening with regard to education policy that has the potential to affect (see above re: caveat) that work *right now*, every day. I write about these things in published pieces. The problem, though, is that those published pieces take a long time to *be* published, where a blog is right here! Right now! So I've decided to re-launch my blogging career in order to:

1) Share policy news that might be important for postsecondary writing instructors and administrators;

2) Think, together with reader(s), about the implications of this news; and

3) Work together to be proactive.

There are some fundamental assumptions that will run through everything I write here; since this is an intro., it makes sense to spell those out. (I'm sure others will come up, too, and I'll add them as I go.)

Assumption 1: The landscape is changing. For the last 125+ years, postsecondary education has largely relied on itself -- that is, faculty have relied on faculty through the system of peer review -- to define, develop, and maintain "quality" in our courses, programs, research, and most else. This virtual circling of the academic wagons came (in the late nineteenth century) partially in response to a desire (shared by many members of elite cultures in the late 19th century U.S.) to fend off values and ideologies that were different and potentially threatening to those of the dominant culture. (This analysis, btw, comes from a lot of people - but especially Thomas Bender and James Carey.) Since the 1970s, though, in part because huge shifts in the American economy, there has been an increasing interest of those outside of the academy (often businesses) in making sure that they have a hand in defining what students should learn. (See Richard Ohmann on this.) Fast forwarding to the early 2000s, there's now a perception that students aren't learning what they need to in order to participate in the 21st century economy and that students don't understand what this is. Thus, the analysis (which is _everywhere_) says, there is a need for ___________ (Department of Education, think tanks, ACT, ETS...) to step in and make sure that postsecondary folks are being "held accountable" for doing what we're supposed to do, and to make their work visible to audiences outside of the academy. Of course, this is just what the system of peer review was designed to _prevent_ in some ways... so in part, we can look to ourselves when we think about how this current situation has evolved as it has.

Assumption 2: Working from research-based best practice principles is crucial, *and* building alliances is crucial, *and* sometimes there's some tension between those things. When I mention "being proactive," I am of course implying that there are things that we think are important that we might want to advance in the face of these policy issues facing us. And indeed, I do think that being proactive is important. On the other hand, I also think that developing alliances is also important. So - a tricky balance. On the one hand, we have our interests. On the other, we have a desire to build alliances with others whose interests might overlap with ours in some ways but might seem to not in others. It's easiest to "get" this when it's attached to specifics, so I'll write more about it when it comes up.

Assumption 3: There are *a lot* of players in this "postsecondary education" situation, and not all of them share the same motivations. Perhaps, postsecondary reader(s), you are at an institution that is part of the Voluntary System of Accountability? (So many of you are!) And perhaps, as part of this, your campus administers the CAAP or the MAPP, or even the CLA? An interesting study in "players" and potentially conflicting motivations. The VSA was created by the group now known as the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (formerly NASULGC) as one strategy for "making learning visible" (see assumption 1). The acronym tests are some of the neither valid, reliable, or educationally sound ways that campuses can ostensibly demonstrate what students are learning (except that they don't do that at all). And who's doing the development? ACT, ETS, the Counsel for Aid to Education. At least the latter group consists largely *of* educators and their test includes *some* writing (though it's out of context and holds as much water as, say, the SAT writing exam).

Enough introduction, though there will be more...