Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Summer 2005
For decades, says Deshler, the focus of American
education has been on early childhood education, the belief being that
if we “get them young and bolster them soundly, they won’t
have problems later.” As a result, he observes, “We have
neglected older kids in this country.” The power of the early
childhood argument, he continues, is clearly reflected in the way federal
funds have been allocated. At one end of the spectrum are the Head Start
and Title I programs—with Pell grants at the other end. “In
between,” Deshler says, “there is the forgotten middle.”
The investment of the federal government in adolescent education is
“spit in the ocean,” he declares, though he acknowledges
that there are some hopeful signs in Washington that this imbalance
might be changing. For the most part, adolescent literacy experts have
been “toiling in the shadows” and “sort of living
on the crumbs.” The Carnegie Corporation of New York Advancing
Literacy initiative, Deshler says, has “had a very profound influence
on adolescent literacy,” by directing national attention to the
issue, bringing together the best talents in the field to address the
issue and supporting needed research and innovative practices. But is
the work destined to become another blip on the screen? To sustain this
effort, he explains, “We need to build an infrastructure in the
field,” which will support and encourage careers that focus on
adolescent literacy. As with the development of careers in early childhood
education, “These things take time.”
The infrastructure Deshler refers to must inevitably include researchers and teachers. In October 2004, Carnegie Corporation addressed this need with the creation of an Adolescent Literacy Preservice Initiative, which, over the next two years, will invite up to twelve teacher preparation programs to develop innovative instructional materials, build up a cadre of adolescent literacy researchers and enrich existing secondary school literacy programs. The goal is to create an adolescent literacy preservice network, which will promote and share instructional designs, innovative data collection instruments and “lessons learned” from teacher preparation programs throughout the country. A vital component of this initiative is a requirement that reading specialists work closely with arts and sciences faculty to insure that content area literacy is clearly defined. On this point, it is imperative that teacher preparation programs and the arts and sciences are literally on the same page. Notably, the engagement of arts and sciences faculty in the education of prospective teachers is a cornerstone of the Corporation’s Teachers for A New Era program.
To date, Michigan State University and
the University of Kansas Center for Research and Learning have been
selected to participate in the Corporation’s preservice initiative.
Other university preservice literacy programs are currently under consideration.