Abstract
In this Insights column, four authors address the question: Given current and potential shifts in education policy, what should literacy educators keep in mind to move forward with exceptional literacy research and practices? Majors and Lewis urge white scholars to reach out to scholars of color in learning how to generate counter-arguments that speak back to alternative facts. Tierney encourages the field to learn from scholars who are engaged in community based participatory research and activism, especially those who are engaged as allies with groups of people who are indigenous, marginalized, transnational, and cross-cultural. Beach calls on the field to consider research that examines implementation of the Common Core State Standards, such as argumentative writing and translanguaging.
Keywords
In early 2017, the United States is in the midst of major political changes, with the inauguration of Donald Trump, a Republican-led House of Representatives and Senate, and the controversial selection of Elisabeth DeVos as the secretary of education. Within a short time, the House and Senate have already voted to rescind education regulations, including the accountability rules for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the teacher education regulations under Title II of the Higher Education Act. Challenges to what counts as “facts,” changing roles for social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), and attacks on the credibility and access of the press all affect the nature of literacy. With this shifting political landscape, we asked literacy scholars to address this question: Given current and potential shifts in education policy, what should literacy educators keep in mind to move forward with exceptional literacy research and practices? The authors wrote these responses in late February and early March 2017.