Dear President Obama: Save the National Writing Project

Dear President Obama and Secretary Duncan,

It's actually happened. On March 2, all direct funding of the National Writing Project was eliminated. As a result, you have deleted one of the only proven programs to improve teaching quality and student achievement. And with the murder of this program, so goes with it a sense that this administration actually wants those things. It puts intention to question.

I have to assume that you do not fully understand what the Writing Project is about, just as many do not who are not in education. So I'll describe it using comparisons that will hopefully illustrate its influence and benefits.

Just imagine, it's June, and in each city in the United States, a film institute begins. The participants are selected from a small pool of fledgling directors with the most exciting ideas and dedication to the craft. This institute allows those students (say, 20 of them total) to spend a month of their summer in dialogue with the greatest film makers of our time. During their summer, Spielberg would go to one city and sit down for a day with those directing students. Scorsese would also participate in another location, Spike Lee too, and Spike Jonze. Then those iconic directors would rotate to another institute, traveling from city to city, bestowing their expertise to each new group before them. Meanwhile, the students build a toolbox of strategies from the best with each director that came through the door. Can you just imagine the movies, the new cinematic treasures that would be born of such a summer?

Just imagine being a baseball player of promise given the opportunity to spend a month in the company of Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and Cal Ripkin Jr. Can you imagine the brilliant plays and games of legend that would come out of such a season of learning?

So is it also true with the National Writing Project and its various branches all over the country. Every summer, in many cities in the United States, small cohorts of teachers, representing every grade level from Pre-K through college, gather to learn from the best educators in the world. And now do the math...

Each teacher returns to school to influence anywhere from 32-200 students per day. Each teacher returns with the potential to now train other teachers as well, thus rippling out the number of students to anywhere up to 5,000 (depending on the school size). So from 20 teachers, thousands have been touched by a mere month-long program.

The goal of the summer program is to create writers who can then teach writing better, for writing is a future skill, one that cannot be avoided as students grow up in a more digital world that will judge its citizens not only on their content, but on their written ability to communicate that content. Additionally, teaching writing correlates directly to your ESEA's goal of college and career readiness.

After all, just think to yourself of the times that your ability to write has proven to be of the utmost importance: to get into college, to apply for a job, to write an email, memo, or letter. Without writing, the scientist could not report their findings, the journalist could not report the truth of the world, and the statistician could not analyze their data.

You can tell a teacher is a fellow of the Writing Project from the quality of work his or her students produce. You can see it in the voice in the students' writing, in their risk-taking, in their critical-thinking, and most importantly, in their enjoyment of learning.

There is another important by-product of the summer institute as well. Many teachers during the school year never get the opportunity to work with an entire school staff of like-minded individuals, all on fire with their own learning. The institute is a faculty lounge unlike any other, giving teachers a taste of what a community of dedication and innovation feels like.

President Obama and Sec Duncan, can you not see how valuable it is to allow teachers to experience what the ideal is like? Do you not see how, if granted the experience, more and more teachers would crave, eventually demand, these standards from their own schools, if only given the chance to live it and breath it during one precious summer?

So I beg you, do not let the National Writing Project sink slowly over the horizon. Return the funding back into the Federal Budget by 2012, and return the promise of dedication to this country's students.

Ongoing learning cannot be considered a luxury if we are in the business of educating students. The ability to learn from the best should not be a gift, but a right that should be granted to as many teachers as we can afford. Because, frankly, we cannot afford to allow effective professional development of this quality to die out. Our education as teachers is instrumental in educating our students.

Support greater teaching quality. Support student achievement. Continue to support the National Writing Project.

Sincerely,

Heather Wolpert-Gawron

Middle School Teacher, Language Arts Dept Chair

University of California, Irvine Writing Project Fellow '07

Teachers: Anyone out there in my readership who has hailed from a Writing Project, a Math Project, or a Reading Project? Give it a shout out in your comment, and contact your Congressional Representative to help save these programs that work.

 

 

 

Follow Heather Wolpert-Gawron on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tweenteacher

Comments

[GodsWebmaster]

09:36 AM on 03/16/2011

As valuable and worthwhile as NWP is, every group feels that their project is the most important and shouldnt be cut. If the government were to retain funding for THIS project, what project will you remove funding from? I'm sure we'll then have another group telling us how their "most important thing" was cancelled. There's no way to cut spending without someone taking the hard fall. It sux. But how do you choose? Maybe if NWP is that important it can be kept moving via public support or philanthropy. I do have a question, technologists and other high skill fields have to learn their skills via further education that isnt funded by the government, why are teachers different? Dont they love their jobs and want to learn on their own, will they only obtain further education if the government foots the bill?

[dloitz]

01:05 AM on 03/15/2011

If you want to help NWP please join us on the Cooperative Catalyst for a weekend blogging for National Writing Project.

http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/blog4nwp/

I hope you’ll join me in blogging for the NWP this weekend, from Friday, March 18th through Sunday, March 20th, 2011. Please support the NWP by sharing your experiences with the project, its institutes, its teacher consultants, and the resources it freely provides for all teachers. If you haven’t participated in an institute or worked with the NWP, please join us in calling on the federal government to support the NWP in championing authentic professional development, teaching, and learning through programs like the writing project.

[senseandnonsense]

08:17 AM on 03/14/2011

If a person is unable to explain a thing in writing or orally, he or she doesn't understand the material. It's simple. And yet this fact is beyond the grasp of our leaders! Ayers in San Francisco said it best... We don't really have a budget problem. We're not broke. We simply have less money. So now we need to decide what our priorities are. If education is not near the top, we are making a bad decision.

[Jonathan Lovell]

02:58 AM on 03/14/2011

Thanks Heather,
I've been a NWP director for 28 years (Northern Nevada and San Jose Area Writing Projects) and an educator in the field of English education for 32. No other program has come close, in my experience, to making as much difference in the lives of teachers as students as the NWP. It's effects can be seen especially clearly in the training of prospective teachers, where credential candidates are exposed from the get-go to the best practices of some of the best teachers of reading and writing in their regional area. Today, after many years in the field, I cannot imagine conducting a successful English Education program without a strong link to a Writing Project site.

[kcernera]

09:33 PM on 03/13/2011

While I could go on for hours about the benefits of the National Writing Project, I instead will keep my praise simple. Through working with the NWP and my site, the Seven Valleys Writing Project (7vwp) out of Cortland, NY, I have become a thoughtful, reflective, confident educator. In turn, my students have become thoughtful, reflective, confident learners. The NWP has quite simply changed my life and is the most beneficial decision I have made professionally. I plan on teaching, writing, and exercising my right to speak out in the best interest of both for the rest of my life.

[David Franke]

08:32 PM on 03/13/2011

The National Writing Project is a uniquely broad and effective program. The NWP deals with the full spectrum of literacy -- not just reading. It not only addresses deficits, but increases capacity. The NWP creates constructive communities of teachers in all disciplines (math to English, social studies to shop class). These communities bring their shared expertise to confront the challenges of an increasingly needy and diverse student population. In its year-round events and intense summer seminars, it develops teachers' capacity as learners, writers, and leaders. The NWP increases learning for new teachers and reduces attrition. The NWP produces not only better scoring students, but better learners ready for any subject in and after school. Most importantly, the NWP's hands-on theory-based work brings together entire schools as learning communities -- teachers, students, administrators. Please support the NWP. It offers us the best way to increase our schools' health and resilience, not just remediate their ills.

[gbitting]

07:59 PM on 03/13/2011

I have also benefited from a Summer Writing Institute. I know the NWP counts as an earmark, but all earmarks are not bad. Attending Connecticut Writing Project rocked my world as a writing teacher and my students' scores show it. It seems contradictory for those in the government to complain about the poor state of education in the US and then summarily eliminate one of the few programs that benefit so many students and teachers. It's too bad there isn't a way to offer a cost benefit analysis of this program.

[JasonCC]

07:34 PM on 03/13/2011

Thanks for posting this article. I'm so disappointed with President Obama and with Arne Duncan. Honestly, I feel betrayed. We can spend trillions on war and tens of billions of dollars to bailout the finance and auto industries, victims of their own mismanagement and greed, and yet we cut $4 billion worth of education programs with demonstrable records of success. No mismanagement, no greed, no waste. The NWP's $26 million budget would pay for the coffee and doughnuts at a financial giant's board meetings. It wouldn't even cover the annual bonus of a lone CEO. Please. Get your priorities straight Mr. President.

[dogtrax]

11:35 AM on 03/13/2011

Thanks, Heather.
I, too, am a member of the National Writing Project (in Western Massachusetts) and I can attest to the fact that the NWP has transformed my teaching practice. The support and nurturing I received as a new teacher, plus the vast resources that are available to all teachers, is something I can hardly fathom not having around anymore. I hope the president and the education secretary are listening ...
Kevin

[brianfay]

10:11 PM on 03/12/2011

Brian Fay, Seven Valleys Writing Project, Upstate New York. This is exactly right. How do we get it into the hands of the President and Sec. Duncan?