English Teachers Conference Offers Progressive Politics over Instruction

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) held its annual conference last week, and it’s no wonder our national reading-proficiency rate sits at 32 percent. The influential professional association has 25,000 paid members, and its policy papers, position statements, books, and journals influence countless more, acting as the assumed authority on all things in literacy education. Its mission statement declares its devotion to “improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education,” but a look at its conference reveals the group is focused far more on progressive pieties than on instruction.

The sessions are a veritable checklist of political neuroses. One entitled “Critical Race Theory as a Literary Lens” promises to help teachers show their students how to read all books using CRT as a framework. Other offerings include “Queerness and Graphic Novels,” “Decolonizing the Department,” and “Learning for Critical Consciousness.”

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Daniel Buck

Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.

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The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) held its annual conference last week, and it’s no wonder our national reading-proficiency rate sits at 32 percent. The influential professional association has 25,000 paid members, and its policy papers, position statements, books, and journals influence countless more, acting as the assumed authority on all things in literacy education. Its mission statement declares its devotion to “improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education,” but a look at its conference reveals the group is focused far more on progressive pieties than on instruction.

The sessions are a veritable checklist of political neuroses. One entitled “Critical Race Theory as a Literary Lens” promises to help teachers show their students how to read all books using CRT as a framework. Other offerings include “Queerness and Graphic Novels,” “Decolonizing the Department,” and “Learning for Critical Consciousness.”