| In response to our most recent literacy crisis, the U.S. | | | | argue for a specific conception of research, what I |
| government and professional collaborative such as | | | | and others call critical research, as an example of the |
| the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child | | | | kind of work that needs to be undertaken in our field |
| Health and Human Development, 2000) and the | | | | if we are going to be able to provide information to |
| National Research Council (2005) have called for more | | | | teachers, teacher educators, and policymakers that |
| scientific research in literacy education. That is, | | | | will lead to changes in practice and outcome that |
| policymakers and certain members of our field feel as | | | | eliminate the education opportunity gap. By education |
| though the only valuable research is conducted via | | | | opportunity gap, which I distinguish from achievement |
| randomized experiments that tell us, essentially, how | | | | gap, I am referring to the work of Asa Hilliard (2003), |
| certain curricular reforms affect aggregate | | | | who argued for a shift in perception of the |
| achievement as measured by the same sorts of | | | | achievement gap away from searching for |
| problematic standardized outcomes or by scores on | | | | deficiencies in student intelligence toward questioning |
| artificial assessments designed by teams of university | | | | the measures of achievement and the actual |
| researchers. | | | | opportunities to learn that have been provided for |
| Although standardized measures provide an important | | | | students. In other words, the challenge is ours, as a |
| perspective on the performance of young people in | | | | field, to figure out how to better educate students. |
| schools, it is only one perspective, and taken out of | | | | Regardless of terminology, Hilliard contended that |
| context this perspective can be extremely | | | | higher quality teaching is needed to produce |
| problematic--both in how it positions certain groups of | | | | excellence in classrooms for students that have been |
| students and in how it limits the discussion GHD MK4 | | | | historically underserved. |
| of possible alternatives to traditional classroom | | | | Quite simply, these students need to achieve higher |
| literacy practices (Pressley, 2001). In the end, we are | | | | forms of excellence if they are to exist as powerfully |
| still left with very few images of the powerful | | | | informed and affirmed GHD MK5 humans. Hilliard, in |
| literacy classroom to help us understand the | | | | this vein, was tapping into a long history of African |
| challenges that teachers and students face and the | | | | American education that associated literacy learning in |
| conditions that turn tragedies into triumphs. | | | | schools with the project of human freedom |
| In essence, research in K-12 literacy education needs | | | | (Anderson, 1988; Perry, 2003). Critical research, I |
| to elucidate life in classrooms for the poor and for | | | | argue, can help us to identify quality teaching in |
| members of historically marginalized groups, and it | | | | literacy classrooms even as it helps us to refine (or |
| needs to shed light on what is happening in powerful | | | | even redefine) our notions of curricula, pedagogy, |
| learning spaces for students--when literacy instruction | | | | literacy, and achievement. |
| is both identity affirming and academically enriching. I | | | | |