PROPOSED RESOLUTION ON ENGLISH INSTRUCTION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

WHEREAS, Federal government officials are unfamiliar with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and are struggling with whether federal standards would have an appropriate or potentially unconstitutional power over local education; therefore, they have not been willing or able to develop federal educational standards; and

WHEREAS, Our founding fathers’ education included development of grammatical skills necessary to express complex ideas in simple documents such as The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and The Northwest Ordinance; and

WHEREAS, All levels of education are burdened by special interest groups (such as Sierra Club and NOW) demanding involvement to assure that educational standards reflect their underlying pedagogical, ideological, and social agendas, confusion ensues; and

WHEREAS, Writers of educational standards and policy struggle with the definition of basic vocabulary such as “competency” and produce standards lacking clarity; and

WHEREAS, The National Council of Teachers of English created murky and largely unintelligible standards; and

WHEREAS, the methods of communication have changed greatly over the centuries, but the standards for clear, laconic communications have not changed, be it

RESOLVED, That we the people want our children to receive instruction that develops grammatical skills appropriate for each grade level K-12, that the children must be tested for mastery of those skills, and that mastery is defined as being able to create a writing sample in which the student applies accurately those grammatical skills that are appropriate for grade-level; be it further

RESOLVED, That current teacher training and teacher re-training programs focus on developing each teacher’s knowledge ofgrammatical principles so that they will no longer avoid the teaching of grammar because they cannot apply that knowledge or skill level themselves; and be it further

RESOLVED, That teacher unions must support colleges that make competent teaching of grammatical skills a pre-requisite for certification as a teacher of English in public schools. Teachers of elementary grades must be fully qualified to teach grammatical skills appropriate for those grade levels. The teacher unions must encourage the federal government,the states, and departments of education to respect the fact that we the people want our education tax dollars used to provide opportunities for students to master basic grammatical skills. Teacher unions that fail to support these professional standards will lose their tax-deductible status.