On the politics of literacy education:

The International Reading Association hosted an international forum called Literacy: A Path Out of Extremism? in Washington DC. An international panel of literacy education scholars discussed “the global challenges posed by poverty, disease, health and environmental issues, and extremist beliefs that may lead to terrorism.” Among the participants were Dr. Samdani Fakir, Dr. Frank Dall, and Dr. Timothy Shanahan, current president of IRA.

Fakir spoke about his experience in Afghanistan, and said that:

Demobilizing and re-integrating the various militias in Afghanistan is an important first step, but literacy/education efforts must be sustained to make young people aware of extreme ideologies and how to think critically about their world and its future.

Dall spoke about the need to go beyond functional literacy because

…it is possible for marginal literacy to add to extremism by becoming another tool of exploitation—to create a functionally literate, hence more economically productive workforce that can be manipulated for purposes of ideological control.

It seems that when we identify a regime as being extremist, a policy encouraging critical literacy is recommended to challenge the status quo. However in our own country, reading education policy is now driven by the National Reading Panel’s functionalist view of reading, to preserve the status quo by preparing students to compete in our modern economy.

Timothy Shanahan, who was also one of the NRP panelists, argued the case for both critical and functional literacy, calling critical literacy the pinnacle of a pyramid, the base of which is functional literacy.

The term ‘critical literacy’ does not appear anywhere in the full report of the National Reading Panel. In practice, basic competencies are stressed for the underprivileged, while affluent kids get to do the “higher level” thinking. Status quo.

In the US, where accountability is based on test scores, and evidence-based reading instruction is the rule, teachers are discouraged from embracing critical philosophical orientations that might challenge a social hierarchy in which the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Powerless, our own form of capitalist extremism.