NLP commits to systemic change in education
In my life before NLP, I was a middle school teacher, and later, a school district superintendent. These experiences were ideal preparation for doing the important work of ensuring news literacy is a national education priority.
In fact, there is a direct through line. Let me explain. When my eighth grade U.S. history students walked into the classroom, they would immediately see a large, colorful sign with one page of construction paper for each letter — THINK!
I would stand next to this sign each day and ask them questions. I didn’t realize it then, but I was challenging them to fill in the gaps of their education by asking them to think more deeply about their answers. At that time when test scores and test prep ruled the academic day, we weren’t expected to teach students to think critically. And we still don’t. That puts students at a disadvantage for life and fails a principal mandate of public education: to prepare students to be active, critically thinking members of our democracy.
NLP has led the way to help change this, and over the past year we’ve felt a renewed urgency to turn our full attention and resources to helping educators align what happens in the classroom with events in the real world.
I’m excited to announce that we have made a strategic pivot that tightens our focus on bringing systemic change to public education at a national scale. Our ultimate objective is nothing less than ensuring that news literacy becomes required teaching in all 50 states. As important and rewarding as our recent initiatives with the broader public have been, we knew we would have to restructure our work to fully leverage our expertise on this urgent initiative. Our strategic framework spells out how we will achieve this.
Partnering with Los Angeles school district
Earlier this week we took a major step toward this vision. With a three-year, $1.15 million grant from The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, we are partnering with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school district in the United States, to ensure that all students learn news literacy skills and concepts before high school graduation. LAUSD also will join NLP’s News Literacy District Fellowship program, a nationwide initiative that supports school leaders to design and implement district-wide plans for news and media literacy education that currently impacts over 1 million students in 13 states.
Together with LAUSD, we will pioneer a blueprint for news and media literacy education not just for California, but also for districts across the nation, as legislative efforts to require media literacy education gain momentum around the country.
Oh, and about that through line: As a young teacher I knew that my students didn’t need to take more tests to succeed in whatever path they chose. They needed to learn to think critically. I still believe this, and at NLP, we plan to make it happen.
