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2 F raming ( and ) A merican E ducation In chapter one, we suggested that postsecondary writing instruction and writing assessment orbits are at the center of a very large galaxy that includes questions about the purpose of a college education, expectations of “productive” citizens, and, ultimately , the nation’s successful progress. From documents like Ready or Not, an influential report published by the American Diploma Project (Achieve 2004), memos published by or in association with the Voluntary System of Accountability (e.g., McPherson and Shulenberger 2006), and other policy reports, it’s possible to piece together a dominant narrative about the exigency surrounding these discussions about education. The problem, this story says, is that students aren’t learning what they need to in order to be successful twenty-first- century citizens in postsecondary (or secondary) education. This story is so consistently repeated, in fact, that its components are interchangeable. “Three hundred and seventy years after the first college in our fledgling nation was established,” begins A Test of Leadership, the report from the Spellings Commission, “higher education in the United States has become one of our greatest success stories” (Miller 2006, ix). “But even as we bask in the afterglow of past achievements,” says Accountability for Better Results, a study published by the National Commission on Accountability in Higher Education (affiliated with the State Higher Education Executive Officers), “a starker reality is emerging on the horizon” (State Higher Education 2005, 6). “Where the United States was once the international leader in granting college degrees,” notes Ready to Assemble: Grading State Higher Education Accountability Systems, “we’ve now 14 Reframi ng fallen to 10th” (Adelman and Carey 2009, 1). “Significant reform is needed in education, worldwide, to respond to and shape global trends in support of both economic and social development ,” contends Transforming Education, a collaboration among Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft (Partners 2009, 1). “Our nation must become more educated to thrive and prosper in the knowledge economy of the twenty-first century,” argues Paul Lingenfelter (2007, v). In these reports and the many others like them, “the twentyfirst -century economy,” or “the knowledge economy,” or “the twenty-first-century workforce” figures prominently, often coupled with the suggestion that school must prepare students for twenty-first-century jobs and/or careers. In some ways, these references are understandable. Until recently, the United States was seen as the world’s economic powerhouse. As we live through the current economic downturn, we understand the real-time implications when workers are not hired and businesses large and small fail. In an analysis of the economic theories playing out in discussions about the nation’s economic woes, Paul Krugman notes that “U.S. households have seen $13 trillion in wealth evaporate. More than six million jobs have been lost, and the unemployment rate appears headed for its highest level since 1940” (2009). Implied in this dominant story, situated within the specific context of the nation’s economic crisis and the broader context of the need for school to prepare students for citizenship that we described briefly in chapter one, is that education should do something—fast—to help American households regain that wealth. As understandable as this link between education and work is, though, it’s not the only way “the purpose of education” can be conceptualized. Mike Rose, like others before him who have questioned the “commonsense” purposes presented for education (e.g., Noddings 2005) implores, “Think of what we don’t read and hear” (Rose 2009, 27). Throughout this chapter and this book, we will return to “what we don’t read and hear,” but we first must examine what we do experience. In fact, the stories Framing (and) American Education 15 about education that run through reports like these (as well as news stories, and talk radio and other venues) are shaped through one (very, very dominant) frame currently surrounding the idea of “what education should be,” a frame that also profoundly influences discussions about assessments intended to provide information about what students are learning as well as how and why they are learning it. An important step in reframing writing assessment, then, is to understand the roots of this dominant frame and the ways it shapes contemporary representations of (writing) education. But before we can discuss the current frame, it’s important to understand the concept of framing and how this concept is at work in current discussions about education. Learning about how framing (and reframing) operates can be crucial to...

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