“Americans for Prosperity” is taking its message to the people, expecting to influence voters in the upcoming mid-term and Presidential elections. As described in The New York Times today, “The idea is to embed staff members in a community, giving conservative advocacy a permanent, local voice through field workers who live in the neighborhood year-around and appreciate the nuances of the local issues.” This notion of grassroots organizing recalls the work of the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012.
It also reminds me of an influential literacy advocacy called the National Writing Project. They, too, are committed to local organizing, trying to get out the message in K-12 schools that “everybody is a writer.” They, too, are disillusioned with big government, insofar as it promotes literacy with crude measures of success represented by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. They, too, recruit local teachers to testify about their own beliefs and practices to substantiate the success of child-centered teaching approaches to literacy.
So much in common, but so far apart. Because ultimately the National Writing Project is about improving the quality of life through literacy, and Americans for Prosperity is about undermining government for personal gain. There is not much money to be gained by enhancing the roles and practices of literacy in local communities, unless you are in the multi-billion dollar testing business. But there is much to be gained by undermining Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Health Care Act, because it puts money in the pockets of the employer class at the expense of the employee class.
The National Writing Project actually works within a broken system. It competes for federal grants and then distributes them to local Writing Project sites, which carry the message that writing transforms lives into schools and communities. This is a very hard sell to school authorities, because writing does not appear to be very marketable, except to the elite who publish their way to fame. The Common Core Standards has promoted the idea that writing across the curriculum raises the quality of thinking and achievement in every subject area. Writing for personal growth and rejuvenation, however, is less marketable and more counter to the culture of “success.”.
Nevertheless, the Writing Project works within schools, not against them. The Writing Project is less ideological and more pragmatic than Americans for Prosperity. Following the best practices of instruction, it meets students, teachers, and care-givers where they are and offers the best, most relevant practices to improve their writing and writing process. It is less interested in the short-term gains of test performance, than in the literacy that sustains writers for their lifetimes.
Americans for Prosperity has very short-term goals: win elections in 2014 and 2016. They are also recruiting local professionals to get their message out. Their message is that government is the enemy, and we should do whatever it takes to tear it down, or as Grover Nyquist demurely frames it, to make it “small enough to drown in a bathtub.” There are very few constructive messages in the mission of Americans for Prosperity, because its view of prosperity is a kind of pyramid scheme.
The ultimate beneficiaries of the drowning of government are employers, who vastly outnumber employees. The idea that employees should aspire to the privileged class of employers is a pyramid scheme, because there is no way for employers to outnumber employees. Ultimately the few will benefit from the starving of the many. Prosperity is really for the elite.
As I already have suggested, no one, except for testing companies, gets rich on literacy. It is less a material than a personal or spiritual benefit. There is much evidence that writing indirectly brings prosperity, because it is often associated with promotions within business, civil service, and other institutions. However, it is not a ticket you can punch with every election cycle. It is a catalyst, but not the sole contributor to prosperity.
That’s why the National Writing Project is not on the front page of the New York Times, but Americans for Prosperity is. It is just as well-organized, but not as well-funded. It is just as locally active, but not as resonant with social discontent. It is just as attentive to change and growth, but without the decisive measures of election results. But it is more constructive, relentless (active for forty years), and devoted to the welfare of all Americans.
The National Writing Project has attracted support from both sides of the political aisle, it is as prominent in Mississippi as in California, it has been awarded federal grants for both urban and rural school projects, it is a leading reformer in digital literacy, family literacy, and teacher leadership.
Prosperity is an individual value; literacy is a democratic value. That’s why you can trust the National Writing Project, but you’d better ask questions from those who advocate for prosperity. With the National Writing Project, you never have to wonder who is getting the literacy.