[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: Jack Cassidy's Report

[Ken Goodman]

My sense is that the basic problem is economic- school districts are 
less willing to pay for conference attendance and teachers are not 
willing spend money of their own.


But the major turnover of IRA staff has to have hurt too.
And you don't cut services without losing members.
ken Goodman



On 2/21/2011 10:15 AM, richardallington at aol.com wrote:
> The real question about IRA has to do with membership. As I understand 
> it membership is down about 50% since my presidency (from 90,000 to 
> 60,000). As I departed the presidency IRA was planning for 100,000 
> members and taking the annual meeting only cities where conferences of 
> 35,000+ could be accommodated (thus the focus on Orlando and Chicago 
> recently). But conference attendance is also down about as much as 
> membership (from over 25,000 in my year as president to 12,500 last 
> year). I'm not sure how things turned around so quickly but IRA has 
> adequate funds in surplus to survive for awhile (praise the Lord). 
> Still the question that keeps me awake is what has driven IRA 
> membership and conference attendance to the pits? Is it that IRA has 
> finally fell victim to the special education complex? That struggling 
> readers are no longer seen as a problem for reading specialists to 
> work with but instead are now seen as LD and largely unremediable? IRA 
> lost its leadership in publishing on struggling readers to LDA and CEC 
> in the 1980s and now reading specialists are typically my age and 
> retiring from teaching.
>
> Dick Allington
> University of Tennessee
> A209 Bailey Education Complex
>
>
>
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