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

[P. David Pearson]

Do we know if NCTE, NCTM and NSTA are down in membership and conference attendance by similar percentages?  That would tell us whether this is a general problem with the economy and school district PD funds or something peculiar to the reading teacher phenomenon, as Dick seems to be suggesting.

I have NO data on this issue, but my sense is that NCTE and NSTA have not been hit as hard--perhaps because they never had as much external funding for their conferences (e.g., NCLB)???

David

On Feb 21, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Ken Goodman wrote:

> 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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