Teaching and learning about communication in K-12: our responsibilities, challenges, and tendency to “kick the can to the side of the road”

The three essays responding to our earlier stimulus essay on the status of communication education in the K-12 educational system (Yastremski &Morreale, 2021) call attention to a tendency in the communication discipline nationally to “kick this can to the side of the road,” in favor of other priority areas of interest. This tendency possibly relates to the ubiquitous nature of communication, which results in a multiplicity of topical priorities for communication teacher-scholars and our leading academic organization, the National Communication Association (NCA). At the same time, the essays also call attention to historical mandates for the discipline to take responsibility for and support teaching and learning about communication in K-12 schools, mandates that some say have largely gone unheeded (Book, 1989; Hunt et al., 2014; Rudick & Dannels, 2020). That said, the essays point to some valuable efforts about communication in K-12 over time, both within the discipline and externally. To illustrate, NCA has taken steps in the past to inform a discipline-centered and research-driven approach to K-12 education. In 1996, the association created Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy Standards, which were published in 1998 (National Communication Association, 2022). In 2005, with members’ contributions and support, the organization endorsed the College Board Standards for College Success: English Language Arts, as a replacement for the NCA standards. The College Board standards continue to serve as NCA’s definition for K-12 communication education, although the College Board has since archived the document and program, and NCA has not endeavored to update or revise the standards. Then, in 2017, the NCA Legislative Assembly passed a revised resolution that endorsed the inclusion of communication education as a graduation requirement for all students in the nation’s secondary schools and stressed the importance of using appropriately trained teachers to teach communication education. The resolution also called on the association to provide an agenda for NCA to promote a K-12 communication education initiative. To date, NCA has not acted on that resolution in any significant manner. Other agencies and organizations external to the discipline, aware of the K-12 imperative for communication instruction, have made valuable contributions, most significant of which are the Common Core State Standards (2015, 2022).