Literacy as Snake Oil

This edited collection examines the recent trend toward quick-fix literacy programs in which entrepreneurs peddle packaged literacies that purport to resolve the pressure to raise achievement scores. Current accountability and standardization movements that feed the market for packaged literacies make this a timely book for university researchers, classroom teachers, and school or district administrators. The discourse surrounding the teaching and learning of literacy has been appropriated by the conservative right in such a way as to block not only a critique of the so-called literacy crisis, but also attempts to construct more meaningful solutions. Literacy as Snake Oil critically examines the consequences of packaged literacy on educational practice.