ABSTRACT
The issues surrounding mainstreaming are not new. The call to examine the role of basic writing programs was sounded quite competently in 1992, at the meeting of the Fourth Annual Conference on Basic Writing in Maryland, and subsequently debated in the Journal of Basic Writing (Bartholomae; Adams; Fox; Greenberg; Berger; Gay; Jones; Scott).1 And yet the need to examine and reconsider how to meet basic writing students’ needs has emerged with a vengeance in recent years. Across the nation, basic writing programs are being scrutinized by numerous audiences-by politicians, boards of trustees, university administrators, and the public alike. Still, the momentum has been building for quite some time. In a report published in 1995 on the political situation facing basic writing programs, the National Association for Developmental Education (NADE) warned that attacks on developmental education in higher education were imminent. NADE political liaison Gerald Corkran noted that, following their efforts to reduce or eliminate affirmative action, some state and national leaders would then move on to dismantle developmental education, believing that because there was no longer a need for affirmative action, there was therefore no need for developmental education. Along these lines, Corkran warned, “some congressional leaders have identified higher education, especially developmental education, as the next major program for review after the welfare debate has concluded” (2). Several states at
that time proposed refusing all aid for underachieving students in the belief “that refusing aid for such courses could spark students and schools to improve education” (Corkran 3). At that time, it was clear to many of us in the field of basic writing that the real impact of such actions would more than likely act to further exclude economically disadvantaged students from attending college at all.
