2007 NCTE Presidential Address: Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night

This article presents the text of Joanne Yatvin's presidential address, delivered at the NCTE Annual Convention in New York City in November 2007. The title of her presidential address, "Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night," was taken from Matthew Arnold's (1867) poem "Dover Beach." Yatvin states that the federal government has usurped the right that the U.S. Constitution delegated to states to establish and oversee public education and which the states, in turn, largely delegated to local communities. The policies put into federal law, the practices that have emanated from those policies, and the belief system that generated them in the first place, she contends, have already damaged the lives of students and teachers and eroded the excellence, flexibility, and vitality of American education.