For her “meticulous job of documenting concerns plaguing education,” Dr. Elaine Garan, an associate professor in the Department of Literacy and Early Education at California State University, Fresno was chosen as “one of the 10 most influential educators in the country.”

The honor was bestowed in December as part of the Upton Sinclair Awards announced by Dr. Michael F. Shaughnessy of Eastern New Mexico University and Delia Stafford, president of the Houston-based Haberman Education Foundation, in a column on the Web site www.EducationNews.org.

“I am honored to be on that list,” Garan said, adding she is more pleased by the response to her scholarship and advocacy. “To me the issue is the cause, not this award, because any award is, after all, arbitrary.”

Garan was selected for writing “Resisting Reading Mandates: How to Triumph with the Truth” (2002), a critique of federal requirements about how children must learn reading skills, and “In Defense of Our Children: When Politics, Profit and Education Collide” (2004), which discusses concerns about the No Child Left Behind Act and the links between public school testing and reading programs and corporate/political interests.

Shaughnessy and Stafford wrote that Garan “has taken a major role in revealing some of the concerns with the No Child Left Behind Act and the issues in reading.”

Garan said there has been “an enormous shift” in support away from No Child Left Behind in the past year, including states suing the federal government and school districts suing states over the validity and constitutionality of educational mandates.

She has published several articles, been interviewed extensively by media as an expert on education issues and has lectured nationwide. Garan is working on a new book that “compares traditional and progressive/constructivist philosophies of education” and how they translate into teaching methods. It’s an attempt, she said, to mesh theory and practice because the two often are taught separately.

Garan said her writings have had impact “because they speak for teachers and they speak for children.” She said some teachers “are demoralized and marginalized’ by government-imposed methods and materials.

“My books gave them the tools, the facts and the hard research data to be able to talk back to those who have been controlling the system,” Garan said, adding that she prides herself on communicating “in plain English instead of educationaleze.”

Dr. Paul Beare, dean of Fresno State’s Kremen School of Education and Human Development, expressed the school’s pride in Garan’s achievement. “Her outspoken commitment to children, learning and the truth earned her this honor and should serve as inspiration to the hundreds of teachers she helps prepare for service in the Central Valley.

Garan specializes in teaching reading and children’s literature. She joined the Fresno State faculty in 1998 after teaching at St. Bonaventure University in New York and at Eastern New Mexico State University in Portales.

Garan said that at Fresno State, she has “not just been permitted, but encouraged to express” her views.

“The freedom I've been permitted is not contingent upon my views agreeing with those of the administration, here,” she said. “Dean Beare, President [John D.] Welty, Provost [Jeri] Echeverria and Dr. Judith Neal [chair of the Literacy and Early Education Department] may agree with my views or they may not. I don't always know … because they have never asked me what I was going to say or write next. This represents deep principle. It represents a sincere commitment to academic freedom. It is easy to pretend belief in a principle when the ideas expressed conform to our own. It is more difficult when the views expressed are controversial.

“I'm proud and very fortunate to be associated with California State University, Fresno.”

Additional information on the Upton Sinclair Awards can be found at www.educationnews.org/First_Annual_Upton_Sinclair_Award_of_Influential_Educators.htm.

Details about Garan’s career are available at  http://education.csufresno.edu/facstaf/garan_e.htm.







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