[AAACE-NLA] Results of the Literacy President Questions Survey
Gail Spangenberg
gspangenberg at caalusa.org
Tue Jun 8 14:03:42 EDT 2004
What use will now be made of this interesting info ? :-) Gail S
>Colleagues,
>
>The Literacy President questions survey has now ended, and it was a
>smashing success!
>In this rather long post, you will find the results. Please post
>this to other national, state and local electronic lists so that
>colleagues who participated but who may not be subscribed to the
>AAACE-NLA list will also get these results.
>
>There were a total of 1467 participants over roughly a two-week
>period. This was especially good because it was at the end of the
>year for many adult education programs. The participant breakdown
>was:
>
> 77% female, 23% male
>
> 64% practitioners (e.g. teachers, tutors, counselors, administrators)
> 26% adult learners (e.g. adult new readers, program graduates)
> 6% college or university students in adult education
> 10% others
> Note: the above categories are not mutually exclusive. For
>example, some college
> or university students and some adult learners are
>practitioners, too;
>
>The Top Five Questions
>
>These questions will be sent to the Presidential campaigns in the
>next few weeks:
>
>1. Access to Quality Programs
>
>What should be the commitment of the federal government, if any, to
>ensure that all adults in the United States have guaranteed access
>to quality programs to improve their academic skills, regardless of
>income, location, age, and national origin?
>
> 683 votes, and 67% of these chose it as a first or second priority
>
>2. Full Funding
>
>What will you do to ensure full funding for adult education and
>literacy programs?
>
> 616 votes, and 58% of these chose it as a first or second priority
>
>
>3. Training/re-training for the New Economy
>
>Many U.S. workers function at low literacy levels. Some of these
>voters watch their jobs being "outsourced" to foreign countries, but
>are not being given adequate access to the training and education
>that will allow them to function in the new "global, knowledge-based
>economy." How would your administration re-focus priorities to
>address the disappearance of the American dream for the 90 million
>US citizens functioning at the two lowest literacy levels who cannot
>compete without additional education?
>
> 605 votes, and 55% of these chose it as a first or second priority
>
>4. Intergenerational Literacy
>
>Children need education. Those who do not get education now will
>become adults who need literacy skills. If you teach adults, they
>will help their kids. What are you willing to do to improve adult
>literacy programs?
>
> 598 votes, and 52 % of these chose it as a first or second priority
>
>
>5. National Adult Literacy Initiative to Address Issues of the Working Poor
>
>Since it is the goal of this nation to create "new" jobs, employ the
>"working poor" in "better" jobs as an ongoing goal of the Personal
>Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996
>(Welfare Reform) and to help colleges and universities manage their
>growing adult student population seeking new skills, what steps
>would you propose as a national adult literacy initiative to help
>address these issues?
>
> 531 votes, and 42% of these chose it as a first or second priority
>
>
>The next highest vote-getter got 479 votes.
>
>Commentary
>
>Many people thought it would be a bad idea to include questions
>which could be answered by "yes" or "no." The votes eliminated those
>questions except in question four. For that question, several people
>suggested the wording be changed from "would...." to "How
>would...." so I have done that.
>
>Several people pointed out that the correct word in the first and
>second questions is "ensure" not "insure" so I have changed that.
>
>One person pointed out that the correct name of the act for question #5 is
>"The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation
>Act of 1996" so I have changed the question to reflect that.
>
>I have made a couple other minor edits as well.
>
>Several people pointed out that it was difficult in this survey --
>or impossible -- to change one's choices, and that there were other
>problems in the survey design. Some of those problems were due to
>the limitations of the survey Web site; some were attributable to
>the inexperience of the questionnaire designer -- me -- in using
>this particular Web site.
>
>Several people suggested new questions to add, but unfortunately
>there is no opportunity to do that now.
>
>Several people felt the questions should have been better
>"wordsmithed." For everyone's information, these were the questions
>as they were posed by the field on the AAACE National Literacy
>Advocacy electronic list. They were not edited. The idea was to
>get the actual questions as they were written from the field, and
>then to let practitioners, learners and others vote on them.
>
>Several people did not like the questionnaire's length, the quality
>of the questions, and/or the amount of time it took them to complete
>it. Many others, however, liked the questions and the process of
>completing the questionnaire. Some even complained that it was too
>difficult to select only five from among them, that there were many
>more good ones.
>
>Although several practitioners thought that it would be difficult it
>for students to complete the survey, actually none of the fifty
>seven adult learners who made comments said the survey was
>difficult. Of course, that may simply mean that those adult
>learners who made it through to the last question -- the comments
>question -- had no difficulty.
>
>When these five questions are sent to the Presidential candidates
>they will be preceded by background material which will be prepared
>by the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education.
>Those materials, we hope, will give the candidates some information
>about the state of adult literacy in the United States, should they
>need it, to form a position on these questions.
>
>The top fifteen states had 1,323 (90%) of the participants
>
>1. New Jersey: 503
>2. California: 230
>3. Illinois: 122
>4. Massachusetts: 103
>5. Pennsylvania: 73
>6. Missouri: 67
>7. New York: 49
>8. Texas: 46
>9. Florida: 35
>10. New Mexico: 31
>
>11. Georgia: 18
>12. Kentucky: 15
>13. Delaware: 12
>14. Washington: 11
>15 North Carolina: 8
>
>
>On behalf of the Literacy President Group, our thanks to everyone
>who participated in this survey. And special thanks to the
>outstanding work done by our colleagues in New Jersey and California.
>
>David J. Rosen
>djrosen at comcast.net
>
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--
Gail Spangenberg
President
Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy
1221 Avenue of the Americas - 46th Floor
New York, NY 10020
212-512-2362, fax 212-512-2610
www.caalusa.org
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