[aaace-nla] Help Needed-Constructs for the Message

[George demetrion]

Thanks Tom,

This is an important argument (making the nation smarter).  I believe that case can be made regardless of reading level and regardless of progress in reading (decoding) made.  Of course, one would like to see progress in the mastery of the basics of reading and writing as well as an enhancement of knowledge as a result of participating in a literacy program on a regular basis.

The persuasiveness of such an argument can be enhanced in part by the legitimization of whatever research methodologies and approaches shed information and insight on the problem at hand.  Thus we might start with a research question:  What do adults learn through their participation in adult literacy programs? How do we know?  What problems remain that limit our capacity in the answering of such a question and what next is required in grappling with such gaps? (We can only know in part at best and what we know will always be limited and flawed, but we can grow in what we do know and gain new knowledge that we currently do not possess.  Does (social) science promise more--say that we can know all there is to know about our topic or that questions do not remain?  I don't believe so, although the allure of the drive for certainty may be persistent, which is fine if we are also perpetually aware of the limitations of whatever it is that we do know.  The quest becomes a problem only when we think that what we have attained is indubitable knowledge or that our way or methodology is the surest pathway to truth).

How can we make progress on this important question?  There are various ways.  Let me suggest a few:

a) Though study of learning on the ground over some reasonable period of time (1-5 years).
b) In-depth ethnographic and case study analysis of learning in a variety of diverse settings.
c)  Comparative analysis of case study materials moving toward synthesis and the posing of additional questions requiring additional work.
d)  Outside examination of such work (both the case studies and the overview analyses) not only by researchers but by various others, which email and internet capacity opens up.

All of these points can be further refined and other points can be added.  The key factors are (a) identifying a problem worth investigation and (b) setting up the means to progressively attain a resolution recognizing the provisional nature of any such effort.

Essential is the intellectual and political climate that allows such investigations to flourish.  Create barriers to that, say through rhetorical strategies that define research in highly limiting ways and you've established an anti-intellectual inhibitor that discourages such work from the get go.

A related research question on the knowledge issue--not only what adults learn though participation in adult literacy programs, but the value of such knowledge as defined by whom and the significance of such values in the shaping of the culture of adult literacy education in the United States of America.  This is obviously a much more complicated question than the first one posed.  In order even to begin moving forward on such a research agenda, perhaps initial work should be taken on the first to help establish a baseline, which, in turn, would inform the second question, which is as much about political culture as it is about learning theory.

George Demetrion


----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Sticht
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 10:44 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: [aaace-nla] Help Needed-Constructs for the Message

Here is a message posted April of this year that is relevant to the
subject at hand. Tom Sticht


Research Note                   April 29, 2004


Making the Nation Smarter by Strengthening
the Adult Education and Literacy System

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education


Making the nation smarter through education is the over-riding strategy
available to federal, state, or local policymakers for protecting the
security and freedom of United States citizens as they pursue life,
liberty and happiness. For this reason, all candidates for public office
need to have a comprehensive understanding of and commitment to the
thousands of programs across the nation providing adult education and
literacy services

Today, these programs are positioned to become a "high impact" educational
system for the 21st century with the power to reach not only adults, but,
through the intergenerational transfer of attitudes and knowledge, to
reach children, too.  It has already established itself as a system for
continuing education that is actively sought out by a growing segment of
the hard-to-reach adult population. Many of these are adults whose
knowledge and skills were once adequate for their needs but are no longer
Some are adults whose childhood was frequently unfavorable for acquiring
large bodies of knowledge, but whose lives now call for the development of
new knowledge and skills. Many do not seek the types of formal, structured
education in various "disciplines" that are offered in high schools,
colleges and universities. Instead they are looking for the non-formal,
"functional" education that helps them achieve short-term goals of a
specific nature.

The extraordinary diversity of the adult population, with its range of
ages from 16 to over 80, numerous native languages, and all sorts of
formal and informal educational backgrounds and life experiences,
requires resources, facilities and methods of teaching that are much
different from the traditional schools and colleges for students in the
K-12 or higher education components of our educational system.

The adult education and literacy system, with its mix of educational
providers, ranging from traditional educational institutions such as adult
public schools and community colleges to libraries, military bases,
prisons, workplaces, churches and a variety of charitable, community-based
organizations, comprises the multifaceted system that a highly diverse
population of adults need to have convenient access to and comfortable
feelings in while continuing their education.

As we move forward in the new millennium the adult education and literacy
system is poised to become  a mainstream education system to help
traditionally hard-to-reach adults, their children,  and their communities
participate more fully  in the lifelong learning of new knowledge and
skills for living in  our contemporary  global system of work,
transportation, information and telecommunications.

Action Steps Present and Future Policymakers Should Take

To take advantage of this opportunity for making the nation smarter we
need to strengthen  the adult education and literacy system by taking
three important steps.

Step 1: Increase Funding. The present combined federal and state funding
of some $600 per enrollee in the adult education and literacy system of
Title 2 of the Workforce Investment Act is unconscionably low. A concerted
effort by federal and state governments should be taken over the next five
years to increase the per enrollee funding of the adult education and
literacy system to at least $3000 per enrollee.  This would raise the
funding level to a level more comparable to that adult students enrolled
in other educational programs in post-secondary education

Though this would represent a significant growth in federal funds for the
adult education and literacy system, it does not even amount to parity
with the Head Start program which aims largely to educate the children of
many of the very same adults that the adult education and literacy system
serves. Through the intergenerational transfer of positive attitudes,
language and literacy skills  an enhanced adult education and literacy
system could, in fact, lead to a decrease in the numbers of children
needing compensatory education.  This way some of the increased costs of
the expanded adult education system would be recovered by producing cost
savings in the Head Start and/or Title I elementary school compensatory
education programs.

Step 2: Increase Enrollments.  The fact that some 3.0 million adults may
seek learning in the adult education and literacy system in 2004 is
evidence that the system has considerable drawing power.  However, over
forty million adults lack a high  school diploma, and over ninety million
are below the levels of literacy established as the standards we should be
striving for by the National Governor’s Association. So there are many
more adults who might presently benefit from participating in continuing
education in the adult education and literacy system.

A large, national, long term educational activity  is needed to inform the
nation about the existence and benefits of the adult education and
literacy system as a continuing education system that is non-formal,
convenient, and accommodating of the many needs of non-traditional adult
students in a diversity of settings. A national coalition of private
foundations, business and industry, the media (newspapers, radio,
television, internet) , community based organizations, associations of
adult educators and adult learners, and various government departments at
federal, state and local levels should develop an orchestrated strategy to
increase awareness of the adult education and literacy system and its many
benefits for adults of all ages and for the intergenerational benefits of
children, too.

Step 3. Improve the  Adult Education and Literacy System. Research has
revealed that many adult education and literacy programs are characterized
by poor attendance, high drop out rates, and little if any improvements in
learning. Given the extremely low funding level of this marginalized
education  system such findings are not unexpected. Efforts underway to
improve the quality of adult education programs through better staff
development, new technology-based curriculum materials, new methods of
assessment of knowledge and skills, and the routine collection of data on
indicators of program achievements need to continue in a greatly expanded
mode. Much of this effort requires additional research and development.

Though each of the three major military services have personnel research
organizatins, for all fifty states, there is only one federally funded R &
D center concerned exclusively with adult education, learning and
literacy. Given the central position of adult education in achieving
national citizenship, economic, and education goals, there is clearly a
need for a greatly expanded and improved R & D investment to provide the
highest quality education possible for tens of millions  of the nation’s
adults, many of whom have encountered great difficulties in learning both
academic and functional knowledge and skills.

Without diminishing in any way the importance of the formal pre-school,
K-12 and higher education systems, there is a pressing need for all of the
nation’s citizens, and especially those seeking to provide leadership in
government positions to understand the role that the less formal, adult
education and literacy system plays in our educational strategy for making
the nation smarter.

Overall, the adult education and literacy system , like the other
components of our educational system, serves the general purpose of
improving the entire network of minds in the nation in which we live and
helps to maintain our very survival as a society of human beings in
contemporary times.

Like our other educational components, adult literacy education deserves
recognition and adequate support for the contribution it makes to forming
bridges among minds and insuring social inclusion so that "no mind is an
island" in our land.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net






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