[AAACE-NLA] Towards Quality in Adult Literacy Education

[George Demetrion]

Thanks David,

I took a (quick) look and shared it with my boss.  As a managerial
process, the Baldridge materials look exceedingly useful.  At the least,
they merit a substantial look.  It does seem as though these materials
could serve as a resource in moving forward issues related to program
quality.  

In terms of working through the complex relationship between research on
PD and effective practice, other issues remain, namely on the nature of
effective instruction, the relationship between instructional practice
and theories of reading acquisition and literacy development.  Embedding
such practices within effective management procedures is surely
critical, but the issue itself as to what constitutes effective
instructional practice, is a matter well beyond a managerial issue.
Among the broad range of issues on the table are:

1. How adult literacy students learn
2. The extent and range of their learning
3. What they learn
4. The relationship between reading and broader literacy development (a
complex, but exceedingly important issue in itself)
5.  What, why, how, and the extent and range of student learning at the
various levels of current literacy acquisition range
6.  The relationship of such learning (as variously defined) to that of
valued public outcomes and how such values are discerned

#'s 1-5 require sustained research along the lines suggested in my
previous post, or some other reasonable framework.  # 6 points to the
very epicenter of the politics of literacy.  This # 6 is crucial,
because, one assumes that a thorough study of #'s 1-5 will demonstrate a
wide range of impacts, outcomes, and influences.  Nonetheless, they will
only matter to the extent to which they are valued.  They will only be
valued to the extent to which they are legitimized.  And they will only
be legitimized to the extent to which they rise to some certain
threshold of public/policy influence and significance.

In fairness to the PD practitioners and researchers, these are
exceedingly difficult issues that Merrifield, for example, in Contested
Ground, could point to, but not resolve.  That does not prevent
progress, and your recommendation on the Baldridge materials provides a
dynamic managerial model, the efficacy of which perhaps may require
additional testing.  At the least, it's worth a good look.  

My objective here is to flesh out some key issues related to learning.
This focus may require a research/experimental model (experimentation
broadly defined) consisting of its own logics well beyond any merely
managerial design.  The short of it is that "the field" (however the
field is defined, and there's a certain fluidity there) may need to do
its own research on adult literacy learning and not depend exclusively,
or even predominantly on outside specialists, especially governmental
think tanks, with their own political agendas, if "the field" is to be
as sophisticated in the realm of pedagogy as it is in managerial design
and practice.

In particular, I maintain, single-shot solutions need to be resisted, or
at the least, very closely scrutinized.

George Demetrion



-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org] On Behalf Of David
Rosen
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 3:18 PM
To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Towards Quality in Adult Literacy Education

Tom, and others,

I think we do know what program quality is, and we have a set of 
standards and a program improvement model which has been shown to be 
effective in Business and which, as a process, has promise for adult 
education, the Baldridge National Quality Program standards.  The 
Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee, one of the 
NCSALL partners, has been working with adult education and literacy 
programs in Tennessee, Kentucky, and perhaps other states which are 
using the Baldridge process to improve program quality.

I learned about this from an outstanding presentation by Mary Ziegler 
at the ProLiteracy Conference in Oklahoma in October.  Mary was talking 
about their work in Tennessee but Kentucky Program directors who were 
at the session, and who were also using this process, gave persuasive 
examples from their experience showing that this is a rigorous, 
challenging and  rewarding program improvement process.

For more information, see 
http://aeonline.coe.utk.edu/quality_improvement.htm

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net

On Dec 15, 2004, at 9:46 PM, Thomas Sticht wrote:

> Research Note			December 15, 2004
>
> Can We Improve Quality in Adult Literacy Education
> if We Don't Know What Quality Is?
>
> Tom Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
>
> Since 1990 I estimate that the U. S. government has spent in excess of
> $200 million to improve the OUALITY of adult education and literacy
> programs in the United States.  This includes funding of leadership,
> research, and development projects for the National Institute for 
> Literacy
> (NIFL), the National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL), the National 
> Center
> for Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL), and projects funded by the 
> U. S.
> Education Department (USED), Office of Vocational and Adult Education
> (OVAE), Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL).
>
> Despite all this activity, the web site of the Council for Advancement

> of
> Adult Literacy (CAAL)  presently includes a Mission and Background
> Statement by the President and Founder of CAAL that states, among
other
> things, that: "Most of the problems we began to tackle 10-20 years ago

> are
> still with us: not enough of the right research...poor translation
into
> practice of what we know from research we have done...too few
financial
> resources...enormous professionalization needs (such as legitimizing 
> the
> field through proper reward structures and training)...failure to
fully
> understand that the interventions appropriate for working with adult 
> basic
> skills learners are different from those suitable for K-12."
>
> Illustrative of the inappropriateness of research and development in 
> adult
> literacy education that CAAL says is leading to "not enough of right
> research," in September of 2000 a National Literacy Summit 2000 
> steering
> committee formed of representatives from the foregoing and other adult
> literacy education organizations and individuals launched An Action 
> Agenda
> for Literacy entitled "From the Margins to the Mainstream" which
called
> for an education system of QUALITY services for adult students. Three
> years later on October 23-24 the Rutgers University Graduate School of
> Education, which houses a research center that is part of the NCSALL,
> hosted a conference entitled Toward Defining and Improving Quality in
> Adult Basic Education: Issues and Challenges. Somewhat strangely, this
> research conference focused on the challenges of defining what 
> constitutes
> quality in adult basic and literacy education.
>
> The reason that this strikes me as somewhat strange is that the
federal
> government has been funding the organizations and projects listed
above
> (excepting CAAL) for at least 10 to 15 years to conduct research,
> development, and leadership activities to improve the quality of adult
> education and literacy programs.  But only in 2003 were they meeting
to
> try to define "what constitutes a quality adult basic and literacy
> education system."  Several months later, in July 2004, the Director
of
> the NCSALL posted a message to the aaace-nla internet discussion list
> stating that colleagues and he were conducting research to try to find

> out
> what might constitute quality for adult education and literacy 
> programs.
>
> In November 2004 I reviewed a summary report of the Rutger's October
> 23-24, 2003 conference on quality posted on the NCSALL web site. As I 
> read
> through the report, called "Summaries of Papers Presented at Twentieth
> Annual Rutgers Invitational Symposium on Education (RISE)",  I noted 
> that
> it presented briefs of seventeen papers, none of which reported any 
> work
> where someone had gone to a particular program somewhere that was
> experiencing some sort of quality problem or problems and then
> demonstrated that the problems were corrected by the actions of those
> reporting at the conference or anyone else.
>
> I then set out to see if I could find any reports of examples where
> researchers, evaluators, professional developers or anyone else had
> actually demonstrated that they had gone to a particular program 
> somewhere
> and improved it in a manner that would satisfy the current call by the
> NCSALL and other government-funded agencies and centers for rigorous,
> "evidence-based" approaches to education reform.  So far I have not 
> found
> any such examples.
>
> All this raises the question for me as to what has been happening for 
> the
> last decade and a half and what the hundreds of millions of dollars of
> research, professional development, and leadership funds have been 
> spent
> on.  If those spending the funds to improve the quality of programs 
> don't
> even know what they mean by quality and none have actually 
> demonstrated in
> an "evidence-based"  manner that they have improved the quality of
some
> specific adult education and literacy program somewhere, then what's 
> going
> on? It appears that we have had, in the President of CAAL's words,
"not
> enough of the right research."
>
> Perhaps it is time to focus sizeable funds away from R & D efforts 
> aimed
> at seeking general principles and "research into practice" guidance
for
> improving the quality of adult education and literacy everywhere, and
> instead focus on efforts by those showing that they can improve adult
> education and literacy quality somewhere. With enough such 
> demonstrations,
> the adult education and literacy system just might present an image of

> a
> truly adult educational enterprise that knows how to actually achieve
> self-improvement under its own motivation toward perfection. Hopefully
> this will prevent the adult education and literacy system from
becoming
> yet another whipping child for the No Child Left Behind type of "big
> stick-little carrot" education reform with which the K-12 system is
> struggling.
>
> 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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