[AAACE-NLA] How Adult Literacy Advocacy Can Succeed

[AWilder106@aol.com]

David,

That's a very good article you wrote.

1)  Accountability means measurable outcomes. and that means some sort of accepted by the public form of testing/assessment.  It could be with LVA levels, or CASAS, or TABE, but it has to be there, and it has to be out front, so that when an educator is asked how they are accountable they can simply, in as few  words as possible, get the message across so the person out there, who asked, can understand it.

2)  "Return on investment" is excellent.  As it is couched in monetary terms we should be able to reply in monetary terms.
Last week as you know the Executive Summary on performance levels was discussed by us on the Assessment listserv.

I asked if there had been any citations to go with the opening paragraph, which is full of (as yet) unsubstantiated claims.  Some of those claims should have numbers put on them so we can memorize them and bring them out when we need to.

I agree that immigrants learning English is an easy sell..until we toss in the debate on "Illegal aliens."

3)  Some great minds should get together and comes to a decision about the numbers of people who are on waiting lists.  Those are the people we want to reach. Also, some agreement about numbers in programs.

4)  Yes, put some boundaries around "deserve," give the word a context.

5)  The case for NOW, not tomorrow, NOW. We are perhaps about to encounter a Perfect Storm of economic trials.  I read about it in the NYTimes, The Atlantic Monthly.  I hear it  from a guy who is a quiet and watchful financial advisor.  He puts a financial crisis at the midterm elections.  Paul Volker: within 5 years we face a 75% chance of a serious financial crisis.  (NYT, p. 13, June 26) 

In our message, we have to insert the word "NOW."  

Andrea