[AAACE-NLA] Re: AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 26, Issue 16

Mon Jul 11 09:12:02 EDT 2005

Does anyone know the name of the "paper compiled by the state Department of 
Community Colleges and Workforce Development" and where I can find it. I've 
checked their website, but had no luck so far.
 Thank you,
 Larry Schugam
Job Opportunities Task Force
Baltimore, MD 21202

 On 7/10/05, aaace-nla-request at lists.literacytent.org <
aaace-nla-request at lists.literacytent.org> wrote: 
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> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: News from Oregon (tanya tweeton)
> 2. Our Northern Neighbors for Inspiration (George demetrion)
> 3. Re: More thoughts on How Adult Literacy AdvocacyCanSucceed
> (SUSAN DEMETRION)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 11:37:44 -0700 (PDT)
> From: tanya tweeton <tweeton204 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] News from Oregon
> To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
> <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Message-ID: <20050710183744.48134.qmail at web54006.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> "According to a paper compiled by the state Department of Community 
> Colleges and Workforce Development, American businesses lose $60 billion a 
> year due to employees' basic skills deficiencies. Approximately 20 percent 
> of America's workers have low basic skills, and 75 percent of the unemployed 
> have reading or writing difficulties.
> 
> And children whose parents are unemployed and have not completed high 
> school are five times more likely to drop out of high school than children 
> of employed parents.
> 
> English as a Second Language is important so that the workforce can speak 
> English, Fish said."
> 
> Frankly David, this is the kind of argument that sells.These facts are the 
> type that need to be presented to whom ever we are trying to impress. 
> American business can understand these numbers! A thought...........Perhaps 
> we should be trying to sway American Business more and work through themto 
> help us and get even more of them involved in trying to persuade the 
> politicians that Adult Ed. is needed. Politically this might have a better 
> chance of succeeding rather than just approaching the Legislators. Arguments 
> such as helping business, and perhaps having an effect on lowering crime 
> rates etc........ now these arguments the public can relate to. I submit 
> that concrete arguments for Literacy programs, why they are needed and how 
> they are successful are what will help the public rally to support the Adult 
> Ed. programs.
> 
> Tanya Tweeton
> 
> David Rosen <DJRosen at TheWorld.com> wrote:
> AAACE-NLA Colleagues,
> 
> An article in Oregon's Appeal Tribune/Silverton Appeal gives an
> update on the national and Oregon funding situation for adult
> literacy education.
> 
> You'll find it at:
> 
> http://www.eastvalleynews.com/appeal/article.cfm?i=5777
> 
> David J. Rosen
> Adult Literacy Advocate
> DJRosen at theworld.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 
> Edith Hamilton:
> It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about 
> education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated 
> person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up 
> into the world of thought -- that is to be educated.
> __________________________________________________
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> ------------------------------
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> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 14:55:28 -0400
> From: "George demetrion" <gdemetrion at msn.com>
> Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Our Northern Neighbors for Inspiration
> To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAAC"
> <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Message-ID: <BAY103-DAV17539272A9B4926429587C5DD0 at phx.gbl>
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> 
> Hi Bob,
> 
> What came to mind when I read what you had written was the centralizing 
> role NIFL was intended to (and to a significant extent, did) play in the 
> 1990s, particularly through its EFF flagship, which was intended as a 
> consensus framework for lifelong education among adults. EFF was important 
> in that it was designed to provide what you call for at the bottom of your 
> message.
> 
> In terms of what this might mean in the current climate, I think its 
> important to evaluate the modest successes, but the ultimate failure (due 
> largely to the way the politics of literacy played out in the past ten, but 
> particularly the past four years) of both NIFL and EFF in terms of what was 
> sought. This is not meant to cast aspersion on either the hard-pressed NIFL 
> staffers or the EFF leadership team in that from a Monday morning 
> quarterback perspective, given the way the politics played out, one might 
> say that their reach was beyond their grasp.
> 
> I raise the history here because it may cause us to pause in thinking 
> through the prospect of such a centralizing, "in charge" role in the current 
> era at least in the USA. There is obviously shared leadership potential, 
> among, for example, Proliteracy, the NCL and State Directors, VALUE, the 
> universities that house graduate programs on adult literacy and other 
> national and regional networks, including electronic ones like this list. In 
> principle, something viable could come from this, but there needs to be some 
> ways of overcoming the centrifuqal forces of decentralization, pluralism, 
> sharply conflicting perspectives, and a pervasive unwillingness to go toward 
> the root of the problem and build coherently from accurate problem 
> identification to progressive resolution in a way that would make a 
> substantial difference. This is compounded by the fact that it is no one's 
> predominant job to do so (never mind lack of resources), a too-willing 
> desire to look to government and policy first as the solution (which 
> requires debilitating compromise and marginalization of alternative voices 
> from the get go), and a fundamental lack of a public philosophy congruent 
> with the best principles of the political culture of the United States 
> through which to ground a coherent politics of adult literacy education. 
> Notwithstanding its various limitations (which would have needed to have 
> been addressed) NIFL, through EFF had some of crucial pieces that could have 
> brought that leadership agenda about. For good reasons, from the 
> perspectives of the NCL-State Directors and EFF leadership team, which had 
> rather different agendas, there was little sustainable coordinated action 
> between these two nationally-focused leadership groups during the 1990s. 
> Thus, the national effort was fragmented from the get go, leaving NIFL in a 
> highly schitzoid state--a reality driven by politics, but which remained an 
> enduring conflict greatly hampering adult literacy policy coordination 
> during that time period. This was symbolized very graphically at the 
> Literacy Summit of 2000 where EFF was simply one of the agenda items.
> 
> And now?
> 
> I don't even want to begin tackling that one in this post, as the intent 
> here is to highlight some of the enduring tensions that made reasonable 
> adult literacy policy consensus highly problematic even when the flagship 
> institution was intact and singularly geared toward a leadership objective. 
> I would suggest that a critical examination of the past decade's policy 
> initiatives is one crucial element in any sustained and coherent effort in 
> moving forward. As the cliché goes, if we don't learn from the past, what's 
> to prevent us from repeating it?
> 
> George Demetrion
> 
> _________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> My antennae rose most when I read "...she says, somebody has to be in 
> charge of adult education. At the moment, it is spread over four provincial
> ministries and two federal departments. She is proposing the creation of a
> single secretariat to make sure money isn't wasted, services aren't
> duplicated and people entering the system aren't left to stumble around on
> their own." In several U.S. states this kind of argument has resulted in
> the creation of a workforce board that oversees adult education and
> training. This can work well but only when all the broad purposes of adult
> education are fully embraced -- and this can be at risk when the 
> environment
> is charged with this kind of "...in charge..." language. My personal 
> belief
> is that adult education must remain the purview of EDUCATORS -- albeit at 
> a
> much higher level of priority that it is in most states today.
> 
> Thanks for sharing the article. I hope it spurs lots of conversation on 
> the
> list.
> 
> take care,
> bob bickerton, MA director of adult ed and NCSDAE/NAEPDC chair
> 
> 
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> ------------------------------
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> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 20:33:23 -0400
> From: "SUSAN DEMETRION" <sdemetrion2274 at msn.com>
> Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] More thoughts on How Adult Literacy
> AdvocacyCanSucceed
> To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE"
> <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Message-ID: <BAY101-DAV112432E94C13E7FFD7A722D2DC0 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Andres,
> 
> What you're saying here is very sensible.
> 
> What I would add is that the principles of democracy, liberty, civic 
> republicanism, and fidelity to the rule of law as the underlying spirit of 
> the US Constitution, are core US ideals based on the nation's founding 
> political culture, which has served as a model for other striving democratic 
> nations. The relationship between literacy and these core political values 
> (not only democracy) is that the latter have the capacity to provide a 
> framework for an empowering politics of literacy in this nation, which, in 
> the process, puts these values (even as signifiers they do have authorial 
> content) on the line to at least proximately deliver the goods they imply. 
> Moreover, given their wide acceptance (at the least as rhetoric, but also 
> with a good deal of substance as honest ideals) across the political 
> landscape, they have potential of resonating with those sets of public 
> values that defines this nation at its best.
> 
> Andreas point is well taken, that one has to do more than say, "democracy, 
> democracy," if such a value is to have substance. Specifically, this set of 
> founding political values that emerged out of the American Revolution needs 
> to be embodied in contemporary political, policy and public rhetoric in a 
> manner that resonates with the heart and imagination as well as the mind. 
> (BTW, conservatives do this quite well from their perspective with more than 
> a little efficacy. Do we cede this tradition to the conservatives? If so, at 
> what cost?) Where this vision has come across most eloquently for me is in 
> the impassioned NLA postings of Archie Willard. It is his voice among other 
> students that is crucial for the realization of the reconstruction of the 
> politics of literacy that I have proposed, including, a leading role for 
> VALUE in re-galvanizing our marginalized field. If this field-driven 
> reconstruction is going to come at all it's going to have to be through the 
> leadership of Archie and other student leaders who can speak most 
> passionately and eloquently, who in much of their language embody those 
> political principles that speak of the American experiment in its most 
> expansive potential--in, if you will, the quest for the American dream as an 
> equal birthright of all. This is the cultural analogue to what I am defining 
> in Conflicting Paradigms of the core ideal undergirding the American vision 
> in this classical political sense--specifically, the quest for a more 
> perfect union as embodied in the Preamble of the US Constitution.
> 
> Herein are some resources for the reconstruction of the politics of adult 
> literacy in the United States of America. The extent to which they may be 
> viewed as plausible is another matter.
> 
> George Demetrion
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> Also, the fact that most Americans, and, in fact, most people all over the 
> world would like to live in a more egalitarian society, thst does not mean 
> that democracy is the american way, or the Argentinian way, or the German 
> Democratic Republics way, or the People's Republic of china 's way, or 
> Bush's way, or Kerry's way, or yours or my way. So, to say that democracy is 
> America's way is just as silly as to say that it is any other country's way. 
> What would be more appropriate to say is that people have a compromise with 
> democratic principles, and as such, we will explore ways to make ours a more 
> democratic society, and literacy is one of the things that we need to make 
> america more democratic.
> 
> Andres
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> End of AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 26, Issue 16
> *****************************************
> 

-- 
Job Opportunities Task Force
207 East Redwood Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
410-234-8040
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