[AAACE-NLA] An Early Adulthood Education Initiative

[tsticht@znet.com]

January 7, 2006

An Early Adulthood Education (EAE) Initiative
For Early Childhood Education (ECE):
A Life Cycles Education Policy Program

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) concluded that some 11
million adults in the U. S.  are not able to read in English, and an
additional 20% or so are below basic levels of literacy and this has not
changed in the decade from 1993 to 2003. In response, the Secretary of
Education has said that more needs to be done in the K-12 system, with a
focus on President Bush’s high school initiative.

This is a response to the adult literacy problem of the sort that is
sometimes called "stopping illiteracy at the source." The argument is that
there are so many functionally illiterate adults because the high schools
are graduating too many students who cannot read at functional levels. In
turn, the high schools say this is because the middle schools send them
students who can’t read, the middle schools blame the primary grades, the
primary grades blame the pre-schools, like kindergarten and Head Start, and
now Head Start can blame the new pre-school, Early Head Start which was put
in place to prepare children for education starting at birth.

Unfortunately, as the NAAL indicates,  attempts to "stop illiteracy at the
source" using numerous pre-school, special education, and compensatory
education  programs, along with the regular K-12 system has not stopped
functional illiteracy as of yet.

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. released
in 2005 confirms the NAAL results and shows 30 year trends for reading
scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A graph
of average scores on the NAEP for 9, 13, or 17 year olds for the thirty
year period from 1971 to 2004 shows that 9 year olds increased from 208 in
1971 to 215 in 1980, then fell to 209 in 1990 and then rose again to 219 in
2004. This is only 4 scale score points higher than in 1980. There is a
similar lack of evidence of any practically useful improvement for 13 and
17 year olds over this 30 year period.

Importantly, long term trend data also indicated that for children in all
three age groups, there were no improvements for those at the 10th, 25th,
50th, 75th, or 90th percentiles across the 30 years of reporting. This
means that from 1971 to the present the K-12 system still produces young
adults (17 year olds) at the 10th percentile with reading scores equivalent
to those of 10 year old children in the 5th grade. While there were some
improvements in achievements for African-Americans and Hispanics on
average, if they were at the lower percentiles of achievement, then they
are still facing considerable problems with literacy.

A finding of considerable significance in the NCES long term trends report
is that, from 1980 to 2004, for 13 and 17 year olds, reading achievement
increases as their parent’s amount of education increases. But the reading
achievement for students whose parents had less than high school education
have not improved over the last quarter century, nor have the scores for
students whose parents have more education.

Since attempts to "stop illiteracy at the source" do not seem to have worked
out up to now, even though we have put in place programs that start at
birth, it seems we need to ask an important question: Why are so many
children born unprepared to be prepared to learn to read?

Answer: It’s too late by birth. Too many young adults are functionally
illiterate and unable to take care of themselves. Often they get involved
with drugs or other activities that destroy their bodies and harm their
minds. They often have many out-of-wedlock births, they are frequently
unable to make informed choices about good prenatal and postnatal care, and
they are unable to afford such care because they can’t qualify for
well-paying jobs.

Toward a "Life Cycles" Education Policy

The "stopping illiteracy at the source" approach as illustrated above is
representative of a policy of education that looks at a life cycle
(singular), "cradle to grave", "lifelong learning" perspective on
education,  but fails to acknowledge a life cycles (plural)  policy which
explicitly recognizes  the intergenerational transfer of language and
literacy from parents to their children and how the parent’s education
affects the subsequent educational achievement of their children, as
illustrated in the recent NCES report.

Because of the pervasive finding of the influence of parent’s education on
their children’s educational achievement we need to move away from thinking
about literacy education as developed over one lifespan, a "cradle to
grave", "lifelong" perspective, and instead we need to think in terms of a
"life cycles" education policy. We need to shift from a "one life cycle" to
a"multiple life cycles" policy for education that embraces adult literacy
development with the same enthusiasm and commitment as is made to early
childhood and K-12 literacy development. As the NCES data suggest, 30 years
of trying to "fix" children’s literacy while ignoring the lack of literacy
of their parents has not worked out very well. This suggests, further, that
new thinking is called for in our efforts to improve literacy in the U. S.
Perhaps thinking in a "Life Cycles" education policy perspective will help.

An Early Adulthood Education (EAE) Initiative

As an example of a program of literacy development based on a "life cycles"
policy perspective I am suggesting  that in addition to thinking about
"early childhood education-ECE" we need to think about "early adulthood
education-EAE." This builds on the Bush administration’s emphasis upon high
school education but extends the idea to young adults 16 to 30 years of age,
who lack a high school diploma, are out of school and not enrolled in any
training or education programs. These young adults will become the parents
of a new generation and in addition to other child-rearing responsibilities
and duties they will pass on their motivation for education, their
knowledge, and their language skills to their children.

Then, through the "oracy to literacy transfer effect" the acquired greater
extent of knowledge and language  may transfer to the young adult’s 
children and help them to learn to read more effectively and efficiently
and go on to do better in school. These are the same aims as ECE and they
can be accomplished in a well funded EAE program that reaches the millions
of young adults lacking well developed literacy skills

In a 2004 report for the Economic Policy Institute of Washington, DC, R. G.
Lynch provides an analysis of several early childhood development (ECE)
programs and concludes that they produce a considerable benefit to cost
ratio. Importantly, on this same page Lynch states that many of these ECE
programs  " also provide adult education and parenting classes for the
parents of young children." (p vii).  This suggests that perhaps a 
significant percentage of the benefits that ECE programs produce might
actually be the result from the effects of what might be called EAE
activities. Presently, there are family literacy programs that could easily
be re-tooled into Early Adulthood Education programs with a much greater
focus on the education of young adults than presently occurs. Similarly,
Head Start and Early Head Start programs could be re-tooled to put a
greater focus on EAE.

By reversing the focus from children to young adults, that is parents or
parents-to-be, it is possible that considerable cost savings in EAE
programs over ECE programs could occur because investing once in parents
could affect several of the parent’s children and reduce the need for them
to receive special educational services. Further, the return on investment
(ROI) to EAE could start sooner than in ECE  in terms of the parent’s
increased income from qualifying for better paying jobs. Young adults may
start new jobs right at the end of their program, whereas one has to wait
some 20 years for the early childhood students to get jobs and start paying
taxes.

Rosa Maria Torres has argued for what I am calling a "life cycles" policy
for education in which it is recognized that educational policies do not
affect only one generation but through the intergenerational transfer of
motivation, language, and literacy they affect many cycles of lives across
generations. She has argued that, " the children’s right to education
should include the right to educated parents."

A substantial investment in an well designed and funded Early Adulthood
Education (EAE) initiative could complement the present commitments that
our nation has made to pre-school and K-12 education. It could also help to
ensure that all children receive the benefits of well educated parents, as
is their right.

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