[AAACE-NLA] Interesting "fact"

[Julian Matthews]

I received this email regarding the educational achievement of the parent (s) being the best predictor of the children's educational achievement. This is very interesting. My brother has a law degree from the University of Idaho and an MBA from Washington State University, my sister graduated from Gonzaga University Law School and I have an MPA and am currently working on a Doctorate in Higher Ed. Admin. So we all three have advanced degrees but neither of our parents had even a 2 year degree. So that would refute any "scientific" or other theory if the measure is the "traditional" non-Indian educational system.
Julian Matthews
208-790-4296

----- Original Message ----- 
From: andresmuro at aol.com 
Date: Sunday, January 8, 2006 11:40 am 
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] An Early Adulthood Education Initiative 
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org 

> Tom: 
> 
> Great point. Educational achievement of the parent is the best 
> predictor of the educational achieevement of the children. I think 
> that 
> this is the point that we must continue to drive home. There is 
> data on 
> this, as you report. I also have a lot of anecdotal evidence of 
> this as 
> reported by our students. If we are not going to leave any child 
> behind, we must ensure that the parents are educated. 
> 
> Wia stipulates that educational innitiatives will be grounded in 
> available scientific evidence and the wisdom from the field. both 
> the 
> scienitfic evidence and the wisdom support the fact that we must 
> educate the parents to ensure an increase in literacy for the next 
> generation. 
> 
> Andres 
> 
> Please take a look at my artwork: 
> www.geocities.com/andresmuro/art.html 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: tsticht at znet.com 
> To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org 
> Sent: Sat, 07 Jan 2006 16:58:47 -0800 
> Subject: [AAACE-NLA] An Early Adulthood Education Initiative 
> 
> 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 
> themstudents 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 
> stoppedfunctional 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 
> thirtyyear 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 
> youngadults (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 
> achievementincreases 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 
> theirminds. They often have many out-of-wedlock births, they are 
> frequentlyunable 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 
> earlychildhood 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 
> adulthoodeducation-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 
> efficientlyand 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 
> greaterfocus 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 
> parentscould 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 
> AdulthoodEducation (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 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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