[AAACE-NLA] What is purpose of AELS?

[Bickerton, Robert P]

Tom, et al,

Over the years, I have heard quite a broad range of "purposes" for our Adult
Education and Literacy System -- especially from the students themselves.
Throughout our policy/advocacy work prior to the passage of WIA (the
Workforce Investment Act, specifically Title II, the "Adult Education and
Family Literacy Act") we argued tenaciously on behalf of the "BROAD
PURPOSES" of adult education.  This said, I want to make the following two
points:

1.  Just a couple of months prior to the final vote on WIA, we still had a
broad range of desired outcomes written into the accountability section of
the bill;  these covered the range of family, community, work and lifelong
learning pursuits that we hear from our students and that many on this
listserv speak to.  We lost this breadth in this final stage when one of the
self-appointed guardians of family values and limited government (a group
led at the time by Phyllis Shaffley - sp?) overwhelmed members of Congress
with calls, letters and faxes.  Quite frankly, their voice was much louder
than ours and our efforts to codify our "broad purposes" in the "high
stakes" part of the law were swept away.  So here's point #1:  For better or
for worse, a well organized and very loud advocacy effort can often
overwhelm philosophy and reason.  And both the "better" and the "worse"
apply to us because on those occasions when we've been very well organized,
our position has prevailed.  The problem is, we tend to be at our best only
when we're fighting for survival.  It is my sincere hope that we can bring
this same level of energy/advocacy to bear when we're working to advance our
field and the services our students need and deserve.  We don't and we
really need to !!!

2.  There is NOTHING in WIA that compels a state to reduce it's focus to a
narrower set of purposes -- employment, the pursuit of higher ed, or
whatever.  The fact is, most states continue to pursue the "broad purposes"
of adult education with and on behalf of our current and future students.
This is certainly the case in Massachusetts where there has been no retreat
of any kind from those who (in the words of an earlier incarnation of the
Adult Education Act) are "least educated and most in need of services."  Nor
has WIA diminished in any way the breadth of providers in Massachusetts who
receive support from either federal or state adult education funding.  So
here's point #2:  We can be vision driven or we can be law driven -- we
really must pursue our vision and work like hell to reconcile it with the
law -- not as difficult to do with WIA as some suggest.  In fact, they may
not be lamenting the impact of the federal law as much as the limited impact
the field may be having on state policy!  

And now that I've reached my closing, I realize I have a 3rd, albeit shorter
point to make -- in all my years of teaching and managing adult education
programs, I never met a student who wanted to stay poor and have bill
collectors calling on Saturday mornings.  So I'm not troubled by an emphasis
on employment and pursuing higher education -- only that these might crowd
out the many other very important purposes of our AELS.  

take care,
bob bickerton, MA director of adult ed and NAEPDC/NCSDAE chair

-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org]On Behalf Of
tsticht at znet.com
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 1:11 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] What is purpose of AELS?


Aaace-nla colleagues: Some time ago I posted a message about how the Adult
Education and Literacy System (AELS) seems to be being transformed more and
more from an adult education system with the purpose of helping adults meet
a wide variety of educational needs, to a second-chance K-12 system in
which the goal is to have adults learn what is taught in the K-12 system to
move from secondary to post-secondary, college education. The recent posts
by David Rosen and Hal Beder arguing for moving more adult learners from
the AELS into post-secondary education seems to be consistent with this
trend. To me this raises the important question of what services the AELS
should be offering. I have always considered it an opportunity for the
hardest to reach, most underserved adults, with the greatest need for adult
literacy education. Of course, the need for ESL (ESOL) has been and
continues to be an important component of the AELS, too. But I am troubled
by the move toward having the AELS focus attention away from the most
difficult to reach and teach and to move to a college-prepatory program. I
would like to know what others think. Tom Sticht
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