[AAACE-NLA] Webcast Casts Web of Doubt

Fri Sep 1 13:30:37 EDT 2006

Tom:  Just wondering how the United States compares to other foreign 
countries. The 90 million number seems high to me. Are we doing good 
compared to other countries or not as good. Example South Africa, England, 
Japan and Holland.

Merle Ayres
412 8th st. North
Humboldt,Iowa 50548
Tel.1-515-332-4630
Fax 515-332-1738

>From: tsticht at znet.com
>Reply-To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by 
>AAACE<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
>To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
>Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Webcast Casts Web of Doubt
>Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 11:14:59 -0700
>
>August 31, 2003
>
>National Institute for Literacy Webcast Casts
>Web of Doubt About Commitment to Adult Literacy Education
>
>Tom Sticht
>International Consultant in Adult Education
>
>On 15 August 2006 the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) presented a
>webcast about the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) of 2003.
>Entitled "Adults with Basic and Below Basic Literacy Levels:  Findings from
>NAAL and Implications for Practice" the webcast focussed on the adults who
>scored at the lowest two levels of the NAAL, those in the Basic and Below
>Basic levels, and implications for reading instruction and workforce
>development. Unfortunately, as far as I can discern, the webcast presented
>nothing of any substance for policy or practice for adult literacy/numeracy
>education nor for workforce development. In fact, it presented a number of
>statements about education, literacy, and workforce development of dubious
>validity. Here are some of these statements.
>
>1. Sheida White from the National Center for Education Statistics, which
>sponsored the NAAL, made the statement that "Nearly two-thirds, which is
>actually 67% of all the jobs created over the next decade, will require a
>college degree."  But in the Statistics and Facts section of the NIFL web
>site it is claimed that 69.8% percent of job openings from 2000 through
>2010 will NOT require college but only some sort of work-related training,
>57% of which will be short or moderate term training. Other data from the
>Department of Labor indicates that in 1998 78% of jobs required non-college
>levels of education while in 2008 76% will be non-college jobs. A 2006
>report from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) by Paul Barton also
>raises questions about the education levels required by jobs. He presents
>data showing that the 44 occupations that account for half of the 26
>million average annual job openings  during  2001-2012 require only
>short-term education or on-the-job training, not post-secondary education,
>and 25 of the 44 occupations have workforces with 50 percent or more having
>high school or less education. Clearly, there is reason to question the
>claim that two-thirds of all jobs created over the next decade will require
>a college degree.
>
>2. John Strucker called attention to the well known gaps in performance on
>the tests among whites, blacks, and Hispanics, but he had nothing to say
>about what to do about the situation other than we need to do something. He
>talked about age and literacy and focussed on the problems of younger
>adults, but he did not comment on the fact that the NAAL may not be valid
>across the lifespan, especially for older adults, as other research has
>suggested. He also commented on the fact that quantitative literacy
>(numeracy) had larger percentages of adults in the lower two levels than on
>the prose or document literacy scales. He also mentioned that there could 
>be
>real problems with decoding, vocabulary, and  fluency for adults in the
>Below Basic and Basic levels, and there could be large numbers of learning
>disabilities in these groups. But there was really nothing that I read that
>lead to insights regarding how teachers or programs should go about 
>changing
>their adult reading, numeracy, or English language instruction.
>
>3. Brian Bosworth simply repeated the oft stated notions that low literacy
>can consign workers to low paying jobs and reduce America’s global
>competitiveness. He made a plea for a demand side approach to skills
>development that seemed very much like a call for a return o workplace
>literacy programs in which employers and employees determine their skills
>needs and work together to design and deliver instruction. Again, however,
>there was nothing that I read that produced solid evidence of how workers
>with low skills actually perform important job tasks in specific jobs or
>what returns to investment in workforce education business, workers, or the
>rest of the nation might experience if investments in worker literacy or
>numeracy education were increased.   It would be useful if the NIFL or some
>other government agency  would support this type of research.
>
>Noticeably missing from the presentation was a discussion of just how
>arbitrary the whole enterprise of literacy assessment in the NAAL was,
>including the naming of levels as Below Basic or Basic (instead of Below
>Average and Average for instance). There was also no discussion of how
>Prose, Document, and Quantitative literacy might "add up" across the three
>scales to form a person’s total literacy ability.
>
>Nor was there any discussion of the very large differences between what the
>test developers said about adults’ reading and math skills based on the
>standardized tests and what adults have said about their own skills as they
>perceive their adequacy to be for work and daily life. Some 95 percent of
>adults in the NALS thought their skills met their needs and the recent
>international Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) report developed a
>methodology for examining the mismatch between workers skills and their job
>demands for these skills. The report said that 80 percent of adults had
>literacy and numeracy skills that matched or exceeded their job demands,
>while 20 percent were working in jobs with demands that exceed their skills
>in these areas.
>
>These huge differences between tested and self-perceived skills should
>receive considerable study because it is adults’ self-perceptions of their
>skill needs that will eventually move them to seek help in upgrading their
>skills. Perhaps a future webcast can address some of these serious issues
>in determining the scale of need for and the desire for adult literacy
>education.
>
>Brian Bosworth said "I think that it's unlikely that we are going to see a
>significant change and reform from the federal level to deal with most of
>these workplace literacy issues." I think this was probably the most
>significant policy- and practice-related statement in the entire webcast.
>It has been clear since the NALS of 1993 in which 90 million (47%) of
>adults were said to lack the skills needed to cope with contemporary
>society, including the world of work, that the federal government that
>produced this result did not actually believe it. For three years after
>that report the federal budget for the Adult Education and Literacy System
>went down. After that it rose for a while, but stayed at a pitiful level in
>which per adult enrollee funds equaled about $200. After the 2003 NAAL 
>which
>indicated that over 93 million adults possessed only Basic or Below Basic
>prose literacy, the present administration (1) asked for a cut in funding
>for adult literacy education from around $575 million to $200 million and a
>complete drop of funds for the Head Start family literacy program; (2)
>formed an interagency committee to coordinate their work; and (3) the
>committee met in early 2006 and it was reported that the meeting went well
>and it would meet again later on. At no time in the Bush administration has
>it called for more funding for the Adult Education and Literacy System, 
>even
>while repeatedly making dire warnings of impending disasters in global
>competition and the American economy due to the poor literacy  skills of
>the workforce.
>
>Perhaps the webcast about the NAAL, reading instruction, and the workforce
>will have some positive effects on some aspect of adult literacy education.
>Clearinghouses, committees, meetings, and web discussions may possibly be
>useful in meeting the need for adult literacy education in the Nation. But
>there is nothing like a large infusion of money into an obscenely
>under-funded education system to move the Nation forward.
>
>So far, for me, the NIFL NAAL webcast has reinforced a web of doubt about
>the federal government’s sincerity and commitment to providing the funds
>needed to move the Adult Education and Literacy System from the margins to
>the mainstream of education in the United States.
>
>Thomas G. Sticht
>International Consultant in Adult Education
>2062 Valley View Blvd.
>El Cajon, CA 92019
>Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
>Email: tsticht at aznet.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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