[AAACE-NLA] What changes adult literacy education?

[maureen hoyt]

To address one part of this discussion:
Here in Arizona, the Standards were developed by Arizona Adult
Educators, with support from the Department of Education, which provided
professional consultants and financial support (i.e. transportation,
meals). It was, and is, an intensive effort, and we are all very proud
of the results!
http://www.ade.state.az.us/Adult-Ed/adult_ed_standards.asp


Maureen Hoyt
Basic Education Manager
ACYR 
602-252-6721ext 223
fax: 602-252-2952
www.azcallateen.k12.az.us
www.az-aall.org
 

-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org] On Behalf Of David
Rosen
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 8:18 PM
To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] What changes adult literacy education?

Hi Tom,

This is a great question: What changes adult literacy education?

I agree with most of what you listed, but I think the field changes  
at national, state and local levels.

At the national level, I have a couple of comments on your list of  
changes:

The National Reporting System as we know it now came about with a lot  
of participation from state adult education administrators in our  
field. The impetus came from Congress, yes, but some adult education  
and literacy state administrators were consulted in its design.  I  
think it is very likely better because of their participation than it  
would otherwise have been.  Of course, much still needs to be  
improved.  And it would be good if OVAE/DAEL held a few regional  
forums around the country to solicit from teachers, administrators  
and students their advice on how it could be improved.

Most important of all, Tom, the single biggest change at the national  
level in adult literacy, in the last decade at least, the  
Administration's attempt to cut federal adult literacy funding by  
2/3, was prevented by the field.  The field rose up with one loud  
voice, heard from nearly every state, that persuaded Congress not to  
accept the proposed cuts.  That was the result of a crisis and  
effective mobilization.  Now -- if we could mobilize as effectively  
sometime when we have a national opportunity to _increase_ funding,  
and to build an effective system of adult education and literacy,  
then we'd see some adult literacy education changes to "write home  
about".

At the state level, in Massachusetts, most of the dramatic changes of  
the last two decades have come from the field, by which I mean the  
Adult and Community Learning Services (ACLS) unit in the Department  
of Education working together with adult literacy education  
practitioners. For example, two important changes were: the  
professional development system (SABES), and the rates system which  
includes specific percentages of funding for counseling, professional  
development, a program technology coordinator, an ADA Coordinator,  
paid professional development time.  Massachusetts' choices of  
standardized tests came from an ACLS and practitioner task force. Our  
program quality standards, and curriculum standards, too, came from  
practitioner task forces. These, and other changes we have made,   
most practitioners would agree, add up to better quality programs.   
This is not to say that Massachusetts does not need or would not  
welcome or benefit from other improvements, but to point out that the  
changes have come from the field -- not from the Governors and not by  
the legislature without urging from the field.

I don't know how the National Workplace Literacy program came into  
being, but before it did,  there was the state-funded Massachusetts  
Workplace Literacy initiative, and it was created by some members of  
our field in the Massachusetts Department of Employment and Training,  
the Massachusetts Department of Education and the Massachusetts  
Department of Labor, three administrators collaborating to meet a  
need that they were aware of through their work as administrators and  
as practitioners, one of whom had for many years been the director of  
a community-based adult literacy program.

As I look at those who have led these changes in Massachusetts,  
nearly all have been teachers and/or program administrators in Adult  
Education and Literacy.  I know this is not true in many states, but  
in Massachusetts it has made a difference that some of these leaders,  
when they were teachers and program administrators learned about --  
and used -- participatory, bottom-up decision-making models.

In response to what Allan Quigley has suggested, that the field take  
charge of adult literacy and make the changes that need to be made,   
I wonder if Practitioner (Action) Research, for example in  
Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., California, and in  
other states where it has been or is being practiced has been  
influential in building reflective, participatory, grounded leaders  
in our field.

And I wonder if, like Massachusetts, there are other states where the  
most dramatic changes have come from the field, not from outside.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at theworld.com


On Oct 6, 2006, at 2:50 PM, tsticht at znet.com wrote:

> Aaace-nla Colleagues: On the NIFL Professional Development list  
> there is a
> discussion about action research as a means of professional  
> development to
> change (improve?) adult literacy education. Allan Quigley has said  
> that he
> thinks that this is a means of changing adult literacy from within.  
> This
> led me to wonder what has changed this field of practice and how  
> much comes
> from within and how much from outside the field. Here are some  
> things I
> thought of: Technology: Computers, Internet, Overhead Projectors &  
> Screens
> all of which came from outside the field, not within. Also, the  
> National
> Reporting System has brought about considerable change in the field  
> in the
> U.S. and this results from acts of Congress with accountability  
> demands
> coming from outside the field and makes extensive demands for  
> standardized
> testing which again is a technology coming from outside the field. The
> contemporary approaches to workplace literacy, stimulated by the  
> National
> Workplace Literacy Program came from outside the field. The Even Start
> program of family literacy came from Congress (Congressman Goodling)
> informed by statistics and ideas about the intergenerational  
> transfer of
> literacy from parents to children that came (mostly) from outside the
> field. The current push for content standards came from the standards
> movement in education which was outside the field.
>
> Any ideas about how the field has been changed from within? Or just  
> what
> this might mean?
>
> Tom Sticht
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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