[AAACE-NLA] Will the National Commission on Adult Literacy help theAELS?

[George Demetrion]

It seems to me that what is needed is a new perspective on the AELS as a
viable third leg of public education (Pre-K-12, Higher Education, Adult
Education & Literacy System) that serves generally hard-to-reach,
under-served adults looking to improve their own lives and the lives of
their families through education. Perhaps the work of the National
Commission for Adult Literacy will pursue and achieve positive actions
to help move the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) from the
margins to the mainstream of education in our nation. I hope so.

Tom,

That sounds quite reasonable to me. There are a million and a half
"small victories" everyday as adult literacy students take on the hard
fought for effort to improve their basic literacy skills and in the
process enhance their lives in the broad range of mediating institutions
and social networks related to home, community, and workplace contexts
to name a few.  This not only adds a great deal of value to the lives of
such students and their families, which requires in-depth
cross-discipline ethnographic research as many such studies have already
laid out to properly demonstrate at a national or regional level.  It
also increases value to the public square in a million and a half small
ways that cumulatively add up to more, though not yet, apparently at a
threshold level in a manner that has some sustained visibility.  The
field is still in the wilderness inching through the promised land for a
million and a half reasons to exhausting to even think about.  Yet
onward we press inch by inch in a million and a half small ways which
cumulatively one hopes, adds up to more than the sum of our efforts.

George Demetrion