[AAACE-NLA] Fall From Literacy Summit Continues

[tsticht at znet.com]

August 6, 2007

Fall From The National Literacy Summit of 2000 Continues Seven Years Later

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

In September of 2000 the National Literacy Summit 2000 steering committee
held a meeting in Washington, DC in a Congressional office building and
launched An Action Agenda for Literacy in a report entitled "From the
Margins to the Mainstream".  A year later, a report by the Action Agenda
staff discussed what had happened the first year following the Summit. It
was reported that some 163 commitments were made by 69 organizations for
action they were going to take in future years to further the National
Literacy Summit 2000 Action Agenda. For year 2, however,  only three
commitments were made and these were the same as in year 1. No further
reports of the Action Agenda staff have been found so what additional
commitments have been made, or what effects past commitments have had to
advance the Action Agenda are not known to me.

The Action Agenda called for a "system of high quality adult literacy,
language, and lifelong learning services" offering ease of ACCESS to
QUALITY services for adult students and sufficient RESOURCES to support
increased access and quality services. This accessible, high quality adult
education and literacy system was set as the national goal to be achieved
by the year 2010. Unfortunately, after seven years into the Action Agenda,
results for these aspects of the system are not encouraging.

ACCESS: In 1998 there were 4,020,550 enrollments in the Adult Education and
Literacy System. After the WIA/AEFLA (Workforce Investment Act/Adult
Education and Family Literacy Act) of 1998 was passed, introducing new
accountability requirements, enrollments fell to 3,616,391 in 1999, to
2,891,895 in 2000, and to 2,673,692 in 2001.  Enrollments rose a bit in
2002 and 2003, to just under 2.8 million, but then fell back to 2,677,119
in Program Year 2003-04. This is a decline of over 33 percent in the first
six years of the new accountability focus of the WIA/AEFLA of 1998. This
indicates that there were over1.3 million fewer adults served in Program
Year  03-04 than in 1998 by the AELS. The cause of this decline has never
been explained by federal or state governments.

At the present time, it looks like the Action Agenda item of ACCESS is
failing with respect to increasing enrollments in the AELS, and there are
no data of which I am aware to suggest it is succeeding in programs outside
the AELS, such as local community based programs, library programs and so
forth. I do not know of any organization that is taking a comprehensive
look into the issue of ACCESS to adult literacy services throughout the
nation. The National Council of State Directors of Adult Education (NCSDAE)
have produced a report entitled American Competitiveness Initiative
(February 2006) calling for enrollments in the AELS to increase to
4,095,499 by 2010-2011. This would return the AELS enrollment back to its
level of about a decade ago. The report does not specify how the additional
enrollments would be recruited.

QUALITY: I have found no information to suggest that in the last seven years
there has been an improvement in the quality of services for adult students
in the programs of the AELS or any other programs such as those of
ProLiteracy Worldwide, libraries, corrections, workplace, etc. Indeed, I
have found no definitive statement about just what "quality" means in the
AELS.

If growth in learning outcomes in the National Reporting System (NRS) is
considered an indicator of quality, then the data for four years suggest
little improvements in quality. In program year 00-01, averaged over the 50
states and territories, 36 percent of students in ABE/ASE combined made
enough educational gain to move from one educational level to a higher
level. In 01-02 this increased to 37%, in 02-03 and 03-04 it stayed
constant at 38%.  Similar data for gains in English Literacy/Language
indicated that in program year 00-01, 32% moved from one level to a higher
level, in 01-02 this increased to 34%, in 02-03 and 03-04 data stayed
constant at 36%.  I have not found NRS reports to the Congress for any
years after 03-04, but clearly, the most recently available four years of
data on educational gains indicate only little or, in the last two years,
no improvement in the overall national data for learning outcomes.

A major initiative today at the federal level aims to get more adults to
complete their high school diploma or GED and to then transition into
post-secondary education, including college or occupational training.
Unfortunately, since the Summit of 2000 there has been a drop in
enrollments of adults in the AELS from 2.673 million in PY 00-01 to 2.581
million in PY04-05, and the percentage of these adults enrolled in adult
secondary education fell from 20.8 percent to 16.3 percent. The Program
Year 2003-2004 report to Congress indicates that of adults who stated the
goal of wanting to complete their high school diploma or GED the national
averages for High School Completion/GED for the four PYs  of 00-01, 01-02,
02-03, and 03-04 were 33%, 42%, 44% and 45%, respectively. Why the larger
change from 00-01 to 01-02 occurred is not known, but for the last three
years of the report there was very little improvement in the rate of
increase in high school completion.

For those adults with the goal of going on to post-secondary education or
training, the corresponding percentages of actual achievement of this
outcome were 25%, 29%, 30%, and 30% for PYs  00-01, 01-02, 02-03, and
03-04. As for high school completion, there was a gain in this outcome from
PY 00-01 to 01-02, and then a slower gain, with no change from 02-03 to
03-04.

Summarily, if learning gains, completion of high school/GED, or transition
to post-secondary education are considered as indicators of quality in the
AELS, there is little  indication that quality improved much for the four
years from PY01-02 to PY03-04.

RESOURCES:  In September 2000 the National Literacy Summit 2000 Action
Agenda included  Action Agenda Priority 1: Resources, Outcome B: Action 2:
"Persuade Congress to appropriate $1 billion annually to the adult
education, language, and literacy system."

Unfortunately, the President's budget request for the AELS in fiscal year
2008 was just $564 million. It is unlikely that the Congress will add more
than some $20 or so million to the President's request, giving a projected
figure of $585 million for FY 2008. If enrollments run at about 2.8
million, this comes to a federal expenditure of some $210 per enrollment.

The NCSDAE American Competitiveness Initiative report calls for an AELS
budget of $2 billion in 2010-2011 with some 4 million enrollments. This
would result in about $500 per enrollment. Even with state funding added,
the report projects about $972 per enrollee as a national average, though
actual amounts would vary from state to state. This contrasts with present
funding per student in the K-12 system of over $8000 and over $18,000 in
higher education. The federal Head Start program currently runs about $6500
per enrollee and Early Head Start spends in excess of $10,000 per child.
Clearly, the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) would remain a
marginalized education system even if a federal budget of $2 billion could
be achieved by 2010-2011. Given the experience of the last seven years,
this seems highly unlikely.

Where Has the Action Agenda Taken The Field?

There are some indications that in various states advocacy has been
successful in getting increases in funding for the state's programs. But at
a national level it appears that since the Action Agenda was released at the
Literacy Summit of September 2000, with regard to ACCESS, there has been an
overall decline in enrollments in the national AELS. Regarding QUALITY, I
have found no data or other information to determine if the AELS has
improved in any manner in direct response to the Action Agenda. Finally,
regarding RESOURCES, if funding for the state grants that support the AELS
reaches the $585 million projected above in fiscal year 2008 that will
represent an 8 percent increase from the $540 million for state grants in
FY 2001, the year following the launch of the Action Agenda. But in
constant 2007 funds, this is a drop from a purchasing power of $635 million
in 2001 to $585 million in 2007, so adjusted for inflation, the fiscal year
2008 projected federal funds for the AELS will represent an actual decrease
in funding resources from 2001 to 2007.

Since the first report about the achievements of the Action Agenda in the
first year I have found no further reports. This leads me to wonder if
there is actually much interest anymore in the Action Agenda among either
the original sponsors and formulators of the Agenda, or the rest of the
adult literacy education field. At the present time, it appears that there
has not been much action toward moving the Adult Education and Literacy
System (AELS) From the Margins to the Mainstream since the Action Agenda
was launched.

We are 70 percent of the way to 2010.

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