[AAACE-NLA] Literacy President petition: what have we learned?

Thu Dec 27 11:38:52 EST 2007

David,

Delaware's support was gathered from several avenues of advocacy. We are
proud that adult learning is viewed as critical to the learners and
their families, the local community and the state as evidenced by our
Governor, Ruth Ann Minner, who is a GED recipient herself. We have
several layers of organizations that support Adult Education including:
ICAL (Interagency Council on Adult Literacy chaired by the Lt. Governor
and composed of various state agencies), OAASIS (Organization of Adult
Alumni and Students in Service), DAACE (Delaware Association of Adult
and Continuing Educators), and DCL (Delaware Coalition for Literacy) as
well as the Department of Education where we are housed. 

For this effort, program administrators, students, student alumni, and
literacy volunteers mobilized their efforts. 

Here are some of the strategies that worked this time:

Information on the public awareness campaign was disseminated by state
level administration to program directors via listserv messages. The
program directors copied information and distributed to teachers who
informed students about the campaign.  Some students got on the Internet
and registered themselves and some teachers helped students signing onto
the Internet. For students at satellite sites with no Internet access,
students were asked if they wanted to sign a paper with the relevant
information and volunteers inputted the information at program centers. 

Our OAASIS workers on their off hours talked to students about the
importance of getting involved, circulated information, helped students
sign on. The power of students talking to students is tremendous!

Our library literacy programs emailed their tutors who then worked
students to sign in. 

ABE and ESL teachers used the activity as an example of citizen
involvement in Civics lessons and informed students how they could log
on if they wished to participate. 

Our Prison Education Program informed incarcerated students about the
effort and stated that their families might like to get involved since
offender use of the Internet is prohibited. We have no way of gauging
the effectiveness here but some families are highly supportive. 

Our challenges were:
1. the time of the year - it is a busy time but clearly Delawareans
thought it was worth their time and effort even amongst all the other
events.  (We have a total population of about 854,000.) 
2. some programs have more refined communication systems so that quick
turn around campaigns can be mobilized more easily.  We will talk about
this more with programs in 08. 

We learned that:
we need to provide a space on our websites for updates on Adult
Education campaigns, legislation, efforts, etc. so that students can
check in to see what is happening.  We are hoping to do this through our
OAASIS website, it is static right now but we are looking to upgrade it.

Hope this helps and a Very Happy New Year to everyone.
Maureen 

Maureen Whelan
State Director of Adult Education
Delaware Dept. of Education
John W. Collette Education Resource Center
35 Commerce Way - Suite 1
Dover, DE 19904
(302) 857-3342  Phone
(302) 739-1770  Fax

-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org] On Behalf Of
DJRosen at TheWorld.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 1:20 PM
To: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Literacy President petition: what have we
learned?

Colleagues,

I am beginning to get some responses from those who worked to get
Literacy
President petition signatures, but I haven't heard yet from Delaware,
Pennsylvania and Illinois. Of course I would like to hear from all the
states that were involved in trying to get signatures on the petition.

* What did you learn from this?
* How did you get participation?
* What were your strategies?
* What were the challenges?
* How did you overcome the challenges (if you did) ?

If you want to send your responses to me, if I get enough I'll compile a
summary stripping out specifics that would identify comments with
individuals or states.

I know that some states and programs were challenged in helping adult
learners get access to -- and learn how to use -- computers to answer
the
survey.

* What were the specific challenges?
* What did you do to address them?
* What will you do to prepare for petitions in the future so that more
adult learners have the choice of signing them?

David J. Rosen
Adult Literacy Advocate
djrosen at theworld.com

-----
On Dec 19, 2007, at 10:30 AM, I wrote:

Hello Jon and others,

Although we did not reach the goal, this number of signatures is
respectable especially since, as far as I know, it is the first time
that any organization has tried a national petition from our field.
Congratulations to VALUE for providing the leadership and thank you,
Jon, for posting the updates and reminders here.

Let's hear from Delaware, Pennsylvania and Illinois especially, but
also from other states: how did you get the participation?  What were
your strategies? We can all benefit from your experience so that we
can apply it next time to reach a 10,000 signature goal.

David J. Rosen
Adult Literacy Advocate
DJRosen at theworld.com

On Dec 18, 2007, at 8:33 PM, Jon Randall wrote:

The signatures have been downloaded and document prep is underway for
tomorrow's in-person delivery to 2008 Presidential candidates with
offices in Washington, DC. All candidates will receive electronic
versions of the petition.

The final count ... 5,796 persons have signed the Literacy President
Petition, urging all of the 2008 Presidential candidates to answer 5
questions regarding what their adult literacy policy will be, once
they
are elected President. Thank you to everyone who signed the
petition and
encouraged others to do so too.

Final state tallies ...

Delaware poured it on in the final days, ending up with 994
signatures!
Pennsylvania came in second, with 562. Illinois came in third, with
514.

The second tier includes: New York (376); Kentucky (371); Tennessee
(362); and Massachusetts (352).

The third tier includes: Arizona (189); North Carolina (166); the
District of Columbia (161); California (143); New Hampshire (127); New
Jersey (124); and Vermont (119).

In the basement, with fewer than 100 signatues since the petition was
launched on November 3rd ...

(level A, 75-99) ... KS = 97; MO & RI = 88 each; MD = 81

(level B, 50-74) ... FL = 69; ME = 68; SC = 66; WA = 60; ND = 56; IA =
52; MT = 51

(level C, 25-49) ... IN = 44; LA = 38; VA = 33; TX - 32; CT = 27; GA =
26; WV = 25

(level D, 1-24) ... NM = 23; SD = 22; CO & MN = 19 each; MI, OH & WI =
18 each; NV = 15; AK = 14; HI = 11; AL & OK = 10 each; UT = 9; AR &
OR =
7 each; WY = 5; MS & NE = 4 each; ID = 3

The final petition will soon be on the VALUE web site as a PDF
document.
We will also post pictures of VALUE staff and Board members
hand-delivering the petition.

Thanks for all of your efforts.

- Jon

Jon Randall
VALUE Consultant
jrandall at valueusa.org

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David Rosen
DJRosen at theworld.com

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