[AAACE-NLA] Reach Higher, America and Hope for Change

[tsticht at znet.com]

July 15, 2008

Is Their Hope for Change With the Reach Higher, America Report?

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education


The Reach Higher, America report discusses what it calls a "crisis" in the
American workforce with different kinds of information. For instance,
referring to the issue of literacy, the report states, Quote: " Americans
should have been stunned when the National Assessment of Adult Literacy
(NAAL), released in 2005, revealed that a staggering 30 million American
adults scored at "below basic "—meaning they could perform no more than the
most rudimentary literacy tasks. Another 63 million adults could perform
only simple, basic everyday literacy activities." End Quote.

The problems with the foregoing statements are that (1) it isn't true that
being assigned to either of these categories on the NAAL means that a
person cannot do tasks at higher levels of difficulty. It just means that
they do not have a 67 percent chance of getting more difficult tasks
correct. In contrast, the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System
(CASAS) uses a .50 percent chance of performance to assign adults to
literacy levels, indicating that the choice of the probability of response
standard is arbitrary; (2) over 93 percent of adults assessed in the 1993
National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) thought they read well or very well
and good enough for their jobs and there is no reason to doubt that this
would also have been true of adults assessed in the NAAL had they been
asked, and there is no evidence in the NAAL to contradict these
self-perceived skill levels. In fact, in the 2003 Adult Literacy and
Lifeskills (ALL) survey it was estimated that some 80 percent of workers
were in jobs for which their literacy either matched or exceeded the job
demands, and 20 percent were thought to be in jobs in which literacy
demands exceeded their skills. Still they were employed.

Another approach that the Reach Higher report uses to dramatize the "crisis"
in the skills of the American workforce is to discuss certain "education
barriers" that many adults face. The report compares the NAAL results with
the results of another study and states, Quote:  "Another study of
education levels has produced similar results. Analysis by the National
Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) reveals that 18.2
million English-speaking adults lack a high school diploma, more than 51.3
million English-speaking adults hold a high school diploma but have not
been to college, and 18.4 million have limited English skills. Of the
limited English speakers, 8.2 million have not completed high school, and 5
million completed high school but do not hold college credits. In total,
more than 88 million adults have at least one significant educational
barrier. 
With a current U.S. labor force of about 150 million,* a
disturbing number of prime working-age adults will likely fall behind in
their struggle to get jobs and higher wage jobs, or to qualify for college
or job training that will help them advance in the workplace." End Quote

But again, these data and interpretations are contentious. For one thing
this brings into the population of adults considered economically "at risk"
all adults with a high school diploma but no college. Also, the 18.4 million
with limited English skills are those that rate themselves as speaking
English "less than very well", implying that adults who report that they
can speak English "well" but not "very well" are at some serious economic
and/or social risk. All these data are tempered by the fact that employment
rates are above 94 percent, most jobs, even many that pay quite well, do not
require extensive, post-secondary education, and generally as people are in
jobs for a longer period of time they earn more.

Despite the many problems with the data on workforce skills, adult education
organizations have repeatedly relied on them to advocate for more funding
for the Adult Education and Literacy System of the United States. For
instance, following the release of the NAAL, in a February 2006 report
entitled the American Competitive Initiative: The Adult Competitiveness
Challenge (www.ncsdae.org) the National Council of State Directors of Adult
Education said that some 93 million adults were at risk for poor literacy
and called for $1.0 billion dollars in WIA Title 2 state grants for fiscal
year 2009 with projected enrollments of some 2.8 million students. This is
about $357 per enrollment in fiscal year 2009, quite a bit more than the
Bush Administration has requested (see below).

In Reaching Higher, America, the June 2008 final report of the National
Commission on Adult Literacy, the authors report on both Title 1 and Title
2 of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 saying, Quote " The
Department of Education currently allocates less than $500 million 
annually for state adult education grants, while Title I funds for adult
education and training (e.g., dislocated workers, at-risk youth, the trade
adjustment assistance, and adult programs) total nearly $3.2 billion." End
quote. The Commission report goes on to recommend a new Adult Education and
Workforce Skills system that combines the WIA Title 1 and 2 programs and
reaches a  public and private funding level of  $20 billion with 20 million
enrollments by the year 2020. This comes to  $1000 per enrollment.

However, as the data above show, today the Title 1 program funding far
exceeds the funding of the Title 2 programs which make up the Adult
Education and Literacy System of the United States. In fact, the Title 2
programs are only about 13.5 percent of the total of funds in the Title 1
and Title 2 programs combined. So if that percentage difference held in
2020, then of the $20 billion called for by the Commission for the Adult
Education and Workforce Skills system, only some $2.7 billion would be
available for what is today the Title 2 Adult Education and Literacy
System. Today the Title 2 program enrollments far exceed those of the Title
1 programs. But if just half of the 20 million enrollees projected for  the
new system called for by the Reach Higher report were in the Title 2 part
of the new system, then that would come to about $270 per enrollee in what
is now funded by Title 2 of the WIA. This is only about $50 more per
enrollee than the AELS presently receives. Adjusted for 2% inflation per
year over the next 12 years, the per enrollee funding in 2020 would be less
in purchasing power than what is presently available for adult education and
literacy in Title 2 of the WIA.

Finally, apparently the belief that there is a drastic crisis in workforce
skills has not penetrated into the Bush administration, at least in the
area of adult literacy education. Writing on the Legislative pages of the
Commission on Adult Basic Education (COABE) web site (www.coabe.org),  Lynn
Selmser reports on President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2009 funding for
state grants under Title 2 of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998.
She states, Quote " Once again, the President has proposed to level fund
adult education at the 2008 funding level which, as you will recall, cut
adult education by  $10 million. The proposal would fund adult education
state grants at $554.1  million in 2009." End quote. With enrollments of
some 2.5 million adults in the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS)
funded under Title 2 of the WIA, this comes to about $222 per student.

So here we are. For a quarter of a century various task forces, commissions,
and policy research studies have decried the basic skills of  large segments
of the American workforce. From the A Nation at Risk Report of 1983 to the
Reach Higher, America report of 2008, repeated pleas have been made for
greater investments in adult literacy education. And yet today the federal
contribution to the Adult Education and Literacy System is only about an
average of $200 per enrollee. Even with the contributions from the 50
states, the funding runs about an average of $800 per enrollee. This
supports a system with over 80 percent part-time teachers and thousands of
unpaid volunteers as tutors serving some 2.5 million students a year.

Perhaps with a new national administration in 2009 someone will actually
believe the results of all these national surveys and studies and decide to
do something about the serious needs of the Adult Education and Literacy
System of the United States. We can hope for change!

Thomas G. Sticht
Email: tsticht at aznet.net