NLA Discussion: Welfare Policy and Adult Ed. Professional

[DocBSP at aol.com]

Dear Nancy,

As someone who is struggling with the same issues of professional development
activities for adult educators in this time of change, I can appreciate your
plea for suggestions.
In New York State the adult education professional development providers are
funded at least in part by the State Education Department. There are 10
regional consortia of providers who formerly were run by policy boards made up
of representative constituent group education, literacy providers--teachers,
administrators, CBO's and public sector, etc.
This year the policy boards were in effect made useless because the State
Education Department decided that since they fund these agencies, professional
development activities would be determined at their level.  Currently, we are
in the midst of providing massive statewide training on the Department
produced "new" Adult Education Standards and Resource Guide, which was written
nearly 10 years ago and had recently had its language "realigned" to match the
language of the new K-12 standards in the state. Despite much feedback from
the adult education providers in the field criticizing the document, it was
published anyway and touted as a wonderful breakthrough for adult education!
The training for it was even scripted
by the department for consistency and uniformity of presentation! It is being
referred to as the big "Roll-out" of the new adult education standards. Many
of us in the field are pretty disillusioned with any professional development
activities provided this year, and have become pretty suspect.
That is the advice I would give to you--There are no magic formulas either for
the learners or for the educators who provide the services. It seems that the
areas where
we might derive some benefit in professional development might be in the use
of technologies, or the integration of education (not training) in the
workplace. I wish you the best in your query, and would welcome updates on
what you find to be useful.

Brenda Peters 
Albany, New York