[NLA] Information: Revised Omnibus Literacy Legislation Concept Paper Available

[gdemetrion]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Randall" <fedstrategics at home.com>
To: "'NLA listserv'" <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 1:33 PM
Subject: [NLA] Information: Revised Omnibus Literacy Legislation Concept
Paper Available


> At www.natcoalitionliteracy.org you can take a look at the latest version
of
> the Omnibus Literacy Legislation concept paper developed by the National
> Coalition for Literacy. To get to it, click on "Policy and Legislation" on
> the home page, then on "Commitment Three," and then on "Omnibus Literacy
> Legislation."

Jon:

Allow me to quote one paragraph in particular of the concept paper that
favorably caught my attention:

"Learners must be engaged in an on/going goal setting/updating process that
gives both the learner and the provider a clear vision of each learner's
expected outcomes [even if these emerge rather than are planned from the
getgo, GD].  Curriculum should reflect the real life needs of learners in
work, family, and community contexts.  Assessment tools must be based upon
the curriculum [not the other way around!, GD] and quickly and accurately
indicate initial needs and subsequent learning gains.  Standardized tests
are not always the most appropriate assessment instrument, especially not
for the lowest level learners [a collective A-men is heard across the land
of literacy, particularly in Sioux Falls].  federal and State adult
education agencies must develop and utilize reliable instruments that assess
learning gains in a real-life context.  programs must employ evaluation
designs that reveal how well various program components contribute to
learners meeting their goals.  programs should provide students with
credentials that clearly indicate learner accomplishment and eligibility for
further education, training or employment" (p. 12).

Among much else, this is a call for equal billing for the diversity of
programming that characterizes the field--community-based literacy/ESOL
programs of various types along with state-mandated ABE/GED programs, and
highly specialized workplace and family literacy programs.

Whatever differences there are within the field (and those differences are
important), perhaps there's some broad agreement on that passage?  And also,
at least with much of what is in An Action Agenda, including the concept
paper--that is, being something to work with that helps to  facilitate a
process of field development.

I still have certain reservations about the "return on investment" metaphor
that characterizes a good portion of the concept paper, but I think there's
room for the evolution of the Action Agenda process, depending upon which
constituents become involved with it and the effects of such organization on
moving an enlightened agenda for literacy forward.  There's a lot of
short-term work that needs to be done.

For the longer term, as stated in previous posts, I would want to press EFF
to flesh out the public philosophy implicit in its framework of the active
citizen engaged in lifelong learning in the process both of
self-reconstruction and reconstructing the mediating institutions of the
workplace, family, and community in strengthening the chords of the social
and political institutions and cultures of our national life.  I believe
that is what VALUE is up to at its finest.  I believe also, this is what the
new Lit.Org merger between LLA and LVA can and should be about at its
finest--strengthening lives and strengthening communities and thereby making
a vital contribution to the public good.  And this, after all, is what EFF
is all about.  The next logical step is to flesh out and articulate this
public philosophy and make it the mothership of our field.

There is a lot of potential for a reconstructed vision of the AELS in the
United States.  We see the energies resident in VALUE, with the dynamism
inherent in the emerging Lit.Org, and in the work of EFF, in An Action
Agenda, and also on the listservs.  The energy is there, but needs to be
more fully channeled through a paradigmatic vision, which links adult
literacy to the public good and can provide 1001 reasons why it is so.  I
suggest that the "return on investment" metaphor needs to be subsumed within
a broader social, cultural political, and educational vision that is
*already enacted* in VALUE, the emerging Lit.Org., An Action Agenda, EFF,
and the lists and that NIFL is the vessel to bring mothership to port.

George Demetrion

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