NLA Discussion: Marginalization of the AELS

[John Comings]

I would like to make a few comments after reading Sally Gabb's and 
George Demetrion's postings.  Working on the "New Skills for a New 
Economy" (www.massinc.org) study made me optimistic that our field 
might be able to bring together the two opposing views of how the 
system should operate -- as a social service or as a workforce 
development program.  One way to bring these two viewpoints together 
is to think of our students as falling into two groups.

Most of the students in the present system are adults who want ESOL 
and GED/ASE services. These students are motivated to learn, we know 
how to serve them, and we can show achievement and impact in ways 
that policy makers value.  Most of these students are looking to our 
services as a way to improve their income. We need to expand and 
improve these services, and we should put a special emphasis on making 
services more convenient.  I see this as an easy sell to policy 
makers, and I see no reason why instruction needs to focus on 
employment. In fact, instruction should focus on content that is of 
strong and immediate interest to the students.  If it does, students 
will be more likely to improve their English skills or improve their 
literacy and math skills sufficiently to pass the GED or complete 
another ASE program.

We have another group of students who speak English but have literacy 
skills too low to pass the GED or who already have a high school 
diploma.  We are not attracting a lot of these students to our 
programs, and our programs find it difficult to serve them well.  We 
don't have good tools for measuring their progress or for relating 
that progress to impact on their lives. The majority of the people in 
this group are not seeking services, and I suspect that most of 
those who are being served are in volunteer tutoring programs. For 
this population, we need to rethink the way we provide services, the 
way we measure impact and achievement, and the way we argue to policy 
makers that funding services for them is worthwhile.  I have seen 
classes and whole programs that do a good job of serving this 
population. NCSALL, NIFL, and OVAE all have R&D efforts underway that 
are trying to learn more about serving this population and measuring 
their progress. We need much more R&D before we are ready to make a 
strong argument for a dramatic expansion of services for this group.

The system that can serve ESOL and GED/ASE students well is probably 
not going to provide a lot of services for NALS level 1 adults or 
NALS level 2 adults who have a high school credential.  We need a 
different approach.  We can use the employment argument for these 
services, but arguments that focus on family literacy, social equity 
and justice, and support to democracy may be more legitimate.

My point is that we are serving several different populations.  Some 
of these groups can be served by the kinds of programs supported by 
WIA, and some need different services that will only be supported by 
a different vision.


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John Comings                     Phone: 617.496.0516
NCSALL -- Nichols House          Fax:   617.495.4811
7 Appian Way                     Email: John_Comings at harvard.edu
Graduate School of Education     Web:   http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~ncsall
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138



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