NLA Discussion: David Heath's Questions

[Sue Mclendon]

Greetings,

If you have ever changed computer systems you can empathize with me.  The
new "super duper" has been more of a "duper" than a "super."  I apologize
for not being more prompt in completing my assignment of your questions
but I am out of the office the first of this week and my remote
operations are very remote.  So I gave up on my notebook computer and  am
now using my home computer which is connected to the cable and should be fine.

Anyway, enough said.  David Heath sent the following that has three
dissertation questions.

"Thank you for taking the time and energy to respond to the many
questions that I suspect you will receive from the field. I will limit my
curiosity to three.

1) Having seen the literacy world from the context of classroom
instructor, program manager and state director, where do you see the
"blind spots" to be in each of these professional cultures?

2) Do you feel there is an articulated and research-based set of best
practices in the field of adult education, and if so, do you feel there is
a mismatch between that set and NRS outcomes and reporting standards?

3) How much autonomy do states have in actualizing and implementing
accountability standards under Title II, and in that regard, how much
freedom do states have in defining what "standardized" will mean in their
particular state?

Thank you for participating.

David Heath

Odessa College

dheath at apex2000.net"



We will try one at a time.

1) Having seen the literacy world from the context of classroom
instructor, program manager and state director, where do you see the
"blind spots" to be in each of these professional cultures?

I am interpreting "blind spots" as pieces of the culture that we just do
not see when we are in it.  So I will work from that perspective.  

INSTRUCTOR

Basic Preparation:  Teaching adults is the hardest thing I ever did and I
never really felt like I got it right.  I got a call one Thursday
afternoon at 3 asking if I was interested in an adult high school social
studies class.  It started that night at 7 and the program manager had
ordered the books that morning.  So, for many teachers like me, the blind
spot was knowing there was a difference between teaching kids and
teaching adults.  I know that sounds simplistic to many these days but I
still have teachers in sessions who had similar lack of preparation.

Management of a complex learning environment: A second blind spot, even
for those who have preservice (the adult learner and instructional
strategies) is the unbelievable complexity of the job and how you manage
it in two and a half hours a night.  This is not news but really:  ten to
fifteen students who are functioning anywhere along a continuum of 12
grade levels in five academic subjects plus a bunch of life skill
subjects applied to personal, work, family, or community contexts and
half of the students have a learning disability I cannot diagnose.  A
part of this blind spot is the awareness of resources to help you and
each learner create meaningful, responsive learning activities.  

How can any one teacher know all of that?  How can you expect them to be
able to scope and sequence learning in so many diverse areas?

Fortunately, there is some help in the wings brought on by the performance
standards in WIA.  TABE tests are wonderful.  CASAS tests are wonderful.  
However, sometimes they do not test what we are teaching.  Sometimes the
students leave before we can get the post-test, if testing is the
appropriate instrument.  So, states are beginning to develop skill
checklists that scope and sequence the skills at each level.  The teachers
can opt to apply these skills lists to the learner's context to guide the
development of the learning plan as well as documenting the learning via
portfolio.   I will be putting some of these up (Florida, West Virginia,
Washington State, Pennsylvania, and others) on our web site
(www.naepdc.org) later this summer so you can look at them.  Of course,
what is yet-to-be-developed is some standardization and assessment
strategies for these checklists -- but they are on the way.  OVAE has
funded a project to develop validation strategies for alternative
assessments.  

As a political science major, I would have loved to had such a resource
when I was trying to help one of my early students set up a math learning
plan using the material from work.  I had not a clue which skill came
first and what the logical order was to get him from where he was to
converting complex fractions to decimals.

Thus, one of the blind spots is an understanding of what a complex
resource management job it is to teach a multi-leveled class -- ABE or
ESL.  

A teacher or tutor is comfortable with some subject matter (reading,
math) within certain ranges (root words, prefixes, and suffixes) but in
other subject matter areas and in other ranges and in foreign contexts
(quality control in a peanut factory), she or he needs a few crutches to
lean on.

Participatory Learning to a fault:  Here is one of my large blind spots
which I will mention briefly because the point is made in the previous
paragraph.  Participatory learning means involving the learner in
planning and evaluating his or her own learning.  Well, I took this
"student directed" learning to a fault by trying to get teachers to
really search with the student to identify what he or she wanted to learn
and teach only that.  Therefore, no curriculum ("the student is the
curriculum") and thereby no support for the teacher to help scope and
sequence learning.  Of course, the fallacy of that stance is that the
student knows and can express where he wants to go but he often does not
have a clue how to get there.  I may want to be a brain surgeon but I
haven't the foggiest clue how to begin and what to study first.  

So, involving the learners in planning and evaluating their own learning
is an important part of our process.  But, the teacher and tutor need
resources to structure that process.  

Assessment:   Of course tied to that and alluded to above is assessment.  TABE,
BEST, CASAS measure some learning.  However, much learning that responds
to the learner's needs and helps her or him keep a job, help children
with homework, communicate with others in his or her village cannot be
assessed with standardized tests.  One of our blind spots is, to me and
maybe me alone, the obvious disjuncture between what students learn and
what they are tested for.  Shouldn't they be assessed on what they needed
to learn?  Portfolio assessment, validated by an outside validator, much
like the External Diploma Program and the Word Power et al in England, is
an answer we have not taken the time to develop.  Ironically, as
mentioned above, WIA may take us there.

Classroom Learning:  One last blind spot is the dependence on classroom
learning.  Yes, classroom learning is wonderful, no doubt, but
non-classroom learning -- teacher supported learning at home or at
work -- is an area we really have not developed.  I spent a lot of time
discussing this in a previous question last week so I will only say that
some 15 states are beginning to explore increasing access by moving
learning out of the classroom.

ASIDE:  When I was state director in Virginia we developed an exchange
program with the adult ed folks in England and they came here and we went
there and we learned a lot through commiseration and questioning why we
did what we did?

I remember when Alistair Tranter, the Senior adult ed advisory (local
program administrator) from Cheshire came to the Shenandoah Valley.  He
sat in the front porch swing at Martha Carper's house and a gathering of
local adult ed teachers and managers probed for the truth. "How do you
determine grade level?" was the first question.  "What is grade
level?  We do not have grade levels." Alistair replied.  "how do you
prepare students for the GED?"  was the second question.  Of course, they
do not have the GED either.  "Without grade levels or GED, what do you
teach?" was our next question.  "We ask them what they want to learn and
we teach them that." was Alistair's reply.  After some time observing
their instruction with its practical assessment, Word Power and Number
Power Certificates, 

PROGRAM MANAGER

Many of the Instructor blind spots fall on the program manger for she or
he is the person who is responsible for creating the system to remove
those blind spots.  So ditto to all of the above.

Realization of the Complexity:  A public school administrator is a public
school administrator.  If you can run Voc. Ed., you can run adult
ed.  One of the blind spots occurs in the administration of local public
school systems when they think that any administrator can manage an adult
ed program.  However, few are ready for a program where there is no
compulsory attendance, there are very few, if any teachers with their
adult education teachers' certificate in hand fresh from their
undergraduate training, and there is not one curriculum that everyone
must complete.  Whose job is it to prepare the administrator who has been
assigned adult education duties?  What do they need to know to get
started and how do they evolve?  So much depends on the local program
manager.  She or he is the conduit for information and resources for the
teachers and tutors.  

Linkage:  A significant blind spot I see recurring with each
reauthorization of legislation is the linkage of adult education services
with other social services (job training, public health, welfare,
etc).  Adult learners that come to us need educational services but they
often need other support also.  However, local program managers -- not all
but too many -- do not see the need or describe the burden of trying to
collaborate and link with other services.  The program evaluations bear
out the need to address these issues but even legislated mandates do not
overcome the resistance.  It does take work to make it happen.  Maybe it
is not a blind spot but we often just don't look in that direction.  Those
local programs I know that do set up an interagency workgroup to meet
quarterly, to share information and link services are really pleased with
the results.

STATE DIRECTORS

You must realize I have to be careful here because these are the people I
work for and I do not wish to be fired.  However, because I once was one,
I have seen a few blind spots.

System Building:  I hopefully watch state directors on an evolution from
learning the ropes and the land mines to trying to stomp out all the
fires to obtaining program stability to building systems of
services.  Beginning in the early 80s the federal language began to talk
about building systems of services.  The work that the Consortium for
whom I now work is focused on that goal.  We want to help states get the
fires stomped out, stabilize the program, and assess the program's needs,
select a system that needs work, and set about building that system
(staff development system, accountability system, management system,
linkage system) into the best system to serve that state.  Once that
system is set, choose another and repeat the process.  And to try to
create an atmosphere wherein the local programs will want to do the same.

You may be surprised that I had and I hear other state directors talk
about local programs who will not take all the funds they are entitled
to.  For example, $10,000 is allocated by formula to a county. However,
the county has always run a $5,000 program and that is all they will ever
run -- and you cannot make them take the money.  Or, there are volunteer
organizations who want funding but they want to do their own thing.  They
are not interested in training their tutors, reporting in compliance with
the funds, linking their services with others.  WIA is helping with each
of these.  The performance standards require a quality program or you do
not get the funds.

More importantly, state directors are challenged to build a system of
services.  Funding anarchy does not build a system.

Conversely, there are programs that specialize in ESL services, for
example, who are a part of the staff development system sharing their
expertise with other teachers and tutors across the state, a part of the
data system contributing to the data necessary to justify and expand
federal and state funding, a part of the linkage system linking their
services with public health, job training and the like, and in general
contributing to the system of services.  When we have enough funds to
serve 10% of those who need services, we need those resources working
together.

As you might guess, system building is a pet peeve of mine.  We have so
few resources.  I feel we all have to work together to share instructional
and management practices, data to expand our funding, and strategies to
link our services with the other services that meet our students' needs.  I 
believe the state director builds systems at the state level that make it
easier for local program managers to build systems at the local level
that make it easier for the teacher and tutor to meet all of the needs of
the learner.  End of sermon.

Collaborating with other states:  I think one of the blind spots of state
directors and state staff is trying to do everything by themselves.  

(ASIDE:  A part of this situation is attributable to state departments
limiting the out of state travel of state staff.  How are they suppose to
gather options to improve services if they do not go listen and look.   I
worked under several administrations at the state level but one of the
most confusing was the one suggesting that I was doing my job when I was
sitting at my desk.   So, there are times when a state director has
little choice.)

None the less, one blind spot at the state level is the thought that you
have to do it yourself.  I can remember working very hard in the late 80s
to contract for the development of a learning disabilities kit for the
teachers in Virginia.  Of course, most of the other states were doing the
same.  One of the services the Consortium offers is to broker information
about what other states are doing.  If a state wants to develop a program
monitoring instrument, I can send a note to all the states to share their
procedures, and they usually do.  Web pages are helping too.  Many states
have many of their resources on their page or their resource center page.

The Intelecom project wherein six or so states and USDOE joined together
to develop Crossroads Cafe is an excellent example of how states working
together can better meet the needs of their learners.

Politics:  Lastly, a blind spot at all levels but too often at the state
level is advocacy in the political arena.  Most state employees have been
told that they are not to lobby individual state legislators.  That
expectation is understandable.  The state superintendent or community
college chancellor, for example, does not want every employee hanging
around the General Assembly building pushing her or his own agenda.  The
agency head sets the political agenda with the governor and all are to
fall into line.

As a result, too often the state director determines he or she cannot do
anything.  That sentiment permeates the state.  Adult ed has no natural
advocates.  Public health has the AMA.  Job training has the Chamber and
the Manufacturers Association.  Kids have their parents and the
NEA.  Adult learners have adult educators -- we are it.  If we do not do,
it doesn't get done. 

I surely do not want to get state directors fired by violating their
agency head's orders.  However, leadership has its place.  State
Directors have encouraged the state professional association to have a
policy committee that requests data from the state office and transmits
that data to the proper committee members in the General Assembly.  State
Directors could encourage the state professional association to adapt the
Congressional Forum Power Point from the Consortium's web site
(www.naepdc.org) to create a General Assembly forum.  There are two kinds
of power (at least): authority and influence.  Often adult educators do
more with the latter than the former.

David, I hope there is something interesting in all of this.  I hope we
have a chance to talk sometime.

Thanks for the questions,

Lennox


Dr. Lennox L. McLendon, Executive Director
National Adult Education Professional Development Consortium
444 N. Capitol St. NW, Suite 422
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 624-5250
(202) 624 1497 FAX
lmclendon at naepdc.org
www.naepdc.org



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