[NLA] FYI - CAAL letter supporting adult literacy

[GSpan1@aol.com]

Friends,

David Rosen, professional advisor to the Council for Advancement of Adult 
Literacy (CAAL), has suggested that I post the following (lengthy) letter 
here.  (I am also attaching it as a Word document for those who prefer it 
that way.)  I sent it recently to key members of Congress, the Secretary of 
Education and members of his staff responsible for adult education and 
literacy, and to the White House Domestic Affairs Advisor.   Gail S


September 21, 2001

The Honorable Rod Paige
Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202-0498

Dear Secretary Paige:

      Despite the staggering events of last week, I firmly believe in the 
core strength of our nation and am confident about the future of America.  In 
this spirit, I write to you about my concerns and hopes for adult literacy.  
I do so as the head of the new Council for the Advancement of Adult Literacy, 
and as the former operating head of the Business Council for Effective 
Literacy (BCEL), an organization that through the mid-90s
provided national leadership in adult literacy--with the support of 
corporations, government, and professionals throughout the field.

     My basic message is simple.  Even as the President's effort to advance 
literacy in the schools goes forward, it is vitally important for the 
Administration to keep a strong, visible commitment to adult literacy 
--especially at the Department of Education and the National Institute for 
Literacy.  Dedicated professionals across this land -- including governors 
and Republican and Democratic members of Congress, during several
administrations -- have toiled mightily for years to develop understanding 
about the nature of the adult literacy challenge as well as a framework and 
resources for delivering services on a level commensurate with the need.

     In the months to come there will be many pressing demands on the federal 
budget.  Urgent as they are, support for adult literacy is also essential to 
our future stability and progress.

     We have made substantial gains in the adult literacy field to date.  The 
skills and hopes of hundreds of thousands of Americans have been lifted, 
enhancing their job prospects and enabling their participation as citizens 
and family and community members. The beneficiaries of the collective effort 
are adult learners of every age,16 to 80, of every racial and ethnic 
background.  They are parents with improved skills who have
become positive forces for their children's learning.  They are a large 
population of immigrants with English-As-A-Second-Language (ESL) needs, and 
of Americans born to poverty, who are handicapped by some form of educational 
disadvantage, or whose skills are simply not adequate to meet the changing 
demands of jobs.

     Anyone who has ever been privileged to sit in a tutoring session or 
workshop in any program in the country -- especially those offered by 
libraries and the voluntary groups, which serve persons at the lowest skills 
levels -- has beenmoved by watching the "enabling" process at work.They know 
that adult literacy services directly affect the way lives are lived, and 
they know why. Moreover, they have been touched to see enrolled adults learn 
tolerance for their brothers and sisters even as they gain in self-confidence 
and higher-level basic skills.

     Despite the progress, however, our work has just begun.  For lack of 
adequate resources, there are long waiting lists in programs across the 
country.  And there remains a vast number of young and older adults in need 
of skills upgrading that we haven't reached at all or that we have reached 
only minimally -- many, many millions, no matter how the results of the 
National Adult Literacy survey are interpreted.

     The modern adult literacy movement had its roots in Lyndon Johnson's War 
on Poverty.  The Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years lifted the movement to new 
heights.  But even as people across this country struggle to increase 
resources for adult literacy, to implement major goals from last year's 
National Literacy Summit, and in other ways to move adult literacy from "the 
margins to the mainstream," they are fearful that they will no longer get the 
support they need from federal and state government. This is not a time to 
retreat from adult literacy.  It is a time to take stock of needs and to 
pursue and support opportunities for further development.

     The case for adult literacy has come to be made in terms of family 
literacy and workplace/workforce literacy, a shift that resulted from the 
Workforce Investment Act.  Yet there is also a compelling need to expand ESL 
services for newly-legalized immigrants -- and issues of poverty, social 
equity, and participation are re-emerging as important "driving" forces for 
adult literacy.

     For all of these reasons, I urge your support for the following federal 
actions:

1)  Increase funding for adult literacy activities across the board, 
including national leadership activities and the National Institute for 
Literacy. If financing the current "relief effort" makes that impossible, 
temporarily maintain last year's funding levels while expressing intent to 
move toward higher levels as soon as feasible.  (It is worth noting that 
while we are not in competition with the U.K. and Canada, it would be read as 
an enormous negative for the U.S. to
retreat in the area of adult literacy just as those countries have 
dramatically increased their commitments and funding.)

2)  Maintain a strong, visible focus within the Division of Adult Education & 
Literacy on adult literacy programming, making certain that the agenda of the 
Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education firmly includes adult 
literacy.

3)  Assure that the National Institute for Literacy retains a strong and 
clear adult literacy focus. I would urge that NIFL's funding -- which has 
always been well below that originally intended by the National Literacy 
Act--be increased for adult literacy programs even as new funds are made 
available for the new school-based activities planned. NIFL provides vital 
national leadership for the entire literacy field.  A bipartisan Congress 
created it.  Indeed, it was the centerpiece of the National Literacy Act and 
it has worked hard for adult literacy during the past decade. The field needs 
NIFL. If NIFL's adult literacy activities were cut back, no other 
organizations, not mine, not the Coalition for Literacy, could fill their 
unique and still-developing role.  Could NIFL do its job better?  Certainly, 
as every young organization could.  But, it is extremely important that they 
have the tools to do so and that the decade of groundwork they have laid --  
links to other
government agencies, to business and industry, to the international 
community, and to practitioners, planners, and students -- be strengthened.

4)  In appointing the NIFL board, I recommend that every effort be made to 
maintain bipartisan membership, as well as a balance of professionals 
representing both school literacy and adult literacy.  I urge that the new 
director, whom I understand the NIFL board will recommend, be someone with 
broad perspective, someone able to think and plan systemically and 
strategically, a person with solid organizational and political skills, and 
dedication, vision, and flair. I
believe these qualities are more important than being steeped in the 
specifics of literacy.  For the substance, I would urge that NIFL be equipped 
with two deeply-experienced deputy directors, one responsible for school 
literacy, the other for adult literacy.  This would enable the more orderly 
functioning of NIFL and produce a more coherent interaction with the outside 
world.

     One question often asked of BCEL was which was more important, reform in 
the schools or adult literacy skills upgrading?  Our answer was that it is 
not a matter of either/or, but of complementary educational goals that should
be pursued as twin challenges, on parallel tracks, each having its own points 
of interventions, goals, and programs.  Among the many stellar Americans who 
helped advance that message were two early champions of adult literacy, First
Lady Barbara Bush and McGraw-Hill's Chairman Emeritus, Harold W. McGraw, Jr., 
who founded the BCEL.

     I sincerely hope that this can be the guiding principle in federal 
actions taken on literacy.

Cordially,




Gail Spangenberg
President
Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy
1221 Avenue of the Americas - 50th Fl
New  York, NY 10020


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/applefile
Size: 474 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.literacytent.org/pipermail/nla-nifl-archive/attachments/20011002/1bf07d3e/attachment.bin
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/msword
Size: 28160 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.literacytent.org/pipermail/nla-nifl-archive/attachments/20011002/1bf07d3e/attachment.dot