[NLA] No need for evidence, just get personal

[ADALINE ROGERS]

Paulo Freire's work is a standard worthy of striving for. He crosses the
traditional barriers of cultural orientation with ease and humor without
sacrificing depth of understanding or compassion.
a r
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Sticht" <tsticht at aznet.net>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Cc: <tsticht at aznet.net>
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 10:24 AM
Subject: [NLA] No need for evidence, just get personal


> Some thoughts upon reading comments about the OERI and reduced
> enrollments to improve quality of AELS services.
> Tom Sticht
>
> Regarding David Rosen's, John Coming's, and George Demetrion's comments
> regarding changes at OERI. Perhaps NCAL and NCSALL could put together a
> report that presents evidence showing that their research has improved
> services for adult learners somewhere in some way. The evidence should
> be of a nature that the R & D centers think the policy makers
> considering changing OERI would find convincing. George might
> demonstrate how those people he listed ( Dewey, Mezirow et al) showed
> that they could design, develop, and implement an adult education
> program teaching literacy or other important subject matter, that was
> more effective in some ways than an existing program. Of the people in
> his list, I am only familiar with Paulo Freire's work to actually
> develop and deliver a literacy program. I don't recall seeing any
> evidence demonstrating that his program was more effective than programs
> others had developed. Perhaps such evidence exists but I am unaware of
> it.
>
> Regarding Bob Bickerton's comments about reducing numbers served and
> thereby improving quality of instruction for those fewer served,   I
> think it would be important to know why the AELS lost over a million
> enrollments in two years and whether this had any thing to do with
> showing some improvements in programs in the AELS.  Having lost  large
> numbers of enrollments, and then showing that adults peristed longer in
> programs, does not actually demonstrate improvement in the quality of
> instruction. It could be that sample bias was introduced and that those
> adults who would have left early were not enrolled and those adults who
> would have stayed longer actually did enroll. This would increase
> average hours of instruction but not because those enrolled were staying
> longer than they would have but because those who would have left early
> and lowered the hours of instruction were not enrolled. I don't know if
> this is the case, of course, because to my knowledge no one has yet put
> out a report showing why so many adult enrollments were lost from the
> AELS, nor am I knowledgeable about any reports from Massachusetts
> demonstrating the efficacy of the use of the "reduced enrollments to
> improve quality of service" strategy.
>
> Overall, it seems that if we are to make a good case for continued
> support of research in adult education and literacy development, we need
> to put forth some pretty convincing evidence that past research has made
> some payoffs in improved services for adults.
>
> But I am likely wrong about the importance of trying to show that our R
> & D has been effective in some ways. Probably there only has to be some
> political contacts made to congress people in the states where research
> centers are now located and then have these congress people go in and
> fight for "their" R & D centers. Don't bother them with data, just get
> personal! I've seen it work many times before.
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