[NLA] NLA Discussion and thw Big Picture

[George E. Demetrion]

(Long)

Hello Jon:

Thank you very for your thoughtful commentary. I have a better picture
now of the difficulties you were facing with the Board nominees which
indicates that the NCL as an entity gave this issue more consideration
than what I had thought in viewing the scene as an outsider.  Whether a
more concerted grassroots push would have had any effect is, at this
time, beside the point.  It seems evident that the NCL had to balance
concern about the appropriateness of the nominees, verses the potential
impact of a direct and not likely successful challenge against the
Administration and Senator Kennedy's Committee.  As relative insiders,
you had certain factors to consider.  As a relative outsider (both
perspectives viewed as valuable) I was operating out of a different set
of premises.  Namely, I sought to push the argument for the purpose of
publicly surfacing the issues underlying various positions and options in
order to challenge any unspoken assumptions and to provide a focal point
for a broader discussion of the policy challenges facing the field.
Clearly, the field has a long way to go to garner the public and policy
credibility that it deserves. 
 
I also appreciate the role that you and others are playing in plugging up
the holes.  If I were in your situation I would probably take a similar
stance. I've always had an appreciation for the constraints the policy
sector has been up against, including the compromises that many felt
necessary to make with the Workforce Investment Act, which, without
adhering to, the field could have lost even more ground than it did, say
from the more optimistic era of the early 1990s.  Stating that, the
critique of the WIA/NRS on other premises holds, lest no critique at all
is possible that extends beyond what is perceived as pragmatically
feasible by the policy sector. This also holds for the current situation,
accommodation as the only means possible of working within the
constraints, short-term; critical analysis of the arrangement as
unsatisfactory in meeting the needs of the field, lest the possibility of
critique itself become blunted, with reality defined with what becomes
perceived as merely the possible within any given situation.

On An Action Agenda, my qualified support of it is tempered by the
concern that it is not premised upon a coherent public philosophy and a
corresponding vision that inspires the field to action.  The limitations
extends back to the Literacy Summit of 2000 where there were some
powerful opening and closing speeches by Archie Willard and Dale
Christianson, in particular.  If taken seriously as the modus operandi of
the Summit's work, the challenges that they (these VALUE spokespersons)
laid out could have led to such a vision.  Or (or related), to be
consistent, NIFL could have laid out EFF as the broad framework to have
structured the thinking of the Summit, focusing on expanding, probing,
and clarifying the emerging framework as the basis of the work of the
task forces which met for those two days in February.  The idea, after
all, was to look 10 years into the future, which required a visionary
focus that EFF potentially provides. Thus, the three priorities in the
Action Agenda document could have had the EFF framework as its basis,
which could have grounded the Outcome areas and action steps within that
structure.   That might have required a lot of talk before action steps
were identified, which, to be effective, need to emerge out of a
well-designed vision.   I believe that in its broad strokes, EFF provides
that, at least at the level of linking sound 
pedagogy and practice with national policy directives and the potential
for some coherence that is otherwise lacking.
 
To Andrea's query on whether EFF is intended to be the field's flagship
(or at least NIFL's flagship for the field), see in particular, the NIFL
document, S. Stein (1997).  Equipped for the Future:  A Reform Agenda for
Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning.  There, EFF is defined as "A broad,
national consensus-building process that engages an ever-widening circle
of adult learners, teachers, and other key customers and investors in
defining the results of our system" (p. 7).  The Role Maps were designed
as the broad contexts that would link adult literacy education to viable
policy objectives. The Standards were designed to measure results and to
provide the tools to facilitate lifelong learning through which adults
would engage the learning challenges of the key life roles.  Consider,
also, the many partners who have signed on to EFF (see the Advisor List
of the 1997 document) and the intentional focus of EFF developers from
the get go for this framework to be the basis of a nationwide consensus. 
Consider, finally, the origins of EFF in providing specificity to
National Educational Goal Six, which states: "By the year 2000, every
adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills
necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and
responsibilities of citizenship."  Given all this, it would be hard
pressed not to draw the conclusion that, from its inception, NIFL has
designed EFF to meet the integrative needs of the field for a coherent,
balanced framework that fuses participatory-based models of education
with prevailing and plausible policy directives linked to worker, family,
and civic education.
 
The document, From the Margins to the Mainstream:  An Action Agenda for
Literacy certainly does contain mission-like statements, though I don't
believe they cohere into a comprehensive vision that is grounded in a
specific set of values, though there are implications, as you well
suggest. For example, on page 2 titled Literacy is a National Concern,
four areas are highlighted, Jobs and the Economy, Health, The Digital
Divide, and Parents and Education.  I think all reasonable people would
agree that these are important areas that should be included in any
vision, but they leave implicit the matter of why, in pointing to the
values that give or should give shape to these national concerns. Also,
notably lacking on page 2 is the category of Citizenship, which holds a
central (I would argue, the central) place within EFF, although the
fuller implications of citizenship as the grounding political philosophy
of EFF remain implicit rather than explicit in its own literature.  

Central to EFF is the active citizen reconstructing self and the key
institutions of public life; the workplace, the family, and community
sectors through intelligent engagement and lifelong learning.  In one
nutshell, I argue, this is the core EFF premise.  The rest is commentary
and technique. It is upon the EFF framework, I argue, that the potential
for a public philosophy for adult literacy education resides as a
democratic reform movement within capitalism.  The implicit public
philosophy is based on the active citizen engaged in lifelong learning
grounded in the work of revitalizing the basic institutions and
organizations of the nation's public culture primarily at the local
level; the workplace, the family, and various civic associations.  This
focus parallels with the many contributions of VALUE, where members have
drawn on literacy as a fulcrum to engage in a wide array of public
activities including their own and other literacy agencies, public
schools, and other associations and organizations to promote the public
value of adult literacy education.  Check out the member profiles on the
VAUE web page and you'll see what I mean.

One can discern a similar public contribution through the volunteer ethos
from the many members who participate in the ProLiteracy Worldwide
organizations and other volunteer adult literacy agencies.  An important
source of the contribution is the role of the volunteers in helping
students to achieve their goals through enhancing their literacy skills. 
Perhaps a more subtle contribution to the political culture is in the
promotion of the value of voluntarism and public service, another form of
civic engagement.  Thus, there are various avenues by which the field is
already enacting an implicit public philosophy based upon the active
citizen strengthening the political culture through vigorous
participation in public life.

This is a public philosophy that is moderate in its politics that has the
capacity to build bridges among a broad spectrum of groups and viewpoint,
extending to moderate conservative to moderate progressive outlooks,
which both adhere to the importance of civic engagement, localism, and
self-help. Given the potency of literacy as a cultural symbol and the
persuasive eloquence of some of our spokespersons like Dale Christanson,
Archie Willard, Annette Sessions, Calvin Miles, and others, this public
philosophy has a substantial potential of coming to life, particularly
should there be a common framework for it to come to flourish.  The
challenge for the field, I believe, is its capacity to believe its own
rhetoric and to articulate this framework, linking literacy to lifelong
learning and civic engagement particularly through the three roles
identified in EFF.  The movement toward such a direction is implicit in
the role maps and lifelong learning focus of EFF, the volunteer ethos of
ProLiteracy Worldwide, the spirit and public service orientation of
VALUE, and the open airwaves of the NLA. Still missing is an impetus or a
series of impetuses to deliberately move in this direction, particularly
within the long-term context of An Action Agenda.  
 
So the upshot as to whether I support the Agenda, what I support is that
there is a forum for long-term field development.  Yet, this forum needs
some substantial reconstruction along the lines I am suggesting, namely
the articulation and fleshing out of a public philosophy that
incorporates lifelong learning and civic engagement (broadly defined) as
the underlying contribution of adult literacy education to the public
good. This is a vision that crosses ideological boundaries based on what
Forrest Chisman refers to as "American values."  The last two pages of
Chisman's essay, "Adult Literacy and the American Dream" is another
voice, one well known to the field, which is making a similar argument. 
I encourage folks to consider what Chisman has to say:
(http://www.caalusa.org/caaloccasionalpaper1.pdf).  

On your point, Jon, Chisman talks about the importance of linking
interests and ideals in the composition of an orientation of adult
literacy within the context of "American values."  So do I when I talk 
by situating language about literacy through through the triple imagery
of double-duty investment (Sticht),  "inalienable rights" (Chisman) and
the linkage of of literacy to the notion of the public good (me, through
the work of Robert Bellah and others).  There's some subtle work here on
language reconstruction that would have to take place on how the field
articulates its public worth, but nothing insurmountable if there were a
consistent will for it.
 
In terms of resources, my sense is that depends on the believability of
the case that I am making.  To the extent that it seems plausible,
doable, that it inspires, and brings a sense of coherency that is
currently lacking, people will naturally gravitate to it.  If it catches
on, its energy will be self-evident.  If not, then it won't.  I leave it
at that. 

 I conclude by arguing that the leadership role of NIFL is crucial to
such an enterprise.  The question is whether NIFL will lead and if so,
whether it will lead with its flagship program, EFF, and in away that
brings out its public philosophy.   Important issues are weighing on this
decision. To me, this is what this discussion of the role of NIFL has
been really about all along.  The journey of a thousand miles starts with
the next step.

 George Demetrion
Sophocles5 at juno.com



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