[NLA] Discussion: AELS and Higher Ed

[Eileen Eckert]

Dixie Stark writes:
"The primary reason that oversight for the AELS should not be through Higher 
Ed is that these funds are to help adults gain K-12 skills. In the higher ed 
system, if a student needs catch-up work in basic skills, the student is 
charged for credits that do not count toward graduation, AND do not count 
for meeting the requirement of full-time attendance for financial 
assistance.  As a result, students in higher ed that do not have all of the 
necessary foundation skills are heavily penalized by paying high rates for 
credits that will do them no good---what they really need is the basic 
skills so that they can move into regular "for-credit" classes that count."

Dixie,
In the community colleges where I worked, ABE, GED, and ESL existed as parts 
of adult ed. programs, and developmental reading, writing, math, and study 
skills courses were part of other departments. As a teacher, I encouraged my 
students to set goals for themselves that went beyond getting the minimum 
passing GED score, and to learn as much as possible so they could enter the 
college-level classes that count toward graduation and not spend time and 
financial aid money on developmental courses. When I had some administrative 
and leadership responsibility, I encouraged other teachers and staff to help 
students go on to college, and formed relationships with student services 
programs, as well as faculty in the key transition areas (English, reading, 
and math). Being in a community college was an asset in that situation, I 
believe.

Dixie writes:
"In rural states, there are areas that are more than 100 miles from any kind 
of community college. It is not in the best interest of students who lack 
funds and reliable transportation to be limited to such institutions when 
they seek to gain basic literacy skills. To move funds/leadership to higher 
ed would be a disaster in our rural state."

Referring again to my experience in community colleges, the entity through 
which funding is streamed is not necessarily the physical location of all 
services. We were very fortunate in being able to piggyback on the 
relationship between the student association of the college where I worked 
and the regional transit company so that our students got free bus passes 
when they enrolled (which led to some other problems, but that's another 
story). I know of programs that are many miles from the campus that is their 
nominal home. Just as not all of your programs are located in schools, not 
all those administered by colleges are physically in colleges.

I'm remembering Tom Sticht's surprise that people could think of AELS as 
just a way to remediate K-12 deficiencies, and Cecil Smith's comment that 
"scientific" research doesn't <have> to preclude the use of qualitative 
methods. I know that in my own case, I can easily confuse barriers that can 
exist or have existed in some circumstances with barriers that are endemic 
to a particular phenomenon. For example, funding AELS through higher ed. 
doesn't <have to be> and isn't always associated with the barriers Dixie and 
David mentioned, though it can be. I think Debbie's question was more about 
relationships between adult ed. and research universities, too, a "what if" 
question aimed at identifying some ideals, while we're responding in terms 
of AELS and community colleges, where we already have relationships in some 
states. I think we easily generalize problems, barriers, and restrictions 
and thereby make things even harder for ourselves than the real restrictions 
make them--and the real restrictions, it seems to me, are barriers enough!









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