[NLA] Discussion: AELS and Higher Ed (long)

[Kevin O'Connor]

Bravo, Dixie!   A thoughtful answer to Debbie's question:

Would those of us who are not already working alongside Higher Ed be better off if the AELS money flowed through them, instead of K-12?

I think that it is an easy mistake for a policy-maker to lump AELS in with Higher Ed.  Those who control the purse strings see Higher Ed as a respectable, established infrastructure made up of easily classifiable organizations:  Junior College,  Community College, College and University.  AELS, on the other hand, appears to be a loose confederacy of different-looking organizations.  When an outsider looks at it all they see is the alphabet soup of CBO, LEA, ABE, GED, ESL, ESOL, etc.  Who would you fund if you were them?  Adult Ed practitioners need to keep ourselves and our work visible.  We need to show policy makers that we do good work, and that we are not a motley mob of radicals.  In other words, we are not "Lower Ed".

When Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary, was running for governor here in Massachusetts he was leaning towards Adult Ed as part of the Community College system.  Other organizations have been suggested the same things, i.e. that Community colleges are "uniquely situated"  to promote lifelong learning and develop the skills needed for a new economy.  Unfortunately, I don't think that Higher Ed is set up to deal with the challenges.

Let me say that many CC's have programs that WORK VERY HARD to meet these students' needs and I respect these people immensely.  They are our colleagues and we have a lot to learn from each other.  However, the people in charge of finding Adult Ed students and ensuring that they persist are not the Deans and Chancellors who hire teachers, make policy and set prices.

Dixie, you bring up a good point about what happens to Adult Ed students when they enter Higher Ed.  They are on the fringes of the school, and some of the teaching and clerical staff are not sensitive to their needs and challenges.  These are the type of students who need to be the center of the program, not it's offshoot.  They need counseling and sympathetic teachers and administrators.  Teachers need to understand that a single mother who "blows off" class may not be lying about having very sick kids.  Are Higher Ed teachers mandatory reporters of abuse?   

So, an Adult student enters a CC and goes up to the part-time student who is behind the desk and has to deal with Admissions: 
How will you be paying for this?
What's your major? 
Are you an immigrant?  
YES?:  Do you have a visa?  No?  Then you must they pay out-of-state tuition (over a thousand) for this non-credit class.
NO?:  Where did you get your diploma?  What High School?  (What do you put if you have a GED?)

Additionally, over the years the money for Adult Ed has been WIA money, and it has come with all kinds of strings attached.  Community colleges don't seem to have the same reporting procedures as Adult Ed programs who report through the NRS.  Here in Massachusetts, MA DOE funded programs must continually report attendance data, administer and report standardized test data, help students set goals and follow-up on whether or not they are met (even- and especially- after they have left the program), revise curriculum and ensure staff development.  Don't get me wrong- I may resent the paperwork, but I do think that these are all valuable areas that a program should look at.  Perhaps the fact that the National Reporting Systems helps hold our feet to the fire can be a good thing, but I don't know if Higher Ed org's are ready and able to take it on.  My point is that here we have programs who are getting the job done, and have worked hard to document that.   As far as I know, Higher Ed doesn't have specific systems in place to do any of these things. 

Kevin O'Connor
ESL Teacher and
Assessment Specialist
Framingham Adult ESL
Framingham, MA
508-626-4282
koconnor at framingham.k12.ma.us

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	LVAready at aol.com [mailto:LVAready at aol.com] 
Sent:	Wednesday, December 04, 2002 5:09 PM
To:	nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject:	Re: [NLA] Discussion: AELS and Higher Ed

NLA Colleagues:

I have directed an adult literacy program in southwestern Montana for 12 
years. We became a recognized (read--partially funded) part of the AELS about 
four years ago. Note that we always served a broad range of students from 
those who could not read at all to those who were seeking their high school 
equivalency diploma. In Montana, statute restricts the distribution of state 
matching dollars to school districts, community colleges, and tribal 
colleges. Federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) dollars go 
to a much broader list of eligible providers, solely because the federal law 
specifies the list of eligible providers.

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. 

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.

As a manager of a CBO, I am also not a big fan of placing programs in local 
school districts. An adult literacy student at a national conference told me, 
"My IQ drops 30 points when I walk through the door of a school." He went on 
to explain that the trauma he experienced as a child in school made it very 
difficult to function in the school environment, even as an adult.  (Some of 
our classes are in school buildings, some are not.) I believe that many 
people in the field have spent a decade or more educating their State 
Department of Education about the needs of low-literate adults and the 
importance of basic skills programs. Colleges and vo-techs even admit 
students who have little or no chance of success if they have the money to 
pay for classes. Higher Ed may be "public education," but most of the 
institutions are run as businesses that need to break even or make money. 



Dixie Stark
LVA Bitterroot
(406) 363-2900





In a message dated 12/4/02 5:41:24 AM Mountain Standard Time, 
DJRosen at theworld.com writes:

<< NLA Colleagues,
 
 Debbie Yoho wrote:
 
  >So I put it to the list:  What do y'all think?  Would those of us who 
  >are not already working alongside Higher Ed be better off if the AELS 
  > >money flowed through them, instead of K-12?
 
 I have worked in adult education and literacy for a community college 
 and/or a university since 1986,  but I would answer Debbie's question 
 with an emphatic "no."  Here are my reasons:
  >>
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