[NLA] AELS as its own system

[Eileen Eckert]

Debbie and others:
I, too, have wondered at the seeming defense of the status quo--even as I 
contribute to it! Is that it, really? I know I don't think having the AELS 
administered through the community colleges is perfect, and I don't want to 
impose it throughout the country, I just wanted to point out that the 
positives and negatives are not the same everywhere. But maybe, more than 
defending the status quo, we are defending our local knowledge of needs and 
priorities, our local expertise in responding to those needs, and the 
inappropriateness of an outsider dictating the what and the how of needs and 
responses. Maybe this has something to do with the majority rule model of 
power.

If we see the role of any AELS administration system as imposing a model 
that fits the majority, then we each <have to> explain, defend, and justify 
our own way of doing things as best for the majority, or risk being left out 
in the cold. The correlate to that is that we have to put people who do or 
see things differently in the minority. It sets up an adversarial, 
competitive way of thinking, talking, and acting. I guess I just "got" what 
Nancy was trying to tell me about the whole idea being to set up a system 
that works for the majority. I hadn't seen it that way; I had not seen my 
different perspective as a threat to Nancy's or Dixie's or anyone else's 
being able to meet local learners' needs. I still don't think it <has> to be 
that way, but yes, I guess too often that's the way it is, or maybe it's 
just the way it's becoming (since Newt Gingrich, or did it start with 
Reagan, or even before then?).

Does the AELS have to be a winner-take-all system, a top-down, "here's how 
the majority says it will be done" set of mandates?


Jon and/or David inferred that there is another way, saying something like, 
how do we set up a system (or reform the one we've got) that is responsive 
to diverse local needs? Sorry if I'm misrepresenting that message. Can 
others speak to this issue--majority-rule or otherwise?




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