[NLA] Are You Being Served?

[Thomas Sticht]

Are You Being Served? *

A new report from the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and
Literacy is available (NCSALL Report No. 23). Entitled "The First Five
Years," the report summarizes the research projects, major findings, and
recommendations for the years 1996 – 2001 (copies of the report are
available at http://ncsall.gse.harvard.edu). According to the report,
total funding for the NCSALL for the first five years was around
$13,500,000. Funding for the next five years is anticipated to be about
$16,500,000.

The report says that "The mission of the National Center for the Study of
Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) is to conduct and disseminate
research that helps build effective, cost-efficient adult education and
literacy programs." (p. 3)  Regarding how the NCSALL determines whether or
not it has achieved these goals, the last page and last sentence of the
body of the report states that, over the next five years,  "Its
measurement of success remains the same as well: Practitioners can cite
ways that NCSALL has helped them to improve practice."  (p.100)

Unfortunately, as I looked through the report, I could find no evidence
presented to suggest that practitioners had thought that the research of
the first five years had helped them improve their practice.  I’m
wondering if any of the NLA list members can cite ways that they or their
program or someone they know has been helped by the first five years of
the NCSALL work. And if so, in what specific ways.

I’d also be interested in knowing if NLA list members feel that anecdotal
reports by practitioners is a suitable way to evaluate the success of our
only federally funded, national adult education and literacy research
center in achieving its stated mission of helping to "build effective,
cost-efficient adult education and literacy programs."

And parenthetically, does anyone recall how the previous national research
center, the National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL) whose work for five
years before the NCSALL took the federal R& D center contract must have
cost over $10,000,000, helped improve their practice and/or the operations
of the AELS?

All this is to say, I wonder just how we might go about deciding how well
our national R & D center research funds are serving the needs of the
field? What do NLA list members think?

Tom Sticht
* With a nod of thanks to Brit Night on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS)



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