[NLA] Sharing Experience

Mon Feb 4 07:28:14 EST 2002

Marian,

Your nice thank-you note prompted a flurry of thoughts about your 
references to The Nation, so for what they're worth --

I am a sometime subscriber to The Nation and occasionally find an 
article very compelling and thought-provoking.  However, I very often 
find the magazine's articles lacking in credibility because they take 
liberties with the facts or often don't understand the fine points. 
They are sometimes too actively "out to get," and sometimes too 
extreme and quick to politicize things.

For instance, I was operating head of the Business Council for 
Effective Literacy for 10 years. I was in on the founding of the 
organization and had direct responsibility for developing and 
carrying out BCEL's programs. So I know firsthand that Harold McGraw 
received the National Literacy Honors Award offered by the White 
House at the time on the strength of BCEL's work (the work of me and 
my staff), not because he was a friend of Barbara Bush's, which is 
what The Nation article asserts. (The article also has the time 
sequence of the event wrong.)

Mr. McGraw accepted the award as BCEL's CEO, which is as it should 
be. I will also say that he was an early champion of adult literacy 
(as was Barbara Bush) and tirelessly gave speeches and several 
million dollars to the cause during the life of BCEL. He did so as a 
responsible publisher who genuinely wanted to "give something back." 
After BCEL closed, he was invited to serve on the board of the 
Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy -- nothing wrong with 
that as far as I can see.

But the important point is that neither his politics nor mine, or his 
friendships or mine, had any role in shaping the BCEL or working to 
advance adult literacy. Although I don't think it has a bearing on 
anything, he is a moderate Republican, I am a liberal Democrat; the 
pursuit of adult literacy should be a nonpartisan activity, and until 
now, at least, it has been.

Re the TABE tests, I know they were adjusted years ago to take 
account of the flexible circumstances and functional contexts in 
which adults operate, and to try to get away from strict adherence to 
grade-school equivalency notions.  They may not go far enough in this 
direction, but with TABE or any other test, the problem is often less 
the tests themselves than that they are misused and misunderstood by 
test administrators.  This, in my view, IS a major problem in the 
field. I used to speak out at BCEL on the need for alternative 
testing mechanisms in adult literacy, and also against either/or 
approaches to the use of phonics and whole language.

Do The McGraw-Hill Companies stand to gain economically from a shift 
to phonics-based instruction?  Possibly, but I don't know.  That is 
less important than what policy the present Administration adopts. 
(By the way, the shift hasn't occurred yet, and least not in a 
wholesale fashion, and I assume that whole language advocates and 
those who understand the fine points of Jeanne Chall's research on 
phonics will be speaking out, at least where adults are concerned.) 
Is it economic incentive on the part of McGraw-Hill that persuaded 
the Bush Administration to pursue a phonics-based approach? I 
seriously doubt it, and the article in The Nation doesn't prove it by 
simply asserting it. My goodness, guilt by association is a 
double-edged sword.  I love my friends, but I don't consider myself 
responsible for or necessarily participants in what they do.

I would note that CAAL is in existence at all because of a start-up 
donation from Harold McGraw.  Also, during its start-up period, 
McGraw-Hill is donating space to CAAL. Is this the result of my 
friendship with Harold Mc-Graw?  Probably, but I like to think it's 
also a good development for the adult literacy field.

Finally, where the adult literacy field is concerned, I hope that 
people won't get distracted by The Nation or other such impulses.  I 
think it's far more important to keep our eyes on the target, which, 
immediately, is the nature and form of the federal role in adult 
literacy.  As my "Sharing Experience" message tried to convey, we 
need to go about our work with hope and grace and tolerance and 
respect for difference, even when we find such qualities lacking in 
those whose views or behavior we oppose.

Warm regards,

Gail

Gail Spangenberg
President
Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy
1221 Avenue of the Americas - 50th Fl
New York, NY 10020
212-512-2362, fax 212-512-2610

>Gail,
>
>Thank you for your message of hope, grace and leadership. I have been
>receiving a needed political education from this process we are going
>through of figuring out how to confront what seems to be a crisis in the
>federal approach to adult literacy. Nelson Mandela is one of my all-time
>heroes, exactly because he exhibited hope, grace and leadership even
>during 27 years of incarceration. There must have been plenty of dark
>moments, but in the end he lived to see his country transformed. Some of
>the people you mentioned on the world economic summit have had similar
>experiences.
>
>Thank you also for your description of the comments of Harold McGraw Jr.
>One difference between my youth and my current past-middle age is that I
>see divisions as less black and white, and more as well-intentioned people
>with different views of what the problems and solutions are. I don't want
>to minimize the political connections between McGraw Hill and the White
>House, or the money to be made by McGraw Hill from a phonics based
>approach to reading on a national scale, as detailed the Nation article
>someone referred to earlier, but I appreciate the genuine concern on both
>sides of this debate for the importance of learning to read.
>
>Also, Tom, thanks for your research note on teaching adults to read. I
>think this whole debate on reading pedagogy/androgogy is very healthy. Not
>only am I learning about the political process, but I am being led to
>examine what I have believed, as an ESL teacher, about teaching non-native
>speakers to read. I appreciate learning what the research has to tell us,
>and clarifying my own thoughts. This will be a lifelong process, and I
>suppose it should be.
>
>Marian Thacher
>OTAN
>Sacramento, CA
>
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