[NLA] What caused the decline of the AELS?

Thu Jun 13 14:03:56 EDT 2002

Colleagues, Re the numbers-game discussion going on here, you may 
find it interesting to know that a soon-to-be-released CAAL 
publication about the nature and role of the states in adult 
education and literacy estimates that the "developmental education" 
programs of community colleges enroll at least 1 million students 
annually.  That brings the national "estimated" figure for ABE 
students up to about 4 million, and the number is almost certainly 
way larger than that.  As with all numbers games, it depends on 
what's being counted.  In general, I think the field is faced with a 
half empty/half full issue.  I personally look at where we're at in 
adult literacy in terms of the "half full" concept -- and for all the 
problems and worries we have these days, I think that this is a time 
of great opportunity.  The problems we have at the level of state 
commitment, where the future of ABE rests heaviiy, have always been 
with us -- and CAAL, among others, plans to place a great deal of 
emphasis in its upcoming work on developing the role of the states. 
Gail Spangenberg

>Research Note			                        June 12, 2002.
>Tom Sticht
>
>What has caused the decline of the Adult Education and Literacy System
>of the United States since 1998?
>
>In January 2001 and again in September of 2001 I called attention to
>drops  of some 1.2 million enrollments in the Adult Education and
>Literacy System (AELS) of the United States,  from around 4.0 million in
>1998 to some 2.9 million in 2000. I noted that we are nearly back to the
>1985 figure of around 2.879 million enrollments. This is a loss of over
>a  decade and a half  of progress in getting adults to access AELS.  In
>September 2001 I said that,  though I have not heard about it, surely
>someone, some organization inside or outside the government, is looking
>into this huge loss of enrollments to find out what has happened.
>
>Again, just this month, about 10 months after September 2001,  I
>reported data on the large drop in enrollments from the AELS since 1998
>and again I noted that I have found no official information about what
>has caused this drop.  But though no official accounting of what caused
>this large drop in AELS enrollments has been forthcoming from the U. S.
>Education Department, or elsewhere, I have read and heard speculation
>that many community based organizations (CBOs) could not or would not
>meet the testing and other record keeping requirements of the National
>Reporting System (NRS) and so they withdrew from the AELS, though they
>may have continued their programs outside the funding stream of the
>AELS.
>
>A recent examination of the change in personnel working in the AELS from
>1998 to 2000 lends support to this conjecture. In 1998 there were 69,129
>part time, 22,890 full time and 85,924 volunteer workers in the AELS
>programs. By the end of FY2000, however, personnel had dropped in all
>categories, to 63,318 part time, 20,382 full time, and 64,664 volunteers
>workers. The decrease in part-timers from 1998 to 2000 was 8 percent,
>for full timers 11 percent and for volunteers 25 percent, more than the
>combined loss of part and full time personnel.
>
>Because CBOs make a great deal of use of volunteers, the large drop in
>volunteers from the AELS seems to support the hypothesis that the
>introduction of the NRS accountability requirements lead to a large
>withdrawal of CBOs from the AELS and this may have accounted for a major
>part of the drop in enrollments reported for the AELS from 1998 to
>2000. 
>
>California and the Collapse of the AELS
>
>Of the total drop of 1,128,655 enrollments in the AELS from 1998 to
>2000,  California accounted for 979,716 or about 87 percent of the
>drop.  This prompted me to look more closely at California. I found that
>from 1998 to 2000 the federal funds for California increased from $38.8
>million in FY1998 to $47.5 in FY 2000, a 22 percent increase in the
>federal state grant. However during this same time, full time personnel
>working in California’s AELS dropped from 4330 to 3231 (25 percent),
>part timers dropped from 10874 to 9837 ( about 10 percent), but
>volunteers dropped an amazing 74 percent, from 8750 in 1998 to 2298 in
>2000! This drop in personnel from 1998 to 2000 was accomplished by a
>drop in enrollments of 72 percent of ESL enrollments, 68 percent of ABE
>enrollments, but an increase of about 22 percent in ASE enrollments.
>
>Given California’s almost quarter of a century commitment to the
>introduction of competency based adult education (CBAE), including the
>development of the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System, its
>leadership in the use of the internet and distance learning for
>professional development (the Outreach and Technical Assistance
>Network-OTAN), the 22 percent  larger budget from the federal government
>in FY2000 over that of FY1998,  a drop in student enrollments from
>1,435,341 in 1998 to 456,125 in FY2000, a 68 percent drop in students to
>serve compared to a drop of only 14 percent in part time and full time
>personnel combined, it might be thought that more funds could be
>expended on instruction and that California would set its goals high and
>achieve well compared to the rest of the U. S.  But that was not the
>case, California set all seven of its target goals for learning below
>the average target levels for the nation, and then failed to achieve 5
>of its 7 goals. Further, all of its achieved goals were well below  the
>national average achievement levels for the states combined.
>
>Recently I have learned of speculations that a large part of the decline
>of the AELS in California was due to the fact that it  introduced a form
>of performance based funding around the same time that the new NRS
>accountability requirements were being introduced. This suggest that the
>accountability requirements for performance based funding in California,
>perhaps in combination with the NRS requirements, may have lead to the
>withdrawal of many CBOs from California’s AELS, as suggested by the
>large drop in volunteer personnel,  with the CBOs taking their students
>with them, that lead to the large drop in enrollments in California and
>hence to a large share (87 percent) of the drop in AELS enrollment
>figures for the nation. Perhaps someone from California can offer some
>insights into the relative effects of performance based funding and the
>NRS on the large drop in AELS enrollments in California.
>
>But all of this is  speculation that I have formed from various
>conversations and emails with people both inside and outside the federal
>government. Since January 2001, when I first raised this issue, up to
>the present time I have not found an official accounting of the loss of
>over 1 million enrollments from the AELS. And to reiterate what I said
>in September of 2001, I have seen no government reports offering an
>explanation of either the dramatic drops in enrollments nor the dramatic
>drops in personnel who work in the AELS, particularly volunteers,
>during a time when funding levels for the AELS actually increased from
>over $345 million in 1998 to more than  $450  million in 2000.  
>
>Interestingly, none of these drastic declines in enrollments and
>personnel working in the AELS  were discussed in the recent report to
>Congress on the progress of accountability in the AELS under the
>WIA/AEFLA.
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