[NLA] The numbers in adult education and literacy

[Gail Spangenberg]

NLA list members:  A few thoughts re Tom's posting. My understanding 
from an official of the Department of Education is that  the drop in 
the numbers is largely due to the fact that California introduced a 
new unit record system which eliminated double-counting of students. 
Also, I prefer to think of the adult education and literacy system 
system as that array of institutions and programs that provide adult 
education and literacy services at any level from basic on up through 
high school equivalency, regardless of the source of funding for 
them.  I would even include basic ESL in my definition.  I know that 
some people prefer Tom's publicly-funded definition, which is fine, 
and some prefer mine, which is okay too.  I'm not sure it matters as 
long as we're clear which definition we're using.  Also, federal and 
state funding for adult education and literacy (including programs 
which may not be thought of as literacy programs but from which some 
literacy funding is available) wind up in lots of program contexts, 
including those of community colleges.  Re Developmental Education, 
it has been interesting to me to learn over recent months the extent 
to which the programs of these departments include serious attention, 
sometimes exclusive attention, to adult basic skills, simply under 
the DE rubric.  As for the numbers, I think we all tend to use them 
and define them to advance our own case(s) -- and in that sense we 
all play a numbers game.  I don't necessary see this is a negative 
thing, and I certainly wasn't pointing fingers at anyone, least of 
all my esteemed colleague Tom.  Gail Spangenberg

>NLA list members: Just for the record I would like it known that I have
>not been playing a "numbers game" or any other kind of "game" when I
>have called attention to the drastic decline in the Adult Education and
>Literacy System (AELS) of the United States in recent posts.
>
>To me it is intensly distressing to discover that the AELS, which I
>define as the set of programs funded wholly or in part by the state
>grants program of the AEFLA, the system that the National Coalition for
>Literacy has been trying to get $1 billion a year for, and that had an
>average growth of some 100,000 new enrollments per year for over thirty
>years, should suddenly in 1998 start a drop which by the end of FY 2000
>amounted to a 28 percent decline in enrollments. That's over 1.1 million
>enrollments that have have been lost and gone unaccounted for in any
>official record.
>
>And though Developmental Education in higher education colleges and
>post-secondary vocational institutions are vitally important for
>millions of adults, these are not ABE programs and enrollments in such
>programs do not make-up for the precipitous loss of students from the
>AELS. Finding out what happended to these million students and what can
>be done to reverse this decline is not a game of any kind. It is an
>extremely serious problem and unfortunately I fear that no one  in the
>present administration is concerning themselves with it.
>
>How can a million+ people just disappear?
>
>Tom Sticht
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-- 
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
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