[NLA] What caused the decline of the AELS?

[Andres Muro]

David:  

A previous response to your message may not have been clear so I will be more specific. I read the statement:  ".... performance measures, improved orientation practices have virtually eliminated the "casual student". " 

A cursory review of the literature that I am familiar with did not reveal a definition of a "casual ABE student". So I tried to picture what a casual student may be. I imagined the casual student as one who is contemplating a membership in the golf club, a vacation at the Hilton head spa, or an ABE class. The student ultimately chooses the later with some indifference, but changes his/her mind and casually drops out when the golf club announces a membership discount for the summer months. After further consideration I conclude that this was not what you may have been referring when you referred to the "casual student". Further thought lead me to presume that a casual student is the one that appears, to the teacher, not to be interested or successful in learning the information that is being presented.  

If this is the case, I wondered why it may appear to the teacher that the student may not to be interested or dedicated. I'd have to assume that the student is not contemplating a vacation at Hilton head, but rather one or more of the following:

1. The teacher is unable to engage the student in the subject
2. The teacher is unable to appeal to the student's disposition
3. The teacher is not meeting the student's zone of proximal development
4. The student is a battered wife and has a hard time concentrating
5. The student suffers from diabetes, cancer, heart disease and has a hard time concentrating
6. The student has to feed her kids and has a difficult time understanding
7. The student has mental health problems 
8. The student faces a combination of other situational, dispositional and institutional barriers that leads to his/her appearance to be a casual student.
9 The teacher lacks the preparation to identify and address barriers and assumes that the student only has a passing interest in the class. 

If the above is true it is unfortunate that the new system selects only those students that do not appear to be casual. In other words, it seems that you are suggesting that the new system is better, since it has selected only the easier to serve students, leaving the harder to serve students out. So rather than calling them "casual students" I would prefer to call students with one or more of the characteristics listed, as "hard to serve". It so happens that "hard to serve students" are often the poorest, least educated and in the greatest need of meaningful education. What the system has done is selected these students out so we would not have to deal with them.  What we should be aiming for, is to serve the hardest to serve people and developing approaches that lead to their success.

I have a question, since you signed as the president of an organization, does it mean that the other members share your view, or simply that this is your title. 

Andres

>>> joost_d at hccs.cc.tx.us 06/14/02 07:24AM >>>
Texas has been operating under the NRS system for the past three years. 
Before NRS, student enrollment had reached a high of 238,000 annually.

After NRS, the state enrolls just over 100,000 AEFL students each year.
The drop in enrollment came primarily from three areas.

	1. To meet performance measures, improved orientation practices 	   	  
have virtually eliminated the "casual student". 

	2. Duplication of student headcount on a statewide basis is 	   	  
nearly impossible even if they are attending class with 	   	   several
different AEFL providers.

	3. Funds have been redirected away from instructional activities 	  
and personnel and into activities and personnel associated 	          
with assessment, data collection and reporting. This has 	   curtailed
dramatically the number of classes providers are 	   able to offer.

Because NRS and state performance mandates were implemented with no
additional state funding, the cost per participant had risen from
$173/student in fiscal year 1997 to over $382/student in fiscal year
2001.

Do not lament the implementation of NRS and the corresponding drop in
enrollment because:

1. Without question, the remaining services after implementation are of
a much higher quality than previous.

2. We are using the reduction in enrollment resulting from NRS to tell
decisionmakers that we now know that there are at least twice as many
students out there that need adult education as we are able to serve
with our current funding. 

David Joost
President
Texas Council for Adult Education Cooperative Directors



Thomas Sticht wrote:
> 
> 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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