[NLA] What caused the decline of the AELS?

Mon Jun 17 18:08:29 EDT 2002

Hello Andres:

Thank you for your response to my note about
students being ends and programs, etc., being
means.    I can see you understand the difference.

But my point is that many posts here infer that
the difference is often overlooked by both
practioners and theoreticians, as well as policy
makers--and the "voices" of teachers, e.g, Nancy
Hansen, and adult learners, e.g., Archie, are
often overlooked or even patronized because of
a tacit bias on the part of scientists and policy
makers.

And new research methods that account for these
voices and that make room for elements of the
unknown in "outcomes," must get over these kinds
of biases before they will ever be considered viable
voices.

The bias is often voiced in different fields in the
the form of referring to teacher input as mere
"anecdotal" or adult learner input  as  mere
"sentimentalism"--language to  denote a sense
that these voices have no bearing  on objective
import of teaching or our programs, or ultimately
on policy making.

Thanks.

Catherine King

----- Original Message -----
From: Andres Muro <AndresM at epcc.edu>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>; <cb.king at verizon.net>
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: [NLA] What caused the decline of the AELS?

Catherine:

I agree with you 100% that the student is the end and we are the means to
that end. At the same time, I do understand the need of some programs to
produce numbers, making this the end, and the students the mean to that end.
I believe that in such case, success requires intensive and extensive
dialogue between educators and students, not to weed out the "hard to serve
student", but to keep every student in the program so that they can meet
their goals, while the program meets fulfills its duties to the funder.
Dialogue between students and teachers presumes a conversation of equals
discussing the best route to accomplish a goal. Unfortunately, many ABE
people come from K-12 where the transmission model is prominent and students
are seen below the teachers.

Essentially, all adults that come to ABE programs have a need to improve
their language communication skills to participate more fully in society. At
the same time, the teacher, needs to have a way to document those literacy
gains. the teacher needs to be able to share with the students that s/he
needs to be able to document those gains, while offering the students the
best education possible so that the student improves his/her literacy
skills.

How is this accomplished? We need well prepared and well versed teachers
that understand all the pedagogical complexities of working with adults.
Teachers need to have expertise in pedagogical, sociological, cultural and
psychological factors shaping the environment of the relationship between
the student-teacher. Unfortunately, as far as I know, most teachers are
part-timers with few opportunities for professional development. Moreover, I
don't know of programs that prepare teachers adequately anyway.

Andres

>>> cb.king at verizon.net 06/15/02 09:38AM >>>
Hello Andres:

Well said.  Others here have spoken about the intimidation
factor.  But also there is the "insult factor" that comes from
entering a program thinking it is for You, when what You
find is that you are just another piece of data to be
manipulated for the data and money to keep flowing, and
that you are fitting into Someone Else's plans instead of
your own.

Nancy Hansen speaks eloquently about her adult students
and how "intake" works in her program.   It's a classic
"means-end" situation where, for Nancy, the End is in the
student and the program is the Means to that End.  But for
the person who is collecting data, the student is the Means
to other ends that have nothing (to the student) to do with
the adult student's ends?

Adult students are nothing if not sensitive to how they are
being treated at "intake" and beyond; and their hard-won
sense of "being a viable adult" is often already "on the line"
by always needing what it seems everyone else already
has.   The whole thing is often (not always) experienced as
an insult?  Who with any sense of dignity would put
themselves through that? and why?  Adults expect people
to treat them like equal persons and not like "objects" under
a glass?

Besides needing a new and dynamic "face" where people
are proud to be involved, adult education's advocates all
along the line need to understand what Andres Muros, Nancy
Hansen and Archie already know:  The Student Is the End
(purpose) and not the Means.   You and I and They can
always sense when we are being "used and abused" and
when "Big Brother" is watching with a judgmental eye their
activities in the classroom; and for them, it's often just
another in a long line of similar experiences dished out by
social service and court officials.

This is not the case with everyone, nor do all program
managers or teachers convey this tacit conflict between
Student-as-Means and Student-as-End.   But I suggest that
the more we push, and have pushed, for "results" and
"accountability" to state and federal officials, the less we
are accountable to our adults in a prima fascia way.  I am
hearing the same arguments about children in K-12.  The
ends are in everything but the children.

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA

----- Original Message -----
From: Andres Muro <AndresM at epcc.edu>
To: <joost_d at hccs.cc.tx.us>; <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: [NLA] What caused the decline of the AELS?

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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