[NLA] What caused the decline of the AELS?

[Andres Muro]

David: 

I agree with most of what you say. However, I still take issue with the "casual" student label. As I stated earlier, everyone that walks into an ABE class needs and recognizes the need to participate in an educational program. There are no people that walk into ABE not needing or wanting to learn and to know more. Essentially those that come, and many that don't come to ABE, want and need this. What happens is that once they arrive, many, "resist" the way knowledge is being disseminated either because of dispositional and socio-cultural reasons; or face institutional and situational barriers that force them to stop attending. 

When we talk about the reduction in numbers we could argue that the new requirements are filtering those students that will not match the instructional  purpose and approach. This could be because the new requirements restrict the content of ABE, or because teachers, lacking preparation, were and continue to be unable to incorporate a broader pedagogical repertoire to keep more students enrolled.  This is, of course, expected, since the bulk of ABE teachers are underprepared. 

What you have done instead is to classify students as "casual" vs. "something else". The "something else" is good, while the "casual" is bad. Their "causality" is the reason for these students not succeeding. In other words, your narrative is putting the blame on the oppressed and not on the oppressor. Maybe, these students do not succeed, not because they are "casual", but because the ABE system is "casual". However, those in power apply the labels. 

Andres

>>> JOOST_D at hccs.cc.tx.us 06/17/02 07:32PM >>>
I never said I thought any of those things were "good". I'm simply
relating what we have experienced here in Texas. I guess I did imply
that the episode we have endured here would hopefully lead to a happier
future. After all of our suffering, I have to believe it will. BTW. the
national conversation now taking place, happen here 1-2 years ago.

Some of the drop in enrollment was cause by elimination of duplicate
student count. They were most often duplicated because they were in
multiple programs and multiple funding streams. Different providers had
no choice but to report their enrollment based on attendence records.
These providers had no idea if their students were in other provider's
programs.

We now know because of individual student data management, that
students may attend classes of several providers. But that is not where
most of the drop in enrollment is rooted.

The "casual" student (I know, its not in the literature.) Were those
that came to adult education classes and to see what it was all about.
In the past, those students were enrolled and counted even if they
stayed only a brief time. Now, before they are enrolled, students must
be more thoroughly assessed and are given an orientation that informs
them about where they are academically, what is expected of them
attendence-wise and performance-wise. Realistic long and short term
goal setting is done by their instructor with them and a generalized
timeframe for accomplishing the goals are determined with
them. "Casual" students rarely persist through this process and account
for a large portion of the enrollment reduction here.

The other large reduction in enrollment resulted from the necessary
redirecting of funds away from instruction and into reporting and data
gathering. After paying for the infrastructure related to
accountability, providers simply had less money to conduct classes and
as a result enrollment dropped  significantly.

I believe, as do the rest of the directors here, that the students
remaining in the current system while fewer in number, are getting a
much better service than was offered under the previous system and we
believe that's "good"

The math in question is inescapable. Based on historical enrollment
figures, there are roughly twice as many students that are at a point
where they want to try adult education as we are serving right now.

However, this "next half" needs considerably more support and attention
than does the "first half". Without more funds, our system will never
evolve past its current service to those students that primarily face
academic barriers and need very little other than an academic fix to
succeed. The money simply isn't there to provide the necessary support
for those facing other types of barriers. Even under the old
system; "next half" students were enrolled, but got little else beside
academic help. They simply padded programs' enrollment figures and made
it look like we were serving thousands of more students. There was no
accountability for what if any benefit they received from their
attendence.

We know all 4 million undereducated adults in Texas aren't going to
enroll in a class no matter how well funded, how well staffed or what
support services are availble. We do know that we are serving about
100,000 annually now and we used to enroll about 200,000 annually. So
we know about another 100,000 are out there each year that are willing
to give adult ed a try. We also know that without alot more money we
will never be able to serve them and we need to.

One more comment on some of the other hypothesis regarding the drop in
enrollment nationally. We in Texas still maintain service in rural
areas and community organizations are still active participants in our
system. In fact, we have more community organizations that are direct
grant AEFL recipients than ever before. Volunteer organization
participation was drastically reduced but now some creative solutions
have been advanced that will bring them back into the system as well.

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