[NLA] support for advocacy

[Sheryl Gowen]

Tom's message about scale of need and validity issues with the 1992 NALS raises the issue (once again) of who gets to decide what literacy is, who should have it, and for what purposes.  I have been thinking about these questions for a long time--and have begun work on a  retrospective of research and political rhetoric on this issue, going back to the early 1980's--A Nation at Risk, Jumpstart, the high stakes testing movement, the National Workplace Literacy Program, NALS, etc.  Any suggstions for my colleagues on this list about what else to include?  And, thanks to Tom (as usual) for his thoughtful analysis and technical expertise.

Sheryl Gowen, Associate Professor
Research, Measurement and Statistics
Department of Educational Policy Studies
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA 30303-3083
(404) 651-1152
sgowen at gsu.edu

>>> tsticht at aznet.net 03/05/02 18:08 PM >>>
What a difference a couple of year makes. Here are a couple of recent
items that have made me scratch my head in puzzlement. I wonder if they 
affect other NLA list members in a similar manner. Tom Sticht

Item 1: Determining the scale of need for adult education and literacy
development. 

In 2001. In a research note in June of last year I noted that in January
2001, a final technical report on the National Adult Literacy Survey was
published by NCES entitled: Technical Report and Data File User's Manual
for the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey, NCES 2001-457, January
2001. I reported that Chapter 14, written by Andrew Kolstad, the
original project director for the NALS at NCES,  systematically
undermined the entire test and questioned its construct validity, that
is, the question of just what it is that the test measures, its
standards validity, that is,  the validity of th 80 percent probability
standard that was used to assign people to the five literacy levels, and
the use validity, that is, the validity of the NALS for accurately
identifying adults at risk for poor literacy skills. In a July 17, 2001
article in the Washington Post Kolstad confirmed his thinking about the
standards validity position and argued that instead of the 80 percent
response probability, a much higher level of validity in making
inferences about adult's literacy skills was made if a response
probability of .50 was used. In short, one of the reasons why adults who
were classified as poorly literate and placed in levels 1 or 2 of the
NALS when they thought they were fairly literate was that they were
likely classified incorrectly by the use of the 80 percent RP standard. 

In 2002. Fast forward to this year. In a recent posting Debby D'Amico
points to a new research report from the National Center for Adult
Learning and Literacy, called Building a Level Playing Field, that uses
what according to Kolstad are the old,  invalid NALS data, as a large
part of the basis used to establish the scale of need for adult basic
skills education in the U. S. I didn't find anything in the report that
countered Kolstad's data questioning the validity of the NALS from the
final technical report. This suggests to me that using the NCSALL report
as a source for establishing the scale of need for advocacy could be
misleading. The authors go on to say that the new National Assessment of
Adult Literacy (NAAL) will use much the same methodology that was used
in the NALS so that ten year trends can be determined. I wonder if this
means that the NAAL will overcome the issues of validity raised by
Kolstad regarding the NALS? I also wonder if anyone cares about data on
the scale of need or how accurate it is. I seem to recall that in
Massachusetts despite the considerable publicity in the media after the
MassInc report on New Skills for a New Economy came out, using
essentially the same methodology or determining the scale of need for
adult education and literacy development in Massachusetts as the recent
report on Leveling the Playing Field, the Massachusetts legislature cut
the adult education budget by 40 percent or so anyhow. Skillful advocacy
got most of the money back but I don't know how much this depended on
the scale of need data from the MassInc report. 

Item 2. The push to raise the education bar from high school to
post-secondary education. 

In 2000. In a post on the NLA list I cited the Thursday Notes for March
16,2000, an electronic newsletter attributed as From the Desk of Ron
Pugsley, then Director of the U. S. Department of Education's Division
of Adult Education and Literacy which said QUOTE "Jobs requiring an
associate's degree or higher account for* just 16% of actual job
openings, * Meanwhile, nearly one third of 25-29 year-olds attain
bachelor's or associate's degrees and will compete for those jobs."
UNQUOTE At the time I mentioned that this suggests a "surplus" of
post-secondary educated adults over the jobs requiring this much
education.

In 2001. In a research note last year I mentioned a new report by
Carnevale and Desrochers (2001) called Help Wanted*Credentials Required
which presented data showing that  from 1973 to 1998 the percentage of
prime-age workers (both male and female) with some college/AA degree
more than doubled,  from 12 percent to 27 percent.  But from 1979 to
1998 earnings (in constant 1996 dollars) of prime-age male workers
(30-59 years old) declined for those who failed to finish high school,
those with a high school diploma, AND those with some college or an AA
degree. These data lead to questions as to the likely outcomes of
educating more and more people to higher and higher levels of education.
Was it possible that as more and more people acquire higher education
credentials and higher literacy skills wages will fall because employers
have a larger pool of better qualified workers from which to recruit? 
Is that wat happened from 1979 to 1998 as the percentages of men with
some college or AA degrees increased, and wages for these men decreased
(in constant 1996 dollars)? 

In 2002. Fast forward to this year. In the report called Building a
Level Playing Field  the authors argue that the new economy calls for
educating more and more adults up to post-secondary levels. A similar
call is made in the report entitled Adult Literacy & the American Dream
by Forrest Chisman from the Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy
(CAAL) (this report was recently reviewed by George Demetrion on the NLA
list). Neither report addresses the issues raised by Pugsley's 2000
newsletter about the supply of adults with post-secondary and bachelor's
degrees far exceeding the availability of jobs requiring this much
education, or the work of Carnevale and Desrochers suggesting that if
more and more adults are educated to post-secondary levels, wages are
likely to drop for these adults (at least for men; women with
post-secondary education did not show the same drop in wages as for men
in the Carnevale & Desrochers report, but women earned less than men in
all categories of education). 

In short, these recent calls for raising the education standard for
adults from a high school diploma to some post-secondary education would
seem to set up a condition that once again points to the possibility of
driving up educational achievement such that the supply of adults with
post-secondary education exceeds the demand to the point where wages for
adults with post-secondary education are driven down even more than in
the report by Carnevale and Desrochers.

All these various research studies seem to set up conflicting and
sometimes contradictory messages about the scale of need for adult
education and literacy development in the United States. What is an
advocate to do? Can anything be done to provide advocates with accurate,
valid, consistent, and convincing information about  how many adults in
the U. S. need adult edcation and literacy development, and how many
want it? Does anyone care?
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