[NLA] Report on Literacy & USDOE

[George E. Demetrion]

Colleagues:

A Recent Report on Literacy (2-27-02) included some interesting
observations by high ranking officials of the US Department of Education.

First, there is the brief report on the meeting between Assistant
Secretary Carol D'Amico who is overseeing adult and vocational ed
programs for the Department.    In a 2-13 meeting with state directors
D'Amico said that the Bush administration "will evaluate and support
programs based on the extent to which they are proven to increase
achievement" (p. 1).  Reauthorization for the ABE program and vocational
ed are slated for 2003.  As she further explained it (quoting from the
summary ) "she wants to see a system that is better able to prepare young
people and adults for jobs and college level studies, and to help
immigrants become citizens."  Focusing on the problems of a system that
is marginalized and underfunded in the first place (GD's opinion, not Ms.
D'Amico's), the Assistant Secretary wondered rhetorically, "What are the
barriers that inhibit the ability of community organizations, schools and
community colleges to deliver quality education."  

Some of the state directors responded by pointing to the need for more
funding.  No economic stimulus was required here D'Amico argued, who, it
was reported, "is more interested in using current funding amounts to
leverage investments by others"

D'Amico assured (apparently the taxpayers and other vested interests),
"Don't misunderstand.  I will not advocate for the billions and billions
it would take to reach 90 million people using the existing system.  I
don't think we can get there from here."  Commenting further, she stated
that "We don't know what that answer is" [in getting from there to here]
(?).

The writer of the column pointed to the Department's 5 year plan calling
for "invest[ment] in pilot sites to develop new models of cooperation
between well-trained adult education teachers, volunteers and other
community resources like libraries."  One assumes that the writer is
implying that some substantial funding (not billions and billions) would
be a worthy investment in helping to illuminate a direction for the
field.

MA state director Bob Bickerton was not convinced about current plans
underway by the Bush-oriented USDOE to address (or not, GD) the pressing
needs of the field.  Said Bickerton, "For me the jury will be out until
we can get into more dialogue, because at that forum we couldn't actually
get past the first level of dealing with the issue.  The terms were too
broad."

Also at issue (or so it seems) is whether the Bush administration
actually sees a problem worth critically examining and addressing.  Sure
there's the 90 million.  Sure, we could throw billions at the problem. 
But wait, no one's asking for that.  If I have it right for years the
field has been seeking a one billion dollar investment in ABE and an ABE
system based on policy that resonates with what ABE actually provides. 
That would be good solid life relevant education at various levels of
attainment progressively enabling individuals to enhance their lives as
they incorporate ABE within the varied contexts of their own life
purposes.  

As the EFF project has sought to demonstrate, such life long education
plays a role in enabling adults to improve their lives within their
social roles as workers, family members and community members/citizens
and in the process to contribute to the vitality of the commonwealth of
the Republic of the United States of America  This has been the implicit
public philosophy underlaying the EFF project from the get go but has
never been fully articulated by its developers.  Perhaps now is the time
in this era of patriotism for the USDOE not to throw billions, but say
invest $100 million into the EFF project to help the vision come into
fruition and say another $100 million into NCSALL which is focusing
specifically on adult literacy and adult education research. 

And to demonstrate a little good will one might encourage the USDOE to
invest abother $100 million into the new literacy organization Pro
Literacy World Wide, the impending merger of LLA and LVA.  For the son of
Barbara Bush that would be a worthy investment indeed and more than a
little sign of good will. Of couse the money would be well spent perhaps
in supporting a few pilot demonstration projects of what really works
well or in providing capacity building resources of supporting the 1000
or so local literacy programs that will come under the aegesis of this
new agency.

Going back to EFF, one can't help wondering if the Bush administration
views the constructivist philosophy upon which the EFF standards are
based as a form of ideological faddism of the progressive literacy
community that cannot stand the light of the solid empirical research of
an "evidence-based" scientific tradition.  Not that EFF is not evidence
based.  Not that the adult literacy scholarship stemming from the
ethnographic tradition that underlays the New Literacy Studies of which
Merrifield speaks, is not evidence-based, but such constructivist-based
research/scholartship may not be the kind of evidence that the Bush
administration touts as legitimate.  Ah, there is the rub, indeed.

One cannot also help wondering if the real target of the USDOE under the
Bush administration is not the entire progressive education tradition
starting from the work of John Dewey.  Certainly there has been a
persistent ideological drive among the neoconservative community to paint
the 60s in the most lurid, superficial, and polarized light.  Notice Rod
Paige's observations on whole language reading theory.  According to the
writer of this edition of The Report on Literacy Programs:

"Paige zeroed in on the teaching of reading specifically, saying research
has settled the question about methods that work, relegating fads such as
whole language to the dust bin."

Notice the anti-intellectual broad brush by which, apparently, Professor
Paige reduces an entire scholarly tradition.  No need for the Secretary
of Education to critically review the complex and contentious field of
reading research/scholarship/ theory.  Yes, Mr. Secretary, I said theory,
as if the Bush administration is not operating out of a world view, a
vision, a theory, if you will.  

As if truth is objective, value free and evidently available through a
certain methodological rigor that can be sharply separated from values. 
As if research into the human sciences, so to speak, is based on the same
empirical principles as chemistry, nuclear physics, and calculus.  As if
the academic disciplines of history, literary theory,
sociology,.political science, and anthropology (to name a few) don't have
their own canonical principles (as contentious as they may be) through
which scholarship in their respected fields are judged.  As if 100 years
of education scholarship are now to be part of the dust bin of history
based upon the ideological litmus test allowed by the current USDOE in
its proposed great transformation of the Department of Education.  As if
the USDOE has an intellectual and moral right to establish a reign of
truth based upon its own uideological precepts parading as objective
science.  Ghosts of Michael Foucault (who?) are turning in their graves.

Then finally, recall  this statement from the USDOE's Draft Strategic
Plan

"Unlike medicine, agriculture, and industrial production, the field of
education operates largely on the basis of ideology and professional
consensus.  As such, it is subject to fads and is incapable of cumulative
progress that follows from the application of the scientific method and
from the systematic collection and use of objective information in policy
making" (p. 48).

If that unsupported value-laden statement is not a declaration of war
against educational scholarly community as a field I don't know what is. 
It would be very instructive to hear publicly and unequivocally from such
organizations like the International Reading Association, .the National
Council of English Teachers, and the National Council of Mathematic
Teachers and other like groups on how they're reading the vision of the
current USDOE.  Have they made statements and are they willing to go on
record on their views, whatever they may be, of the direction of the
current Bush administration?

Make no mistake about it, the constructivist principles upon which these
agencies have based much of their work is viewed as anathema by the
ideological forces that are giving shape to the current USDOE.  The name
of E.D. Hirsch Jr. is looming in the background.  Make no mistake about
it.Cultural Literacy has become revived in the name of American Values, a
sanitzied view of U.S. history, the phonemic revival, character
education, and "evidence-based" research.  And it is proporting not to be
ideology, but Truth, aka, "common sense," science, the era of normalcy
for the 21st century.

One howling in the wilderness

GD



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