[NLA] The Fall From the Summit of 2000 Continues

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Marsha:

I, too, am always glad to see a counter-point developed 
on these forums.  But besides what Tom might say in
reply to your note, in response to your statement:

"Like it or not, public and private funders require 
cohesive rationale in order to justify investment.  It is not 
enough to say "fund us because we are well-intentioned 
people doing good in the world,"

what would you say, or what do you think public (at least)
funders would say, to the point that the underfunding of
adult education in the U.S. is directly related to their
own appalling disregard of their stewardship of 
resources in a democracy?  

This is hardly asking to "fund us because we are
well-intentioned people doing good in the world."    

You say:  "I can't tell you how many times I have heard 
Members of Congress and other funders say that we, 
as a field, do not deliver a unified and consistent 
message about the relevance of our work TO SOCIETY."

Whereas, Tom's and others' notes are showing how
the foundational relationship of education to democracy
is slipping away, and this slipping is manifest in their
language.  

We are reducing education to a social program, which 
transforms education into a tool of a polemical ideology 
within a democracy rather than being what it is--a 
substantial part of its ordering process.  
 
If noting this movement is couched in inflammatory language,
it should be, and no less noted from those who themselves
stand on the 300 year old now-creaking foundation and
pretend to embrace its principles.
    
This issue is where public funders' responsibility begins--
with the relationship of education of "The People" to a 
democracy deeply inferred in our founding documents, 
its statues, stated by many of its founders and supporters 
over the years, and foundationally ordered by the 
very idea of development of individuals within a 
"free," "equal," "speech" community.   

Sorry, I can't agree with you that the red flag should not
be raised when we begin to witness the snake eating its
tail.  

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


----- Original Message ----- 
From: MTAIT <MTAIT at Laubach.org>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 7:17 AM
Subject: RE: [NLA] The Fall From the Summit of 2000 Continues


> With all due respect, Tom, I find your allegations in the post below to
> be a bit extreme.  The following statement in reference to wording
> changes on the NIFL home page is quite a leap: "... the NIFL is no
> longer considered as being "independent" in any sense and is now under
> the strong control
> of the Executive branch and has been commandeered to simply carry out
> the wishes of the present administration."  Wow.  Does that conclusion
> follow from this evidence?
> 
> Pursuant to the legislation that you cite and that established NIFL, it
> reports jointly to the Departments of Education, Labor, and HHS.  It is
> a government agency, after all.   Its Advisory Board was then and is now
> nominated by the current administration.  This is not a change.  To that
> extent, it has NEVER been fully independent from the government or the
> administration in power.  However, I don't see why that has, or should,
> preclude NIFL from doing valid and useful work on behalf of the field.
> 
> In a subsequent posting, Jose Cruz observed: " Well, for years and
> years, many of us have discussed the need to educate 
> legislators and other potential supporters about the various ways in
> which our services help people."
> 
> We still have this need.  By Tom's numbers alone (previously cited here
> and elsewhere) we are a dramatically underfunded field.  All the
> evidence (whether scientifically validated or anecdotal) points to the
> correlation between low literacy skills and other social and economic
> problems: poverty, incarceration, substance abuse, you name it.  Yet we,
> as a society, do not recognize that or put forth the required resources
> to address the issue.  
> 
> I can't tell you how many times I have heard Members of Congress and
> other funders say that we, as a field, do not deliver a unified and
> consistent message about the relevance of our work TO SOCIETY.  Like it
> or not, public and private funders require cohesive rationale in order
> to justify investment.  It is not enough to say "fund us because we are
> well-intentioned people doing good in the world."    
> 
> While I respect Tom's right, and others' as well, to critical inquiry, I
> do not think that the inflammatory nature of this post helps our cause.
> 
>  
> 
> mailto:mtait at literacyvolunteers.org
> Marsha L. Tait
> President, Literacy Volunteers of America, Inc.
> Chair, National Coalition for Literacy
> P.O. Box 6506
> Syracuse,  NY  13217
> 315-472-0001 X322
> http://www.literacyvolunteers.org
> http://www.natcoalitionliteracy.org/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Sticht [mailto:tsticht at aznet.net]
> Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 7:40 PM
> To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
> Cc: tsticht at aznet.net
> Subject: [NLA] The Fall From the Summit of 2000 Continues
> 
> 
> Research Note 5-05-02
> Tom Sticht
> 
> The Fall From the Summit of 2000 Continues:
> NIFL Demoted From Leader to Pipeline
> 
> The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998, Section 242 states
> that "the purpose of this section is to establish a National Institute
> for Literacy that
> (1) provides national leadership regarding literacy;
> (2)  coordinates literacy services and policy; and
> (3) serves as a national resource for adult education and literacy
> programs?"
> 
> In keeping with the law, the Home Page of the National Institute for
> Literacy used to say, "
> "The National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) is an independent federal
> organization leading the national effort toward a fully literate nation
> in the 21st century."
> 
> On a visit to the NIFL Home Page on Sunday, May 5th, 2002, I noticed
> that the Home Page now states, "The National Institute for Literacy
> (NIFL) is a federal organization that shares information about literacy
> and supports the development of high-quality literacy services so all
> Americans can develop essential basic skills." 
> 
> Notice that the idea of being an "independent" federal organization is
> gone. Now it seems that the NIFL is considered as just another federal
> organization. This suggests to me that the NIFL is no longer considered
> as being "independent" in any sense and is now under the strong control
> of the Executive branch and has been commandeered to simply carry out
> the wishes of the present administration. Consistent with this idea on
> the present Home Page there is no statement about "leading the national
> effort?". In fact, I couldn't find any comment on the web site
> indicating that the NIFL offers any leadership regarding literacy.
> Instead, at the "About NIFL" web page, under a section called "Primary
> activities include", it starts off with: 
> 
> "NIFL acts as a policy information pipeline between the literacy field
> and federal and state lawmakers. Through briefings, one-on-one meetings,
> and other activities, NIFL serves as a resource to lawmakers responsible
> for determining policy and funding issues related to adult education and
> literacy. NIFL also keeps the literacy field informed of federal
> legislative developments through regular publications called Policy
> Updates and periodic analyses of literacy policy and implementation
> issues affecting the states."
> 
> So, since the 1998 law, and apparently contrary to that law's intended
> purpose for the NIFL, the present administration has transformed the
> NIFL from an independent or at least semi-independent federal agency
> providing leadership for the literacy field, to being regarded as simply
> another federal organization whose primary activity is to act as a
> resource to the administration providing a policy information "pipeline"
> between federal and state lawmakers and the literacy field. 
> 
> A visit to the present NIFL web pages also reveals that, although the
> NIFL was originally established to promote adult literacy education, it
> is now apparent that references to adult literacy have been reduced, and
> though there are still several activities for adult literacy education,
> the Home Page and About NIFL page narratives do not emphasize adult
> literacy. This reduction in the focus of the NIFL upon adult literacy
> education has been previously noted by messages posted on the National
> Literacy Advocates internet list that point out that the new advisory
> board nominated by the President for the NIFL includes those whose work
> has focused upon childhood literacy development and does not include
> anyone whose primary field of work has been adult literacy education.
> 
> The reduction of attention to adult literacy education is also
> noticeable in the lack of references and links to the National Literacy
> Summit's Action Agenda for moving adult literacy from the margins to the
> mainstream of education. It was previously possible to reach the
> National Literacy Summit Initiative (NLSI) through the NIFL home page.
> Now it is not. This reinforces the idea that adult literacy has been
> de-emphasized as the NIFL has undergone a transformation from a
> semi-independent organization focussed upon adult literacy education to
> a tool of the present administration  to focus upon literacy development
> in childhood in furtherance of its program to Leave No Child Behind.   
> 
> Along with the President's lack of a request for any more funds for
> adult education and literacy for fiscal year 2003 than were available
> for fiscal year 2002, there is also the lack of any apparent movement in
> the National Literacy Summit Initiative (NLSI)  Action Agenda
> discernable on the National Literacy Coalition's web pages at the
> present time. Last year I commented on what was an apparent lack of
> progress on the NLSI on its first anniversary in 2001, and all of the
> foregoing seems to me to portend a further fall from the National
> Literacy Summit of 2000, when the second anniversary of the NLSI  comes
> around on International Literacy Day this September. 
> 
> It seems that if the NLSI Action Agenda is going to stimulate much
> action in the present administration and Congress, the NLSI will have to
> pump a lot more information through the NIFL pipeline to state and
> federal lawmakers than they have up to now. 
> 
> And they better pump fast. I'm beginning to think that with the current
> emphasis on scientific, evidence-based information about adult literacy
> education, and the apparent lack of such information in the adult
> literacy field, the well of acceptable adult literacy information may be
> drying up!
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