[NLA] Alert: Is the NIFL Advisory Board Just the Beginning?

[George E. Demetrion]

On Wed, 15 May 2002 09:47:23 -0400 Dave Speights <DSpeights at BPINEWS.COM>
writes:

If not the National Literacy Advocacy listserv, 
>who? If not now, when?
> 
>Dave Speights, Editor
>Report on Literacy Programs
>HazMat Transport News
>Business Publishers, Inc.
>8737 Colesville Road, Suite 1100
>Silver Spring, MD 20910-3928
>(301) 587-6300, ext. 349
>FAX: (301) 587-1081

David:

Would you be willing to elaborate.  That could be an important discussion
in its own right?

Also, on the reasoning of Senator Kennedy's decision not to raise the
field concern about the NIFL nominees, could we have a list of specific
reasons,. preferably by one of his staffers?

I think it is important  to take this out of the specter of anonymity and
back room DC bargaining and so called reality politics and subject the
reasoning to the critical scrutiny of public discussion. 

The reasons for a NIFL Board dominated by those invested in adult
literacy and lifelong learning seem rather clear.

1.  NIFL was designed for this purpose
2.  The advisory board should be in-tuned and knowledgeable about these
matters
3.  This has been a dominant thrust of NIFL for a decade supported by a
board in tuned with this purpose
4.  Adult literacy/ABE is already marginalized to which shifting the
Board in the proposed direction is likely to continue the trends
identified in Tom's latest post
5.  There are many highly qualified people throughout all sectors of the
fields of adult literacy and lifelong learning across a spectrum of
ideologies and positions that could well represent the field

Perhaps a Kennedy staffer will discuss with us why it's illogical for the
committee Kennedy chairs on education, health, and labor to propose back
to the Bush administration that though the nominees are fine people and
experts in their own fields, they do not as a whole represent the
interests of adult literacy and lifelong learning as their first
allegience and major areas of expertise.  The letter could go on to say
that the Committeee would be willing to work with the Administration in
offering a a more appropriate slate.

The president nominates, but the Senate advises and consents as well as
rejects when deemed appropriate.  Perhaps it's time for Senator Kennedy
to heed the concerns of the field and seriously consider the action
proposed above echoed throughout the land of literacy.

I would suggest that in principle there is nothing illogical or
impossible about what I am  suggesting except perhaps the art of doing
business as usual.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com


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