[NLA] Low Expectations for Adult Learners (longer)

Wed Oct 9 18:28:35 EDT 2002

I don't know if this is generalizable, but in my experience setting targets 
for my program, meeting the expectations was tied both to performance 
measures for the community college as a whole (the location of many programs 
in that state) and to WIA Title II funding. There was no reward for aiming 
high, only punishment for not meeting expectations. Therefore, it was in 
programs' best interests to set the goals as low as they reasonably could. 
It had nothing to do with commitment to learners or real expectations; it 
was pure politics.

I keep arguing for concentration of decision-making and expenditures at the 
levels closest to the learner. Tom's inference that low performance targets 
are a reflection of low expectations is one more example of how the field 
separates policy and action from learners, and then acts as if the policy 
and action have some identifiable meaning!

>From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
>Reply-To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
>To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
>Subject: [NLA] Low Expectations for Adult Learners (longer)
>Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 11:52:53 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>Research Note           October 9, 2002
>
>Thomas G. Sticht
>International Consultant in Adult Education
>
>Why Such Low Expectations for Adult Learners in the Adult Education and
>Literacy System (AELS) of the United States?
>
>This year the U. S. Department of Education released the first report on
>the use of an early version of the National Reporting System (NRS) to
>obtain performance data from the states about the Adult Education and
>Literacy System (AELS) of the United States, that is, those programs that
>receive some funding from the State Grants of the Adult Education and
>Family Literacy Act of 1998. . Called, "Adult Education and Family
>Literacy Act, Report to Congress on State Performance, Program Year
>1999-2000", the report is available on the Education Department’s Web site
>at: www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE.
>
>Performance Indicators for Learning
>
>The AEFLA calls for states to report on "Demonstrated improvements in the
>literacy skill levels in reading, writing and speaking English, numeracy,
>problem-solving, English language acquisition, and other literacy skills."
>In the present report, states provided data on what their targets for
>achievement were and what their actual achievements were for each of seven
>levels of literacy, three for adult basic education and four for ESOL.
>
>In examining the targets for achievement, I was struck by how low the
>targets were. For instance the lowest level of ABE proficiency target is
>defined as:  "The percentage of adults enrolled at the Beginning Literacy
>level who acquired the basic skills (validated by standardized assessment)
>needed to complete that level (1999-2000)." Averaged across all fifty
>states, the average target for achievement by the least able adult
>learners was 22 percent . In other words, the average expectation of the
>fifty states was that some 78 percent of the least literate adults would
>not acquire the basic skills needed to complete the most basic level of
>learning.
>
>In some states, the expectations for learning at the lowest level were
>dismayingly low. Three states projected that less than 10 percent of
>adults would acquire the skills of the lowest level of literacy.
>Astonishingly, Hawaii projected that just 5 percent, Nevada 6 percent, and
>Iowa just 8 percent of the adult learners at the lowest level of literacy
>would acquire the basic skills needed to complete that level. Actual
>levels of achievement were Hawaii 2 percent (!), Nevada 30 percent, and
>Iowa 15 percent, with an average achievement of 15.67 percent. Notice here
>the large difference between actual achievements for Hawaii and Nevada.
>
>Eleven states gave targets in the range of 10-14 percent. Arizona’s target
>(T) was 10 percent and it achieved (A) 37 percent; Arkansas T=10, A=27,
>California T=13, A=13, Florida T=13,A=25,Indiana T=14,A=25, Missouri
>T=11,A=24, New Hampshire T=11, A=13, N. Carolina T=12, A=54, S. Dakota
>T=14, A=35, Texas T=12, A=12. The average achievement for the eleven
>states was 26.36, ten points below the national average. As a standout, N.
>Carolina, which expected only 12 percent to achieve the skills of the
>lowest level of literacy, actually reported an achievement level of 54
>percent, well above the national average of 36 percent achievement for the
>lowest ABE level.
>
>At the high end of expectations and achievements, Alaska set its target at
>42 percent and achieved 64 percent. Ohio was T=30, A=65, Delaware T=43,
>A=63. At the top of the targets for achievement was Utah, with a target of
>74 percent. And while its achievement was high, at 67 percent, it was
>below the state’s target. But all these states with higher targets
>achieved well above the national achievement of 36 percent.
>
>At the national level, for the three ABE levels, average targets for the
>lowest, intermediate, and highest literacy levels were 22, 24 and 27
>percent and average actual achievements were 36, 42, and 44 percent. For
>the four ESOL levels, average targets were from the lowest ESOL level to
>the highest level, 22, 25, 28, and 27 percent, while actual achievements
>were 39, 40, 43, 38 percent. Across all performance levels, it was
>expected that anywhere from 73 to 78 percent of adults at a given level
>would not achieve the basic skills needed to complete that level.
>
>Is Low Achievement A Self-fulfilling Prophecy?
>
>Over all fifty states, for the lowest ABE level, there was a positive
>correlation of +.38 between the target and actual achievement levels,
>indicating that as a general trend,  as the state’s target’s for
>achievement went up, actual achievement went up.
>
>These data raise some serious questions. Why are there such wide
>disparities in targets and achievements among the fifty states?  Why do so
>many states have such low expectations for their least able ABE learners?
>Why do those states with higher expectations for the least literate, as
>indicated by their relatively high target scores, actually achieve better
>than the states with the lowest targets? Why do average expectations and
>achievements go up from the lowest to the higher levels of performance?
>
>Averaged over the national average data, the overall average target for
>achieving the skills at one of the seven levels was 25 percent, and the
>average actual achievement was 40 percent. This indicates that in the
>AELS, 75 percent of the adults were, on average, not expected to achieve
>the skills of a given level, and in actuality 60 percent did not.
>
>Is there some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy at work here such that low
>expectations lead to lower achievements? Is it possible that this
>marginalized field serving marginalized adults suffers from an inferiority
>complex that leads to low expectations and low achievements for its adult
>learners?
>
>Possibly if we could move the Adult Education and Literacy System of the
>United States from the margins to the mainstream of publicly supported
>education, and recognize it and fund it at levels comparable to mainstream
>public education, we could find the psychological, financial, and material
>resources to overcome any inferiority complex and hold up high
>expectations and reach high levels of achievement for our nation’s under
>served and undereducated adults.
>
>In this regard, it might be especially useful to look at states like Utah
>to find out why they have such high expectations and how they reach
>achievements that go along with such expectations, particularly for our
>least able adult learners. There may be some power of positive thinking in
>these states that can help the entire system reach new levels of hope and
>achievement.
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