[NLA] Discussion: NLA Perennial Issues

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Jon:

The questions:  "How many adults in the nation (or state/local
 region) are in need of the services of literacy providers?" and
"What percentage of the population is being served?"

are good questions--<after> all the larger questions are answered.

But the fragmentation in the field goes much deeper than that
and has more to do with a lost memory--of what education means
to our own--and all democratic--orders.  

Look at the history of it:  After WW II, there were only 12 democracies
in the world.  Now there are 120.  Japan, Italy and Germany were
forced.  But all the others emerged through internal ordering and
"soft" revolutions.  

None of that internal and "soft" revolution could have happened 
without the continuing and <long-term> forces of education and open 
communications within a culture and between cultures.

The idea of education is not based on a political ideology.  Rather, the 
idea of education is based on, and spontaneously emerges from, the
human quest for the unknown, and for what is better, and an open 
communication and dialogue that 

<itself tends to produce democracies so that the quest can continue.> 

The larger idea, if recovered in a clear and collective statement of 
some kind, and in a collective understanding by policy-makers and 
office-holders, would clearly re-connect continuing adult and 
community education to the library system, the arts, and to several 
ongoing international threads, including several of the human rights 
documents, and all four to the essential ongoing development of 
democracy (ies).  This recovery would put adult and community 
education in a whole different, and much more powerful, framework?

Our own democracy emerged from educated peoples' notions of
freedom from tyranny.   But in our forgetfulness we have reduced the
part that education plays in our culture, and in the kind of existence 
we enjoy in it, to producing numbers and to individuals getting jobs and 
taking care of themselves without financial help from "the government."
There is no community or politically connected notions about it--it's all 
about isolated individuals not bothering the gated-anyone.

This kind of thinking in a democracy is like an active cancer--when it 
emerges without its larger connection to community and the political 
order it emerged from, and when it replaces the broader view--
hence our fragmented view of ourselves.

Do we really think getting a magic number and being able to show how 
we counted individuals to people standing in their own individual pork
barrels is going to get us a vision, and that this number and pseudo-
vision is going to produce an endless stream of money for "our" 
programs?   The whole thing is adversarial rather than being based on 
a larger vision of a meta-partisan community of communities. 

What is "perennial" is this:

"We" in adult education are, in fact, connected with a larger ongoing 
historical stream--WE are the heart of the great Experiment that either 
continues to work or not.   But after We have lost our minds and 
forgotten who we are--which I would argue we have at present, with 
the lack of vision demonstrated in the current thread--it's not long 
before the heart stops beating?  

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA
      
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jon Randall <jrandall at fedstrategics.com>
To: NLA Listserv (E-mail) <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 11:08 PM
Subject: [NLA] Discussion: NLA Perennial Issues


> Re: yesterday's comments by Tom Sticht: "What should the
> field be advocating for? ... no one has said how we can or
> should go about advocating for every part of this highly
> fragmented 'system.' "
> 
> Tom, quite some time ago Rich Long, a lobbyist for the
> International Reading Association suggested that the
> literacy field engage the services of a social marketing
> firm to develop a strategy to move adult literacy to the
> "front burner" of the general public and policy-makers at
> the highest level. The idea was nixed by the National
> Coalition for Literacy (NCL) because the NCL did not have
> the capacity to raise the funds that would be required to
> implement such a strategy, let alone hire the social
> marketing firm to develop it.
> 
> Your blue ribbon commission and significant funding
> increases will only be possible if literacy somehow gets
> onto our nation's front burner. Perhaps the social marketing
> firm idea could be revisited once the NCL is incorporated
> and develops its capacity to raise money.  In the mean time,
> it would be helpful to try to build some consensus in our
> field around each of the six perennial issues you mentioned.
> 
> Clarification/info re: NLA Perennial Issues #1-2 ...
> 
> 1.  Re: "How many adults in the nation (or state/local
> region) are in need of the services of literacy providers?"
> 
> Yes, Tom. State Grants under the Adult Education and Family
> Literacy Act of 1998 >are< apportioned based on the number
> of adults 16 years or older who are out of school and do not
> have a high school diploma. The eventual use of 2000 Census
> data rather than 1990 data will change each state's
> proportion of "target population." With the population
> increase/decrease figures I provided in my posting last
> Friday, I was attempting to illustrate the approximate
> impact for States of switching to the 2000 Census data for
> apportionment of State Grant funds.
> 
> 2.  Re: "What percentage of the "target" population is being
> served ... ?"
> 
> Tom, for the third year now the NCL is advocating for
> additional funding for NIFL, in part to do a study of the
> TOTAL number of adult learners being served and the total
> expenditure - public and private - for such service in ALL
> public and private sector literacy programs. Congressional
> staff ask this question all the time. Perhaps someday we'll
> be able to answer it.
> 
> Best,
> Jon
> 
> Jon Randall
> Consultant, Government Relations
> ProLiteracy Worldwide
> and Public Policy Committee Chair
> National Coalition for Literacy
> www.natcoalitionliteracy.org
> 
> ProLiteracy Worldwide continues to underwrite
> the coordination of NCL policy efforts
> www.proliteracy.org
> 
> FedStrategics, LLC
> 8413 Park Crest Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910
> Tel: (301) 588-5304   Fax: (301) 588-5353
> jrandall at FedStrategics.com
> 
> 
> 
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