[NLA] "Dumbing Down" and the Mass. Strategy

[Catherine B. King]

To Jay and Tom from an earlier note regarding 
Massachusetts' strategy:

Changing technical language to meet with policy-makers' 
understanding is not "dumbing down."  

All sciences and professional fields have their technical
language (not necessarily "jargon") that hones and
standardizes meaning; and all theory demands a refined
and precise language that often needs to be interpreted 
into common language to those who are not, in this 
case, professional educators speaking to professional
politicians and policy makers.   

Let's call it what it is: using common language to 
communicate between fields and professions, or
intra-field communications. 

Also, Tom Sticht remarks in an earlier note:

"nor am I knowledgeable about any reports from Massachusetts 
demonstrating the efficacy of the use of the 'reduced 
enrollments to improve quality of service' strategy." 

An analogy might help here:  Adult education is about
adult development.   Development is intrinsically a valuative
concern.   For example, normal growth (development) of 
live organs involves an increase in the number of cells.  
But an increase in cells may also signal that the organ is 
cancerous.   
 
In developmental concerns, if numbers are the sole 
criterion of judgment, at what point do we realize
that something is wrong with this picture?  I am showing
my age, but I am reminded of the movie "The Blob." 
Certainly numbers are not opposed to quality, but nor
do they define it?  Nor do they have much of a part
in the discernment of developmental concerns.

But everyone, including policy-makers who are non-
professionals in the teaching field, understands the 
relationship of numbers to cancer.   It's not a far leap to 
also understand the reasoning behind Massachusetts' 
reduced enrollments strategy.   
 
The point to the analogy is that,  in developmental issues, 
the whole idea of normative is already (and rightly) valuative
and must be approached not by trying to rid normativity
of value, but of identifying the difference between a
negative bias and an intelligent excellence--true quality
that underlies the whole idea of development.  

And by the way, if Massachusetts is turning away people in
order to create a quality environment for those whom they
are serving, shouldn't that tell us something about the lack
of support for our adults who are constituents and not cattle
or cancer cells?

Regards,

Catherine King
operating in the organ 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JCretella at aol.com 
  To: nla at lists.literacytent.org 
  Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 7:21 AM
  Subject: Re: [NLA] Evidence-based practice in Adult Literacy Education]


  Andrea, George, et al,
  I have tried to follow the discussion about*consewuential validity, evidence-based practice , objective testing,*  etc with great interest. How do we translate these concepts and strategies into language for policy makers? Are we simply talking about results for the $$ invested, or is that too simplistic? I have always believe that the language we use among ourselves is our professional jargon, but the language used to explain what we do, or what we want or what is needed requires a dumbed down version...don't mean to insult policy makers.. How do we do this? thank you, Jay Cretella, COABE

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