[NLA] Are You Being Served?

[Susan Joyner]

Dear Tom,
A belated response to your questions about how/whether the federal R & D
contract “helps improve practice and the operation of the AELS.”   I believe
states are getting useful resources from NCSALL but a more robust
professional development system is required at the local level to see clear
evidence of a corresponding improvement in practice.  Every year states make
decisions about the content of their professional development efforts and
how this content should be presented.  The extent that states use research
to make decisions about professional development in turn influences
practice.  NCSALL has done a consistently good job in creating research to
practice resources that states can integrate into their own professional
development programs.   The Practitioner Dissemination and Research Network
(PDRN) is an example.  Because of participating in PDRN study circles a
group of practitioners in Virginia decided to change their program’s
approach to learner needs assessment.  This local effort is chronicled in
their publication, Charting a Course, published online at
http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/vaelc/publications/

In Virginia, we have incorporated NCSALL reports and FOB articles in much of
our teacher-training program.  We have used professional development
approaches based on NCSALL models.  Evaluating success?  Consistently
documenting practitioner change requires a larger investment in supporting
teachers at the local level than is presently available.  Involving
practitioners as researchers, paying them to participate in learning over
time, conducting classroom observation and giving feedback, are some of the
effective but more costly professional development approaches that also
yield tangible evidence of results.

To return to the old TV show analogy, when it comes down to improvement at
the local level, yes we customers are getting a good product, but we don’t
always have the wherewithal to take it home and try it out.

Susan Joyner
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
1-800-237-0178
www.vcu.edu/aelweb/

Join the AALPD, a network of adult literacy professional developers at
http://cls.coe.utk.edu/mailman/listinfo/aalpd

-----Original Message-----
From: nla-admin at lists.literacytent.org
[mailto:nla-admin at lists.literacytent.org]On Behalf Of Thomas Sticht
Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 10:15 PM
To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: [NLA] Are You Being Served?


Are You Being Served? *

A new report from the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and
Literacy is available (NCSALL Report No. 23). Entitled "The First Five
Years," the report summarizes the research projects, major findings, and
recommendations for the years 1996 – 2001 (copies of the report are
available at http://ncsall.gse.harvard.edu). According to the report,
total funding for the NCSALL for the first five years was around
$13,500,000. Funding for the next five years is anticipated to be about
$16,500,000.

The report says that "The mission of the National Center for the Study of
Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) is to conduct and disseminate
research that helps build effective, cost-efficient adult education and
literacy programs." (p. 3)  Regarding how the NCSALL determines whether or
not it has achieved these goals, the last page and last sentence of the
body of the report states that, over the next five years,  "Its
measurement of success remains the same as well: Practitioners can cite
ways that NCSALL has helped them to improve practice."  (p.100)

Unfortunately, as I looked through the report, I could find no evidence
presented to suggest that practitioners had thought that the research of
the first five years had helped them improve their practice.  I’m
wondering if any of the NLA list members can cite ways that they or their
program or someone they know has been helped by the first five years of
the NCSALL work. And if so, in what specific ways.

I’d also be interested in knowing if NLA list members feel that anecdotal
reports by practitioners is a suitable way to evaluate the success of our
only federally funded, national adult education and literacy research
center in achieving its stated mission of helping to "build effective,
cost-efficient adult education and literacy programs."

And parenthetically, does anyone recall how the previous national research
center, the National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL) whose work for five
years before the NCSALL took the federal R& D center contract must have
cost over $10,000,000, helped improve their practice and/or the operations
of the AELS?

All this is to say, I wonder just how we might go about deciding how well
our national R & D center research funds are serving the needs of the
field? What do NLA list members think?

Tom Sticht
* With a nod of thanks to Brit Night on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS)



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