from Barb Garner, the Editor of "Focus on Basics"...



>Please post this (to your lists). There's something for everyone in it.

>

>__________________________

>

>       The new issue of Focus on Basics is now available on-line, at

>http://www.ncsall.net/?id=818.  Subscribers should receive their issues in

>the mail this week.

>

>        Corrections Education is the topic of this issue, but adult basic

>educators working in every setting will find articles of relevance to their

>work. A writing workshop provides the glue for the Offender Re-Entry Program

>that serves the Suffolk County (Massachusetts) House of Corrections ,writes

>Bob Flynn in the cover article. Find out how to run such a workshop, and why

>it's so useful.

>         Kathy Goebel describes why an emphasis on re-entry is so important

>and the role that education plays in those efforts. NCSALL researcher John

>Tyler finds among racial and ethnic minority offenders - primarily

>African-Americans, with a smaller number of Hispanics - a 20 percent

>increase in the earnings among GED holders relative to non-GED holders in

>the first post-release year. That transition year is crucial, so this is

>good news.  However, these effects diminish over time and are not found for

>white ex-offenders.

>         In Hawaii, Vanessa Helsham uses Hawaiian cultural references and

>literature in her classes in the Learning Center in the Halawa Correctional

>Facility. She also teaches traditional hula dancing and, in her class,

>members of rival gangs work together. If you're doing it wrong, in hula, you

>have to change. It's like life, she explains. Pauline Geraci writes about

>using a different art form - poetry - in the Minnesota Correctional Facility

>Stillwater

>         Dominique Chlup, Texas, provides a chronology of corrections

>education from 1789 and an in-depth discussion of this area over the past 65

>years. Education's role in corrections ebbs and flows as society's views of

>incarceration shift from punishment-oriented to rehabilitative.

>         Everyone has a right to an education in Vermont, explains Tom Woods,

>a teacher in the Community High School of Vermont. Read about this school

>and how it serves a transitory population with a huge range of educational

>backgrounds and needs. While certain aspects of being a teacher transcend

>place, some do not. For those Focus on Basics readers who are not

>corrections educators, Dominique Chlup describes what it's like to teach in

>a correctional facility.

>         Recognizing that their learners have a high incidence of

>disabilities, low academic skills, and other related challenges, Missouri

>and Ohio are using comprehensive screening systems and putting into place a

>web of follow-up services, including education. Laura Weisel, Alan Toops,

>and Robin Schwarz report on these efforts. Bill Muth shares the results of

>his research on assessing offenders' literacy skills, beliefs, and practices

>and offers a model of literacy assessment that can more meaningfully inform

>placement and instruction. Just as services are learning to work together to

>maximize their effectiveness, so are advisory boards. Marianna Ruprecht,

>Wisconsin, shares how her advisory board used technology to do so.

>

>Barb Garner

>Editor,

>"Focus on Basics"

>

>

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