Sondra Stein's role in conceiving and developing Equipped for the  Future (EFF) has been vitally important to the adult literacy education field, and has been one of the major contributions of the National Institute for Literacy.  EFF and the Literacy Information and Communications System (LINCS) are the two long-term initiatives for
which the National Institute for Literacy is best known, and which have had the greatest national impact on moving our field forward towards excellence in practice.

I am glad to hear that Sondra will continue to work with EFF, and I hope that other national organizations will have the vision to support EFF's continued growth in staff development and assessment.  The investment which the NIFL has made in EFF has been sound. It has brought EFF to the point where several states have formally  adopted it, and other states and programs also are using EFF.  Several states are using the standards to invest in creating the EFF work readiness credential. Assessment instruments will be created which are aligned to EFF standards.  Although I am disappointed that the National Institute for Literacy will let Sondra leave, and apparently is not interested in continuing to support Equipped for the Future, I think the standards are so important to the field, and have a sufficiently strong foothold in the states, that Equipped For the Future can continue without the support of the NIFL.

I would like to thank Sondra for the extraordinary work she has done for our field, first in Massachusetts, and over more than a decade, nationally.

David J. Rosen
 djrosen at comcast.net