The following posting is from Alisa Belzer, Assistant Professor of Adult Literacy Education at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Prior to her appointment there in 1999, Alisa directed the Pennsylvania Adult Literacy Practitioner Inquiry Network (PALPIN), a statewide professional development initiative. She began working in the field in 1987 at the Center for Literacy in Philadelphia and has been a program coordinator, tutor trainer, classroom teacher and tutor. Her current research interests are in professional development, learner beliefs, tutor-based instruction, and adult reading development. I have had the pleasure of working with Alisa in her former role of directing PALPIN in Pennsylvania, and I think her posting (below) is an excellent follow-up to the discussion we have been having about using National Reporting System data to inform program improvement. At the end of her posting, Alisa poses several provocative questions that I think could help us explore a new facet of program leadership and improvement. I hope you will take the initiative to join this important discussion.

Sandy Strunk, List Moderator

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In a report that I recently authored for the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) entitled “Living with it:  Federal policy implementation in adult basic education”  (available at http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~ncsall/research/report24.pdf), I suggest that policies are always in a state of revision and adaptation as they travel down the road from an abstract statute to classroom practice.  In adult basic education this involves stops along the way at the Office of Vocational and Adult Education in the US Department of Education, at the state education agency, possibly at a professional development entity, and finally at the local program.  At each stop along the way, key players shape what the abstraction will actually look like by the time it reaches individual classrooms. This could, ultimately, help or hinder the quality of instruction at the local level. Much depends on the policy and the shaping that occurs along the way. What's important is that practitioners not allow the “policy journey” to be one way down this road. Practitioners not only have the power to change policies by the way they act on them in their own particular contexts, but they can also take an important shaping step by sending policy feedback back up the road in an effort to actively inform future efforts at reform.

We are in the middle of a policy shift in adult basic education (literacy, pre-GED, GED, adult secondary education, family and workplace literacy, ESL) that has had enormous implications for all of us. With the passage of the Workforce Investment Act in 1998, we entered an era of significantly increased accountability. This has meant dramatic changes in assessment and documentation of learner outcomes. Meanwhile, a concerted effort has been made by the US Department of Education to encourage best practice based on scientific research. This has given warrant to research syntheses such as John Kruidenier’s “Research-based principles for adult basic education reading instruction” and instructional tool kits such as the forthcoming Student Achievement in Reading (STAR) Project. These changes have occurred against the backdrop of welfare reform, a changing economy in which high wage/low skill jobs are disappearing at an alarming rate, ever-increasing globalization accompanied by a more and more diverse population of learners, and violence at home and abroad.

While one can analyze the pros and cons of these changes at length, the reality is that for now they are here to stay. As the ground beneath us shifts, it becomes increasingly important to focus our mission as adult educators and how to maintain our core values and beliefs about teaching, learning, and literacy. Additionally, we need to take a hard look at how our own advocacy efforts can be deployed to move the field in the direction that we feel is most responsive to learners’ goals and needs. Practitioners are positioned to know a lot about the spectrum of teaching, learning and literacy whereas many policy makers have only viewed our field though the lens of NRS data. If policy is to be responsive to learners' goals and needs, it is incumbent upon practitioners to step into the policy arena. 
I suggest that practitioners should get involved in policy formation in several meaningful ways.  Rather than feeling passively relegated to implementing government policies, it is important to take every opportunity to participate in shaping and reforming policies in ways that are most constructive for learners. The first step is to take an active stance by being well informed about the policies and by getting involved in the political process by working to educate lawmakers and an expanded network of potential advocates about the realities of the field. To participate actively in policy conversations about what works and why, practitioners should themselves be building new knowledge about teaching and learning by participating in action research and practitioner inquiry projects. Through systematic investigations of problems in practice, these efforts can provide practitioners with data that can contribute to policymakers’ understanding of problems faced by the field, as well as appropriate solutions.

With this said, I'm interested in your perspectives on the following questions:
ß In what ways do you feel the current policy climate is in line with or in contradiction to your core values as a practitioner?  What impact does this have on your practice?
ß How do you deal with the contradictions?  ß What are the roles you see yourself taking in advocating for policies that fit with your mission as an adult educator, yet are responsive to demands for accountability?  ß How will you advocate for policy changes in teaching, learning and literacy?

Alisa Belzer
Assistant Professor of Adult Literacy Education, Rutgers University