Dear Colleagues,

 From September 18-22, on the Special Topics Discussion List, we are 
pleased to have a panel of expert guests in corrections education.  
The topic will focus on research and professional wisdom in 
corrections family literacy, and on the transition from corrections 
education to community education for inmates who have been released.  
Our guests are:

John Linton, Correctional Education, Office of Safe and Drug Free 
Schools, U.S. Department of Education

John is the program officer for two correctional education grant 
programs ("Lifeskills for State and Local Prisoners" and "Grants to 
States for Workplace and Community Transition Training for 
Incarcerated Youth Offenders") in the Office of Safe and Drug Free 
Schools of the U. S. Department of Education.  John formerly served 
the State of Maryland as the director of adult correctional education 
programs.  He has been with the federal agency since 2001, originally 
with the Office of Vocational and Adult Education.

Stephen J. Steurer, Ph.D., Executive Director, Correctional Education 
Association
The Correctional Education Association is a professional organization 
of educators who work in prisons, jails and juvenile settings.

William R. Muth, PhD, Assistant Professor, Reading Education and 
Adult Literacy, Virginia Commonwealth University

Bill is an Assistant Professor of Adult and Adolescent Literacy at 
Virginia Commonwealth University. Until August 2005, he was the 
Education Administrator for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Other 
positions with the FBOP included: reading teacher, principal, and 
Chief of the Program Analysis Branch. In 2004 Bill earned his 
doctorate in adult literacy from George Mason University. His 
dissertation, "Performance and Perspective: Two Assessments of 
Federal Prisoners in Literacy Programs" won the College Reading 
Association's Dissertation of the Year Award. His research interests 
include Thirdspace and Reading Components theories, especially as 
these apply to prison-based family literacy programs and children of 
incarcerated parents.

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  The following readings are recommended by the panelists as 
background for the discussion:

1. "Locked Up and Locked Out, An Educational Perspective on the US 
Prison Population," Coley, Richard J. and Barton, Paul E., 2006
Available on line at the ETS web site:

http://tinyurl.com/qmzfa (short URL)

2. "Learning to Reduce Recidivism: A 50-state analysis of 
postsecondary correctional education policy," Institute for Higher 
Education Policy, Erisman, Wendy and Contardo, Jeanne B., 2005.  
Available on line at the IHEP web site:

http://tinyurl.com/pj2sh (short URL)

3. "Understanding California Corrections" from the California Policy 
Research Center, U of C. (Chapter 4) http://www.ucop.edu/cprc/ 
documents/understand_ca_corrections.pdf

John Linton believes that California is a watershed state in 
corrections issues and policies , and that how things unfold there 
has great national significance.  He says that this is a thoughtful 
and well-informed report on the "overview" of the corrections 
situation in California -- including the role of treatment programs.  
Education is not presented as a central issue, but it has a place -- 
as a piece of a bigger puzzle.

4. An article by Bill Muth in Exploring Adult Literacy can be found at

http://literacy.kent.edu/cra/2006/wmuth/index.html 

The article contains other on-line links related to prison-based 
intergenerational programs. He recommends especially the link to the 
Hudson River Center's excellent publication, Bringing Family Literacy 
to Incarcerated Settings: An Instructional Guide at:

http://www.hudrivctr.org/products_ce.htm 


David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net