Dear Colleagues,

 

There has been quite a bit of discussion on various Adult Education -related
listservs about the recent report of the National Commission on Adult
Literacy, "Reach Higher America." I, for one, am delighted that the report
has aroused so much interest, and a robust discussion of its findings can
only benefit the field, as well as anyone who may wish to act on those
findings.

 

In some of the postings, however, I have found what I believe are a number
of misconceptions about what the report says and its implications that I
fear may needlessly distract the discussion. I would like to do what I can
to sort those out. 

 

In doing so, I want to make clear that, although I have been affiliated with
the Council for the Advancement of Adult Literacy,  I had very little to do
with the National Commission on Adult Literacy or its report. This was
partly because I had prior commitments to do a lot of ESL research that
overlapped the Commission's term, and partly because I didn't think Gail
Spangenberg, Cheryl King, and the Commissioners needed any help from me.
(Too many cooks, etc.)  My only input was to testify to the Commission on
ESL, meet with a group of commissioners and staff to discuss
(inconclusively) a few key issues for half a day, and provide advice on
drafting issues (some of which was followed and some of which wasn't).  As a
result, in most respects I read "Reach Higher America" in the same way that
you do - as an informed outsider. Certainly, I can't speak for the
Commission about it or for CAAL as the Commission's agent, nor do I wish to
do so.

 

With that long preface, I would like to address three issues that I believe
are needlessly clouding consideration of the report by members of the Adult
Education field and other concerned parties.

 

1)      The notion that the Commission is advocating converting adult
education into a system that would SOLELY or primarily  have the goal of
workforce preparation/postsecondary transition. If this were true, I would
be concerned too. But if you read the report carefully, I think you will see
that this is simply NOT what it says

 

It is true that the report talks mainly about workforce preparation and
expanding AE to place more emphasis on this goal. But there is no place in
which it says that existing efforts in ABE, ASE, and ESL should be
diminished, or that workforce preparation should be the EXCLUSIVE goal of
the system. In fact, on page 22, it says the opposite. And it  singles out
family literacy, reducing waiting lists for ESL programs, increasing GED
completions, and other issues that are not strictly workforce-related as
priorities, and it emphasizes the importance of increased investment per
student, more supportive services, and greater investment in staff training
THROUGHT THE SYSTEM. 

 

Personally, I think the best way to read the Commission's emphasis on
workforce readiness is to say that increasing, enriching, and expanding the
AE system's role in workforce readiness is the goal that should have highest
priority right now - but not the exclusive goal. (Policy should be able to
chew gum and walk at the same time.) Why should workforce readiness have
particularly high priority? Well, because it is the function that the AE
system performs least well. The system has never been asked to do this, and
so it's no surprise (or cause for apology) that it doesn't do much of it. We
all know this. A large number of students come to AE programs with the goal
of getting better jobs, but most of the programs specifically designed to
help them in this regard are small and fragile. Likewise, the Commission
says it considers transition to postsecondary education to be a form of
workforce readiness. Again, although some programs make notable efforts to
facilitate this, they do so largely in spite of existing policy and systems
of funding. Only a tiny percentage of AE students make transitions. 

 

In short, we simply  have to build up the workforce readiness aspect of the
system. Why? Because, as the Commission so eloquently points out, there are
enormous benefits for adult learners and for the nation's economy if we do,
and enormous penalties for low-income, low skilled people, as well as
economy, if we don't. And only the AE system can take on this challenge. If
it doesn't, some other system will have to be devised to do so. That would
be a terrible waste, because the existing services provided by AE are part
of the pathway to workforce readiness. All we need to do is grow some
additional branches on the tree - something that many programs are trying to
do, but for which they are not receiving much support.

 

Anyway, that's how I read it, and I would invite you to see if it makes more
sense if YOU read it that way. 

 

In addition, there is another consideration. I personally believe that there
is precious little political support for any major expansion of AE services
or funding UNLESS the system can be tied to high priority national economic
goals. That doesn't mean that these must be the system's only goals. But
we've all beat our heads against a brick wall for decades trying to sell AE
in traditional terms, and we have too little to show for it. In contrast,
emphasizing the need to expand the workforce related aspects of the system
appears (thus far) to have enlisted allies in business, labor, and other
sectors of education we never had before. 

 

I doubt that the Commission was primarily motivated by this political
calculus. But it is important to remember that the Commissioners were a
highly diverse group of "outsiders." Few had an expert understanding of AE,
and (contrary to what has been said) most did not represent the business
community in any way. (It is true that Dollar General Corporation was the
largest single financial supporter of the effort, but they in no way
dictated its findings.) It is, therefore, telling that this group of
"outsiders" (with a little help from Commissioners Bob Bickerton, Sherrie
Claiborne, John Comings, and Sharon Darling) gravitated to an emphasis on
workforce preparation as the best way to expand AE. In fact, my own research
on recent major expansions of AE at the state level indicates that it has
invariably come about as a result of the desire of states to improve the
economic competitiveness (workforce readiness)of their workforces. And in
all cases I know of, this has NOT been a zero-sum game. A rising tide has
lifted all boats in the AE system.

 

2)       The notion that strengthening the workforce readiness aspect of AE
will in some way result in less emphasis on service to the lowest skilled
adults. I do not see how this can possibly be true. It is precisely the
lowest skilled adults who are most in need of workforce readiness services -
they are the population must likely to be locked into low-wage, low-skilled
jobs. No plan to increase the workforce preparation of adults can make a
dent in the problem without giving priority to their needs. It is certainly
true that many programs that have added special components to increase
employability by increasing transitions to postsecondary education and
specialized vocational programs usually recruit students at the intermediate
levels of ABE and ESL or GED graduates for those components. But that only
reinforces the imperative for workforce readiness efforts to emphasize
greater service to those with lower levels of skills. In the ESL field, for
example, the overwhelming majority of students are at the lowest skill
levels. There is no way that a stronger emphasis on workforce readiness can
succeed unless we greatly enhance our efforts to help those students advance
up the AE continuum. Otherwise, there simply will not be enough students to
take advantage of specialized workforce components. Moreover, it is by no
means clear that these kinds of specialized components are the only way to
improve workforce readiness. Career counseling, teaching "soft skills" (such
as the SCANS array), and infusing more work skills (as opposed to life
skills) into the curriculum can help broaden the options of students at all
levels.                     

 

In short, I do not see any way in which strengthening the workforce
readiness aspects of AE programs is inconsistent with serving the least
skilled adult learners, and I can find no place in "Reach Higher America"
where the Commission even suggests this. The traditional goal of adult
education has been to help as many students as possible ascend as far as
possible up the adult learning continuum. A stronger emphasis on workforce
readiness simply means offering students the opportunity to improve their
employability as they ascend that continuum. Some students may not wish to
take advantage of this opportunity. They will benefit from AE in other ways.
AE has always tried to serve many different learner goals, and as mentioned
above, "Reach Higher America" clearly considers all of them valid. In this
context, the contribution of the report is to emphasize the need to
strengthen service to students who have the goal of improving their
employment prospects - whatever their initial level of skills, and without
prejudice to other goals.        

 

3)      The notion that the Commission is advocating a change in the
governance of AE at the state or federal levels. This is simply not true. I
have read this report so many times I'm almost blind. There is NO PLACE in
the report where a change of governance is advocated. In fact, there is no
place in which governance is even discussed. It is not even mentioned in the
discussion of state planning (pp. 26-27). As far as he report is concerned,
states would be free to adopt any governance system for AE they want - as
they are now. The report simply encourages them to engage in more meaningful
inter-agency planning for the role AE in their states than they do now - a
requirement in present legislation that largely honored in the breach - as a
way of acknowledging that states have different needs and can legitimately
realize them in different ways. In this sense, the report reposes more
responsibility at the state level than the present system does. Likewise,
the issue of the governance of AE at the federal level is NOT DISCUSSED AT
ALL in the report. The Commission DOES appear to believe that it would be
advisable to get as many of the separate federal authorities and funding
streams as possible under a single legislative framework. But it is moot
about whether the existing system of divided administrative responsibility
at the federal level should be continued. Personally, I think it's too much
trouble to get into the turf wars of changing it, but that's just my view. 

 

I hope, that this overly long note will help to take some non-issues off the
table, and help you in your consideration of the report. There are a great
many very real and very tough issues that need sorting out before the
Commission's recommendations can become a reality. So I don't think we
should waste time debating problems that don't exist. The Commission will
certainly try to have its recommendations embodied in legislation, and it
will need the help of all of you, not only to do that but to do it right. So
I hope we can set aside these differences, or at least raise areas of
concern or uncertainty with Gail or others who understand the Commission's
intent better than I do, before rushing to conclusions. To encourage
readership and reach people outside the AE field, the report is very brief.
Unfortunately that means that some of its points may seem a bit cryptic to
those who read it with expert eyes. I hope that, when in doubt, you will ask
for clarification, rather than assume the worst. I know enough of the
Commissioners and staff to know that these people desperately want to help
the AE field in all of its aspects, and most of all the learners.

 

Forrest Chisman                           

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/professionaldevelopment/attachments/20080711/ad4bb4ba/attachment-0001.html