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[ProfessionalDevelopment 2173] Adult Education: Reach Wider, Deeper and Highertsticht at znet.com tsticht at znet.comThu Jul 3 21:46:50 EDT 2008
July 3, 2008 Reach Wider and Deeper While Reaching Higher: Comments on Some Comments on the Report of the National Commission on Adult Literacy. Tom Sticht International Consultant in Adult Education In February of 2000 I prepared a paper for the National Literacy Summit, entitled "The Adult Education and Literacy System of the United States: Moving From the Margins to the Mainstream." In this paper I argued that the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) should be renamed the Adult Education, Literacy and Workforce Investment Act (AELWIA) to recognize the many returns to investment in adult education and literacy beyond workforce development. Now this year, in June 2008, in a paper entitled "Reach Higher, America: Overcoming Crisis in the U.S. Workforce" a National Commission on Adult Literacy calls for renaming the Adult Education and Literacy System the Adult Education and Workforce Skills System (AEWSS). The AEWSS appears to propose combining the programs of the Workforce Investment Act Title 1 (job finding and preparation) and Title 2 (adult education and family literacy) into one system with enrollments of some 20 million adults annually with funding of some $20 billion by the year 2020. The report calls on Congress and state governments to make postsecondary education and workforce readiness the new mission of the AEWSS. Overall appreciation for the broad outline of the Reach Higher report has been expressed by both the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education (NCSDAE), who oversee the large majority of adult education and literacy programs funded in part by Title 2 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, and ProLiteracy Worldwide, the nations largest association of community based organizations that provide adult literacy education. But both these organizations also cautioned against focusing too much on workforce skills. For instance, a news article about the Reach Higher report on the Proliteracy web site has a sub-heading stating "ProLiteracy Urges Inclusion of Lowest Level Learners, Not Just Low-Skilled Workers". (http://www.proliteracy.org/news/index.asp?aid=301). The NCSDAE has prepared a response to the Reach Higher report that similarly cautions against a too narrow focus upon workforce development and states that the Reach Higher report "emphasizes the critical importance of workforce development to such an extent that it risks a national response that narrows the focus of adult education to this one dimension alone. This would be a mistake, not only because it would disconnect policy leaders and students energized by the pursuit of other policy priorities (e.g., family literacy and its potential to advance pre-K-12 education reform), it could also preempt state efforts to tailor adult education programs and services to local needs/priorities. New legislation should reflect workforce needs but not at the detriment of other issues." (www.ncsdae.org) These two organizations have reiterated the concerns I expressed eight years ago in my 2000 paper regarding the inclusion of the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) as a sub-title (Title 2 Adult Education and Family Literacy Act) of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. In my opinion, the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) should be considered super-ordinate to a workforce development system because workforce development is, as the NCSDAE has argued, just one of several services that the AELS undertakes in providing education for adults. The recommendation of the Reach Higher report to make postsecondary education and workforce readiness the new mission of the AEWSS also raises the specter of an education and job training system in which those adults who are least developed in language, literacy, and numeracy may be relegated to second class services. This appears to underlie the concerns of Proliteracy in urging that the least literate adults not be excluded from the full benefits of a new adult education system. It was to make certain that workforce development did not "swamp" the several goals of adult education and that the least literate not be overlooked that I called for renaming the Adult Education and Literacy System the Adult Education, Literacy, and Workforce Development System. The National Council of State Directors of Adult Education, Proliteracy Worldwide, and the National Consortium for Literacy report that they are all studying the Reach Higher report and will work with Congress and state governments to bring about an equitable adult education system that meets the needs of America's most disenfranchised citizens, including those in and those wishing to enter into the world of work. More on this later. In the meantime, adult educators may want to engage adult learners in reading and discussing the Reach Higher report as an exercise in critical literacy. Thomas G. Sticht International Consultant in Adult Education 2062 Valley View Blvd. El Cajon, CA 92019-2059 Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133 Email: tsticht at aznet.net
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