Return-Path: <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id g1RNcCu14299; Wed, 27 Feb 2002 18:38:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 18:38:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <v04210136b8a31beff015@[128.148.147.35]> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis@Brown.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:809] RE: Concern about federal support for X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Status: O Content-Length: 1847 Lines: 39 Virginia and all, >.... People who make our laws and distribute our money do not by in >large have literacy as an issue. They do not think in terms of literacy as >an economic growth tool or they wouldn't continually make decisions that cut >literacy funding. This is such an interesting tension. On the one hand, I've been to local meetings where economic policy people DO frame literacy as an economic issue - but seem to lack an understanding of a strengths-based approach to working with adult learners. Their perspective is that adults lack skills, can't even work in entry level positions and therefore are an economic liability - so *maybe* this justifies literacy funding, but funding that is heavily weighted towards workplace outcomes. On the other hand, real support for learning for adults who want the tools to make decisions about what they need and want to learn is lacking. Of course many adults want to work -- but an imposed set of conditions upon what and how they can learn in order to prepare for work doesn't give adults much agency in maknig choices about their learning at all. > One place this is seen is in the prison system...this is >a highly at risk group of folks, low literacy is alive and well in >corrections, funding for literacy classes is dropping there, too. >Personally, as a tax payer, I would rather buy a teacher than buy a guard. >AND I would rather fund family literacy than any component of it separately. and research is showing the powerful effects of literacy in corrections programs.(see Changing Minds: The impact of college in a maximum-security prison - multi author study of positive impact of college on incarcerated women -- http://www.changingminds.ws/ ) Learning across generations *can't* exist with funding only focussed on K-12 -- as we all know. Janet
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