Paul,
I agree with your suggestions. In Massachusetts the Secretary of Labor and
Workforce Development as Chair of the Mass. Workforce Investment Board
established a special committee on Adult Basic Education/English for
Speakers of Other Languages. In September the Committee issued it report and
recommendations:
	1. Create a coordinating body with state-level policy-making
authority to undertake the 	   tasks recommended. (This has been done.)
	2. Create a dedicated fund for workplace education
	3. Increase capacity development in the field.
	4. Improve linkages to post-secondary education, training, and
employment
	5. Support educational counseling, job coaching, and transition
counseling,
	6. Increase employer participation for investment in adult basic
education.

I think that the COABE pre-conference on work(place, force, based??)
education should look at what the states have been doing in this regard.
This is a good way to re-invigorate the field and possibly develop a
national organization of work (place, force, based??) education
professionals.

Lloyd





Lloyd David, EdD.
Creative Workplace Learning
311 Washington Street
Brighton, MA 02135
Tel :  617-783-6360 
FAX: 617-782-0136

-----Original Message-----
From: workplace-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:workplace-bounces at nifl.gov] On
Behalf Of JURMO at ucc.edu
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 12:57 PM
To: workplace at nifl.gov
Subject: [Workplace 1648] Re: Revive the NWLP

Hello, Everyone,

I agree that the US should revive its efforts to develop high quality
systems for workforce education (for both employed, unemployed, and
transitioning workers).  However, if we do so, we should build on the
research and other work that has been done to develop models of work-related
basic education since the days of the NWLP.  

Rather than just duplicate the NWLP as it was back then, we should look at
the lessons learned in the NWLP itself (which are captured in reports housed
at the ERIC-ACVE Clearinghouse and in other reports like "Reinventing the
NWLP" and a recent study by David Rosen) as well as other more recent work
done in the US and in other countries like Canada, the UK, and New Zealand.


The Equipped for the Future standards (and the related National Work
Readiness Credential), distance education, state-level systems for
work-related basic education, career pathway projects funded by the USDOL
and other sources, and program models developed for special populations
(e.g., immigrants, ex-offenders, etc.):  these are just some of the
resources that have been developed since the days of the NWLP.  

Paul Jurmo, Ed.D.
Dean, Economic Development and Continuing Education Union County College New
Jersey 

-----Original Message-----
From: workplace-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:workplace-bounces at nifl.gov] On
Behalf Of tsticht at znet.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 2:53 PM
To: workplace at nifl.gov
Subject: [Workplace 1647] Revive the NWLP

October 29, 2008

We Need to Revive the National Workplace Literacy Program to Improve the
Economic Competitiveness of Our Present and Future Workforce

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Millions of adults with the lowest literacy skills are found in workplaces.
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) of 2003 indicated that
29
percent of adults who scored below basic on the prose scale on the National
Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1993 were employed full-time. In 2003 the
percentage of adults with below basic prose literacy scores who were
employed full-time rose to 35 percent, a statistically significant increase
in full-time employed adults with literacy skills at the lowest level.
This
means that some 10.8 million adults with the lowest level of literacy skills
can be found working full-time in workplaces in the United States. 
An additional 10 percent of adults, over 3 million,  in the lowest level of
literacy in 2003 were working part-time. This was a two percentage point
increase from 1993.

The fact that the percentage of low literacy adults in the workplaces of the
United States increased in the decade from 1993 to 2003, resulting in over
13 million adults with below basic levels of literacy, suggests a need to
revive the federal government's National Workplace Literacy Program
(NWLP)
of the late 1980s through the mid-1990s.  The NWLP provided grants for
developing and delivering adult literacy, numeracy, and English language
education programs directly in or in close proximity to the places where low
literacy adults work.

Research from before the NWLP, during the NWLP, and up to the present has
indicated that workplace literacy program generally produce outcomes that
are especially important during hard economic times. First, employers are
more likely to implement workplace programs that focus directly on improving
some aspect(s) of the functions that the employer must perform, such as
recruiting from a larger pool of available workers, making job training more
effective, increasing productivity, decreasing waste, sick leaves, and
providing opportunities to promote good workers to higher levels of
responsibility.

Second, employees are more likely to value education that will directly help
them enter into a specific line of work, or to increase their chances of
keeping a job, or making more money, or making them more generally
employable in the world of work.

Third, a number of workplace literacy programs have indicated that even
though the program was focused directly on their jobs, employees often
reported other important outcomes beyond improved work performance,
including things like improved confidence outside the workplace in the
community, continuation of education outside the workplace program, and
improvements in their educational activities with their children or
grandchildren (e.g., reading more with them; helping them with their
homework).

These "multiplier effects" of even brief workplace literacy programs provide
returns on investment beyond improved working ability. They provide for what
I call "double duty dollars" meaning that a dollar spent on adult basic
education may also provide increases in parenting, grand-parenting, health
care, and social behaviors in the community. Many dollars are often spent in
special programs to get these various outcomes, only here one gets these
outcomes for free--as a "spin-off" from the dollar spent on adult basic
education.

Adult educators are sometimes leery of workplace literacy programs that
focus on improving job-related literacy because they think that this results
in just a narrow band of improved literacy. But a number of research
projects from before, during, and after the NWLP have now indicated that
work-focused literacy or English language programs can produce not just
gains in job-related literacy, but also general literacy as measured by
standardized tests such as the Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE) or
Adult Basic Learning Exam (ABLE).

Other research on literacy for job training indicates that the more focused
literacy or English language programs are on a specific occupational field,
the more likely the program is to retain students to completion and result
in the achievement of a job qualification certificate and a job. General
workforce employability programs do not achieve these types of outcomes to
the extent as more specifically focused programs.

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton reportedly replied, "Because
that is where the money is." That is why we need to revive the National
Workplace Literacy Program, because that is where some 13 million adults
with the lowest literacy skills are. If we invest in the education of
working adults, we can increase the competitiveness of America's workforce,
while in many cases improving the educability of America's children, the
workforce of the future. In hard economic times, we need to get "double duty
dollars" from our investments in adult education.

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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