Return-Path: <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost.nifl.gov [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA06977; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 09:24:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 09:24:01 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <a45b5aab.349e76fa@aol.com> Errors-To: lmann@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: RJurczyk <RJurczyk@aol.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1335] New research publication X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Status: RO The following post was sent to me to distribute to interested colleagues. As we build grant proposals we always need current research to support our requests. This report may meet some of those needs. Robin Jurczyk nifl-family list moderator rjurczyk@aol.com ************ Passports to Paradise: The Struggle to Teach and to Learn on the Margins of Adult Education Thomas Sticht Barbara McDonald Paul Erickson San Diego Consortium for Workforce Education and Lifelong Learning (CWELL) Overview of the Report This policy-oriented report provides a five-year perspective on the adult literacy education system in the CWELL Action Research Center (ARC) community located in the inner city of San Diego, California. It looks at how policymakers and officials at the national and state levels have attempted to improve adult literacy education over the last thirty years. It defines adult literacy education to include instruction in English as a second language (ESL), adult basic education (ABE), which includes literacy and mathematics education below the 9th grade level, and adult secondary education (ASE) at the high school or General Educational Development (GED) level. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the research and an overview of the remaining 10 chapters in the report. The report is divided into three parts, the contents of each part are briefly described below. Part 1, The Struggle to Learn . This includes Chapters 2 through 5. Chapter 2 provides information about the difficulties of determining just how many adults in the San Diego area might benefit from additional education in the basic skills of English, reading and mathematics. Chapter 3 introduces the practice of having adult literacy students perform as researchers to discover barriers to participation in adult literacy education and what might be done to increase participation in adult literacy education. Chapter 4 continues the discussion of the struggle to learn by considering what happens after adults decide to go back to school. Here we find that the often hectic lives of marginalized adults leads to lowered levels of persistence to complete a semester, to low attendance rates, and to high rates of turbulence, that is, large numbers of adds and drops from classes during the semester. The final chapter in Part 1, Chapter 5, deals with the issue of how various instructional factors such as class size, erratic attendance, and turbulence affect learning and the transfer of what is learned in class to the home and community beyond the walls of the school. Part 2, The Struggle to Teach. In Part 2, Chapters 6, 7, and 8 focus on the voices of teachers and their reflections on the struggle to teach in a marginalized education system. Chapter 6 includes reports by two CWELL ARC teacher researchers on the hardships of both teaching and learning and it presents insights that 17 teachers have about the educational system in which they work. Chapter 7 presents a case study of one teacher's experiences as a CWELL ARC Teacher Researcher in trying to change instruction in an ESL class and how the dynamics of students' lives and classroom turbulence affected her work. Chapter 8 looks at the challenges to teaching posed by great diversity within a given classroom due to cultural factors and different levels of language and literacy skills. Part 3, The Struggle to Be Better.Three chapters deal with activities to try to make the adult literacy education system more effective. Chapter 9 reviews some of the activities that federal policymakers and officials have undertaken over the years to try to improve the adult literacy education system nationally. Chapter 10 focusses on activities in California over the last two decades to improve the adult literacy education system. To see if these activities have made California's adult literacy education system better extensive data on retention, learning gains, and attainment of goals are presented. Chapter 11 argues that the adult literacy education system in California is a marginalized system by virture of the low levels of funding it receives, the large use of a part-time cadre of teachers, the almost total absence of attention to the system by the media, the state Legislature and the Governor, and in part on incorrect cultural beliefs about the development of human intellectual abilities. Rebuttals are offered to news stories in the New York Times, Washington post, Washington Times and the San Diego Union about the low intellectual abilities of disadvantaged youth and adults. The report concludes with data showing that investments in the education of adults can improve the educability of children and produce other multiplier effects that bring large returns on investments. For these and other reasons the adult literacy education system should change from being marginalized to being centralized in our efforts to accomplish all eight of the national education goals. This is an educational system that few outside the system know about or care about. The media, Legislature, Governor and public at large need to care more about this statewide system that spends almost half a billion dollars a year of taxpayers' money. For copies of the 114+ page report send a check for $20.00 made out to "The ABC'S" and addressed to The ABC'S, 2062 Valley View Blvd., El Cajon, CA 92019-2059. Please distribute this message to interested colleagues!
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