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 h3MHg0U15378; Tue, 22 Apr 2003 13:42:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 13:42:00 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <D74DDBFF74F65945B233D80D11E52C09616C4F@cccmail> 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: "Virginia Tardaewether" <tarv@chemeketa.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1530] RE: Family Literacy Legislation and an 'ideal' solution X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 4887 Lines: 100 I agree with Sylvan Adult literacy effects the entire family Parents and children learning together works and makes lots of financial sense. I haven't noticed that adult literacy has increased just because some legislation was changed. I still the same types of folks struggling to make ends meet, starting over at one job after another, every 6 months or so, because they have to work and they have skills too low to advance in the workplace. I would like the legislators, leadership to attempt to live on minimum wages with a family, or even alone. We also have employers who lay-off folks as soon as they qualify for benefits (usually at that 6 month mark).It is a difficult set of cycles to deal with. Even though we know that increased literacy decreased crime rates, we cut prison learning programs. Putting all our money in children's ed to me means that the people making the decisions have lost touch with the reality of 25-33% of this country's population. Since that is the population that I work with, it is disconcerting to say the least. Va -----Original Message----- From: Sylvan Rainwater [mailto:sylvan@cccchs.org] Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 10:27 To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1529] RE: Family Literacy Legislation and an 'ideal' solution -----Original Message----- From: nifl-family@nifl.gov [mailto:nifl-family@nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Tricia Margolis Sent: Monday, April 21, 2003 1:53 PM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1522] Family Literacy Legislation and an 'ideal' solution Hi everyone, I must admit I have never sent a question to a listserv before:) <SNIP> The other part deals with drafting legislation (in an ideal world) to resolve the issues of Family Literacy, what would the ideal Family Literacy legislation look like (besides having a lot of 0's in the budget:)). Any suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated. Tricia Hi, Tricia, what an interesting question! Especially the part about the "issues" in Family Literacy. I think there are several. One current issue involves Adult Education and how it is being de-emphasized to the point of invisibility. As an adult educator, I find this distressing, even as I scramble to change my language to stress that what we are doing is for the purpose of child literacy because that's the current politically correct line. Of course, what we do *does* enhance child literacy, so it's not a stretch at all, but my point is that the *emphasis* for adult education in a family literacy program now has to be what's good for the child rather than what's good for the adult. What we know is that they are reciprocal and intertwined. Connected with that is the issue of cost. So often we are judged on our "cost per child," and our program is noted to be serving 26 families, for example, or sometimes 32 children, and rarely are the parents even counted. When I add up the total number of students, adult and child, we are serving more like 57 students, plus a few more family members in peripheral ways (parent scholarships for college ESL classes, occasional attendance at our classes, home visits that involve older children or even other adults in the home, etc.). The program is expensive, and the benefits and potential benefits for the future are hard to quantify, but I believe they represent an incredible return on investment. I suppose a wider issue, affecting all of education, is the whole business of the divisions among age groups, disciplines, private/public, etc. Pre-K, K-12, adult education, and "higher" education in colleges and universities are largely separate. There are some overlaps and attempts to bridge the gaps, but our system is still very piecemeal. So far, attempts to unify things have led to a watering down of strengths, or the subsuming of one within another instead of bring the values of both together, like the current push to move Head Start to the Department of Education in order to streamline things. What's lost in that move is the whole system of social services, that are also being attacked elsewhere in the economy and the system. This will have long-lasting effects on the country as a whole. More specifically, it's very difficult to teach English, parenting, or anything else, to parents who don't know how they are going to feed their kids or where they will be living next month, or whether their husband will beat them up that night. So, I would say that some way of delivering social services, preferably in the context of home visits so that such services can be individualized, needs to be in there as well. Well, that's what comes up for me off the top of my head. What other issues do others think would need to be addressed? Sylvan Rainwater . mailto:sylvan@cccchs.org Family Literacy Coordinator Clackamas County Children's Commission/Head Start Oregon City, Oregon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Mar 11 2004 - 12:16:46 EST