To John and All:  I had participated in the Persistence Study Circle that was
held in Massachusetts this spring and the description of the five pathways
rang so true when we thought of our students and has changed the way we think
about our students and the systems with which we address their needs.  We are
changing the role of our counselor beginning in September so that she will
spend far more time with each incoming student prior to entering class and
will conduct interviews, learning style inventories, discuss barriers and
barrier removal, and lay the ground work for goal setting which will then be
completed by the classroom teacher.  She will help students develop a plan if
they are not ready to enter classes yet and will stay in touch with those
students who do not enter immediately or "stop out" within the first 3 weeks. 
After a student has completed a 3 week (21 hour) orientation class and has
been enrolled in a class, it will then become the teacher's responsibility to
follow through and report back as to the status of a student.  We also
immediately began thinking about our mandated students very differently.  I
actually consider most immediate high school drop outs as mandated students
because I am pretty sure someone else is insisting that they get their GED at
once.  Of course, the court and agency mandated student falls clearly into
this category.  Our approach to these young students is far more parental
while still using youth development techniques and showing these students an
adult respect and level of expectation.  We're hoping that our awareness of
these pathways and our systems changes will settle the population from the
beginning and will be placing our most serious students in class.

------ Original Message ------
Received: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 05:50:14 PM EDT
From: John Comings <comingjo at gse.harvard.edu>
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 126] Re: Persistence Discussion questions


> In the final report of the second phase of our study, we developed a 

> typology of "persistence pathways". We chose to describe these as pathways 

> rather than as types of students because we saw evidence that people moved 

> from one type to the other over the course of their lives.

> 

> One pathway was "try-out". People on this pathway were motivated to learn 

> (demonstrated by showing up to enroll in a program) but had too many 

> barriers to persistence and were destined to drop out early. We suggested 

> that a good approach for people on this pathway was for programs to counsel



> them out of joining a class (why should they experience another failure in 

> education?)but help them develop a plan to both do some self-study 

> (possibly coming in to the program to talk with a tutor once a month) and 

> develop a plan that would lead them into a class after they had addressed 

> the barriers to persistence in their life.

> 

> However, this positive "outcome" is not listed on the NRS. This is one of 

> the new forms of success our programs should help students achieve (in fact



> some programs do this informally) and should be able to report on the NRS.

> 

> --On Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:10 PM -0400 MWPotts2001 at aol.com wrote:

> 

> >

> >

> > In a message dated 7/11/2006 11:23:12 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

> > comingjo at gse.harvard.edu writes:

> >

> > As far as persistence is concerned, what other context or personal

> > factors

> > do people think might be important? That is, that the impact of supports

> > to

> > persistence might be affected by these factors.

> >

> >

> >

> > John and All,

> >

> > You have hit here on my question: What is the difference between program

> > supports to persistence and the nature of student persistence? I see them

> > as two different things, and most of the posts have been dealt with

> > supports.  If we can identify the nature of persistence, we might be able

> > to recruit to the point.  This may not be a popular stance, but given the

> > drop out rate and even the stop out rate, perhaps we should give it a

> > try.

> >

> > Meta Potts

> > FOCUS on Literacy

> > Glen Allen, Virginia

> 

> 

> 

> John Comings, Director

> National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy

> Harvard Graduate School of Education

> 7 Appian Way

> Cambridge MA 02138

> (617) 496-0516, voice

> (617) 495-4811, fax

> (617) 335-9839, mobile

> john_comings at harvard.edu

> http://ncsall.gse.harvard.edu

> 

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