Thank you for this chance to talk and think about my research. I think I'll 
end my participation by touching on the issue of student responsibility. 
Responsibility is a two way street.  I do think our students need to make 
every effort to meet the schedule they have agree to, and when life 
intervenes to upset that schedule to contact the program and change the 
schedule.

However, we should be looking at our schedule of services to see if we are 
providing a schedule that functions under a "catch 22", a rule that makes 
responsibility difficult or even impossible. We can't expect our students 
to stay engaged with our programs unless our programs are committed to 
staying engaged with them. That means providing them with services on a 
schedule that, when they are being responsible, they can actually keep.

I don't think we have good models for this, but I do think there are all 
the bits and pieces scattered around the country and the minds of 
researchers and practitioners.

Unfortunately, our funding mechanisms and accountability systems are not 
open to the kind of experimentation that might lead to a better approach to 
providing services. A good next step would be for someone, OVAE, IES, NIFL, 
a state or group of states, or a foundation to fund an experiment that set 
up some programs that function under a new model for services and tested it 
against the existing model.

Right not, when we make changes, such as managed enrolment, we don't know 
if we are helping student persist or weeding out those students who face 
barriers to persistence. The K-12 system has good persistence because 
children are forced to attend up to the age of 16, or in some cases 18. 
That system doesn't have to provide supports to persistence. We have to do 
something that helps our students persist.

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