Colleagues:

It should be recalled that in hard economic times it is important that
America’s businesses, industries, and other job-creating organizations be
supported in their efforts to help our nation compete in the global
economy. The federal National Workplace Literacy Program (NWLP) of the
1980s-90s was aimed not just at improving the literacy skills of America’s
workforce. Additionally, it was aimed at improving America’s
competitiveness internationally. This followed upon the 1983 report A
Nation at Risk which asserted that our nation’s competitiveness was at risk
because of the poor academic achievement of students coming through the K-12
education system. But also, the report indicated, because of widespread
functional illiteracy among adults in the workforce.

I have placed online a report I wrote for the U. S. Department of Education
on how to evaluate NWLP programs. In the report I noted that the general
purpose of the NWLP was to provide grants or cooperative agreements
involving exemplary partnerships of business, industry, or labor
organizations and educational organizations for projects designed to
improve the productivity of the workforce through the improvement of
literacy skills in the workplace (see Chapters 2 and 3 in the report on
Testing and Accountability downloadable in pdf format  at
http://www.nald.ca/Fulltext/sticht/testing/Testing.pdf)

In the report I describe the method of evaluation which I called Developing
Organizational Effectiveness through Employee Development (DOEED-pronounced
DO ED). This makes the point that adult educators need to understand that
workplace Literacy, Language, Numeracy (LLN) programs must aim not only to
improve workers skills but that they must do this in a way that also
improves the workplace in some way.

The two-way goals of improving both organizations and their workforces is
what distinguishes workPLACE literacy education from workFORCE literacy
education. The latter very often occurs as a form of what Paulo Freire
called a “banking” approach to education. That is, the skills and knowledge
of adults are improved in some general sense without any particular specific
workplaces in mind, and the person “banks” these skills and knowledge for
some future, somewhat nebulous application.

The workPLACE adult educator must focus on the specific workplaces in which
education is to take place, what functions the workplace must perform, how
these functions can be improved through the implementation of a workplace
literacy program, and how the improvements in both organizational
effectiveness and the skills and knowledge of  the employee can be
demonstrated for accountability purposes.

While I believe that general workforce development is a valuable activity,
and indeed it is funded through the Workforce Investment Act, Title 2: The
Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and other government programs,
workPLACE literacy education serves different purposes: the improvement of
the global competitiveness of our nations businesses, industries, and other
organizations that provide jobs, through the improvement of the LLN skills
and knowledge of the organization’s workforce. This purpose of the NWLP is
a national goal and should be funded by the federal government just as are
Early Head Start, Head Start, the Job Corps and other special programs of
national import. In this case, as in the past, the NWLP should also require
contributions from the workplaces that choose to participate, many of which
may have workforces that spread across various states. Further specifics of
a new NWLP can be worked out if there is sufficient interest in the adult
education field, workplaces, labor unions, and governments at local, state,
and federal levels.


Tom Sticht

Note: In his 2007 report on Upskilling for the New Zealand government which
he has referenced, David Rosen states that in a conversation with Karl
Haigler, former director of adult education, who I knew had experience as
an Army Infantry officer, Haigler believed that, among other things,  the
NWLP was stimulated by research I conducted for the US Military on
functional context learning. That research aimed at improving the
military’s ability to recruit from a larger pool of young adults,
specifically those with low levels of education and basic skills, and to
improve the literacy abilities of these young adults in both job-specific
and general literacy. That is, we aimed to develop organizational
effectiveness by improving its recruitment, training, and job performance
functions through improving the education of its employees: developing
organizational effectiveness through employee development (DOEED-pronounced
DO-ED).