September 1, 2009


Three Days in September: Working, Learning, Serving

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education


September 7 is Labor Day. September 8 is International Literacy Day.
September 11 is National Day of Service and Remembrance.


This year is the 70th anniversary of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
which, while a fictional tale, was an accurate portrayal of the miserable
life of millions of people whose lives were all but destroyed in the Great
Depression.


On September 7, a day we should be celebrating our American workforce, labor
is once again hurting. Unemployment rates nationally are bordering on 10
percent (some say the actual rate is closer to 16 percent), while various
states are also seeing double-digit rates of unemployment bordering on the
levels the Great Depression. Once again, a dour economy has struck down
millions of workers, but now there is a second blow being struck by the
loss of millions of jobs which required low to moderate literacy skills.
Jobs that once provided labor with good incomes and benefits are being
permanently lost, and the new jobs are requiring higher levels of
education, literacy, and other cognitive, interpersonal, and communication
skills.


On September 8, International Literacy Day, hundreds of thousands of poorly
educated, low literate adults will seek out educational upskilling to move
off of welfare or unemployment  roles and into gainful employment to
support themselves and their families. But in a truly shameful situation,
they will face one of the weakest and most poorly funded adult education
systems in the industrialized world. The Adult Education and Literacy
System (AELS) of the United States was initiated in 1966 with the signing
of the Adult Education Act.


In the 42 years from 1966 up to 2008 annual enrollments in the AELS rose
from just over 50,000 to some 2.4 million. But per enrollment federal
funding fell in current dollars from around $360 to under $240. Even with
state funding added, spending on the AELS is under $800 per enrollee. This
is at a time when we spend some $7,900 for each Head Start child, over
$8,000 for each K-12 child, and over $20,000 for each higher education
student!  Poverty level funding for the literacy education and upskilling
of millions of American adults is not likely to raise them or their
families out of poverty.


On September 11, National Day of Service and Remembrance, we remember the
tragedies of the terrorist attacks of that sad, sad day in 2001. But we
also vow to serve those Americans who are in continuous terror from their
daily lives who suffer from the 3-Ds-Dread, Dependency, and
Debilitation-made famous during the Korean War as the means by which many
American soldiers were broken in mind and spirit and turned into informants
and propagandists for the Communists. While there are many ways to serve our
Nation, the needs of millions of American adults for education and literacy
provides an exemplary way to volunteer our services to help drive out the
3-Ds in peoples lives.


At the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) (www.nifl.gov) you can find
information about literacy services across our Nation. By volunteering your
service, you can help our labor needs (9/7), our literacy needs(9/8), and
provide service to help the lives of those who are still with us and living
in terror each and every day, while remembering the thousands who lost their
lives to terrorists eight years ago on 9/11 of 2001.


Tom Sticht
tsticht at aznet.net