State, Regional and Urban Organizations which advocate for
adult literacy/basic education and ESL/ESOL
National Public Policy Information and/or Advocacy Efforts
Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy
http://www.caalusa.org/
Includes three useful tools for advocacy: Leading from the Middle, Making the Case, and Adult Literacy and the American Dream
National
Institute for Literacy LINCS Public Policy pages
http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/policy/policy.html
The Advocacy Page (on the Literacy Resources/Rhode Island Web page)
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Swearer_Center/Literacy_Resources/advocate.html
LR/RI's Director, Janet Isserlis, has put together documents and links to adult education public policy and advocacy nationally, in Rhode Island and elsewhere.VALUE -- Voice for Adult Literacy United for Education
http://www.valueusa.org/
VALUE is a national adult learner organization which supports adult learner leadership. VALUE's mission is to expand the role of adult learners in adult literacy efforts in the United States. Two of the ways that Value's board has identified that adult learners can serve as leaders in U.S. literacy efforts are:
- Resource development (by educating policy makers, other funders, and the public about the need to invest in adult education) and
- Reforming education by getting involved in their adult education programs (on boards and advisory committees) and in their local schools (on their PTAs, etc.)
Family Literacy Advocacy
National Center for Family Literacy - Take Action
http://www.famlit.org/c.gtJWJdMQIsE/b.1286941/k.8E9E/Take_Action/siteapps/advocacy/ActionCenter.aspx
or
http://tinyurl.com/2uhnd4
Massachusetts Advocacy
Massachusetts Public Policy Advocacy Organizing
Massachusetts practitioners and adult learners have been systematically working at adult literacy public policy advocacy since the mid-1980's. At first progress was slow. Now the results are impressive.In for the Long Haul (select publications, then
Adult Literacy Advocacy: In for the Long Haul)
Massachusetts: A Case Study of Improvement and Growth of Adult Education Services
"John Comings and Lisa Soricone present a case study of the adult literacy system in Massachusetts, a system that has undergone significant reform and benefited from considerable increases in state funding over the past 20 years." Adult Learning and Literacy, Volume 5 (2005) Chapter Four
Massachusetts Postcard Campaign
Read about a strategy which helped Massachusetts adult learners let their legislators know about long waiting lists for services, a strategy which -- with other actions -- helped Massachusetts increase its state education budget line item for adult basic education by 700% in five years.
The Civic Center on E-Square -- Public Policy Advocacy by Adult LearnersPennsylvania Advocacy
http://www.alri.org/esquare/civic/meet.htm
This includes a Virtual Visit to the Massachusetts State House, information about the legislative process in Massachusetts, information for immigrants, and a how adult learners and practitioners should prepare when talking with legislators.
Stand Up and Be Counted -- the Legislative Action Kit for the Pennsylvania Association for Adult Continuing Education (PAACE)
http://paacesite.org/web-content/PDFs/paace3.pdf
Rhode Island Advocacy
R. I. Adult Education Bill of Rights (posting to NLA E-list)Copy of the Adult Education Bill of Rights Act
The Massachusetts Postcard CampaignDavid J. Rosen, Director
Adult Literacy Resource Institute
Boston, MA
October, 1999Below is a description of a postcard campaign which literacy advocates and adult basic education programs in Massachusetts have used to call state legislators' attention to long waiting lists for ESOL and ABE services. This has been one of several strategies which, taken together, have resulted in the state line item for adult basic education increasing by 700% in five years.
Programs Overcome Reluctance to Keep Waiting Lists
The campaign begins with program waiting lists. Some practitioners may not want to keep a waiting list. They try to serve every student who applies immediately, even if this means crowded classes led by unprepared teachers which results in high dropout rates. They also may not want to spend the time needed to keep accurate and up-to-date waiting lists. Some colleagues must learn that while it may be painful in the short run to put students on a waiting list, with the increased resources resulting from the demonstrated demand, they can offer higher quality services to even more students. With waiting lists and other strategies we have increased the expenditure in Massachusetts from $44 per student per year in the early 1980's to nearly $2,000 per student per year now. With these resources we can provide higher quality : higher instructional intensity, better prepared teachers, universally accessible facilities with regular access to state-of-the-art technology, serious curriculum and staff development which meet high standards, and ultimately better outcomes for students.
Student Applicants fill out Postcards
When a student comes to a program and is told about the waiting list s/he is also handed a postcard, which s/he can choose to fill out, with reading and writing assistance, if needed. A postcard might look like this:
Dear (the student writes in the name of her/his legislator),
My name is ( ). I live at ( ). I have recently visited the ( )
program where I have been put on a ( ) -month waiting list to begin
(English, basic literacy, GED) classes. I would like to begin classes
right away. I hope you can help by providing the funds this program
needs to offer classes for me and others on the waiting list.
[This is a message posted to the National Literacy Advocacy Electronic List in September, 1999]
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 19:29:57 PDT
From: Sally Gabb <sgabb412@hotmail.com>
To: nla@world.std.com
Subject: NLA Info: Adult Learner Bill of Rights
At the recent Advocacy for Adult Education meeting hosted by the New
England Literacy Resource Center, Mary Parella, RI State Senator, described
the Rhode Island Adult Education Bill of Rights. Adult Educators from the
region who were present suggested announcing this landmark legislation to
the NLA list.The passage of the Adult Learner Bill of Rights has exciting if challenging
implications, providing a basis for advocacy to expand support for adult
education programs in our state. We believe it is the first of its kind in
the country, and encourage other states to follow suit. Read about the
Bill of Rights on the Literacy Resources Rhode Island web page:http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Swearer_Center/Literacy_Resources/advocate.html
Our Bill of Rights is a step towards free public lifelong learning. As a
piece of policy legislation, the Bill of Rights declares that all adults who
have not gained basic skills & literacy by the usual secondary graduation
age are entitled to adult education services which will meet their needs. In
our adult ed classes this year, many Rhode Island adult educators are
using the Bill as a key example of US democratic process at its best. At
The Genesis Center, where I am employed, we plan to use the Bill to study
civic participation towards social justice. This lesson brings democratic
process home to all our learners.We urge you to look up the Bill of Rights and respond!
Sally Gabb
NELRC Board Member/ Rhode Island
Adult Literacy Public Policy Organizing in Massachusetts: A Participant's Reflections
David J. Rosen, Ed.D. Boston, MA,
Updated July 11, 2003
Below is an article I wrote five years ago describing adult literacy advocacy in Massachusetts. I have updated it and posted it here because I have been asked for more information about how the adult literacy community in Massachusetts has organized itself.
-- David J. Rosen
In the Beginning, No One Knew Anyone
In the early 1980's, a small group of adult learning and out-of- school youth program practitioners created an informal, urban collaboration known as the Boston Network for Alternative and Adult Education. Many of us worked in underfunded community-based organizations. Some had a commitment to social change. We all felt isolated.
We met regularly, spent time learning about each others' organizations and about each other. We organized professional development sessions for ourselves. We worked on persistent problems in the field such as: our lack of knowledge about what other programs were doing, our need for more training, inadequate funding, and low wages for teachers. This was one of the first attempts of Massachusetts practitioners to make some changes in the field.
As We Began to Know and Trust Each We Got Better Organized
In the mid 1980's three Boston area practitioners called a meeting to organize a Literacy Day to bring public attention to adult literacy issues. The ambitious group that showed up decided that instead we needed instead an adult literacy organization. Thus was born, in 1987, the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Literacy (MCAL). Originally run by volunteers, MCAL soon won a grant from the Gannett foundation which was then providing support to new state literacy organizations in several places across the country. The MCAL Board hired two paid staff: a Director and a full-time state Literacy Hotline Coordinator. It also firmly established its volunteer public policy committee to inform legislators about the issues, and to begin to organize the field.
MCAL's goals were to: (1) increase public awareness of adult literacy in Massachusetts; (2) facilitate the coordination of information on available Literacy/ABE/ESOL services (through the statewide hotline and publications) ; and (3) seek increased resources for Literacy/ABE/ESOL programs in Massachusetts. We accomplished this work through several committees. One of these, the Legislative Committee, later known as the Public Policy Committee, sponsored legislative briefing days. It also created a telephone tree through which we could reach programs quickly with critical information on public policy activities.
There Have Been Hard Times
In 1989, when the Gannett grant ended, the MCAL Board continued to carry on much of our organization's work entirely through volunteer efforts. The Public Policy Committee persevered even without staff assistance. The statewide hotline service also survived, sponsored by another organization, the state System for Adult Basic Education Support.
A Merger Made Two Weak Organizations into a Single Strong One
In 1991, we merged MCAL with the Massachusetts Association for Adult and Continuing Education to form a new, stronger organization, the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education (MCAE). This organization has received funding from the state Department of Education to support its professional development activities and this has strengthened and stabilized our efforts. We also have revenue from memberships and from a successful statewide annual conference. With these funds MCAE has been able to hire a director, and staff assistant.
MCAE's volunteer Public Policy Committee is well organized, and has continued and expanded many of the efforts of earlier organizations. For example, we:
o hold regular monthly meetings;
o spearhead an annual legislator "meet and greet" campaign, where adult literacy education programs invite legislators to visit their programs and talk with students, or where students, volunteers and others visit legislators' offices to inform them about adult literacy needs and present services
o hold legislative briefings
o Inform adult literacy programs about opportunities to testify at state and regional adult education hearings;
o sponsor postcard campaigns through which students who are put on long waiting lists for adult education services can inform their representatives about the need for more services;
o have collaborated with other Massachusetts organizations such as the Committee on Adult Education advising the Board of Education, and the state ABE Directors' Council, to develop new adult literacy public policy;
o led a successful effort to include language in the Massachusetts Educational Reform Act which -- for the first time -- included adult basic education as part of statutory language, and
o sponsor state-wide "Tax Teach-ins"and budget crisis workshop curricula to help students understand state tax policy, and where their tax dollars go.
Fast, Effective Communication Requires Planning In Advance
Massachusetts has over 400 adult literacy/ABE/ESOL programs. They are sponsored by community-based organizations, community colleges, volunteer organizations, public schools, corrections institutions, public libraries, companies, unions, and other organizations. Through the state Adult Literacy Hotline, MCAE has information about all of these programs. With this information, and its regularly updated list of members, the MCAE Public Policy Committee uses a telephone tree, fax list and e-mail to reach MCAE members and other practitioners across the state.
We Work Closely With Legislators
Over the past several years MCAE's volunteer Public Policy Committee members have worked with key Massachusetts legislators who have, in turn, formed a legislators' "Literacy Caucus". This group meets periodically, files and supports legislation, and attempts to influence the budget process. We have found that having this kind of leadership and organization within the legislative body is essential. Building and maintaining the interest in adult literacy among legislators is a critical function of a state literacy public policy group. The Literacy Caucus provides a way for adult literacy practitioners to keep legislators informed. It provides opportunities to strategize together to find or make opportunities for possible new resources. And it has protected adult literacy from inadvertent havoc or dismantling as a result of efforts to consolidate employment-related services or from attempted takeover by other state-level agencies. Caucus members have also provided us with important insights about our state's legislative process.
We Follow "Tip" O'Neill's Advice
But how do legislators become interested in adult literacy as an issue? Former US Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill used to say "All politics is local." We have many examples of legislators -- and former Governor Michael Dukakis, as well, who were moved by a conversation with someone who said they could not read or write and needed help, or someone who was helped to read or write by a literacy program. It is eye-opening when these are people working in positions where high literacy skills are taken for granted. Sometimes these are people whom the politicians know personally without having known about their reading and writing difficulty.
When literacy programs invite their state Representative and Senator to visit the program, and talk with students, this makes a difference. Inviting legislators to speak at graduations also has an impact. Here are a couple of examples of what working at the local level has done for us: Early on, during the Boston Network days, a group of practitioners working in one area of Boston invited three State Representatives to breakfast at a local restaurant. (The legislators paid for their own breakfasts.) These Representatives had worked together before on other issues, but only one was aware of adult literacy. After they learned about how great the need was for adult literacy services they agreed to co-sponsor an increase in the adult literacy line item. For two of these Representatives this was a basic services issue for their constituents. For the third, it was primarily a moral issue; although few of her constituents needed these services, she felt that everyone deserved the opportunity to learn to read and write.
In the late 1980's, when half the funding for the Boston Adult Literacy Initiative was lost because of cuts in Community Development Block Grant funds, one adult literacy program which would have lost funding convinced its State Senator, the powerful Senate President, to see to it that the state made up for these lost funds. To achieve this, he added a significant $2,000,000 to the statewide Department of Education line item for adult basic education.
We Create a Statewide Public Policy Agenda Each Year, but....
The MCAE Public Policy Committee forms an annual agenda -- now a detailed workplan -- each fall, often seeking advice and information from practitioners, as well as from the state Department of Education. However, this agenda is usually buffeted by the unpredictable winds of politics. One year we began with a goal of increasing funds and ended up fighting efforts to subsume all literacy services under an employment and training agenda. Another year we began with the same goal and spent the year fighting disastrous cuts in funding. One year we claimed victory because adult basic education was the only discretionary line item in the state Department of Education which wasn't cut. One year we focused on getting more funding and settled for the first statutory language recognizing the legitimacy of adult basic education. In more years than not we have succeeded in getting increases in the state budget; for FY99, for the fourth year in a row, we significantly increased the Massachusetts Department of Education line item for adult basic education by $7 million, resulting in a 700% increase in funding over a five-year period.
Nearly eight years ago, working with the Massachusetts Department of Education, and several other state agencies which support adult education, a task force which was commissioned by the legislature was asked to look at the need and supply of adult education services. The committee also chose to distinguish need (based on census data) from demand, based on waiting lists. The committee recommended to the Massachusetts Board of Education (which voted unanimously to endorse its recommendation) and to the state legislature, a five-year, $35,000,000 increase to meet the current demand. This brought about the significant increases.
In November, 2001, however, four state legislators rammed through the FY02 budget at the last possible moment with some big surprises, including a nearly 50% cut to adult basic education. This would have meant closing nearly all publicly-funded programs by February. Within hours we were able to organize a response, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with hundreds of student visits to the State House, with thousands of phone calls and letters to legislators from students and practitioners, and with over 150 articles, letters to editor, editorials, news clips on radio and TV, we succeeded in getting all but 2% back in the budget. Legislators recognized our efforts not only with restoration of funds but also by congratulating us for one of the best-organized advocacy efforts they had seen.
Although we have faced further struggles in 2002 and 2003, given that the state faced over a $3 billion annual shortfall in revenues, and many education and other important service line items were cut by 10-30% or more, state cuts to adult education were held at 1%. Also, an effort to move adult education out of the Department of Education, where it has been successful, into an uncertain future in a reorganized higher education plan, was defeated.
We also Link with Other state and National Efforts
The Public Policy Committee has shown interest in other state and national adult literacy and literacy-related issues. We are represented on the Massachusetts Workforce Alliance, a coalition of state organizations for workforce development and also an affiliate of the National Workforce Alliance. MCAE has several state allies, including the Massachusetts Worker Roundtable, which represents labor-sponsored workplace education programs. We have been active in reviewing and providing education and information on the TANF and Workforce Investment Act reauthorizations
Some members of the Public Policy Committee are subscribers to an electronic list of people across the country who are interested in adult learning and literacy policy. The National Literacy Advocacy list, now called AAACE-NLA, and sponsored by the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE.) We feel that this list is doing for adult literacy nationally what the Boston Network for Alternative and Adult Education did for us locally -- introducing us to each other, and providing a forum for discussion. Perhaps out of this, and other national organizing efforts, such as the National Coalition for Literacy, and the National Alliance for (Urban) Literacy Coalitions, will grow a strong national movement of adult literacy public policy advocates, a movement made up of strong local and state coalitions. (To subscribe to the AAACE-NLA electronic list and the NCL Update, an adult literacy public policy announcement and alert list, go to: http://aaace.org/ )
David J. Rosen is a founder of MCAE, past Board Member, and member of the MCAE Public Policy Committee. He was the NLA list moderator from 1993-2003, and the Director of the Adult Literacy Resource Institute in Boston, MA from 1986 - 2003. He can be reached at (617) 522-7020 (voice); and via email at DJRosen@theworld.com.
Page last updated 11/11/07 by David J. Rosen