May 29, 2005
ABC's of Investing in Adult Literacy Education
Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
A - An investment in adult literacy education usually produces "double
duty dollars," meaning a dollar spent for adult literacy education
usually produces many dollars of returns on investment in improved
productivity at work, at home, in the schools and in the community.
B - Better educated parents tend to produce better educated children.
C - Childhood education and adulthood education are part of the "life
cycles" of education; adults' education produces an intergenerational
transfer of language and literacy to their children.
D - Developing integrated basic skills and workplace skills programs is
a cost-effective way to increase higher paying job prospects in
welfare-to- work programs.
E - Educating adult literacy students has been found to improve self-esteem,
motivation to learn, and overall mental health; thus cost- effectively
providing health outcomes along with literacy.
F - Federal funding for adult literacy education does not exceed $220
per student while funding for Head Start exceeds $6,000 per student,
K-12 exceeds $6500 per student and higher education exceeds $16,000 per student.
This is unfair and unjust.
G - Globalization of work means that America's workforce will need to
compete with workforces around the world, and adult workplace literacy
programs can help workers acquire new levels of skills as new demands
arise.
H - Health literacy programs can produce increases in adults' understanding of medical problems before they become critical and
contribute to medical cost-savings.
I - Intergenerational transfer from parents to their children of
motivation for learning has been found to occur when adults are
involved in literacy programs.
J - Just-in-time basic skills education in workplaces has helped adults
retain and advance in jobs that would have been lost to foreign
competition.
K - Knowledge development is as important as skill development, and
faster to achieve, in adult literacy programs that focus on helping
adults meet daily demands for reading, writing, and mathematics in functional
contexts.
L - Literacy education in adulthood has been found to be an important
contributor to the success of pre-school programs of literacy
development in early childhood.
M - Military services have valued adult literacy education since
General George Washington ordered chaplains at Valley Forge to convert
an old hospital into a classroom and use it to teach the ABC's to
illiterate soldiers.
N - Navy research near the turn of the 21st century found that each
dollar invested in academic (basic) skills training returned $14-$22
dollars in recruitment and training savings.
O - Organizational effectiveness in the areas of recruitment, training,
job placement, job promotion, and job productivity has been found in
cases where workplace literacy programs have been initiated.
P - Promoting the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the
United States ought to be a major undertaking for communications media,
business and industry, and educators at all levels because of the many
benefits that this system provides.
Q - Quantitative and qualitative data from research across the last
century show that adults can be learn to read, write, compute, and
develop functionally relevant knowledge and that this knowledge and
skill has contributed to the growth of democracy in our nation.
R - Renewed commitment to adult literacy education by our federal and
state policymakers will return itself in greater national achievements
in the education of children and the increased global competitiveness
of the American workforce.
S - Social inclusion with increased social justice requires that
investments in adult literacy education be increased from present
poverty levels to levels comparable to the other components of our
national education system.
T - Training programs that help under-educated adults move more quickly
from poverty or working poor into well paying jobs are possible using
cost- effective, functional context designs in which basic skills and
job skills education are integrated together into coherent, supportive,
developmental programs.
U - Under-educated adults without high school degrees in the United
States number in the tens of millions and are presently under-served by
a grossly under-funded and marginalized education system. Policymakers
need to provide funds to move this educational system from the margins
to the mainstream of education.
V - Volunteers have served adults in need of literacy training ever
since our nation's beginnings and they continue to serve today. But the
services of hundreds of thousands of volunteers need to be reinforced
by even greater numbers of full time, paid teachers if the United
States is to fully meet the needs for lifelong learning and transfer
across life cycles in this more complex age.
W - Women's literacy education is of special importance because
research shows that better educated women have fewer children, get
better pre-natal and post-natal care, have more full-term babies, send
children to school better prepared to learn, and produce greater
numbers of secondary school and college graduates.
X - Xenophobia, i.e., fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners, is
being fought every day in the Adult Literacy and Education System of
the United States by tens of thousands of teachers in programs for both
native born and immigrant adults. Better educated adults are less
fearful and more accepting of others and this is conducive to better
community safety and harmony.
Y - Young adults who are positioned to become parents and who are
school dropouts or just poorly educated in the basic skills can receive
literacy education and thereby improve not only their own life chances
but those of their children when they arrive. Adult literacy education
is a form of early childhood education that starts even before children are conceived.
Z - Zest and Zeal for life, greater health, wealth, social inclusion,
social justice, family devotion, greater concern for and caring for
the diversity of humanity and a greater chance for success in the
pursuit of happiness. All these are the realities as well as the
intangibles resulting from adult literacy education.
SUPPORT THE ADULT EDUCATION AND LITERACY SYSTEM TODAY!
Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht@aznet.net |
