Children’s Literacy

MA Secretary of Education: Return on Investment for Adult Literacy “Huge”

/ The Old Crank

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Secretary Paul Reville, in a blog post from last week:

We know that parents and families are a student’s primary teacher and play an indispensible role in the development of children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. Programs like this one equip families with the skills they need to help children succeed in school and go beyond that to increase adults’ competitiveness in the job market so they can earn a living and support their family.  The return on investment here is huge, yet there are over 450 families still on the waiting list for this program alone because of a lack of resources for Adult Basic Education.

I cannot emphasize enough the enormous difference that effective adult education programs can make in the lives of families.  I felt it in the emotion of the parent testimonies that day and saw tangible results of this program in doors now opened to adults and families through it.  There are currently an estimated 1.1 million adults in Massachusetts in need of Adult Basic Education Services and less than 5% of that population is having those needs met.  We can and should do better. (my emphasis)

It’s encouraging that an education official at this level is arguing for adult education’s return on investment so forcefully. It’s also refreshing—and from a policy perspective, I think this is ultimately going to prove to be more effective—that he views adult education as an investment in families and communities, and not just “workers.” I think this puts job skills, as an outcome of adult education, in the proper context, as one of several outcomes of adult education that work together to strengthen families and the communities they live in.

One other really critical point: Reville’s post was inspired after a visit to a family literacy program in Chelsea, Mass. This is why it’s really important to invite public officials to visit programs so that they can see the impact for themselves. I’d like to believe that every cabinet-level state education official makes a visit to an adult or family literacy program at least once a year. If that’s not the case, it’s something we need to work on.

Read his entire post here. It’s really excellent.

h/t @WorldEdUS

Great Question

/ The Old Crank

Thomas Abraham, writing for The New York Times, asks:

[Why are] global health programs… fragmented along disease-specific lines, rather than addressing multiple diseases and helping to strengthen basic health services. The same children who need to be vaccinated against polio also need to be reached by other immunization programs, receive bed nets from the malaria program, and benefit from nutrition and safe-water initiatives.

While donors have often pledged to work together to integrate disease initiatives, the way global health programs are structured makes integration, or even cooperation, difficult.

Most aid and donor funding is earmarked for specific health issues; the campaigns in turn are required to meet specific targets related to the diseases for which they have received money.

Thus the malaria program has no real interest in helping polio immunization, since this is not what its funding is for. The polio program similarly has no stake in helping measles immunization, which it would see as a distraction from its primary aim of eradicating polio.

Could the same be said about literacy here in the U.S.? There are a lot of different programs working to improve literacy in this country, but these programs are also fragmented—in this case, along age-specific or need-specific lines. Some programs are focused on getting books to kids, while others provide tutors for adults, and others concentrate on showing parents how to enhance the development of their children’s early literacy skills—to cite three examples.

Further, I’d argue that these efforts are not structured in a way that makes integration between them easy. Efforts to improve children’s literacy don’t usually coordinate with programs for adults, groups that work to get books to kids don’t necessarily connect with efforts to engage parents, and groups that work to engage parents don’t necessarily work with adult literacy groups. And so on. Even within adult education, community-based organizations are sometimes working separately from institutional programs at community colleges or public schools. We’re often competing for the same dollars, too, and often from the same funders.

If I were to design, from scratch, a community-based model to improve literacy skills, I’d provide incentives for all of these groups to not only coordinate, but to organize that collective effort around the specific needs of community members.

via The NYTimes.com.

Parents and Family Literacy

/ The Old Crank

When a state or community literacy initiative promises to “promote literacy at home” or “engage parents.” I always look to see whether there is any discussion of the literacy level of the parents of the children that the initiative is targeting. If not, it’s a pretty safe bet that little-to-no resources are going to be invested in helping any of those parents or caregivers with low literacy skills become better readers themselves.

November is National Family Literacy Month, and I gather, from what I’ve been reading, that the term “family literacy” is sometimes used in this context to embrace a broad range of family based reading activities—most often initiatives that promote reading at home. It’s worth noting, however, that targeted literacy instruction for parents—as well as children—is what has historically distinguished a “true” family literacy program from other literacy initiatives. I know that there are those in the family literacy field who don’t believe that the components of a family literacy program need to be as rigidly defined as the Even Start program, but (I think) everyone does still agree that, at a minimum, a family literacy program should include literacy instruction for adults as well as children.

This isn’t just a semantic issue: funding for true, multi-generational family literacy programs has been dwindling in recent years (the federal investment in Even Start family literacy has been completely eliminated, in fact), and blurring the distinction between true family literacy programs and general literacy promotion could end up masking over the fact that support for family literacy is on the decline.

From a policy perspective, given what we know about the critical role that providing adult literacy education to parents likely plays in improving the academic achievement of children from low-income families, retaining this distinction makes sense. If adult and family literacy advocates don’t make that distinction, there’s no reason to expect that policymakers will. In many communities and in many households, a program that does no more than simply acknowledge a parent’s role in a child’s literacy development is probably not going to be enough.

Too Soon?

/ The Old Crank

I was surprised—as I was after Katrina—to receive an e-mail from a certain very large nonprofit asking for donations to help “restock school and home libraries” so soon after Hurricane Sandy’s wake. I think I would have waited another week or two before sending it out. Kids need books for sure, but many storm victims are still facing immediate, life-threatening situations. If a charity’s Sandy-related pitch doesn’t seem to be related to the most urgent relief efforts underway right now, there is a danger that some potential donors will view it as exploitive.

Related:

The Atlantic posted a powerful photo gallery of the storm’s aftermath.

How to Help:

The Village Voice has a good list (look about half way down, under the heading, “DONATE + VOLUNTEER”), as does Time Out.