adult education

PIAAC Survey Results Released

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

Results from the World Cup of Literacy were released early this morning by the OECD. Interestingly, OECD’s news release focuses on income inequality in the lede, noting that [c]ountries with greater inequality in skills proficiency also have higher income inequality.” Perhaps this will grab the attention of economists and other commentators who are concerned about growing income inequality in the U.S.

Megan Rogers, writing for Inside Higher Ed, notes that the while the U.S. comes out higher than average in terms of educational attainment, it ranks below average in basic literacy and numeracy skills. She writes that the report also found that socioeconomic background has a stronger impact on proficiency levels in the U.S. than in other countries.

Another difference: according to Rogers, the survey found that participation in adult education and training is more common in the United States than in other countries.

Nonetheless, Joanne Kantner, dean of adult education and transition programs at Kishwaukee College in Illinois tells Rogers that “this isn’t an adult education problem, a math education problem, a developmental education problem or a work place issue. The math adults need is not determined by adult education. It’s determined by the work place.” I have no idea what this means. But it’s early.

Rogers also cites at least one critic of the study: Grover Whitehurst, director at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute. Well, not a critic exactly—he just doesn’t think the results are all that much to get worked up about, pointing to the small number of participating countries and the small U.S. sample size (5,000 adults were surveyed). He acknowledges, however, that the results are consistent with previous findings on adult literacy.

Finally, Rogers quotes David S. Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges, who says that community colleges “have an essential role in redressing this situation,” but bemoans the lack of a “meaningful or effective national policy for adult education.” This goes to the point I was trying to make last night. Participation in the PIAAC study, which has been going on for several years now, presented an opportunity for the Obama administration to develop a stronger, more effective strategy for addressing adult literacy in anticipation of the release of the survey results today. The Secretary of Education is commenting on the study this morning at 10:35 during NBC’s fourth annual “Education Nation Summit.” His initial comments will tell us a lot about whether a more effective national policy for adult education is in the works. Will the Secretary present a new proposal to address adult education today, or merely use this as opportunity to restate the administration’s already existing education policy priorities?

Greetings from PIAAC-istan

/ The Old Crank / 3 Comments

I haven’t written much about PIAAC (the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies)—the latest international survey of adult basic skills—because I don’t have much to say about it, at least until the first set of survey data is released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tomorrow. (A U.S.-specific report that was due to be released by NCES tomorrow as well is apparently going to be delayed due to the government shutdown.) There is plenty of information out there about the study itself, so it really doesn’t make sense for me to try to summarize it. If you’re interested, a good place to start is the OECD PIAAC site. Another resource is the AIR PIAAC Gateway.

The last survey/estimate of adult skills in the U.S., the NAAL (National Assessment of Adult Literacy), didn’t do that much, in my opinion, to move federal adult literacy policy forward. Not that it wasn’t helpful: for better or for worse, the NAAL provided us with a commonly accepted figure for the estimated number of American adults who struggle, to some degree, with literacy (93 million)—a figure that we’ve been using for about a decade.

But there were critics of the NAAL methodology at the time, and some confusion in the field about what exactly it measured. (I think the fact sheet we put out at D.C. LEARNs about the NAAL was pretty good, but others, not so much.) In addition, some argued that the 93 million number was so huge that it proved too overwhelming for policymakers to wrap their heads around. With a few exceptions (like the Affordable Care Act), our political system hasn’t had a particularly good track record in recent years of addressing 93-million-people-sized problems. The release of the NAAL certainly didn’t persuade Congress to make a substantial new investment in adult education. In fact, 2003, the year the national NAAL data was released, marked the beginning of what has actually been a gradual decline (in real dollars) in federal adult education funding via Title II of the Workforce Investment Act, the largest source of federal funding for adult education. I’d argue that most of the public policy successes since the last survey have been on a small scale—usually at the state and local level—often involving the creation of new models of service delivery, such as integrated career pathway models.

We’ll get new national numbers from the PIAAC study—and we’ll be able to compare those numbers with other countries that participated in the study. The NAAL also gave us state estimates (eventually), which was unquestionably helpful for state and local advocates, and probably does more to get the attention of  members of Congress than the national numbers. (On domestic issues, members want to know what the issue looks like at the state or district level.) My understanding is that it is hoped that credible state estimates based on the PIAAC data will be produced at some point, but it’s not yet known whether or when that will happen. If we don’t get them, then we will be facing an unfortunate situation where advocates (and the media, surely) will continue to use the old 2003 state estimates when reporting on adult literacy locally, even thought we’ll have an updated national estimate. Which will likely result in more confusion, unless (and even if) states and localities perform their own estimates.

The government shutdown may slightly dull the excitement over the release of this data. As I mentioned above, the NCES First Look Report with specific results for the U.S. population has been delayed indefinitely. In fact, right now you can’t get any information at all from NCES—if go to http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/, you’ll see that this page, like  most federal government Web sites, is down.

Thankfully, the OECD report—which will have some U.S. data—will be released and there are several events here in the U.S. where experts will discuss the findings, starting at 5:00AM EDT (!) when the OECD will officially release the PIAAC data in Brussels, along with two international PIAAC reports: OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills  and The Survey of Adult Skills: Reader’s Companion. A highlights report, Skilled for Life?, will also be available. These reports will be downloadable at http://skills.oecd.org/skillsoutlook.html. The PIAAC Data Explorer and data files will be available at http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/publicdataandanalysis.htm. (I’m really pleased that you can access the raw data files—that should prove to be really useful.)

At 10:00AM EDT, a panel will discuss findings from PIAAC as part of the fourth annual NBC News Education Nation Summit. Panelists include Former Michigan Governor John Engler, (now President of the Business Roundtable); Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (and a cool guy); and Mary Isbister, President of GenMet Corporation and Vice Chair of the U.S. Manufacturing Council.  (NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley was also originally on the schedule, but he will not be attending, as he has been placed in cryogenic freeze due to the government shutdown, like most federal government employees.) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be interviewed.

At 2:30 PM EDT, Andreas Schleicher, OECD Deputy Director for Education and Skills, will present results from the first round of PIAAC via webcast. You can register for the webcast at: https://oecdwash.webex.com/oecdwash/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=662940785.

While the Obama administration’s response to PIAAC may be somewhat muted due to the shutdown, it will be worth watching how the findings are framed when administration folks do comment on it. Remember that they have several high-profile education priorities on the table right now—universal pre-K and a slew of higher education proposals. I suspect Secretary Duncan will want to use this opportunity to tie the PIAAC findings to these two administration priorities. What kind of message they will have about adult education and adult literacy (if any) remains to be seen.

If a Million Kids in the U.S. Need Glasses and Don’t Have Them, How Many Adult Learners Have the Same Problem?

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

According to an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, 250,000 California schoolchildren need glasses but don’t have them. As I’ve mentioned before, this is surely an even bigger problem among adult literacy and adult education students. Granted, I’ve never read anything that estimates the number of adult literacy students who likely have vision issues, but if one out of every seven public school students in L.A.—and more than a million around the country—are struggling in school because they don’t have glasses, it only stands to reason that the number of adult learners (who tend to be, on average, lower income) with the same problem is even higher. Many of them may very well be in need of adult literacy services today because they struggled with reading as children due to vision problems.

h/t @kdrum at Mother Jones

Adult Education and the Shutdown

/ The Old Crank

(Update Below)

Most everyone working in the field of adult education is already aware of this, but for those who are wondering, federal funding for adult education is generally not affected by the federal government hoedown shutdown. Workforce Investment Act (WIA) dollars—the biggest source of federal funding for adult education—are forward funded, meaning that states obtain their WIA Title II funding for the fiscal year that began today during the prior fiscal year. As a result, there shouldn’t be a major impact on adult education during the shutdown.

There are, of course, other federal programs that provide funds or support to adult education. There are AmeriCorps members, for example, who work at adult education programs. But they will not have to pack up and go home—any previously awarded CNCS grant or cooperative agreement should not be affected. (I have read at least one story suggesting that AmeriCorps members would not receive their living allowance stipends during the shutdown, but based on my experience running an AmeriCorps program, I don’t understand why this would be the case, unless the AmeriCorps project grant wasn’t due to be awarded until after September 30th.)

Another example: Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). A few adult education programs (mainly in urban areas) receive CDBG funding, and some reports (such as here and here) are suggesting  that some municipalities may experience delays in accessing these funds, even if they were already obligated for fiscal year 2014, because federal officials may not be available to approve disbursements.

I’m sure there are other examples, (let me know if I’ve missed any), but again, I think the impact on adult education—at least in the short run—is going to be pretty minimal.

Bear in mind, however, that there are several federal programs relied on by some low-income people enrolled in adult education that will be affected. The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) has just published a brief report, What a Federal Government Shutdown Could Mean to Low-Income People, that is a useful guide to those programs.

UPDATE: The National Skills Coalition has a preliminary rundown on the impact of the shutdown on certain employment and training programs. Also, as this blog post points out, this is not the best week to be doing literacy research—at least if you are looking for NAAL literacy estimates—since the NCES Web site, like most other federal government Web sites, is offline.