Adult
Literacy Public Policy Organizing
in Massachusetts:
A Participant's Reflections
David
J. Rosen, Ed.D.
Boston, MA
Updated January 24, 1999
In
the Beginning, No One Knew Anyone
In the early 1980's, a small group of adult literacy and out-of-school youth
program practitioners created an informal, urban coalition 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, arranged for professional development sessions for ourselves,
and began to try to address some of the persistent and unsolved problems in
the field such as: our lack of knowledge about what other programs were doing,
our need for more training, inadequate funding for our programs, 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 Each Other A Little Better We Also Got Better Organized
In the mid 1980's three Boston area practitioners called a meeting to suggest organizing a Literacy Day to bring public attention to adult literacy issues. The ambitious group that showed up decided what was needed instead was an adult literacy organization. Thus was born, in 1987, the Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Literacy (MCAL). Originally an entirely volunteer organization, it 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 Co-ordinator. 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 state resources for Literacy/ABE/ESOL programs. We accomplished this work through several committees. One of these, the Legislative Committee, later known as the Public Policy Committee, sponsored legislative briefing days, and established a telephone network through which we could reach programs quickly with critical information concerning 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 through volunteer efforts. The Public Policy Committee persevered although it became more difficult without any staff assistance. The statewide hotline service also survived, but under the sponsorship of 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. 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:
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. Using this information, and its regularly updated list of members, the MCAE Public Policy Committee has organized a telephone tree, which is updated regularly, and which is used to reach practitioners across the state. MCAE members also use fax machines, and e-mail.
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 U.S. 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 he or she could not read or write and needed help, or someone who was helped to read or write by a literacy program. These are often people whom the politicians know, or who are in jobs where their literacy was taken for granted. 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 early in the year, 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 getting the first statutory language recognizing the legitimacy of adult basic education. In some years we have succeeded in getting line item 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, this year by $7 million.
We Helped to Create a High-powered Adult Education Committee to Look at the Need, Demand, and Supply of Services
Four 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 the state legislature, a five-year, $35,000,000 increase to meet the current demand. We are now well on our way toward the achievement of this goal, having so far achieved 70% of this in four years. (If Acting Governor Cellucci had not vetoed the Legislature's vote for $14 million for FY '99 we would have been ahead of our timetable.)
We also Link with National Efforts
The Public Policy Committee has shown interest in national adult literacy issues and has been exploring how we might contribute to having an impact at this level. Creation of the new Workforce Investment Act, so far unsuccessful efforts to include adult literacy programs in the technology section of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and concern about proposed national efforts to consolidate literacy in employment and training agendas, have drawn our state organization into the national arena.
Some members of the Public Policy Committee have joined an electronic list of nearly 700 people across the country who are interested in literacy policy. The National Literacy Advocacy (NLA) list*, we feel, 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, will grow a strong national movement of adult literacy public policy advocates, a movement made up of strong local and state coalitions.
David J. Rosen is an MCAE Board Member and member of the MCAE Public Policy Committee. He is the NLA List Moderator, and is Director of the Adult Literacy Resource Institute in Boston, MA. He can be reached at (617) 782-8956 (voice); 617/782-9011 (fax) and at DJRosen@world.std.com .
* One can subscribe (free) to the NLA electronic list by sending an email message to: majordomo@world.std.com. Skip the message header and in the body of the message, type (only): subscribe nla
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