Tag Archives: adult education

A Collaborative Vision for Serving Adult Learners

May 24, 2013, 10:45 am • Posted by Maxine Einhorn
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Photo by Tom Jung, San Mateo Adult School

Round table discussion report from CATESOL Northern Regional Conference.

The 2013 Northern Regional CATESOL Conference on Saturday May 4th gave us a wonderful opportunity to bring together a panel of ESL educators from community colleges and adult schools to talk about A Collaborative Vision for Serving Adult Learners. It was a chance to share ways of thinking about the two systems, how they differ, what they share and how they both strive to serve adult learners through the different historic filters that have shaped them.

The session was moderated by KQED Education and the panel brought considerable experience and expertise from both sectors to the table. Dr Bob Harper, Director of Campbell Adult School and Kristen Pursley, Lead Teacher from West Contra Costa Adult Education, presented their vision for adult education and Greg Keech, elected Chair of ESL at CCSF and Sonja Franeta, former Chair of ESL at Laney College, spoke to issues confronting noncredit ESL provision in community colleges. Both sectors addressed ways to work together towards a fair and equitable system that meets the needs of non native speakers in Northern Californian communities.

Greg Keech laid out the context for this discussion in his post on KQED ESL Insights blog - What is Noncredit? “What is known as "adult education" in the K-12 system is generally known as noncredit in Community Colleges. In the ESL realm, there have been two separate entities delivering instruction: some districts have adult ESL classes under their local K-12 district, while credit instruction is provided by the community college; in other areas, the community college district provides both credit and noncredit ESL, though not always under the same roof.” Our panelists offered examples of the differing systems - City College of San Francisco provides both credit and noncredit ESL classes, whereas Laney College offers only credit ESL courses.

The discussion was further set against the backdrop of Governor Brown's recent proposal to move adult education into the community college sphere, which was unanimously rejected on March 19th by the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. However the subcommittee voted to approve it "without prejudice," which means they did not disagree with the principle. As such the idea is likely to come back in the May budget revise.

To summarize the points discussed:

  • Both systems are based on principles of social justice.
  • The community college system is more driven by standards and outcomes that frame their work.
  • Colleges privilege credit courses in terms of funding, with more funding allocated to courses where students matriculate. Many ESL students do not seek to go to college but look for other outcomes that may be vocational. Their right to language provision should be protected, as should the rights of seniors to attend lifelong learning classes, and classes for adults with disabilities. CCSF also offers non-credit Parent Education classes – all of this provision could be under threat if the Governor’s plan goes though.
  • Both sectors stressed the importance of open access, fluidity in terms of access and achievement, with clearly delineated pathways for students to navigate systems whether in terms of progression or reentry.
  • Participants in the session talked about the importance of solidarity between sectors in terms of defending provision. Adult schools are clearly in a more vulnerable position and face considerable uncertainties in terms of jobs and program survival if they are absorbed into the community college system.

To understand the impact on adult education under K-12 in California, please visit http://a4cas.blogspot.com/2013/03/weekly-update-33113.html.

It was agreed that setting up a working group between adult education and noncredit ESL sectors would be a positive way forward to collaborate on issues discussed. Participants from the group signed up to stay involved.

Resources

For KQED ESL Educator resources, visit www.kqed.org/esl

Edsource 5/14/2013 - Governor tries to fix adult ed plan, but controversy remains

Filed under: ESL Insights, Post-Secondary ESL
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Our Learners' Voices

May 14, 2013, 9:12 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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SV ALLIES Initiative ESL students

SV ALLIES Initiative ESL students

by Usha Narayanan

The video footage below was taken at Campbell Adult and Community Education (CUHSD) in Campbell, California and highlights the experience of adult English as a Second Language learners.  The video was made possible by the ALLIES initiative.  This initiative in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is engaged in forming a multi-sector alliance that brings adult education schools, community colleges, non-profit agencies, businesses, Workforce Investment Boards etc. to support better integration of immigrants and enhance their contribution to the economy through education and training.

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What is Noncredit?

May 1, 2013, 7:00 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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City College of San Francisco ESL class

City College of San Francisco ESL class

Two part series by Gregory Keech

Part 2

The Pedagogy and Funding of Noncredit

The pedagogy of noncredit is quite different from credit. Because students' attendance may be intermittent, teaching requires lot of repetition and "spiraling up," which can be described as repetition with a slight refocus or increase in difficulty each time a teaching point is covered. In ESL, repetition is not a problem - in fact it's a benefit. Language acquisition must involve repetition, and lots of it. All learning, to be clear, involves repetition, but noncredit builds the concept in. Students are not expected to acquire knowledge after one presentation and then reproduce it on a test. How many times would it take you to learn the correct endings of a Spanish verb? Voy, vas, va, vamos, vais, van. Got that? Or would you need to practice it many times in order to add it to your store of knowledge and experience?

Noncredit instruction fits in nicely with what Diane Larsen-Freeman calls Language as a Dynamic System. The adult human brain is not a vessel to be filled with knowledge; it is a living, changing organism which constantly adjusts and readjusts to new experiences and information (well, maybe not in current American politics, but certainly in language acquisition). Another way of describing it is that language learning is not linear. We are trapped into thinking of learning as linear by the time-focused framing of our traditional educational format, which we know as credit in community colleges and elsewhere. But in fact learning happens fitfully, in leaps and bounds, with fallow periods and moments of revelation (Oh, that's how to conjugate that verb!).

Noncredit lends itself to this non-linear reality in learning by allowing students to sip at the cup of knowledge at their own rate. And now that I've used that metaphor, I hasten to add that they are also acquiring experience and "tools" if you will, which they then incorporate into their own dynamic system. Measurements of this type of complex, highly personal and individual progress baffle folks charged with making education "accountable." How do you measure the student who leaves at Literacy and comes back at Level 3? Credit the school for giving him those tools. But not so fast.

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What’s Happening to Adult Education?

March 7, 2013, 12:05 pm • Posted by Maxine Einhorn
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photo by Lillian R. Mongeau/Oakland North

photo by Lillian R. Mongeau/Oakland North

In his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2013-2014, Governor Jerry Brown announced that California is no longer facing a budget deficit. In relation to funding education, his budget increases state funding per student in K-12 schools to $2,700 by 2016-2017. For K-12 and community colleges, funding is projected to increase by $2.7 billion next year and $19 billion by 2016-2017.

What of adult education? The plan recognizes that K-12 school districts and community colleges are authorized to provide adult education instruction, but highlights a lack of coordination between the two systems in terms of serving adult learners. The contention is that the system is currently inefficient and unaccountable. The Governor’s plan proposes $300 million in new Proposition 98 General Fund revenues to fund a comparable K-12 adult education service delivery system within the community college system.

This plan would fund core instructional areas such as vocational education, ESL, adult basic and secondary education, and citizenship. Courses outside of these areas would require students to pay in full. Adult education would be relocated within the community college system.

The Governor’s budget recognizes the importance of adult education and that it must be funded. The issue is where and how it is to be delivered.

The adult and community college level groups of CATESOL are engaged in discussions right now looking at questions such as:

  • Which agencies should be responsible for delivering adult ESL instruction?
  • What are the benefits of keeping adult ESL in the community adult schools?
  • How do the 17 community colleges in California currently offering non-credit ESL programs serve their learners?
  • What are the distinctions between the services community adult schools in K-12 districts and community colleges provide? Whom does each type of institution serve?

Resources

Adult Education Disappearing in California 9/12

A new report by the research group EdSource finds that adult education has been disappearing, ever since school districts were given permission to take funds once reserved for those programs and use them for other educational purposes.

At Risk: Adult Schools in California 6/2012

The EdSource survey found that 23 of the state’s 30 largest school districts have made major cuts to their adult education programs ...

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The Billion Dollar Question: How Will Immigration Reform Affect Adult Education?

February 20, 2013, 10:18 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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By Lori Howard

Business and labor leaders are showing support for an immigration reform bill proposed by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators which would affect approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants who already live in the U.S. The reform being discussed includes the “Dream Act” which would create an expedited path to citizenship for young people who were brought to the U.S. as children, if they attend college or serve in the military. It is believed that fixing the immigration system will, among other things, boost the economy by documenting these young people and allowing and encouraging them to attend college and possibly work in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. Major companies and organizations like Microsoft, Intel and the National Science Teachers Association, support the plan since there are more jobs than qualified applicants in these areas.

All the talk of educating undocumented immigrants seems to focus on the 65, 000 who graduate from American high schools each year.  But what about the adults?  Supporters of this immigration reform plan hope it will also offer adults a comprehensive path to citizenship, as well as educational and employment opportunities.  The last immigration reform bill, IRCA (The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986), offered legal residency to undocumented immigrants with an option to pursue full citizenship after five years.  It also provided billions of dollars for English and citizenship education so that applicants could learn about basic U.S.history and government, and be able to speak, read, and write simple English—all requirements for citizenship.

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Filed under: ESL Insights, Post-Secondary ESL
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