[Reading-hall-of-fame] Towards a Life Cycles Education Policy

[Thomas Sticht]

September 27, 2004

Head Start and Adult Literacy Education: Life Cycles Education is Needed
for Sustainable Development of Human Beings Across Generations

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

A U. S. House of Representatives committee has recommended funding for th=
e
Head Start pre-school program for Fiscal Year 2005 of some $6.9 billion,
an increase of $123 million over FY 2004. The same committee recommended
$574,372,000 for the Adult Education and Literacy System of the United
States funded in part by the State Grants program of the Workforce
Investment Act, Title 2: Adult Education and Family Literacy Act. This is
less than ten percent of what the committee recommended for the Head Star=
t
program.

Head Start Funding Grows 460 Percent

In 1966, the Head Start program received some $198,900,000 million and
enrolled 733,000 children in the preschool program. That is about $271 pe=
r
child, or in 2001 dollars, that is $1481 dollars per child. Thirty-five
years later, in 2001, the federal funding for Head Start was some
$6,200,000,000 billion and enrollments were at 905,235, giving $6849 per
child. Using 2001 dollars, this represents a 460 percent increase in
purchasing power per child from 1966 to 2001.

Adult Literacy Education Funding Drops 32 Percent

Also in 1966, the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) received
around $19.7 million and had enrollments of some 377,000 adult learners,
giving around $52 per student, or $303 dollars in constant 2004 dollars.
By FY 2004 funding for the AELS had increased to $574, 372, 000 and
enrollments had risen to some 2.8 million giving $205 per adult student.=20
In constant 2004 dollars, from 1966 to 2004 the AELS lost 32 percent of
its per student purchasing power.

The "Ounce of Prevention" Hypothesis

Presumably, the obscene differences between the funding for Head Start
children and the Adult Education and Literacy System reflects some sort o=
f
"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" thinking, though in thi=
s
case it looks like "a ton of prevention is worth a tenth of a pound of
cure." This emphasis upon prevention might be interpreted to suggest that=
,
with the funding of Head Start, the target population of adults who are i=
n
need of "remedial education" should decline.

It seems reasonable to hypothesize that if the Head Start prevention
strategy has been effective over the last thirty years then there should
be effects on the AELS. For instance, (1) the size of the target
population should decrease. (2) Additionally, the size of the population
with ineffective literacy skills should  decrease. (3) The numbers of
young people enrolling in the AELS should decline because they will have
better skills and higher rates of high school diploma achievement.  But
the data, admittedly scanty,  do not appear to support these hypotheses

1. The Target Population for the AELS Doesn=92t Seem to Have Declined

In this regard, a recent report for the U. S. Department Education, Offic=
e
of Vocational and Adult Education, Division of Adult Education and
Literacy (USDE/OVAE/DAEL) entitled "Profiles of the Adult Education Targe=
t
Population, Information from the 2000 Census" provides an estimate of the
AELS target population. This population, defined as adults  aged 16 years
and over, who have not attained a high school diploma or equivalent and
are not currently enrolled in school, includes 51 million adults (23
percent of the total 16+ age group).

Interestingly, in a 1995 report entitled National/State Comparative
Profiles (Program Year 1992-1993) using data from the1990 census, the
USDE/OVAE/DAEL estimated the target population at around 46.2 million. In
a report entitled Adult Education Program Facts =96FY 1989, using 1980
census data the target population  was estimated by USDE/OVAE/DAEL at
about 51.8 million.

Using the 1980, 1990, and 2000 census data, the absolute number of adults
in the target population has fluctuated some, but there has not been a
major decline in the numbers. However, the fact that the population of
adults has increased over the decades suggests that the percentage of the
population of adults 16+ years of age represented by these numbers may
have declined over the years.  But I have not found these data in any
USDE/OVAE/DAEL reports.

2. The Percentage of Functionally Illiterates Adults Seems to Have Gone U=
p

If the prevention strategy is supposed to reduce the numbers of adults
with literacy problems, then the data from literacy assessments do not
support it. In the late 1970s the  Adult Performance Level study reported
findings that one out of five (19.8 percent) adults lacked the skills and
knowledge needed to function effectively in society. Today, based on data
from the 1993 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NALS), the home web
page for the U. S. Department of Education funded National Center for the
Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL)(
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ncsall/) states that "More than 40 percent of
working-age adults in the United States lack the skills and education
needed to succeed in family, work, and community life today."

Given shifts in population characteristics due to factors such as age and
immigration it is not clear just what might be behind the lack of literac=
y
and other skills in the population of adults in the mid-1990s, but
whatever the case, the fact that skills of adults have either declined or
been modified due to other factors, there is little to suggest that an
approach to the prevention of adult literacy problems using Head Start or
other K-12 prevention programs is having much of an effect on adult
literacy.

3. Are There Fewer Young Adults in the AELS?

If the prevention strategy is working to reduce the numbers of adults
needing the AELS, then it might be expected that as the Head Start and
other prevention program participants grow up into age s 16-24 there woul=
d
be fewer and fewer of these young adults enrolling in the AELS. But in
1975 young adults 16-24 years of age made up 40 percent of the AELS
enrollees, in 1981 this rose to 42 percent, in 1997 it fell to 36 percent=
,
in 2001 the number was 41 percent and in 2002 it was 40 percent. For over
25 years, then, it seems that the percentage of the young adults enrollin=
g
in the AELS has not changed much, suggesting that the prevention strategy
has not been effective in overcoming the education problems of many of
those in the pre-school and K-12 systems.

Overall, it seems that the demands for the AELS=92 services have not
diminished over the years. For those who take the position that investing
in the education and literacy development of adults is a lost cause, and
that the only solution to the problem of having a nation with almost half
of its adults deficiently literate, as the U. S. Department of Education
claimed in 1993, is to pump more and more money into pre-school and
in-school prevention programs, while tossing a bare bone to the adult
learners, the data presented above do not offer any support.

Toward a Life Cycles Approach to Education

It just might be that an approach that emphasizes both a pound of
prevention and a pound of cure might actually be more effective than a
whoppingly one-sided prevention approach.  A cycle has no beginning or
ending place. As far as education is concerned, it seems to me that
equitable investments in education across the life span, with an
understanding of and attention to the potential for the intergenerational
transfer from one generation to the next that education offers, is the
best approach to the sustainable development of human beings in the
present population and in cycles of future human generations.

Thomas G. Sticht
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht@aznet.net