[Reading-hall-of-fame] May Day and Mayday for Adult Education

[Thomas Sticht]

Colleagues: May 1st is International Workers Day, also known as May Day, a
day for celebrating the working men and women of the world as they labor
for personal, family, and community development.

Mayday is the international distress call for help. A look back 55 years
 to 1968 reveals a Mayday call from the American Federation of Teachers for
more funding for adult education:

* “FEDERAL ASSISTANCE FOR ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAMS*

WHEREAS, the national figure on high school dropouts has reached alarming
proportions; and

WHEREAS, the nation looks to public education to break the patterns of
racial intolerance, unemployment, poverty and crime which afflict hundreds
of thousands of Americans; and

WHEREAS, increasing maturity and the difficulties encountered in securing a
good job without a high school diploma gives many "dropouts" a more
positive attitude toward school, making them conscientious and apt students:

*RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers propose and support
federal grants adequate to provide comprehensive adult education programs
in all school districts but particularly in urban centers, where the
problems resulting from ignorance and poor education are the most
acute.”** https://www.aft.org/resolution/federal-assistance-adult-education-programs
<https://www.aft.org/resolution/federal-assistance-adult-education-programs>*



See Sticht (2018) for  more on how numerous organizations , including the
American Federation of Teachers, the Secretary of Labor’s Commission on
Necessary Skills,   the Work in America Institute, Wider Opportunities for
Women, and adult education in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and
UNESCO,  have called for and provided adult basic and workforce  skills for
workers of the United States and the world.

Over the last half century since the Mayday call by the AFT in 1968 when
times have been rough for America’s working people, as they are today,
adult educators have developed methods for integrating basic skills and job
skills education and training so that adults can move more rapidly into the
world of work. They have demonstrated that it is no longer acceptable to
cast-off people from the world of work and force them into the ranks of
poverty-level jobs. Fortunately, the Adult Education and Literacy System
(AELS) of the United States stands ready to serve the workers of the Nation
whom we join with in solidarity and celebration on May Day.

Reference: Sticht, T. (2018). Mainstreaming Marginalized Adults: The
Transformation of Adult Basic Education in the United States (online using
a Google search)

Tom Sticht


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