RE: Questions for the day

I'm a teacher and a parent, with three kids who went through public schools in LA & Burbank, all three currently in college.
The oldest just finished UC Hastings Law after graduating from UC Berkeley (transfer from Compton College and LBCC); the middle one is at UCLA (transfer from Pierce and Valley College); the youngest is now at Cal Arts after some work at Cal State Northridge and Santa Monica College, and a year at Abram Friedman Occupational Center in animation and computer animation. I have taught middle school, high school and (primarily) adult school in CA for more than 20 years (along with some private school experience) and elementary, secondary and adult teaching in IL prior to that.

I think a comprehensive plan for education is important, and I think the development of that plan requires the input of many stakeholders, including parents, students, teachers, other school employees, researchers, academicians, etc. I am pleased that adult/occupational education has found a small space for consideration in the plan, and I think it needs to be taken more fully into account, for several reasons. One, the competency based approach of most adult education, in terms of methodology, testing, advancement etc offers an important contribution to the general issue of standards and accountability. The competency basis of adult education is standards based and rather than relying on a floating norm reference is based on mastery of the necessary skills and material by each individual learner. Two, adult education has an enormous impact on the possibilities for successfully educating the upcoming generation. Studies consistently show that the strongest predictor of success for minor students is the educational attainment and attitude towards education of their parents, particularly their mother. Adult ed reaches the parents and older sibings of hundreds of thousands of K-12 students throughout the state and creates a tremendous role model for success. I would urge any and all of you to attend a graduation ceremony from any community adult school or similar institution in the state and get a first hand taste of the total family involvement in the education of our students. Adult education programs also provide an invaluable resource to tens of thousands of minor secondary students to participate after school or while off-track in order to master necessary skills, complete or make-up course-work and graduate with their class. In some districts, upwards of 30% of regular h.s. grads owe their on-time graduations to course credits earned in adult education. As CA moves towards exit testing all high school grads, adult education will have an increasingly important role to play in this regard. We do not want to duplicate the racist experience of IL, where, when I taught there in the late 70's and early 80's, the drop ou/force out rate among Black and Hispanic students was as high as 70%, and an entrepreneurial adult ed system run by the City Colleges would pick them up 3-4 years later. Finally, adult ed plays a vital role in raising the educational level of our entire society, where millions of adult residents have limited English proficiency and/or limited basic skills. Unlike the community colleges, which are primarily a post secondary institution, adult schools provide adult basic skills and adult secondary education and short term vocational programs that provide the step up to the bottom rung of the career ladder that post secondary programs, community college through university, provide. We grant 8th grade and high school diplomas to students based on their demonstrated mastery of the skills and knowledge base required. This task is what our programs are well-suited, in fact best-suited, for.