THANK YOU FOR THAT INFORMATIon.  When I was a new immigrant myself, and I mhad a beautiful Polish girl in my fifth grade class ther was no specific help for any one with regard to the Englishb Language.  Annie Walker 


----- Original Message ----
From: Jack Hickey-William <JackH at ccgb.org>
To: learndirect007 at yahoo.co.uk; The Workplace Literacy Discussion List <workplace at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2008 1:43:14 PM
Subject: [Workplace 1334] Re: A Nation Still at Risk - another question forDr. Sticht


Ruth, Tom et al.
 
During the earlier migrations in the 20th century there were two resources in local communities such as Philadelphia, Boston, New York that are not available to immigrants on the East Coast today.  The first was labor schools operated by coalitions of unions; they taught new immigrants English, rules of procedure for participating in union elections etc.  All of the first generation of leaders have passed away and now their successors are dying also; e.g. Fr. Ed Boyle in Boston who just passed.
 
Many of these schools were funded out of the purse strings of the unions themselves with some assistance from the companies where the workers were employed. Many of these schools cut back their curriculum during the 50’s because in some cases they were accused of being propaganda schools for the communists—even though they were affiliated with the AFL-CIO, Longshoremen, etc.
 
The second source of training were local churches; the specialized churches that served the Polish, Hungarians, Slovaks etc. in the large and small cities organized classes to train their members in US English.  This was very successful because people were among friends, neighbors and family members.
 
Unfortunately the second generation did not carry it on and some attempts to reinvigorate it in some of the Polish parishes during the new wave of immigrant during the Solidarity crackdown during the 80’s did not work. 
 
Jack Hickey-Williams
Empowering Resources, Bridgeport
 
-----Original Message-----
From: workplace-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:workplace-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of ruth topol
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 11:04 AM
To: The Workplace Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [Workplace 1333] Re: A Nation Still at Risk - another question forDr. Sticht
 
Dr. Sticht - thank you for that very interesting response and references to other reports which I have got hold of and have started reading. This is a totally new angle for me to consider and has given me loads to think about. 
 
I have a new question: if you were to perhaps take your research further back in the 20th Century, say at the time of the major immigration into the US (Ellis Island times) - many of those immigrants had no education. Many of them wanted better for their children in terms of education. And during the 20th Century many more people had an education than in any previous century driven by people who had been disadvantaged and who wanted better for their children - and as history as shown, this did happen for those future generations.
 
So could one not then say that it would be more a matter of the values and spirit of the time (zeitgeist) that promoted education for future generations rather than the education of the parents? 
 
Just a thought ...
 
Ruth Topol

--- On Wed, 30/4/08, tsticht at znet.com <tsticht at znet.com> wrote:
From: tsticht at znet.com <tsticht at znet.com>
Subject: [Workplace 1330] Re: A Nation Still at Risk - some questions
To: workplace at nifl.gov
Date: Wednesday, 30 April, 2008, 5:32 PM
Ruth: Interestingly, I was also a consultant to Lord Moser's group and I was
quite disappointed when I found that the Skill for Life Strategy had gone
well beyond helping the most in need much as in the US our government has
pushed for raising ABE goals beyond getting a high school equivalency to
preparing adults for college. In both the UK and the US, this looks like a
shift upwards in serving adults with better skills than what was addressed
in both A Nation at Risk and the Moser report.
  
I looked at the thrity year trend data for the last thrity years and the
only thing I could find in the data that seemed to consistently make a
difference in increasing student's skills in reading was parent's
education
level. This lead me to suggest the importance of the intergenerational
transfer from parents to their children and the importance of education of
high school students and adult literacy students regarding this
intergenerational transfer phenomenon as an alternative to our contemporary
birth to death, lifelong learning philosophies and strategies for increasing
achievement in the basic skills of the workforce and the population in
general.
  
The UK has implemented some interesting programs of parenting in secondary
and adult education, but has not focused on the Multple Life
Cycleseducation philosophy and policies that might flow from this
philosophy. Nor has the US. If you want more information about the Multiple
Life Cycles ideas google my name with Multple Life Cycles in the search line
and you can find some reports.
  
Tom Sticht
  
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