Dare to Dream: A Collection of Papers from a Resource Group of 102 Education and Literacy Professionals

The papers in this collection were developed as a basic resource for the National Commission on Adult Literacy. They reflect the ideas, insights, cautions, and recommendations of a group of 102 education and literacy leaders. These professionals were asked by a team of group leaders to respond to questions developed by Commission senior staff in several thematic areas. Group leaders were then brought together in a concentrated roundtable discussion. All 102 participants are indicated by name and affiliation. Their broad challenge was to "think outside the box," to imagine systemic changes that would be required to expand adult education and literacy service beyond the 3 million or so presently reached by publicly-funded programs to many times that number. The collection was developed to help inform the work of the National Commission on Adult Literacy, and was presented to the Commission at its April 17, 2007 meeting. Suggestions and ideas tend to cluster around several broad themes: (1) Make adult education a mainstream education system with strong articulation to postsecondary education and occupational training; (2) Articulate clearly that adult education and literacy provides economic benefits to students via workforce preparation and postsecondary education; (3) Establish clear goals and a few achievable priorities; (4) Treat ESL/immigration as having high importance; (5) Ensure teacher quality & elevate status of adult education professionals; (6) Improve both the accountability system and assessment tools; (7) Make far greater use of technology and distance learning to improve service and expand outreach; (8) Adopt and mobilize new approaches to building public awareness and business advocacy -- especially at the state and local levels -- as part of comprehensive planning for education and economic development; (9) Strengthen ongoing basic and applied research; and (10) Differentiate local, state, and federal roles.