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Dollar General Guest Presentation Series #1
Nashville, Tenn.
Oct. 18, 2006

Conference Proceedings: Executive Summary

A consensus that adult literacy needs are great, and partnerships between literacy organizations and businesses are crucial to the effort, emerged during the first session of the Dollar General Guest Presentation Series. The series, which is sponsored by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and the National Coalition for Literacy, kicked off Oct. 18 in Nashville and will continue in early 2007.

Speakers at the Nashville conference, which was attended by 50 invitees, reached these conclusions:

  • An enormous gap exists between federal funding for adult literacy and the financial resources needed to meet the needs of local communities.
  • To bridge that gap, adult education and literacy organizations must form strategic partnerships with businesses and other advocacy organizations.
  • Adult literacy advocates must do a better job of marketing to businesses, which want to see tangible evidence that literacy increases productivity and enhances their bottom line.
  • Partnerships in several states are showing promising results in expanding and enhancing adult literacy services.

Adult literacy leaders used the session as a call to action, with NCL President Sherrie Claiborne closing the meeting with a call for action within the next six months. Claiborne pointed to the need for more funding and said, “We are very fragile, but if we can make a difference in the three states represented here today—we can bring this to the nation!”

Participants were told that adult education programs currently serve only 3 million of the more than 93 million people needing remedial services. In addition, the country faces an enormous challenge to educate growing numbers of illegal and legal immigrants.

At a time when the nation’s education focus is trained on K-12 students and the No Child Left Behind Act, experts noted that children of high school dropouts are more than five times more likely to drop out themselves, and 85 percent of juveniles in the court system are illiterate.

Participants were told that librarians can play an important role in promoting literacy education. Public libraries often have the technology to help educate students and stem the tide against crime. In addition, experts exhorted adult education advocates to promote lifetime training, not just basic skills, and foster compassion for adults who may have squandered their first chance at education.

Success Stories
Presenters described adult literacy partnership success stories from three states:

Georgia has developed two programs, the Certified Literate Community Program and Exceptional Adult Georgian in Literacy Education, to support adult education. The state realizes that most jobs now require more than a diploma and has initiated a program to help individuals transition from ABE to postsecondary school, according to Kim Lee, state program administrator and director of GED testing.

In Kentucky, Kentucky Adult Education is partnering with two major corporations—Amazon.com and McDonald’s—to raise college graduation rates, per capita income of employees and literacy levels. After having trouble finding enough workers with a high school diploma or GED, Amazon established a partnership with Kentucky Adult Education for the Go, Earn, Do-GED program, according to Janet Hoover, senior associate at Kentucky Adult Education. Amazon reimburses adult learners for up to $40 in GED costs, gives them $20 gift certificates to Amazon and offers them a more favorable hiring status. Since May 2005, the partnership has extended operations into 20 counties and paid for 1,200 GED tests.

The partnership with McDonald’s, GED: Prove Yourself, featured motivational stories of adult learners on tray liners and bag stuffers in three central Kentucky locations for five weeks. Enrollment in adult education services increased 25 percent during that period. The program spread the word about adult education without costing McDonald’s any more money than it would have normally spent to print tray liners and bag stuffers.

In addition, UPS and literacy organizations in Kentucky have launched Metropolitan College, where the company pays tuition for future educational courses and eventually will reimburse the worker for books and even offer incentive pay. UPS, which had been losing an employee every eight weeks, now has a waiting list of prospective employees, and the average worker stays at the firm about two years.

In Tennessee, where more than 1.2 million people lack high school diplomas, the Nashville Adult Literacy Council creates classes for employers that focus specifically on their needs and workforce skills. In Claiborne County, Tenn., the Adult Education Program is actively asking local businesses to partner, according to Roger Hansard, adult education supervisor for the country Board of Education. The county has been able to integrate work readiness skills in the adult education classroom and implement an adult high school model where students obtain a traditional diploma instead of a GED.

 

Conference Proceedings: Full Report