Leadership Matters
NCSDAE/NAEPDC Spring 2012 PreConference
April 2, 2012
Positioning Adult Education
National Council of State Directors of Adult Education
National Adult Education Professional Development Consortium
444 North Capitol St, Suite 422
Washington, DC 20001
April 2, 2012
The Professional Development Ad Hoc Workgroup
Randy Whitfield (NC), Chair
NAEPDC/NSCDAE 2012Page 9
Cindy Zengler (OH),
Jacqueline Korengel (KY),
Joanie Rethlake (TX),
Margaret Kirkpatrick (CO),
Marsha Taylor (AR),
Reecie Stagnolia (KY)
NAEPDC/NSCDAE 2012Page 9
staffed by Bonnie Moore and Lennox McLendon
The Executive Committee
Reecie Stagnolia (KY), ChairTerm Expires: June, 2013
Chair: 2011-2013
Phone: (502) 573-5114 ext. 124
E-mail: / Joanie Rethlake (TX), Past Chair
Term Expires: June, 2012
Phone: 713. 696. 0700
Email:
Eloise Richardson (MS), Treasurer
Appointed by the Chair
Phone: 601- 432-6338
/ Jennifer Foster (IL)
Term Expires: June, 2013
Phone: 201.785.0171
Email:
Ron Jewell (MO)
Term Expires: June 2013
Phone: 916.322.2175
E-mail: / Anne Serino (MA)
Term Expires: June, 2013
Phone: 781.338.3801
E-mail:
Randy Whitfield (NC)
Term Expires: June, 2013
919.807.7132
E-mail: / Vicki Bauer (NB)
Term Expires: June, 2012
Phone: 402.471.4807
Email:
Jeff Gove (OH)
Term Expires: June, 2012
Phone: 515.281.3640
E-mail: / Brad Deeds (NV)
Term Expires: June 2012
573.526.4822
E-mail:
Barry Shaffer (MN)
Term Expires: June 2012
651.582.8442
E-mail: / Appointed Leadership:
Art Ellison (NH), Policy Chair
Karen Liersch (AZ), Communications Chair
Staff Consultants:
Lennox McLendon, Executive Director; Bonita Moore, Assistant Executive Director
Lynn Selmser, Government Relations Director; Gretchen Warren, Intern
Table of Contents
Part I—Elevating adult education within your agency? 4
Strategy I: Embrace the Slogan, Target your message, Send it up the organization 4
1. Embrace the Slogan 5
A. The Governor’s Slogan 5
2. Target the Message 5
B. Other Options 7
Embrace the Agency Head’s Slogan: 7
3. Up the Organization 8
4. Thoughts on Changing agencies: 9
5. Promote Yourself 9
Reflection: 10
Discussion 10
Part II: Positioning Adult Education among State Agencies 11
1. State-Level Interagency Council 11
2. Legislative Study 12
3. Other State Level Workgroups… 12
4. Creating your own state level collaboration 12
5. Proclamations 14
6. Other strategies 14
Reflection: 15
2012 Spring PreConference
April 1 & 2, 2012
Working Agenda Feburay 24, 2010
Leadership Matters
Leadership Matters: Organizational positioning is key to elevating the stature of Adult Education in your agency and in state government One of the axioms in our field is “the marginality of adult education.” No matter the host agency (Education, Community Colleges, or Labor), adult education is often regarded as marginal to the mission of that host agency. Getting to the policy table and to the budget table is a complex task. Gaining the attention of other agencies can be even more complex. However, to be very successful with college and career readiness, career pathways, and transitioning, you need to be at the table and you must attract the cooperation of other agencies.
Part I—Elevating adult education within your agency?
Strategy I: Embrace the Slogan, Target your message, Send it up the organization
Every governor and/or agency head creates a slogan or theme for her or his administration. Almost any slogan can embody adult education services. By using the slogan, adult education can show how it is contribution to the thematic goals.
Thus, first EMBRACE THE SLOGAN of the leadership.
Second, TARGET THE MESSAGE to demonstrate how you are helping the governor or agency head accomplish that vision and
Third, send PLANS AND REPORTS up the organization that demonstrate how and what adult education is doing to contribute.
1. Embrace the Slogan
A. The Governor’s Slogan
The governor and/or the agency head creates a slogan to provide vision for the state’s direction.
Virginia—“A Commonwealth of Opportunity” for all Virginians
Michigan—“Reinventing Michigan”
Washington State—“Our Time, Our Turn, Our Responsibility”
Oklahoma—“Oklahoma Now: Job Creation, Innovation and Education”
· 30K to 50K college degrees and certificates
Connecticut—“Building an Economic Revival”
“I say that if we work together – all of us – we can make an economic revival a reality. We should not approach this effort as Democrats or Republicans. We should approach it as public servants with a duty to fulfill.”
2. Target the Message: Supporting the Vision, Achieving the Goals
· Couch what you are doing under the Governor’s slogan.
· Show how your initiatives are supporting the Governor’s vision
· You don’t necessarily have to do anything other than what you had planned anyway
· You may ‘tweak’ your plans a bit
· The Michigan Example
· Government doesn’t create jobs; we create an environment wherejobs can flourish
· Education needs to be held accountable for their performance.
· Service consolidation is needed among school districts.
· Postsecondary needs to get more involved in economic development.
o Governor Rick Snyder
Supporting the Vision…Achieving the Goals
Reinventing Adult Education: One out of three working age Michigan adults – nearly 1.7 million people -- lacks the basic skills or credentials to attain a family-sustaining job and contribute to the state’s economy. Historically, adult education programs have provided undereducated adults with those basic education skills. But that focus no longer is what Michigan needs. Education in isolation of work and postsecondary education will not get Michigan where it needs to go.
To address this new environment, we are reinventing adult education:
· We are reinventing and integrating services:
o Rather than the historical small programs in individual townships, we are regionalizing program services around economic development or planning districts.
o We are creating 17 comprehensive programs where there are currently 250 decentralized programs.
o We are creating regional interagency steering workgroups comprised of the adult education leadership, the community college leadership and the leadership from Michigan works.
o Together they are building and providing career pathways that integrate education, workforce skills, and occupational skills focused on the high demand jobs in each region.
· We are reinventing adult educators:
o Historically adult educators have focused on teaching reading and preparing adults for the GED.
o The reinvented adult educator focuses on contextualizing reading, math, writing and English around the high demand jobs in the region.
o The reinvented adult educator knows that the GED is no longer enough; some post secondary education, preferably an occupational certificate, is required. As a result, the reinvented adult educators and their regional partners are creating services for undereducated adults that now focus on transitioning to the community college and beyond.
B. Other Options
Embrace the Agency Head’s Slogan:
If the Governor does not have a slogan or if it just does not work, look to the agency head for similar guidance. For example, Dr. Scott Ralls, North Carolina’s Community Colleges President, uses “Creating Success: Hope*Opportunity*Jobs” which is easy to get behind.
Adult Education’s Response
· Slogan themed the state conference
· Slogan and logo on all publications
Dr. Ralls response: “adult education gets it”
Embrace Agency Missions and Goals
In the absence of appropriate Governor’s slogan and agency head’s theme, check out the agency’s mission and goals. Too few pay any attention to mission and goals and supervisors are impressed when actually do. For example, take a look at the Arkansas agency mission and goals. You could certainly latch onto these.
· to provide both youth and adults the necessary academic and technical skills for entry-level jobs
· to offer Arkansans of all ages the options to pursue a wide range of career choices
· to ensure that workers have the foundation for lifelong learning that will allow them to enhance their existing skills and also to learn new skills in response to the current and future demands of a rapidly changing workplace
· to assist individuals with disabilities in becoming productive citizens and workers
· to supply employers with validation of skills through national certifications and licenses
3. Up the Organization
Submit the one page plan:
Engage your advisory board, local practitioners, interagency workgroup, or whatever you have to explore how adult education can contribute to the governor’s or agency head’s vision.
Prepare a one page plan and add the names and positions of all the people who helped formulate the plan (the message: you are a team player and are inclusive in your planning).
Send the one page plan up the organization to your agency head via all the people between you and the agency head. (the message: supervisors like to show their bosses that their subordinates are on message and on task. They will take credit for begin good leaders. It makes them look good and you valuable.)
Workplans:
Develop staff workplans around the slogans, missions, and/or goals with quarterly progress reports by the staff. Review those progress reports with your supervisor and provide a one page summary for her/him to send up the organization.
Submit Quarterly updates:
Prepare and send up the organization a quarterly update of your progress toward supporting the vision.
NOTE: You will probably not be doing anything differently from what you had been planning to do anyway. You are only couching it under the governor’s label.
After all, adult education does contribute to any of the slogans/themes listed above. You are not being deceitful. However, the theme, plan and reports gives adult education notoriety and visibility all the way up the organization.
Underlying messages:
1. Adult education contributes to the state and agency vision and mission
2. Adult education is a complex set of educational services
3. Adult education has significant impact on peoples lives
4. Adult education is NOT marginal to the mission of the organization
4. Thoughts on Changing agencies:
From time to time we get calls for assistance when adult education is being moved from a department of education to a community college office or labor agency. We offer three pieces of advice:
1. To the Table: If you value adult education enough to move it to another agency, position adult education at a level where it is at the policy table and the budget table. In other words, at what level in the organization are policy decisions made? At what level are budget decisions made? That is the level to insert adult education into the new host organization.
2. Keep the Staff: Adult education is a complex set of services with rigorous accountability requirements and performance measures not to mention an array of services that address a number of adult populations. The institutional history is important to maintain.
3. Keep the Local Delivery System: Legally, direct and equitable access does not allow the state agency to assign local agencies. Secondly, to maintain support for the state level transfer, you will need the local support. As the program develops, adjustments can be made gradually if needed.
5. Promote Yourself
1. Return on Investment: Create your own return on investment report similar to the NCSDAE McGraw-Hill Research Foundation publication that go so much acclaim. A guide for creating your own ROI can be found at: http://www.ncsdae.org/myweb/Washington_News/Washington_News_files/ROIforstates.pdf
2. You Tube: Arkansas hit a winner with their You Tube video on adult education that included the agency head, state representatives, state senators, other agency heads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07RuuezbhtM
3. Minnesota’s Impact report: Documented impact on:
· Employment and earnings
· Poverty and Welfare
· Transition to Higher Education
· Children and Families
· New Americans
· Corrections
· Health
Reflection:
You are grouped with colleagues from similar state office situations. Reflect on the ideas and strategies we have talked about this morning.
1. TO YOURSELF REFLECT ON THE FOLLOWING:
A. Where you sit in your agency?
B. How well is adult education seen as an integral part of the agency?
C. Which of these strategies hold promise for you and your staff?
D. What barriers will you have to move to use those strategies?
E. What assets do you have to support using those strategies?
Discussion
2. WITH YOUR TABLE PARTNERS, DISCUSS:
A. Can you use the Governor’s or Agency Head’s slogan?
B. Who should you involve in developing your one page action plan?
C. What barriers to you anticipate and how to overcome them?
Part II: Positioning Adult Education among State Agencies
To transition to college and good jobs, undereducated under prepared adults often need a combination of education, job training, support services from public health, social services, mental health, rehabilitation services, office on aging, non-governmental ethic organizations and others. As a result, the effectiveness of your career pathways and transitions efforts depends on the degree to which you get cooperation from these state-level partners.
1. State-Level Interagency Council
--appointed by the Governor or Legislature
Some of our colleagues are blessed with state-level working groups appointed by the Governor or created by the Legislature. We mention this option just in case someone in authority asks “What could the Governor (or the Legislature) do to help adult education?” Your response could be “Create a state-level workgroup on adult education with leadership from state agencies, employers, non-profits, and labor organizations.”
Two such fortunate colleagues are Randall Stamper (VA) and Michael Westover (PA).
Virginia: Governor’s Career Pathway Workgroup
· Governor’s Senior Advisor
· Community College Director of Postsecondary Perkins and Tech Prep
· Apprenticeship Director
· State Council of Higher Education
· Economic Development
· Career and Technical Education
· Randy Stamper, Adult Education State Director
· Policy Analyst, Community College System
Pennsylvania Adult Education and Family Literacy Interagency Coordinating Council
· Created in 1997 to
o Advise in coordinating a statewide system to improve the delivery and outcomes of adult basic education and literacy education services, and