National Coalition for Literacy

Last week, in Part I of Advocating Smarter, David Rosen discussed how peoples’ values impact their understanding of what adult literacy education is, whether it should have their support, and how they choose to support it. How can an understanding of these values help advocates frame their messages about adult literacy education to the media and to policymakers?

In Part II below, David shares his ideas on how we can reframe our message, what that reframing process might look like, and possible next steps for the field.

Part Two of a Two-Part Article on Advocating Smarter

So what can we do about this? Cognitive scientist, George Lakoff, would advise us to reframe our message.[i] If we did this, what would the reframing process look like? First we need to develop the concept(s) or idea(s), and the words or phrases that frame the values we are advocating.

1. Self help If we believe, for example, that basic skills education for adults enables them to help them improve themselves, get better economic opportunities for their families, and participate more in their communities, we need a phrase that frames that value or concept. It is helpful to pick a metaphor, one that accurately describes the idea so that the largest number of people can recognize the value and support the concept. For example, consider the phrase basic skills boost. The frame emphasizes education, and uses a metaphor that suggests help for those who want to do it themselves. Many of us believe that when they work hard at it, and with assistance from us, adult learners pull themselves up and achieve their goals. Adult learners may like this image, too. It acknowledges their effort. Anyone who has tutored or taught knows that learning basic skills as an adult is not a handout. It’s hard work. Some might rightly object that this frame obscures that adults at a low literacy level need more than a boost. They need years of direct instruction and practice. So we may need another phrase to go with this one, perhaps for some, longer-term instruction.

2. People who deserve help. Some adults will make good use of adult learning opportunities, but all who may need help will not necessarily ask for it. If we believe our job is to help those who step forward, who cross the threshold to ask for help, especially those who do so freely, and for whom it is a risk or sacrifice, we might describe them as deserving, using a word conservatives also understand. Some practitioners might object because they believe that all adults are deserving. Indeed some people, and I am one, advocate adult literacy education as a universal right. Universal right and deserving adults, however, are not contradictory. This is because most of us believe that adults should have the opportunity to enroll, not be required or mandated. And most of us believe that adults should continue to receive this help only if they make progress.

Why, however, should we use this word deserving? It reframes the issue for some conservatives. Although they may believe that most adults who did not succeed in school “had their chance,” these conservatives will also acknowledge that there are worthy exceptions. For these people, providing a boost or helping hand is not a reward for bad behavior; it’s just fair play. For example, many conservatives would agree that adults who were children with undiagnosed learning disabilities did not have a chance and deserve to learn to read as adults. They may feel that young children deserve to have a parent who can read to them or help them with schoolwork, if the parent is motivated to learn. They would agree that hardworking adults whose jobs have disappeared in the rapidly changing economy, if they are ready to be helped, deserve an education or training boost to their next job. Indeed, some conservatives have seen this happening to their own jobs and empathize with an adult learner’s desire for assistance. Some conservatives might also agree that adults who have seen the light and admitted their mistakes should be rewarded with a second chance.

Conservatives may feel that immigrants who did not have the advantage of schooling in their country may be deserving. Some may feel especially sympathetic to immigrants who worked hard and achieved in their countries but who, for political circumstances beyond their control, now find themselves as refugees or asylum seekers, who want to continue to work hard here, but lack the English skills to do so. Many conservatives are aware that these immigrants are our new work force, a source of American economic growth. We could point out that for many of these adults this is their first chance for an education, that they deserve the opportunity to learn English, and that this will support their – and our – economic advancement.

3. An investment that pays off. Adult literacy education services make a difference for adult learners, for their families, and for our communities; they are an important investment. Advocates have used the word, investment, but so far it hasn’t been persuasive. It’s the right frame, but it is incomplete. Those who care about investments want to see a good return on them.  As a field we need to be able to show that adult literacy education is a sound investment, not a wasteful one. And this frame is only part of a message; it appeals to economics only, not values. We need to link it with other frames like basic skills teaching boost and deserving.

4. Accountability. As we reframe adult literacy education to capture the support of a wider spectrum of voters and their elected representatives, we need to underscore the frame of accountable education. We don’t need to substantially improve our accountability practices, at least not at this time. We need to let the world know that we are accountable, that we already have measurable outcomes, and that hard working adults do improve their lives through the education opportunities we provide.

Some possible frames for a new adult literacy education message might be:

A basic skills boost, and for some, longer-term instruction,

is a good investment

in deserving, hard-working adults

who will then be better able to work, help their children in school, pay taxes, and in other ways contribute to their communities and the economy.

This may not be exactly the right message, and it isn’t catchy or memorable. It isn’t important that you are persuaded that this is the new message we should carry forward, but rather that our current messages don’t serve us well, and that we need new messages that honestly express our values in ways that a broad majority of American voters will support. We need a think tank, and a good process through which we, as a community of advocates, can create new messages and test them with focus groups that include the full range of the political spectrum. Then we need to choose a few messages, and persuade our various constituencies in the adult literacy education community to use them and to “stay on message” when we advocate with legislators and others.

Let’s return to the indicators for a successful advocacy campaign. We need to:

1. Frame how we describe adult literacy education differently to affect a broad spectrum of voters and policy makers;
2. Develop messages with these frames that voters and their elected representatives will support, and “stay on message” until they do;
3. Continue to strengthen our organizing efforts throughout all the states;
4. Learn how to use the media well, and launch a new national adult literacy education media campaign;
5. Get adequate financing for these advocacy and media campaigns; and
6. Encourage and support new leaders who will stay with this for the long haul.

Let’s look at what we need to do to meet the last three standards. We need use the media well, and launch a national media campaign. For a national media campaign, we need to have hundreds of articles in every state, along with letters to the editor, and op ed pieces. We need to be on radio talk shows, on TV, and in blogs. Our message needs to get out everywhere, repeatedly. We need adult learners who are good public examples of that message – of how the investment has paid off – who would be willing to be public speakers or, as some states call them, literacy ambassadors. We need them in every state. A national adult learner organization, VALUE, has been preparing adult learners to do this through their leadership training activities.

We need adequate financing. Adult literacy advocacy may never have highly paid lobbyists. But we can do better. We need money to finance a national media campaign with ads on television and in magazines. We need another, even better, national ad campaign like Project Literacy U.S. (PLUS) in the mid 1980’s.

We need more young leaders who will be committed to adult literacy for the long haul. Many reading this have already been adult literacy education advocates for years, although few of us planned it that way. We also need advocates in their twenties and thirties who will say, “This is my issue. I am in it for life. Thirty years from now I want to look back and see big changes in our field.” I would like the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL), and its member organizations, to galvanize young leaders, and other leaders, in our field and build them into a core group through a national congress of advocates. The congress could convene practitioners and learners from every NCL member organization, to create new strategies, and to dedicate themselves to this cause.

Those of us who have been around awhile need to encourage younger people to be advocates, mentor them, introduce them to, and help them to carry on the important advocacy work which we have only just begun.

Adult literacy education advocacy can succeed. We can get the resources we need to build a top-quality adult literacy education system. We are better organized than we have ever been, and we must keep that up. But we must be smarter about how we do it. Let’s begin by reframing the issue. Let’s bring the nation’s adult literacy advocates together for a national congress. Let’s launch a national media campaign and, in the process, raise some money for advocacy. And let’s remember that, over time, we can prevail, because what we are advocating is right and because it makes good sense.

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[i] Lakoff, George don’t think of an elephant! KNOW YOUR VALUES AND FRAME THE DEBATE Chelsea Green Publishing. September,2004.