You Did It! Elevating Adult Education & Family Literacy During SOTU

Date: January 27, 2012

State of the Union Address 2012

Thank you to everyone who got involved with the State of the Union Address for adult education and family literacy! On Tuesday, January 24, the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) was invited to the White House to tweet live during the State of the Union (SOTU) address and participate in an interactive, open questions event with senior administration officials afterwards. We had the chance to ask questions about the speech and share questions from our followers on Facebook and Twitter. The event was livestreamed online and will be made available for replay at whitehouse.gov. A summary of the key aspects of the address that impact education is available here, from Washington Partners.

Here’s a recap from the tweetup and some interesting stats:

Attending on behalf of NCL was Jackie Taylor. Other NCL Members present included Jillian Holzer from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and Jeff Carter from DC Learns. Executive director, Joel Packer, attended on behalf of the Committee for Education Funding. Mr. Packer has been an education advocate with organizations such as CEF and the NEA for 36 years.

During the broadcast, Ms. Taylor posed a question from NCL’s followers to the panel. She asked:

The President says he wants us to “restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” How does the President plan to help adults who are not college or job ready to get a fair shot? 30 million adults don’t have the literacy skills to even read or complete a job application; many of them have undiagnosed learning disabilities. How will we help them get the skills they need to be productive contributors to the economy?

Mr. Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President on Education, responded to say that the President knows adult education is important, which is why he continues to invest in it. He then discussed the President’s recommendations from the SOTU to forge new partnerships between community colleges and businesses to train and place 2 million skilled workers. He believes adult education could become a part of that.

“We need to be able to grow more programs at our community colleges, and really grow more pathways for our adults to be able to continue to get education and training; begin to build those basic skills and transfer those basic literacy skills into job-relevant skills that can help them land a job.”

Question begins at 12:50 minutes:

For more information see the Blueprint on An America Built to Last, top of page 5.

In conversation afterwards, Mr. Rodriguez noted he would like for NCL to work with him on language that it is more inclusive of adult basic education students. It’s a start!

Twitter and Facebook Thanks!

Thank you to all who reposted the announcement about the tweetup, including American Library Association, COABE Regional Representatives, and Nell Eckersley on the AAACE-NLA List. Thank you to Marsha Tait for monitoring and fielding questions posted to NCL’s Facebook. And thanks to NCL Member organizations and delegates John Segota (TESOL), Jeff Carter, DC Learns, David Harvey, ProLiteracy, CLASP, GED Testing Service, Melissa Nitu and Deb Hargrove of the Association of Adult Literacy Professional Developers (AALPD), and others for participating in the tweetup. It was a team effort and a lot of fun!

We archived nearly 300 tweets from the evening of January 24 using the #adulted hashtag. It’s not everyone who tweeted about adult education during SOTU, but it is one lens through which we can view our activity.

Thanks to the top Twitterers using the #AdultEd hashtag during the SOTU:

Some more stats:

Twitter:

766,681 total tweets referencing the State of the Union and related hashtags, 9:05 pm to 10:40 pm on January 24. See this infographic for more staggering statistics.
In the first 24 hours #SOTU was used 101,363 times and in the last week it’s been used 109,294 times.
#WHchat was used over 1,000 times in the last 24 hours; 1,600 times in the last week.
#EdSOTU was used 317 times in 24 hours.
NCL made over 17,000 impressions on Twitter.
NCL gained 19 followers on Twitter.

Facebook:

January 24 Insights data is not available yet, but NCL gained about 50 followers.

Our new followers on Facebook and Twitter are potential or existing adult education advocates – thanks to all for getting the word out.

Keep Moving Forward

Here are the questions raised during the tweetup from NCL’s followers. See this White House Schedule of office hours where you can still tweet your questions to senior administration officials on Friday and pose them via You Tube. The President will be answering the most popular questions. Tweet your stories about the State of the Union and it’s blueprint to @JonCarson44 using #SOTU. Here’s a Wordle on what they’ve heard back so far. Obviously, they need input from adult education advocates!

Tuesday night, we jumped into the current with other advocates who were pushing for their issues and we were heard. If adult education is going to harness the attention it deserves, we can never stop. We need to stay in that current, seize every opportunity, and lift every voice for adult education and literacy. Keep up the good work and keep on pushin’! We can and do make a difference every day.

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