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Promising Practices: Reducing Waiting Lists in Adult Education and Literacy Programs
In January 2007, a survey released by the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education indicated that 93,840 potential students were placed on waiting lists for the 2005-06 school year for services from programs funded under WIA Title II federal and associated state funds.
In 2005-2006, 51% of ProLiteracy America group affiliates reported that they had waiting lists for potential basic literacy students. The average number of people on these lists was 15, and they waited an average of 2.6 months for service. In the area of ESL, 61% of the affiliates had to place potential students on waiting lists, and these lists were longer with an average of 34 people per program. These potential students waited an average of 3.2 months for service.
Adult educators know that they must find ways to engage these potential students in meaningful learning activities as soon as possible or risk losing them. ProLiteracy America is working to develop resources that can help adult education and literacy programs better meet the needs of these learners.
With the help of a grant from the Dollar General Literacy
Foundation, a longtime literacy supporter, ProLiteracy initiated
a project to identify and disseminate promising practices
that programs can use to help reduce the number of students
on waiting lists. Twenty-three literacy organizations from
across the country participated in the project as model or
pilot programs. Their experiences and lessons learned are
documented in the following materials:
Promising Practices: Reducing Waiting Lists in Adult Education and Literacy Programs, a booklet that describes the practices, how they were implemented, and what the results were.
Click here for the Acrobat PDF
Also available are two videos of the pilot sites. These enable viewers to hear directly from project staff and watch students engaged in these practices (videos require high speed Internet connection).
The Write to Read Program (7 mins.)
Alameda County, CA
A Community Partnership (9 mins.)
West Chester, PA
Resources for Promising Practices: Reducing Waiting Lists in Adult Education and Literacy Programs. These include actual resources used by the programs and referred to in the booklet. Examples of these tools, which can be used as is or adapted to meet local needs, include sample curricula, training outlines, recruitment flyers, and job descriptions.
Click here for resources
ProLiteracy also offers a free online course, Reducing Student Waiting Lists. The course, which is self-paced and takes approximately one hour to complete, is available on the Verizon Literacy Network at literacynetwork.verizon.org.
Questions or comments related to these materials should be sent to info@proliteracy.org.
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