This survey will help in choosing questions on adult literacy education to ask the candidates for President of the United States. We want to raise the priority of adult basic education and literacy (including English language learning) regardless of which candidate is chosen. Your vote on this survey will help to select the questions we will ask. Thanks for your help.

The Literacy President Group

Literacy President is a non-partisan group of adult literacy advocates whose purpose is to raise the priority of adult literacy for candidates for President of the United States.

Directions:

Read all the questions. Then choose only five questions, the ones that you think are the most important to ask the candidates. For the question you think is most important choose "First Choice." For the question you think is next in importance, choose "Second Choice" and so on until you have marked a priority for a total of five questions.

1. Do you support adult literacy?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

2. Access to Quality Programs

What should be the commitment of the federal government, if any, to insure that all adults in the United States have guaranteed access to quality programs to improve their academic skills, regardless of income, location, age, national origin, etc.?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

3. Training/re-training for the New Economy

What programs will you support to assist adults who need training and re-training to enter a computer-literate world where job responsibilities constantly change?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

4. Training/re-training for the New Economy

Many U.S. workers function at low literacy levels. Some of these voters watch their jobs being "outsourced" to foreign countries, but are not being given adequate access to the training and education that will allow them to function in the new "global, knowledge-based economy." Would your administration re-focus priorities to address the disappearance of the American dream for the 90 million US citizens functioning at the two lowest literacy levels who cannot compete without additional education?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

5. Intergenerational Literacy

Can you describe the relationship between a child's success in school and the parent's educational attainment?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

6. Intergenerational Literacy

Children need education. The ones who do not get education now will become adults who need literacy skills. If you teach adults, they will help their kids. What are you willing to do to improve adult literacy programs?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

7. Funding

What will you do to insure full funding for adult education and literacy programs?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

8. Funding

More funds are needed for adult literacy services in America. How will you reward the many adult learners who struggle to learn and improve? Will extra help be provided if they need another chance at getting a high school or General Educational Development (GED) diploma?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

9. Funding

Are any increases possible for Adult Education and Literacy? If not, then how can we continue to educate citizens who need literacy while providing English and education services for the increasing numbers of non-English speakers who have no schooling prior to entry into the US?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

10. Funding

Will your administration support special grant funding to states which have little or no infrastructure to deal with the huge increase in immigrants who need to learn English?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

11. Funding

The current average federal and state investment in adult education and literacy is a few hundred dollars per adult learner per year. Many of these adult learners were not successful in schools where more than ten times that much per student is the norm. What do you believe the federal investment per adult learner should be?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

12. Funding for Quality Programs

How can we have high quality programs with the current lack of funding?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

13. Health Literacy

What programs will you support to insure that everyone has access to understandable health information?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

14. Personal Experience with Adults who Cannot Read

Have you ever known an adult who couldn't read?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

15. Adult Learner Needs

Few literacy programs recognize adult needs. What will you do to address this?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

16. National Adult Literacy Initiative

Since it is the goal of this nation to create "new" jobs, employ the "working poor" in "better" jobs as an ongoing goal of the 1996 Work and Responsibility Act (Welfare Reform) and to help colleges and universities manage their growing nontraditional student population seeking new skills, what steps would you propose as a national adult literacy initiative to help address these issues?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

17. Adult Learner Leadership Will your administration formally recognize adult learners, seek them out for solutions to adult literacy problems, and provide resources and leadership training to those of us who have succeeded so that we can go out and help others with literacy problems?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

18. Research

There is a push to base our practices on evidence from scientific research. Although there has been some research in the field of adult education and literacy, many questions and experiences by teachers in the field remain unexamined. While current research provides some suggestions of "what to do" many of the most important areas are unexplored. What are your opinions about the need for research, and how might you fund new research?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

19. Research

Will you include support for adult literacy research in your administration?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

20. Research

What approaches, methods, and theoretical constructs to adult literacy research will your administration support?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

21. Research

What questions/issues do you think are most worthy of sustained investigatory investment by the federal government? What will constitute sound evidence?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

22. Research

Will your administration draw on the expertise of practicing adult literacy scholars or will you be looking outside the field for expertise?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

23. Definition of Adult Literacy

Many in this field of practice understand adult literacy to mean that there are many literacies -- like heath, family, women, civic, and workplace literacy -- and that adult literacy should not be limited by a national definition that addresses reading only. Where do you stand regarding the definition of adult literacy? How do you define it?

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice

24. Literacy for Different Groups

Explain how you see the government supporting resources that serve the literacy needs of disaggregate groups (blacks, Latinos, and other ethnic minorities.)

1st Choice    2nd Choice    3rd Choice     4th Choice    5th Choice