From the site called Literacy Alert

“Educational policy makers are in an unenviable position. Most of those who prepare new teachers
and retrain experienced ones in our schools of education do not appear to accept the results of
scientific research on the nature, development and teaching of reading and writing. They do not
accept the results because they have declared scientific research irrelevant. They thus mistrain
those who are preparing to teach in costly licensure programs and continue to mistrain them in
even more costly professional development programs. Rational argument is not possible with
those who maintain that evidence does not matter?or that evidence may be an opinion (or the
?right? opinion) about an issue or an appealing anecdote.
A society cannot afford to continue funding teacher training institutions whose educational
philosophy promotes a bankrupt theory and its associated pedagogy in the name of social justice
(or ?inquiry?) in order to disguise their own intellectual bankruptcy. Alternatives to dysfunctional
institutions must be created. A civically healthy society needs a system for teacher preparation
that respects and honors rational approaches to issues in curriculum and instruction.”
http://www.literacyalert.org/

From one of their links - “http://www.nrrf.org/CIMSE.pdf

“In 2004 the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Reading Panel (NRP) provided the answers for solving a major portion of America?s illiteracy. Most likely the reading establishment will reject their recommendations because there is more money to be made in illiteracy than literacy as federal expenditures clearly show! Dr. Jeanne Chall of Harvard University suggested this outcome in 1991. Over 50 years of experimental research appears to leave no other alternative than turning to the private sector.”

So very true within the public education system, there is more money to be made on the backs of students who need reading,writing and numeracy remediation, regardless of the damage being done creating future social problems and the emotional damage that occurs. Anti-science as well as anti-learning in my eyes.

Below is a link that represents the money made,  using the whole language approach for remediation of adults.

http://www.onlc.ca/links.php

There is a link for a Literacy Educator Certificate. I leave it to Joanne to critique it, but I don’t think the approaches used, are going to improve anyone’s reading, writing or numeracy.

http://www.adultliteracyeducator.com/start.htm

On the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition site, I check out the links. The math links are of interest, and here too, money is being made using all of the fuzzy math techniques for adult remediation and as I have discovered embed the fuzzy math in colleges and university courses where math is not required as much as in other fields.

One link that would be of interest to Wayne, is a site called, ALM - Adults Learning Mathematics.

http://www.alm-online.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=139

Paid membership as well as conferences. I read the latest journal, and I was intent on reading it all until I got to the first article, the abstract.

“Connectivism? ? a new paradigm for the mathematics anxiety challenge?
Christopher M. Klinger”

This line killed that ambition - “The need to find new ways to tackle old problems is further fuelled by the impact of
the digital age, with mounting evidence that many aspects of accepted teaching and learning
practices are being generally undermined by learners? exposure to technology.”
http://www.alm-online.net/images/ALM/journals/almij-volume6_1_feb2011.pdf

One doesn’t have to wonder why such math resources such as Khan Academy is never listed, or the excellent software and other resources on the net for building math skills.

Perhaps Wayne when you retired, you can start your own business, handling 20 students at a time, to remediate the correct way, and have students avoid the mind-numbing methods of fuzzy math. And to be able to directly to the field of studies, without having to detour spending more money on remediation that would do little in building their math skills.

To repute or put to rest the assumptions such as in the above article - “The endemic adult innumeracy that is so deeply embedded in modern Western societies is inextricably linked with the spectrum of mathematics anxiety, negative mathematics attitudes and aversion to the learning of mathematics so often encountered by practitioners among adult learners.”

I would say, the only place that it is deeply embedded, is in the minds of our teachers’ colleges and those who have been trained in like-minded pedagogy in both reading and numeracy.

Also Nancy,let`s not forget the role of the mega publishers.

They do plenty to promote programs that have no business seeing the light of day; many are clearly not honouring research but honouring the view point of one author?
It`s incredible how the teachers are quiet and don`t say,this simply isn`t working!