So cliché?

“Two heads are better than one.”

“Power in numbers...”

“T.E.A.M. = together everyone achieves more…”

The clichés and idioms are countless, and it’s certainly nothing new to propose that collaboration and cooperation among diverse players can lead to great results. At the core of the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas, we strive to create and maintain collaborative partnerships with fellow agencies across Central Texas for the sake of improving quality and availability of literacy services.  

But have you ever stopped and asked- Who says this is how things should get done?

How are we measuring that a coalition is in fact a ‘best choice’ vehicle to foster increased community capacity for social change?

Why do these questions exist? Because measuring the impact of a coalition is complex and few evaluation tools have been designed to measure the multi-level realities of community coalitions.  

LCCT interacts with community direct services, program management, organizational management and policy at city, county and national levels.  So where do we measure from? How do we assess the big picture for what we are doing?

While LCCT believes in the good work we are achieving, and we have much to show for our efforts already- more hard data is always ideal.

LCCT is excited to announce a new project that will seek to tackle the challenges of assessing our big picture impact. We have designed a two part assessment tool in the form of an online survey that will be administered to our 50+ partner agencies. This tool was designed in consideration of best practices research for literacy services as well as in reflection of similar initiatives/projects ongoing within the health sector.

We are excited to be in the process of administering Part 1 of the survey at this time.

Part 2 will be administered in June 2012.

In August this year we will have a wealth of knowledge gathered from our partner agencies to report back out to the community and to guide future practice within the coalition.

If you would like more details about the tool, or to view a copy of this tool, you can contact Emily Pulley at epulley@willread.org.

Stay tuned for exciting new insights into the big picture impact of LCCT in the Central Texas area!

5000 advertisements a day!

The first time I heard about media literacy I was in my 6^th grade English class and our teacher was having us cut up magazines to recreate the advertisements with our interpretation of what it was they were trying to convey or sell. I have to admit I didn’t really understand why he was having us do it, but hey, we were getting to look at magazines and make collages during school, so I wasn’t about to complain.  Media literacy completely fell off my radar until I got to high school and became interested in the use of advertising in political campaigns to make voters feel something about a particular candidate whether or not it was a true reflection of who the candidate was or what they stood for. This got me wondering how much advertising influenced the decisions people make on a daily basis and the way we form relationships with other people as well as with the inanimate objects promoted in advertisements.

I bet most of you are thinking, “Hey, I’m an intelligent, well-educated person. I know how to make rational decisions. Advertisements don’t really have any influence on me.” Maybe, but we are living in an era of media saturation – think about how much time you spend on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or email or surfing the net. Advertisements have become harder and harder to differentiate from other forms of media. Some estimate that we are exposed to close to 5000 advertising messages daily! So, whether or not you believe advertisements influence the decisions you make, it doesn’t hurt to buff up your media literacy skills so that you can be both a critical thinker and creative producer of media.

So what exactly is media literacy? Essentially it is a communication skill set that enables a person to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety of forms (this includes both print and non-print media). It is not an anti-media movement but rather a movement to empower individuals as we make choices as students, citizens, workers, consumers, and (to tie this back to my role as Health Literacy Intern) as patients. One day there’s an article on how ________ food that is good for you and the next day there’s a new article about how it may cause _______.  One day low-fat diets are touted as the best prescription for weight loss and the next it’s low-carb diets. How am I supposed to figure out healthy eating with all the mixed messages? And all those advertisements for drugs that are supposed to help with anxiety, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, PMS.  How can I figure out if one is right for me? What if my doctor doesn’t prescribe the one I’ve seen on TV? Should I ask for a different prescription? Or for those of us who like to self-diagnose our symptoms, which websites are actually providing trustworthy information and how do I know whether I’ve just got bad allergies or a brain tumor when swollen, stinging, draining eye is a symptom of both? That’s where media literacy can help. It doesn’t have all the answers, but it will help us to think more critically about the messages we receive, question the source of the information and the motivation behind the message.

Interested in learning more about media literacy, check out some of my favorite media literacy advocates: Media Education Foundation,  Sut Jhally, Jean Kilbourne, Jackson Katz, the National Association for Media Literacy Education, Center for Science in the Public Interest.

In the adult literacy classroom you can help your students improve their media literacy by creating activities and discussions comparing advertisements and public health announcements. You can check out more in our Health Literacy Workshops for Literacy Instructors.

The Bee Team Trivia Challenge: Game On!

I know you're out there, fellow lovers of language and purveyors of piquant prose. I see you on your cell phones, playing Words with Friends and Scramble to tide you over before your next opportunity to feel the barely-there weight of seven lovely little worn wooden tiles in your hand as you lean over a Scrabble board. I have good news: you're not alone in this big strange city of ours. Join us at 6:00pm on Tuesday, April 10, at the Yellow Jacket Social Club to get your smarty-pants fix. We offer 9 rounds of language, spelling, grammar, etymology, definitions, and other language-related trivia. You and your team of up to 6 folks get to test your mettle for free and win sweet prizes from local establishments. This week: win $30 at Buenos Aires Cafe! That's a glass of wine for everyone on your team. So grab your pocket protector and join your fellow grammarians and bibliophiles to revel together in our collective, otherwise-largely-useless knowledge! Let us know you're coming: RSVP on our Facebook event page!

Health Literacy Forward Pitch - Tune in, venture capitalists!

Here at the Literacy Coalition, we are in the midst of launching a business. Yeah, that's right. A genuine, money-making, corporate world, big$$, for-profit business. In my next post, I'll write more about why I think it's so important for us, the non-profit world, to step outside of our just-scraping-by, begging-for-money, throw-us-a-bone silo, and start finding new ways to become sustainable. But for now, check out this pitch I did at the RISE Austin Social Innovation Fast Pitch Competition. This was a "rough draft" version that I used while practicing...so bear with me as I stumble over a few words and speak a little too quickly. Check it out! 

Check out our health literacy page on the website to learn more!

Or follow me on twitter!

What do you think is the most important problem facing this country?

A CBS News/ New York Times Poll from March 7-11, 2012 asked adults nationwide, “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?”

51% responded Economy/Jobs. Only 2% responded Education.

Can we so significantly prioritize one over the other and expect to see positive change? Perhaps the two really go hand in hand?

Before you answer, here are some important statistics to consider:

• One in seven adults cannot read a job application. (National Assessment of Adult Literacy)

• 67% of the service industry’s jobs in 1983 required a high school diploma or less; this will shrink to NO jobs for high school dropouts in 2018 (Help Wanted, see Figure 4.17, pg. 86).

• An estimated 80-90 million adults—nearly half the workforce—lack the basic education and skills to qualify for the jobs that are being created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We cannot bridge that gap unless we invest in our nation’s adult basic education and literacy programs in tandem with job training and workforce development programs (National Coalition for Literacy). 

 In light of an economic downturn and daunting statistics such as those listed above, it would seem then that we as a nation would throw our focus onto educating the workforce. Yet, commitment to adequate federal education funding has been declining rapidly- at all levels!

Despite ongoing inconsistencies for federal dollars, and education program after program thrown on the chopping block, the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas has taken a stand for investment in education. LCCT has facilitated a collaborative planning process with adult literacy programs, Workforce Solutions Capital Area, and Austin Community College to create the new Workforce and Education Readiness Continuum (WERC).  By securing a 3-year contract with the City of Austin, the 13 partner agencies (Austin Adult Literacy Network) established a more coordinated system for adults to seamlessly transition through community-based educational programming, job training, and other support services. The WERC continuum launches in April of 2012, and will dramatically increase the number of adults receiving adult literacy instruction in Austin.

Stay tuned to our website willread.org. More information about how WERC will shape the Central Texas Community is coming soon!

Help me to understand...

I had a professor in graduate school who told our class that he knew when his wife was REALLY angry when she would start a sentence with the words "Help me to understand..." I laughed at the time, yet over the years I have found myself actually using that phrase as a helpful tool when I'm angry and frustrated. And I find myself wanting to use it today... 1. Help me to understand how the federal recovery act dollars, meant to help adults improve their employment situations, completely side-stepped GED and ESL instruction programs? 2. Help me to understand why over half of the education-focused foundations in the Austin area that previously supported adult education have shifted their focus exclusively to children? 3. Help me to understand how so many people seem to want to ignore the immense needs of 25% of the parents in this community... Parents who cannot make ends meet and cannot help their kids with their schoolwork. Shouldn't this be a priority? Shouldn't the government care? Shouldn't philanthropists care? Am I missing something? Please excuse my rant... Sometimes harsh realities smack me in the face. I'm worried about the future of these families, and the future of our community if their needs continue to go unmet. Sincerely, if you can offer any thoughts or insight on this, post away!

What's the Deal with the Spelling Bee?

If you know the Literacy Coalition at all, you know that every year we put on a huge event called the Great Grown-Up Spelling Bee. It's a team competition that's known for getting pritt-ay rowdy: on-stage antics range from a humanoid robot hurtling insults at the competition to men in chaps, black leather dog collars and little else flirting with the judges (and each other), and everything in between. So obviously there's the entertainment value, but why do we do it? And more importantly, why do we keep doing it year after year, and why should you plan to come? For starters, it's great public awareness. Our community needs to know that fewer than 1 in 20 adults living in Central Texas who needs to improve their literacy has access to a program. And there are 70+ literacy programs in Central Texas, people! From Adult Basic Education (the nuts and bolts of grammar, language, and writing) to GED preparation, people need opportunities to better their situations - for themselves and often for their families. It's also our biggest fundraising venture of the year. Did you know that since 2010, the Literacy Coalition's budget has more than doubled? In the for-profit world, that would mean our stock price skyrocketed over the past 2 years! Fortunately we don't have to worry about the NASDAQ. Here in the nonprofit world, our investors are our community - the companies that sponsor teams, the friends who come together to sponsor a table, and the individuals who see the $50 entry ticket as a meaningful contribution to ending poor literacy in Central Texas (which is exactly how we see it, by the way!). Besides, we feed you lunch! What's better than dinner AND a show? So come be our date at the Great Grown Up Spelling Bee this year on May 9 at Austin Music Hall. The party starts at 11:30, so join us and take a stand for literacy in Central Texas! Click the logo above for more info, or send an email to Maegan Ellis, Literacy Coalition Operations Manager, to purchase your table or ticket today!