Colleagues,
The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School at Harvard University in May announced their finalists and top 25 Programs for Innovations in American Government Award. Two of these, interestingly, were for programs in adult basic skills, one is a finalist.
From the website: “Selected by a team of policy experts, researchers, and practitioners, these initiatives represent the dedicated efforts of city, state, and federal governments, and address such policy issues as economic development, environmental and community revitalization, public health, equal access to education, criminal justice, and health care.”
Finalists made presentations to the National Selection Committee of the Innovations in American Government Awards on Wednesday, May 17. The winner will be announced sometime this summer.
Here are the two adult education programs: Cell-ED an innovation in mobile English language learning as used in New York State, and an innovation in career pathways in healthcare, a partnership of Rochester Community and Technical College (RCTC) and Hawthorne Education Center, the Rochester Public Schools' Adult Basic Education program in Rochester, Minnesota.
Cell-ED Pilot Program, State of New York
Cell-ED is a pilot program to provide free English-language training via mobile phones to hundreds of immigrants in New York State who may lack regular access to a classroom, a computer, or the Internet. Learners will gain access to self-paced audio and text lessons through their personal cell phones. Despite record state investments in English language education, there are more than 900,000 limited English proficient immigrants in New York State. A lack of transportation, fear of being deported when outside of their work or home environments, or a demanding day of work serve as barriers to attending an English-language class. To address this issue, the New York State Office for New Americans partnered with social impact venture Cell-ED to provide free English-language training via mobile phones to hundreds of immigrant in the state. Participants call the program from a cell phone and listen to lessons, and once the lesson is complete, they are asked questions they answer via text messages to demonstrate comprehension. If the learner answers the questions correctly, they will move on to the next unit. If the learner is having difficulty, a coach calls to clarify the lesson. The program is free (excluding minutes and texts billed at the rate of the user’s cell phone plan). Though it was initially difficult to reach the target population through the state agency staff and outreach, office staff increased the program’s reach by working with community-based partners, faith-based groups, immigrant advocates, and the farming community to open access to the program to immigrant farm workers and low-wage Latino workers. Since its inception, more than 220 have completed the 45 units, with 730 currently in the learning pipeline.
Pathways to College and Careers, Rochester Public Schools ISD 535, MN
*FINALIST
Rochester Community and Technical College (RCTC) and Hawthorne Education Center, the Rochester Public Schools' Adult Basic Education program, united to provide supportive and successful pathways to college and careers for immigrant, refugee, and under-educated adults. RCTC and Hawthorne's pathway partnership expanded to include Mayo Clinic, Workforce Development, Inc., and United Way of Olmsted County. Through a shared interest in the success of all Rochester residents, these public and private institutions began their work together in 2011. They applied for and received grants, explored each other's environments through shadowing and information sharing, removed any unnecessary barriers to collaboration, and utilized the strengths of each institution to build college and career pathways. They share facilities, staff, and materials, and the administrative team meets monthly and are also in daily phone and e-mail contact.
Here’s a link to a MINNPOST article about this program by Erin Hinrichs, “How a Rochester program is helping nontraditional students overcome obstacles to health-care jobs.”
What are your thoughts about either or both of these innovations?
David J. Rosen, Moderator
Program Management, and Integrating Technology CoPs
Comments
I really like the Cell-Ed idea (and not just because it has my name it in). We have many reports these days that Smartphone accessibility is increasing and has already outpaced laptop/desktop access. It makes sense to try to hit people up through phones. As a learner with strength in visual modes and a weakness with audio learning, I think it would drive me crazy fairly quickly. I feel I would just tune things out quite easily. I can see some people loving the audio and in fact can see commuting in a car becoming a nice excuse to do one of the lessons. There is potential here and I will be interested in following up on their successes and challenges.
The other example did not hit me as much of an innovation, rather an expansion of some existing practice. I have experienced a number of adult education programs that had very integrated collaborations with local colleges and/or businesses. Internships are common as well as bringing professionals into the classroom (either face to face or digital) from those surrounding businesses. Now the extent that the Rochester program has ramped up the concept of collaboration is really cool and just makes sense to me that the Mayo Clinic and the United Way can benefit greatly from this effort. If learners are immersed in these environments and even trained by some of the staff, there is a much more likely chance of those agencies getting skilled and motivated learners joining them as more and more Baby Boomers start retiring really soon. I may just view this as advanced collaboration, but it is a great effort by a number of agencies.
It is refreshing to hear that different approaches are finding some success. Thank you for sharing these! Do others know of cool systemic type changes going on in their areas?