OPEN DOOR COLLECTIVE
  • About
    • Steering Committee
    • Digital Health Literacy Planning Group
  • Newsletter
    • Fall 2020
    • Spring 2020
    • Winter 2020
    • Fall 2019
    • Spring 2019
    • Winter 2019
    • Fall 2018
    • Spring 2018
  • Membership
  • Contact
  • ODC Papers
    • Foundational Skills Education as a Fundamental Right for Incarcerated and Reentering Adults
    • Crimmigration in the USA
    • Basic Skills, a Key to Advancing the Workforce
    • No One Left Behind
    • Why Public Libraries and Adult Basic Education Programs Should Advocate For and Partner With Each Other
    • Adult Basic Skills and the Safety Net
    • Why Healthy Communities Need Adult Basic Skills Education
    • Intergenerational Literacy
    • Education in Adult Basic Skills Can Contribute to Reducing Incarceration and Alleviating Poverty
    • Adult Basic Education and Community Health Center Partnerships
    • Collaboration in Support of New Americans
  • Resources
    • Older Adults Resources
    • Anti-poverty Partnerships
    • Immigrant and Refugee Integration Resources
    • Criminal Justice and Adult Education Resources
    • Health Literacy in ABE Resources
    • Open Door Collective Video
    • Workforce Basic Skills Resources
  • Donate
The Open Door Collective stands against police murder, brutality, and unjustifiable suspicion of Black Americans and other Americans of color, and against the systemic racism that contributes in profound and multifaceted ways to poverty.

What's New?

           Fall 2020 Newsletter
Click here for updates about our work! 

       Open Door Collective Policy
   Paper for a new Administration

      An Open Door Out of Poverty

  By John Comings, Steve Reder and David Rosen
                         September, 2020

This document uses data from the 2017 PIAAC assessment to identify adults aged 18 to 54 years who are not in school. This is a population that might benefit from completion of a community college program. Of the 127.8 million adults in this population, 42.1 million adults speak or write English not well or not at all, have low literacy or math skills, or do not have a high school credential. The paper breaks this population into five subgroups defined by the major skill or credential barrier to their success in a community college program. The paper identifies the existing services addressing this problem, makes a case for funding these services at a higher level, and makes specific suggestions on how to improve and expand these services.
          

Criminal Justice Reform Paper

In November 2020, the ODC Criminal Justice Reform issues group (CJR) published a third online brief, Foundational Skills Education as a Fundamental Right for Incarcerated and Reentering Adults. CJR makes the case that foundational skills education is a fundamental right for incarcerated and reentering adults and recommends multiple solutions to support incarcerated and re-entering adults. Sharing this new brief with adult and correctional educators, librarians, and jail and prison policy makers and administrators is encouraged.  

    Contextualizing Adult Education

In September 2020 ProLiteracy issued the latest in its series of Research Briefs.  Titled "Contextualizing Adult Education: Learning from Six Decades of Experience and Research," this seven-page brief traces the evolution of the contextualized approach to adult basic skills education in the U.S., providing examples and recommendations for educators and other stakeholders interested in integrating basic education with academic and real-world topics of interest to adult learners.  Written by Paul Jurmo and Judy Mortrude and edited by Alisa Belzer, all members of the Open Door Collective, the brief can be accessed here: https://www.proliteracy.org/Portals/0/pdf/Research/Briefs/ProLiteracy-Research-Brief-04_Contextualizing-2020-10.pdf

Open Door Collective members play key roles in latest issue of “Adult Literacy Education" (Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2020), a   publication of ProLiteracy.  

In the “Forum” section, Paul Jurmo describes “Ten Actions to Build an Adult Basic Skills Development System that is More Inclusive, Relevant, Efficient, and Sustained.” 

In other sections, David J. Rosen writes about “Engaging Technology” and member Erik Jacobson describes “The Lessons of the Churn: Adult Basic Education and Disciplining the Adult Learner.”  Alisa Belzer and Amy Rose served as editors to this issue(with non-ODC member Heather Brown).  

To read these articles and others, download a free copy of the journal at https://www.proliteracy.org/Portals/0/pdf/Research/ALE%20Journal/ALE_ResearchJournal-v002_02-2020.pdf

2020 COABE Conference Presentations by ODC members.
 

Other News

                                Open Door Collective Webinars
Greening U.S. Adult Basic Skills Efforts: What Eco-partners and Adult Educators Can Do Together    September 24, 2020

This webinar featured Alex Risley Schroeder, Barbara Krol-Sinclair, David J. Rosen, and Paul Jurmo, with technical help from Emma Keating. They described why and how adult education programs can collaborate with “eco-partners” (supporters of environmental sustainability and green jobs) and social justice organizations. The presenters described examples of basic skills curricula that integrate environmental themes; green job training customized to adults who have basic skills limitations; green service learning; and joint advocacy, fundraising,  research, and professional development by adult education, environmental, and social justice stakeholders.
Links to Resources, slides, and webinar recording
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I6AnKrTjmqplA0Y6a3-tQLQT0z0AVxWR/view?usp=sharing

Addressing Health Disparities: What Health Practitioners and Adult Educators Can Do Together       August 4, 2020
A lively discussion of why and how adult education programs and “health partners" (organizations that in various ways support public health and healthcare jobs) can work together.
Links to the webinar slides, webinar recording , chat log.and resource list.
Learn more about ODC health-related resources:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W-EFpoemapm7vA7dv3mQV4_AorjB4-ym/view?usp=sharing.)


Open Door Collective Profiled in ALE Journal

In the Fall, 2019 issue of the Adult Literacy Education journal, published by ProLiteracy, is a review of the Open Door Collective by Dr. Johan Uvin, Executive Director of the Institute for Educational Leadership and former Associate Commissioner of Education overseeing adult basic skills education. His review focuses on Labor and Workforce Development Issues Group publications.

The ODC Labor and Workforce Development Issues Group updated its Work-related Basic Skills Archive as of March 2020. The archive now has 200 resources. It also updated two of its Can-Do Guides:
•  Strengthening Public Health and the Healthcare Workforce: What U.S. Health Partners and Adult Basic Skills Programs
Can Do Together
 (September 30, 2019 Edition) 
•  Greening U.S. Adult Basic Skills Efforts: What Eco-Partners and Adult Educators Can Do Together (Sept. 30, 2019 Edition)                                                                                             

Anti-Poverty Partnerships
This paper describes why and how anti-poverty organizations and adult basic skills programs can collaborate to help individuals who have basic skills-related challenges (e.g., lower levels of literacy, English language, and numeracy skills needed for work, family, and civic roles; lack of a high school credential; learning disabilities) to improve their economic security and that of their families and communities.  http://www.opendoorcollective.org/anti-poverty-partnerships.html

Tweets by opendoorcollect

Open Door Collective's E-BAES Task Force Report, COVID-19 RAPID RESPONSE REPORT FROM THE FIELD, published on July 31, 2020
ProLiteracy, the ODC E-BAES Taskforce, and the EdTech Center @ World Education are pleased to share a new report, “COVID-19 Rapid Response Report from the Field.” It includes information gathered and compiled by members of the E-BAES Taskforce and EdTech Center staff that describes adult education’s response to the pandemic. Findings are intended to inform the field and offer useful suggestions from which adult education and literacy practitioners can benefit.

The Evidence-Based Adult Education System (E-BAES) initiative began in early 2019, in response to a need for national research in adult education. E-BAES is led by the Open Door Collective, a program of Literacy Minnesota. A volunteer E-BAES task force, led by Eric Nesheim (Literacy Minnesota) and Margaret Patterson (Research Allies for Lifelong Learning), consists of 30+ researchers, practitioners, government officials, professional developers, and education leaders. E-BAES’ plan of action includes initial planning steps, to launch the E-BAES national network model, and implementation steps, planned for May through August 2020. On the task force’s recommendation, the initiative will “start small and build” so that E-BAES’ national network model has time to grow, complete its initial projects, and conduct research that has a positive impact on practice and adult learner outcomes. (Continued at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n43RE_sPRCxaQHe27MFkIBpWYx3xQRqs/view?usp=sharing)


The Open Door Collective (ODC), founded in 2014, assists poverty reduction initiatives to take advantage of, expand, or improve adult foundational (basic) skills services to meet the needs and broaden the economic opportunities of low-income adults. We advocate for effective policies and program designs that will reduce poverty, narrow income inequality, and provide free basic skills education for all adults in the United States. Improved policies and programs will enable adults living in poverty to increase their incomes as well as enjoy more economic stability and better health.  These outcomes will diminish the need for social services, increase tax revenues, and lower overall healthcare costs. Expanded adult basic skills services will, therefore, pay for themselves.

ODC's mission is to reduce poverty in the U.S. by building partnerships between adult foundational (or basic) skills programs and organizations supporting social and economic justice.
  We want adult basic skills advocates to make common cause with advocates for other issues (community health, employment, criminal justice reform, digital equity and inclusion, older adults services,  libraries, and others) in order to build an integrated approach to ending poverty. The ODC advocacy issues groups, therefore, are the engines of ODC's efforts. They produce advocacy papers and presentations that set out the common cause within each ODC issue group. We do this because we believe that the efforts taking place within other issue areas will be more successful if adult basic skills advocates and practitioners support them and they support adult basic skills. In addition, we believe that an integrated approach to ending poverty that includes adult foundational (basic) skills and all of the other issues groups is the only way to be successful. 

ODC Issues Groups  These currently include: Labor and Workforce Development, Public Libraries, Digital Inclusion, Community Health and ABE, Criminal Justice Reform, Immigrant and Refugee Education and Integration, Well-being of older adults and ABE services. Click on this ODC Issues Groups  link for more information.

Readings, Resources and More

Picture
The Open Door Collective is a national program of Literacy Minnesota.

​Literacy Minnesota is an internationally recognized non-profit leader and driving force behind the latest developments in literacy learning. We believe literacy has the power to advance equity and justice, and we envision a world where life-changing learning is within everyone’s reach.

The Open Door Collective is a national program of Literacy Minnesota

Opening the Door to Opportunity for Everyone!