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.
Papers and resources by ODC members
Archive of announcements previously on this page
What's New?
ODC presentations at 2021 Conferences
This spring, ODC members have been making conference presentations on the topic of “Addressing Health Inequities: What Adult Educators and Health Partners Can Do Together.” To see information presented in those sessions, click here.
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Open Door Out of Poverty
Open Door Collective Policy Paper
for a new Administration John Comings, Steve Reder and David Rosen September, 2020 John Comings presented a webinar based on this paper on February 22nd, 2021. You will find a recording here, and the slides here. The paper 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. |
Older Adults Infographic
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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 foundational (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 foundational skills services will, therefore, pay for themselves.
ODC's mission is to reduce poverty in the U.S. by building partnerships between adult foundational (basic) skills programs and organizations supporting social and economic justice. We want adult foundational skills advocates to make common cause with advocates for other issues (community health, employment, criminal justice reform, digital equity and inclusion, older adults services, public 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 foundational skills advocates and practitioners support them and if those advocating for other issues support adult foundational skills. In addition, we believe that an integrated approach to ending poverty that includes adult foundational 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; and Well-being of older adults and ABE services. Click on this ODC Issues Groups link for more information.
ODC's mission is to reduce poverty in the U.S. by building partnerships between adult foundational (basic) skills programs and organizations supporting social and economic justice. We want adult foundational skills advocates to make common cause with advocates for other issues (community health, employment, criminal justice reform, digital equity and inclusion, older adults services, public 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 foundational skills advocates and practitioners support them and if those advocating for other issues support adult foundational skills. In addition, we believe that an integrated approach to ending poverty that includes adult foundational 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; and Well-being of older adults and ABE services. Click on this ODC Issues Groups link for more information.
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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. |