OPEN DOOR COLLECTIVE
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  • 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
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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 at COABE and MCAE

COABE
Re-Orienting Adult Education toward Democracy and Social Justice
March 22, 2021
12:45 to 2:00 pm EST
Facilitated by Paul Jurmo, Andy Nash,
and Cynthia Peters

Addressing Health Inequities: What Health Partners and Adult Educators Can Do Together
March 22, 2021
3:00 to 4:15 pm EST
Facilitated by Marcia Drew Hohn, Greg Smith, Janet Ohene-Frempong, Emma Keating, and Paul Jurmo.

MCAE
Addressing Health Inequities through Collaborations with Health Partners March 25, 2021
1:15 to 2:45 pm EST
​Facilitated by Marcia Drew Hohn, Barbara Krol-Sinclair, Adriana Giraldo, Elizabeth McKiernan, and Paul Jurmo.


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

The Older Adults Issues Group has released a new infographic on the importance of literacy for older adults:

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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.

Readings, Resources and More

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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.

The Open Door Collective is a national program of Literacy Minnesota

Opening the Door to Opportunity for Everyone!