cbo Archives - Literacy Texas

Second Chances Start With Compassionate Teachers

June 14, 2025 by Jenny Walker

Author: Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker, Literacy Texas Executive Director

One of the most impactful professional development workshops I’ve ever attended was led by brain researcher Dr. Marcia Tate. In her presentation, she said,

“If students love you, they’ll do anything for you.”

With this sentiment, Dr. Tate made a strong case for the power of positive relationships in the classroom. If we, as instructors, can earn the trust and respect of the adult learners we serve, we can use that as leverage to motivate, empower, and equip our students for success.

In the adult education and literacy field, we’re fortunate to have students with a diverse range of backgrounds, and some of those backgrounds include substance use and incarceration.

It’s not our job to decide if they’re worthy of a second chance.

It’s our job to help them begin again when they’re ready for it.

Our organizations are stretched thin and are charged with doing an unbelievable amount of work. Even so, it’s important that the people on your team are the right fit for the students you serve. You must have people who can build positive relationships with all students.

This is why it’s infinitely important to be selective about the people you invite to join your team. There are often people with good hearts who want to serve as a tutor or volunteer, but sometimes even people with good hearts bring preconceived ideas about those carrying heavy baggage from their past.

This will impact an instructor’s ability to build positive relationships, and ultimately, it will impact the success of the students in their classroom.

When interviewing potential volunteers or staff members, it’s important to be open and honest about the kind of students they could potentially have in their class. It’s not fair to your adult learners – or to the candidate you’re interviewing – to skip those difficult, yet critical, conversations.

You can always teach instructional strategies. You can’t always teach a person how to have an open mind and an open heart.

On Thursday, June 26, we’ll welcome a special contingent from the Windham School District – which has responsibility for all adult education for incarcerated folks across Texas – to our Best of Texas session. It’s promising to be a fascinating conversation and we’d love to have you there. Find out more and register here.

Get Texas literacy updates

Join our mailing list so you don’t miss any news:

Local and national literacy news
Conference updates
Regional symposia
Best of Texas
Advocacy
…more!

Best of Texas: Best Practices & Research

May 28, 2025 by Kathryn Bauchelle

Learn from peers about best practices and innovative ideas being put into action at literacy programs across our great state. Best of Texas brings together local experts to share their wisdom and experience – and maybe help us all avoid a few pitfalls along the way.

QUICK LINKS FOR THIS EVENT:

Click on any of the links below to go straight to that section, or simply scroll down the page.

Basic details

About this month’s topic

Program

Program, Schedule, & Sessions

Guests this month

Online registration

PD Certificates

Special thanks

BASIC DETAILS

This online session will be held on:

Thursday, July 17, from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM (CT).

The Zoom room will open at 9:50 AM.

Please arrive on time – the Zoom room will close to late arrivals 30 minutes after the session begins.

This online learning session is offered free of charge to Texas nonprofit professionals who work in the fields of adult and family literacy.

ABOUT THIS MONTH'S TOPIC

This session will focus on [brief description of topic]. This is such a crucial topic that we have dedicated a morning to it, in place of the standard 1-hour format for Best of Texas sessions.

[session description]

GUESTS THIS MONTH

Guests to be confirmed.

Name
Title
XY

Info

Name
Title
XY

Info

Host:

Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker
Executive Director
Literacy Texas

Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker serves as the Executive Director of Literacy Texas. She was a first-generation college student who personally knows the powerful role that education plays in helping change the course of a person’s life. This passion has fueled a career in education that has spanned over two decades and impacted thousands of students. She earned a doctorate in education leadership and a master’s degree in education administration, both from Texas A&M University–Texarkana. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Dr. Walker also attended Texarkana College and was a graduate of Liberty-Eylau High School.

She is a member of the 2025 Leadership Texas class and she currently serves as a member of the Digital Opportunity Advisory Group for the Texas Broadband Development Office. In 2024, Dr. Walker represented Texas in COABE’s 2024 State Advocates for Adult Education Fellowship.

FREE ONLINE REGISTRATION

Registration will open soon – watch this space

REMINDER: CHECK YOUR SPAM

Every online registration will generate an automated email response with further information. If you don’t see it arrive, please check your junk mail!

Online registration has now closed – but we have a few spots available for last-minute registrants! Call us on 972-926-3155 to make arrangements.

PD CERTIFICATES

NOTE TO WEB ADMIN: Most Best of Texas sessions will not include a PD certificate, but the longer in-depth sessions currently scheduled for 3 times a year will be the exception.

Someone who completes the full session will receive X hours of PD credit.

Certificates of completion will be awarded after the event. Complete the survey after the training is finished to give your details and get your certificate. Surveys will be sent via email in the days following the training.

SPECIAL THANKS

[presenter]

[name of any sponsors or other partners – as many as relevant, new line for each]

The Texas Workforce Commission

STAY IN THE KNOW -

Or get news directly from Literacy Texas:

Thank you so much for your interest!

This event is now over.

Checked/updated 6/19/25

The opposite of “wasteful”

May 14, 2025 by Jenny Walker

Author: Dr. Jenny McCormack Walker, Literacy Texas Executive Director

Since his election, President Trump has prioritized the need to reform wasteful spending on the federal level. Most Americans would agree that a sensible and efficient approach to spending benefits us all.

However, the proposed “skinny budget” for FY26 calls for the complete elimination of funds for adult education (page 6).

Funding adult education and literacy is the opposite of wasteful. The truth is that an investment in our work is an investment in the future of our country and of our state.

First, this investment helps provide an educated workforce for continued economic development.

The United States is a strong world leader in many industries, and Texas, specifically, has become home base for many leading corporations focusing on a variety of vital fields including technology, manufacturing, agriculture, and others.

To push forward continued growth in these areas, we must have people to fill jobs and to lead innovation. Adult Education programs help people build the skills they need to join the workforce and help these companies flourish. A rise of just 1% in literacy scores leads to a 2.5% rise in labor productivity and a 1.5% rise in GDP.

Additionally, Adult Education is an investment in the next generation. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Education, Texas ranks among the lowest states in the country for literacy, with 28 percent of adults functioning at or below a level 1 for reading (the lowest level) and 40 percent of adults functioning at or below a level 3.

Many young students are being sent home with books to read to parents who themselves do not have adequate literacy skills. Texas has done a great job in recent years at supporting early childhood literacy programs, but active involvement of parents and caregivers is a critically important component of many of those programs. When we fail to invest in Adult Education, we leave those children without the support they need, and the low literacy cycle will perpetuate.

One of the points the president uses to justify the elimination of this funding is the so-called “dismal” results found in Adult Education programs. What many may not realize is that there are millions of people who need our services, but Adult Education and literacy providers have been operating with skeleton crews and shoestring budgets – for decades! It’s impossible to make the kind of population-level change we need to see with even less funding than we currently receive.

Instead of being cut, Adult Education funding should be expanded.

“Recent causal research in Massachusetts offers a glimpse of what’s possible if AEFLA [Adult Education and Family Literacy Act] had a larger budget. Researchers were able to take advantage of the state’s waiting lists and admissions lotteries to compare the outcomes of learners who were admitted to an English language acquisition program in Framingham with those of learners who lost the lottery and were turned away.

…Researchers found that participation boosted the annual earnings of learners by 56 percent over the 10 years following their admission to the program. Participants were three times as likely to have middle-class annual earnings in the range of $60,000 to $70,000 in any year as those who were not admitted. Importantly, the increased tax revenue generated by those earning gains fully covered the costs of the program.

In other words, adult education, if adequately funded and well-implemented, can pay for itself.”

Quote from NewAmerica.org

There is a small window of time before the budget becomes official, and if you’re interested in supporting Adult Education, you can help. Literacy Texas is joining forces with the Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE) and their advocacy efforts, as well as ProLiteracy, who is urging action on the same issue. We encourage you to learn more about these campaigns (COABE) (ProLiteracy) and to help us communicate the crucial importance of the continuation of Adult Education funding.

Investing in Adult Education will pay dividends well into the future. The elimination of funding for this work will be devastating in many ways, and it will negatively impact both economic development and future generations of Texans. Lawmakers should rethink this budget proposal and include expanded funding for Adult Education.

Please act now.

Amazing things are happening in Texas!

“Best of Texas” brings local experts together to share their wisdom and experience.