Adult Literacy

Deep Thought About Sequestration

/ The Old Crank

(Updated below)

What worries me most about sequestration cuts to adult education is not the cut to adult education itself. The federal investment in adult education, while significant to those who benefit, is relatively small in comparison to other federal programs, and by the time you apportion a $30 million cut across 50 states plus territories, the impact will be somewhat diffused.

What worries me more is the rest of the sequestration cuts, and how states respond to them. States have no money. I assume they are going to have to try to move around what little they do have to make up for loss of federal dollars in other, more visible and popular programs. Remember that states are losing money for K-12 teachers and special education and a host of other things. I can imagine some states might be looking at cutting their state investments in adult education and re-allocating that money into those areas, and I can imagine that this could be worse than the sequestration cuts themselves in many states.

If you want to contact your elected representatives about sequestration, the National Coalition for Literacy has an action alert here.

UPDATE: Good summary here of the impact of sequestration on other programs. Education alone will be cut by $2.1 billion, which would result in 1.2 million fewer students served under Title I grants, potentially ten thousand teacher job losses, and nearly 300,000 fewer special education students served. Early-childhood education will be cut by just under $600 million. These are the kinds of program cuts that states are going to be scrambling to try to address in the months and years ahead.

Economic Argument for Adult Education Still Has Some Life in Maryland

/ The Old Crank

On Wednesday night, during his annual State of the County address, Montgomery Maryland County Executive Leggett announced something that sort of sounded like a big push to expand adult English literacy services in Montgomery County, which he called “English Language on Demand.” It’s not clear what exactly this initiative will include—in particular, whether there will be significant new funding involved. (One thing for sure, there is excellent umbrella organization—Montgomery Coalition for Adult English Literacy—that does a tremendous job supporting local adult English literacy programs in Montgomery County. They would surely do great things with more funding should it become available.)

But I wanted to highlight a statistic that he cited during this announcement, because it’s a rare example where an old report—you know, those reports that usually just gather dust on a shelf somewhere—actually seems to have resurrected itself (at least one small piece of it). And the fact that the piece in question is an economic return-on-investment argument is encouraging.

The report I’m thinking of is Stepping Up to the Future, a 2005 report by a panel put together by the Maryland Schools Superintendent to make recommendations on improving adult education throughout the state. Leggett cited a nugget of economic data that I’ve only seen in that report—I’ve never been able to get a hold of the original source of the data. Specifically, when he said during the speech that “every dollar we invest in adult English language training… brings us three dollars in higher productivity,” that appears to be derived from an analysis, commissioned by the panel, of adult education and wage data by a group called ORC Macro. They found, among other things, that “every dollar invested in adult education [in Maryland] yields a return of $3.15.” That’s not exactly what Leggett said—he was talking specifically about English language training, and not in the whole state but just in the county—but I’ll bet that’s where that statistic  comes from. And if it’s sort of a sloppy appropriation of it (assuming I’m right), it doesn’t matter. The important thing here is the suggestion that policymakers in Maryland accept the notion that investing in adult education has positive economic returns.

Anyway, it’s always great to hear support for adult education in one of these annual speeches, and credit is due to Leggett for proposing it. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Here are Leggett’s comments on his “English on Demand” proposal in full:

My second initiative is English Language on Demand. In Montgomery, our residents speak many different languages – and that’s good. But here, and increasingly around the world, mastering English is the ticket to opportunity and success. When you speak English, you not only learn another language, you also improve your chances of getting a good job – and then getting a better one. It is the ticket to growing your business and to building a better future for your family — which increases the County’s overall tax base.

I recommend as a goal that every adult in this County who wants to learn English – no matter where they come from – has the opportunity to do so. For every dollar we invest in adult English language training, it brings us three dollars in higher productivity. So, let’s invest the necessary resources to help shorten and, in time, eliminate the long waiting lists for individuals seeking the opportunity to learn English. And, we should also encourage County residents to become “teaching volunteers” in our County English language learning network.

And Now Here’s the Republican WIA Bill – Plus a Hearing on the 26th

/ The Old Crank

Sure enough, hot on the heels of the reintroduction of the Democrat’s WIA reauthorization bill from last year (the Workforce Investment Act of 2013, or H.R. 798) last week, Education and the Workforce Committee Republicans announced today they plan to reintroduce their old WIA bill under a new name on February 25th. (At least that’s what it appears to be… I haven’t checked to see whether there might be any substantial differences worth noting.)

Here’s a copy of the bill, which will be known as “The Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills (SKILLS) Act.” Higher Education and Workforce Training Subcommittee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) will chair a hearing on Tuesday, February 26th to discuss.

Two Basic Principles for Immigration Reform and Learning English

/ The Old Crank

All indications are that the immigration reform legislation currently being drafted in the Senate is going to provide undocumented immigrants currently residing in the U.S. with the opportunity to apply for lawful permanent residency—but with a much more arduous set of requirements than are required by normal green card applicants. Adult education groups are particularly interested in the English language requirement (which I discussed here).

Having now had a chance to think about this for a few weeks, my thoughts on this requirement come down to two basic principles:

  1. A requirement to learn English in order to qualify for lawful permanent resident status shouldn’t penalize or place an unrealistic burden on those with significant learning challenges.
  2. Any requirement to learn English in order to qualify for lawful permanent resident status should address the increased demand for English instruction that would emerge as a result, in a way that leverages the success of adult education programs that already provide these services.

The first has to do with basic fairness and ensuring equal opportunity. A requirement to learn English in order to qualify for lawful permanent resident status shouldn’t penalize or place an unrealistic burden on those who have special learning challenges, such as:

  • Those with limited education or literacy skills in their native language.
  • Those who are caregivers of children and therefore may have more limited opportunities to attend English classes. Lack of childcare services is already a significant barrier that prevents many people from attending adult education classes—particularly women.
  • Those who are elderly or disabled. For citizenship, those who are over a certain age and/or who have a disability may be granted an exemption from completing the English and civics tests. Similar kinds of considerations should be made for undocumented immigrants applying for the permanent resident status who are elderly/disabled.

It seems to me that consideration should be given to scrapping English proficiency altogether as a requirement and using satisfactory completion of some form of legitimate English language instruction over a certain period of time as sufficient to qualify. This would eliminate the problem of having to figure out what level of proficiency is going to count as sufficient, and it would largely (although not entirely) address the problem that the elderly/disabled may struggle to gain proficiency easily or quickly. One would still have to know English at certain level of proficiency to become a citizen (other than those who would be granted exceptions anyway).

The second basic principle is that any requirement to learn English in order to qualify for lawful permanent resident status should address the increased demand for low-cost English instruction that’s going to explode as a result, and in a way that leverages the success of adult education programs that already provide these services for free or at a limited cost. (I’m thinking here primarily of the adult English language and literacy programs funded at least in part by federal/state dollars—but also the privately funded nonprofits that are also key adult education providers in many communities.)

  • While the current capacity of these programs may not be sufficient to meet new demand, it will be cheaper to leverage the existing capacity than to create new entities to provide this instruction.
  • Moreover, this existing adult education system already has a track record of success in providing individuals with the English skills needed to successfully enter employment, improve their employment prospects, enroll in job training or in postsecondary education. The adult education system also has a track record in many states of providing adults with the opportunity to co-enroll in English language instruction while obtaining technical skills.
  • Similarly, it doesn’t make sense for the English language requirement to establish its own measure(s) for English proficiency that does not align with those measures already in use by the adult education system in local communities.

Finally, while it’s probably not realistic to expect a big increase in federal expenditures for these programs to be included in this bill, we ought to at least strengthen what we have. Let’s encourage professional and private sector investment in expanded adult English language instruction. One way to do this would be to provide tax credits for businesses that partner with adult education programs to provide English instruction for their employees (or residents of the community)—a variation of an idea was included in the Menendez/Leahy immigration reform bill in 2010.

In addition, I can’t think of a good reason why this legislation shouldn’t include the authorization of the EL/Civics grant program under Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). (WIA is the primary vehicle for federal investment in adult education in the U.S.) EL/Civics isn’t actually authorized by WIA but is a set-aside that has to be approved by Congressional appropriators every year. The lack of authorization leaves the program more vulnerable to elimination than other programs under WIA, at a time when we can least afford for that to happen.