Adult Literacy

Adult Education in the American Jobs Act

/ The Old Crank

Earlier tonight, the White House posted the full text of the American Jobs Act, a section-by-section analysis, and a message from from the President to Congress about this proposed bill.

This may already be clear to some, and will probably be clear to everyone now that we can look at the bill, (which I have not looked at yet), but earlier today I spoke with a policy person at the Dept. of Education about the inclusion of adult education in the $5 billion Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults provision — specifically, how adult basic education mentioned in the fact sheet money would be distributed.

I was told that activities under this provision will be competitive grant awards to localities. In other words, there will be no specifically dedicated adult ed funding in the bill and will not be distributed via current WIA-funded state adult education systems. Adult education will be one of several carefully specified groupings of potential uses for these funds.

The decision was made to NOT to send through existing formula funding. The administration wants local areas to duplicate what has been succesful. “The idea was not to fill up existing discretionary coffers.”

The American Jobs Act: Impact for the District of Columbia

/ The Old Crank

[Cross-posted from D.C. LEARNs]

This is slightly off-topic for us, but I thought visitors to this site might be interested in the just-released fact sheet on the impact of the President’s jobs proposal, if enacted, in the District of Columbia, according to the White House. (Full list of state-by-state fact sheets here.) Scroll to the end of this post for what little I know so far about the impact for adult education and literacy.

Here is a bullet summary of the benefits to D.C. of the American Jobs Act (AJA), according the White House:

  • 20,000 businesses in the District of Columbia will receive the payroll tax cut (which is 3.1% on the first $5 million in wages).
  • The District could receive at least $387,300,000 for highway and transit modernization projects that could support a minimum of approximately 5,000 local jobs.
  • The District would receive $45,100,000 in funds to support up to 500 educator and first responder jobs.
  • The District would receive $84,700,000 in funding to support as many as 1,100 school infrastructure that will modernization jobs.
  • The District could receive about $20,000,000 to revitalize and refurbish local communities, in addition to funds that would be available through a competitive application. They expect this to increase construction jobs.
  • The District could receive $2,500,000 of facilities modernization funds next fiscal year for “its community colleges.” (Note: we just have one.)
  • They think their UI reform plan could put 16,000 long-term unemployed workers in District of Columbia back to work.
  • They estimate that the extension of UI benefits would prevent 5,500 people looking for work in the District from losing their benefits in the first 6 weeks after the plan is enacted.
  • They think the Pathways Back to Work program could place 400 District adults and 1,400 District youths in jobs.
  • They estimate that the expansion of the payroll tax cut passed last December would mean that the typical household in the District of Columbia, with a median income of around $53,000, will receive a tax cut of around $1,640.

A couple of other notes:

  • The White House has also prepared fact sheets on the potential impact of the president’s proposal for various demographic groups, such the impact on women. At a White House briefing yesterday on the AJA for advocates, several participants suggested that the White House prepare a fact sheet on the impact on nonprofits, and Jon Carson, the Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, seemed to agree that this was a good idea. So stay tuned for that.
  • Finally, the adult literacy piece: One of the major education provisions in the bill is “Support for Local Efforts to Implement Promising Work-Based Strategies and to Provide Training Opportunities.” This initiative, according to the White House, “would support efforts that have good records of placing low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly. Local officials, in partnership with local workforce boards, business, community colleges, and other partners, will be able to apply for funding to support promising strategies designed to lead to employment in the short-term.” In the list of examples that follow, several of them certainly implicate adult education and conceivably could involve some basic skills instruction as a component (things like sector-based training, industry credential programs, and career pathways), but only one of the examples mentions adult basic education directly: “Free evening and weekend basic computer training classes, adult basic education and integrated basic education and training models for low-skilled adults, hosted at community colleges or at other workforce-partner sites to prepare individuals for jobs.” This language raises questions for me, such as  how these funds would be distributed ,and to what kinds of agencies. Hopefully this will become clearer in the days ahead.

UPDATE: After I finished as writing this, I discovered a more detailed preliminary assessment on what the AJA might mean for D.C. by Kathryn Baer, posted on her Poverty and Policy blog.

President’s Proposed FY 2012 Budget

/ The Old Crank

The Administration’s proposed spending plan for 2012, which was released on Monday, was sort of a mixed bag for adult literacy. It included a small increase in the state block grants to local adult literacy and basic education programs; it proposed the creation of a Workforce Innovation Fund (WIF) (this was also proposed last year) a competitive grant programs for new, innovative adult education and job training projects; and called for reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), the largest source of federal funding for adult literacy (via Title II). But it also cuts some programs outside the education budget that have provided some funding for many adult literacy programs in recent years.

The proposed budget includes $635 million for state grants to local literacy programs, an increase of $6.8 million over the 2010 appropriation and the adjusted 2011 Continuing Resolution. But $50.8 million from this line item will be used to support the WIF, which will also include $30 million in funding from the Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research account, and almost $298 million from the Department of Labor.

This leaves $584.2 million for formula-based state grant money for adult literacy programs (of which $75,00,000 is set-aside for English literacy and civics education grants, also managed at the state level), a figure that is still short of what is needed.

Especially when you take into account that state budgets for adult literacy have been cut significantly over the last several years, and I expect that funding for adult literacy will continue to be on the chopping block as states grapple with their own budget challenges over the next year.

At a Department of Education briefing on the budget held February 14th, Department of Education officials told me that eligible grantees for the WIF would include programs, consortia of programs, and/or states. So it appears that this money will eventually get out to programs in the field. Essentially what they’ve done is take away some of the funds that would normally go to states via formula funding and made it competitive. Some states could end up doing better under this scheme. But it appears that there is definitely a chance here that some states will end up with less federal funding.

In addition, the proposal wants to more than double the amount of money going to the Office of Vocational and Adult Education at the Department of Education by providing an additional 12 million dollars for national leadership funds to evaluate the impact of college bridge programs and build technology infrastructure.

Again, during a period where states are cutting funding, some may raise concerns about the fact that the bulk of the President’s proposed increase for adult literacy stays (at least initially) at the Department of Education, and not out to the states that need the help now.

What concerns me more, though, is the proposed cuts to the community development block grant program and the community service block grant program. Many adult literacy programs have supported instructional services in part through these programs. And finally, the President’s budget also does not include funding for Even Start, the program that integrates adult literacy and early childhood literacy instruction.

But there are a few other positive things in the proposal: first, during a conference call briefing on the education budget held February 16th, administration officials noted that the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which has been increased by $100 million dollars, support partnerships with adult education programs. Adult Education projects could also receive funding through a proposed public-private financing program called “Pay for Success,” an innovation that is designed to encourage private investors to support education projects that would receive public funding only once the projects have met performance targets and generated successful outcomes.

Finally, it was encouraging to see the administration’s ongoing support for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). CNCS engages more than five million Americans in service through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. Many AmeriCorps members serve as instructors and in other capacities at adult literacy programs across the country. The President’s FY 2012 budget requests $1.26 billion for CNCS, a $109 million increase over current funding levels.