Advocacy

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.

Educating and Training for Adults Largely Ignored in 2013 State of the Union Address

/ The Old Crank

Last night I was reviewing the President’s 2013 State of the Union address alongside my my notes on last year’s address. The thing I remember most strongly about last year’s speech was the President’s reference to a “maze of confusing training programs” which, at the time, (tweeting on behalf of D.C. LEARNs), I thought might be interpreted as a vague endorsement of the proposal then being floated by House Republicans to consolidate Workforce Investment Act (WIA) job training programs:

2012 SOTU Tweet

Sure enough, when House Republicans released their WIA reauthorization bill last spring, (H.R. 4297, the Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012), they used this quote in their fact sheet. In retrospect, I think the quote was taken entirely out of context (it seems clear when you read the President’s entire speech that he was talking about consolidating information about federal job training programs, not the programs themselves) but the House Committee on Education and the Workforce used the President’s words time and time again throughout the spring to support their arguments.

But hey, at least the President talked about job training and adult skills last year. Jobs were, in fact, explicitly linked to a proposal to support more job training. The President said that he had been hearing from business leaders “who want to hire in the United States but can’t find workers with the right skills.”  He then issued this call to action:

Join me in a national commitment to train 2 million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My administration has already lined up more companies that want to help.  Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, and Orlando, and Louisville are up and running.  Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers -– places that teach people skills that businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing. (my emphasis)

And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help that they need.  It is time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work.

But on Tuesday night the President barely mentioned adult skills. And when he did, it was to introduce other education proposals:

These initiatives in manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, and housing will help entrepreneurs and small business owners expand and create new jobs. But none of it will matter unless we also equip our citizens with the skills and training to fill those jobs. And that has to start at the earliest possible age.

Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can’t afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives.

Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America. Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime. In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children, like Georgia or Oklahoma, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, and form more stable families of their own. So let’s do what works, and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. Let’s give our kids that chance.

Let’s also make sure that a high school diploma puts our kids on a path to a good job. Right now, countries like Germany focus on graduating their high school students with the equivalent of a technical degree from one of our community colleges, so that they’re ready for a job. At schools like P-Tech in Brooklyn, a collaboration between New York Public Schools, the City University of New York, and IBM, students will graduate with a high school diploma and an associate degree in computers or engineering.

In 2012, preparing Americans for unfilled jobs required job training and community colleges and partnerships with businesses to retrain workers for new jobs. Last night, by contrast, when the President said that we must “equip our citizens with the skills and training to fill [new] jobs,” he immediately pivoted to his preschool proposal, and retraining adults is never mentioned. He then goes on to discuss the need to ensure that high school diplomas “puts our kids on a path to a good job.”

In other words, in 2012, preparing citizens for new jobs was linked to job training for adults; this year, it was linked to preschool and high school education. Adult training or re-training was never actually discussed at all. (It was only mentioned again as a segue into his discussion of immigration reform.)

No one I know in the field of adult education or job training is opposed to the idea of improving high school education or improving access to high-quality pre-school, (although, if we are serious about preparing kids for success in school, our strategy should include efforts to improve the skills of parents/caregivers), but I’ve never understood how improving preschool education is going to help us fill the jobs that are available now.

And it can’t help but make one wonder about the adminstrations’s engagement/commitment to WIA reauthorization. Perhaps after House Republicans appropriated his remarks on job training last year, he decided it was best not to get into the subject again last night. Or maybe it’s just a case of not having the time to hit on every priority, and/or wanting to keep the speech fresh. Hopefully it’s not a sign that adult education and training has slipped a further down the administration’s list of priorities.

Is a House Immigration Reform Bill Imminent?

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

This week I’ve been hearing from some my friends in the field that the House is getting ready to introduce an immigration reform bill in the very near future—even, perhaps, ahead of the Senate. I’ll believe it when I see it. After reading some of the published reports about House action on this issue, I still think that the Senate, where a bipartisan group of influential Senators has actually put out a plan, is going to be first up with a bill.

The Hill did report Monday that a “bipartisan group of House negotiators is even further along in drafting a comprehensive immigration overhaul than its counterpart in the Senate,” and that this group was trying to release a draft bill directly before or after President Obama’s State of the Union address on February 12th.

But The Hill also noted that even though House Speaker John Boehner told a Republican advocacy organization last month that the House immigration group “basically [had] an agreement,” an aide later said that the Speaker’s assessment was “overly optimistic” as they “have not come to agreement on some of the big stuff.”

Moreover, Caitlin Huey-Burns, writing today forRealClearPolitics, suggests that Republican leadership is actually tapping the brakes on this effort:

House Speaker John Boehner… has advised his chamber to approach immigration reform slowly. “This is not about being in a hurry. This is about trying to get it right on behalf of the American people and those who are suffering under an immigration system that doesn’t work very well for anybody,” he told reporters Tuesday.

She also reports (as many others have) that there are still a significant number of Republicans in the House who are opposed to introducing a comprehensive bill, and would rather take on reform in a piecemeal fashion, through a series of separate bills.

Mike Flynn, writing for Breitbart.com about the revelation that a group of House members has been meeting to draft legislation on immigration reform reminiscent of the Senate talks, thinks that “the talks are even more political theater than the Senate effort.”

If I were in a position where I had to choose between focusing my advocacy efforts between the House and the Senate over the next few weeks, I think I’d go with the Senate. In particular, considering Sen. Marco Rubio’s strong interest in this topic—and apparent influence within his party on the pending legislation—the sizable number of adult education advocates in Florida seem to me to be in an interesting position to advocate for adult education resources in the Senate bill.

UPDATE 2/7/13: The National Journal seems to agree:

[[T]he House will likely hold hearings and markups, and maybe even offer the bipartisan bill, but they’re not going first. House Republican leadership thinks immigration will likely fail in the Senate, and they’re not wild about the idea of making their members take a politically tough vote only to have reform die.

What Will Adult Education Advocates Be Looking for in the Pending Immigration Reform Legislation?

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

(Updated Below)

The basic outline of the coming immigration reform legislation is pretty clear, but reports are that we probably won’t see any actual legislation until March. (That’s the deadline that the eight senators who signed onto the immigration reform principles last week have set for themselves to deliver a bill.) Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing on immigration reform on February 13th.

For those of you in the adult education field, what will you be looking for when the bill is finally released? Here’s my list:

Funding. This is the biggest issue, I think. Will there by any new funding for adult English language instruction in the bill? Members of the Senate group have consistently stated that undocumented immigrants will be required to learn English in order to attain permanent residency status. (This is currently not required for those residing outside the U.S. applying for “regular” permanent residency.) That provision is going to create a large increase in demand for adult english language instruction. (We can be certain of this, as we’ve already seen a big surge in demand due to the President’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative.) Will the eventual legislation expand opportunities or provide additional resources for adult English language instruction?

I wasn’t really that closely involved the last time immigration reform was kicked around, but my understanding is that some of the proposals did include additional adult education funding. This time, however, I think it’s highly unlikely, considering the current fiscal climate, that we’ll see a bill that invests any taxpayer money into increasing adult education capacity, (even if it’s the “back taxes” the Senate plan would require of those seeking to obtain probationary legal status)—particularly considering that the primary beneficiaries of that funding would be undocumented immigrants.

But the Senate framework also includes language about additional fines to be paid by undocumented immigrants as well. Could the funds collected from those fines be used to provide funding for additional English classes? Is that something the adult education field would endorse?

Eligibility. In at least one state I know of (Arizona) undocumented immigrants are banned from enrolling in adult education courses administered by the Department of Education at state or federally funded schools. Even if no new dollars are forthcoming for adult education in this bill, could there something in there that might open up access to federally adult education programs to those individuals?

Proficiency. What level of English language skills will be sufficient to meet the English requirement. How will each applicant’s English language skills be assessed? Will it more-or-less mirror the process used by applicants for citizenship, or will it be something else?

Exceptions. As I noted last week, under the normal rules for those applying for citizenship, there are exceptions to the requirement that applicants know English. Generally, those over a certain age who have lived in the U.S. for significant amount of time are exempt from the English requirement when applying for citizenship, and an applicant with “a physical or developmental disability or a mental impairment” may be eligible for an exception to both the English and civics requirements.

Will there be a similar exceptions carved out for older or disabled undocumented immigrants applying for permanent residency status under the Senate plan?

Clarity. Even if the bill addressed none of issues above, the establishment of a fair, open, and transparent process by which undocumented immigrants can acquire some level of legal status will, I’m sure, be a huge relief to many immigrants served by our programs—and their families.

This is not necessarily a complete list. What did I miss?

Those in our field who feel strongly about the role of adult education in the immigration reform package should probably be getting in touch with their representatives in Congress now—particularly those living in the states represented by the eight Senators working on this bill. I think it’s quite possible that no one will be thinking very much about the role of adult education in the bill unless folks in our field speak up. The Senate is on recess the week of February 18th—adult education advocates may want to look into whether their Senators have scheduled town meetings or similar events, and try to raise questions about the role of adult education at those meetings. Program directors might even consider trying to arrange for a visit to their program that week.

I also recommend taking a look at the President’s fact sheet on immigration reform, which outlines the key principles that he believes should be included in the immigration reform package. In this document, the President calls for a proposal that promotes “efforts to integrate immigrants into their new American communities linguistically, civically, and economically.” (my emphasis) Historically, adult education programs have been at the center of those efforts, and so the President’s words may be a good place to start for those advocating for a strong role for adult education in the changes ahead.

UPDATE: I mentioned there was a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on February 13th. For the record, there is also a House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration tomorrow, February 5th. Because the Senate is going to be out of the gate first with a comprehensive bill, I think it’s the more significant event. For what it’s worth, the House hearing will be focused on the “current legal immigration system and ways to improve it” and “the extent to which our immigration laws have been enforced.”