Advocacy

Key Point About Current Budget Talks

/ The Old Crank

For this of us who advocate for specific federal education programs, Joel Packer makes a key point about the current budget talks in this Inside Higher Ed article:

“[The] top-line number is the most important thing to us right now,” said Joel Packer, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, an umbrella lobbying group for education groups. “By the time anyone is down to lobbying on Pell Grants or TRIO or anything else at the program level, you’ve already lost the whole battle because the battle is over the overall pot of money.”

A Few More Thoughts About PIAAC

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

I’m spending a little more time with PIAAC today in preparation for a webinar I’ve been asked to participate in tomorrow. So I thought I’d post a couple of random, non-exhaustive (but possibly exhausting) thoughts about not only the data but also the media coverage of the survey—which has a large influence, I think on how to view this new data in terms of advocacy.

First, it’s important, I think, to remember that PIAAC is a measure of skills. One of the most prominent issues that emerges from the PIAAC data is that, in the U.S., many adults with a high school or even a postsecondary education still lack strong basic skills, and lag behind their counterparts in many other countries. This serves as a reminder that we have to be careful in adult education not to conflate credential attainment with skills—they’re not the same thing. It’s not unusual, for example, to hear someone talk about how adult education addresses skills by increasing the number of GEDs or diplomas acquired, or the number of students who have gone onto college. That works if you believe credentials are accurate proxies for skills, but the PIAAC data calls into question whether attaining those credentials (and we do a relatively good job compared to other countries in handing out credentials) provides all those receiving them with a good education and strong, marketable skills. We probably need to evaluate more closely the actual skills people acquire at every age and in whatever course of study they’re in, rather than just focus on credential attainment—or at least look more critically at whether our credentials are sufficient proxies for skills.

This might, in turn, spark a renewed interest in skill acquisition and program quality in adult education programs at all levels. It’s never made any sense to me to assess an adult education program primarily in terms of credential attainment anyway—so maybe PIAAC will encourage us to look more closely at what students are actually learning, not just the degrees they are earning.

A second, related point: if you look at the media coverage, U.S. performance on the PIAAC was largely portrayed as an indictment of our entire education system. Despite the fact that the PIAAC was concerned with adult skills, there seems to be little awareness in the media that an adult education system actually exists in this country. (I realize that we are far from taking a true systematic approach to addressing adult literacy in the U.S., but there is a system—for better or worse—that you can point to, even if it is severely underfunded and fragmented.)

The one good thing about the fact that no one in the media seems to be aware that an adult education system exists is that, to my knowledge, U.S. adult education programs were spared any criticism in the wake of these findings. This is important, because, like past literacy surveys, the PIACC tells us nothing about the performance of  U.S. adult literacy programs. It’s a survey of the general population, not adult literacy students. It’s safe to say that there hasn’t been much change in adult skill levels among the general population since the last adult literacy survey, but that doesn’t tell us anything about the job that adult literacy programs have been doing during that period. Sadly, the U.S. adult education system serves so few people, it simply couldn’t be having a discernible impact—good or bad—on overall skill levels, if you’re taking the entire population into account.

But this lack of visibility does present something of a blank slate for advocates in which to make the case that U.S. adult education programs are contributing in a positive way to increasing adult skills.

Third, while there is a lot in the data for those who have jumped aboard the universal pre-K bandwagon, OECD’s summary analysis of the findings actually emphasizes a multi-pronged approach to improving skills that includes both quality early education and lifelong learning opportunities for adults (page 13):

The impressive progress that some countries have made in improving the skills of their population over successive generations shows what can be achieved. These countries have established systems that combine high-quality initial education with opportunities and incentives for the entire population to continue to develop proficiency in reading and numeracy skills, whether outside work or at the workplace, after initial education and training are completed.  (my emphasis)

Fourth, there’s also a lot here about linking skills development strategies with economic development strategies in general. The PIAAC data could open up more opportunities to draw labor market analysts and economic development experts into a discussion about the role of adult education in the economy. Businesses, too.

As far as the data itself goes, something that jumped out at me is the alarming gap in skills in the U.S. that runs along racial lines, and also between native-born Americans and immigrants. I don’t think you can have a serious policy discussion about skills in this country without acknowledging and addressing the racial component in these findings.

Finally, the numbers on math skills in the U.S. across all demographic categories are particularly grim. If this doesn’t inspire the U.S. (and states) to make a big adult numeracy push in the near future, I don’t know what will.

Steal This Speech

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was at the South Baltimore Learning Center yesterday for a press event to kick off Adult Education and Family Literacy (AEFL) Week in Maryland. As is my usual habit, I wrote a short speech and then mainly just spoke ad hoc when it came time for me to actually talk. The speakers in front of me were all terrific and covered a lot of what I wanted to say—and better than I would have.

Nonetheless, I thought I’d go ahead and post my written speech in case it’s of interest to anyone. If you think any of the points here are useful, feel free to use or adapt.

I just want to talk to you a little bit about why this week is important and why speaking out about your work—whether you are staff, a volunteer, or a student—is so important.

Of course, as you’ve heard today, there is a lot of good news in adult education. But part of my sad duty this morning is to report to you that, in general, public support for programs like this one is not as strong as it was just a few years ago, and is still on a downward trend:

  • Federal funding for adult literacy and adult education is lower in terms of real dollars than it’s been in over a decade. For years we used to say that federal funding for adult education covered just 3% of the need. Now it’s 2%.
  • State funding also took a significant hit during the Great Recession. Historically, state and local funding for adult education was significantly higher than the federal share, now it’s just a little more than half. It’s great that there was an increase in the adult education budget here in Maryland this year, but in the aggregate, across the country, state investment is below pre-recession levels.
  • Meanwhile, the most significant source of federal funding, the Workforce Investment Act, is a decade overdue for reauthorization.

It’s not just adult education—many of you are probably aware that there have been significant cuts to what’s known as the discretionary side of the federal budget over the last several years. Federal funding for education, in particular, has taken a substantial hit. I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon, at least in terms of the traditional source of federal funding for adult education . It’s really hard to imagine, in the current political environment, that any of us are going to be seeing substantial increases to the budget for WIA, for example. More likely our advocacy work will be focused on protecting the funding we have from further cuts.

Nonetheless, in my view it remains critically important to stay connected with what’s going on with federal legislation, and to remain ready to engage federal policymakers when opportunities arise, even in this crazy environment. Because they do arise.

I’ll give you an example from this past year: immigration reform. Although the chances for comprehensive immigration reform seem to be dimming, the bill passed by the Senate early last summer contained significant resources to implement an immigrant integration strategy, including additional money for adult English instruction. I actually worked on a proposal last spring with the National Skills Coalition that would go even further, providing hundreds of millions of additional dollars for English language instruction without increasing the cost of the bill.

Again, while prospects for comprehensive immigration reform are not looking so hot right now, last March it seemed quite possible that it might actually happen. It was important that adult education was at the table during this process. We did in fact have an influence in shaping that legislation.

So, again, it’s very important not to entirely give up on the federal side. Opportunities do arise, and sometimes it’s difficult to predict when they will occur.

My second point is related to the first, and that is, in order to seize on such opportunities when they occur, we have to be able to demonstrate to policymakers that there is a sizable constituency for these services and that our students are successful.

With limited resources available, it probably makes sense to focus most of your outreach and advocacy efforts right here in Baltimore, and statewide. The opportunities to influence public policy on this issue are probably greater right now at the local and state level than at the federal level. But even if your focus is local,  you are actually helping us strengthen our hand up on the Hill and with the administration—by documenting those success stories and supporting student leadership—so we’ll be ready when the opportunities in Washington do arise.

It’s important to remember adult education is actually one of the great success stories of our education systems. Programs like this one and other around the country get results that should be the envy by K-12 and higher education. And I know that many of you students have overcome significant obstacles in order achieve that success. We need you to tell your story. With each success story that finds its way to the Hill, we build our influence and strength with policymakers.

We’ve heard the return on investment argument and that’s good. There is clearly a big potential return on a greater public investment in adult education. But remember that every group that receives funding from the federal government is making a return on investment argument. Legislative staff probably hear this argument from constituents about one program or another every day. So simply making the theoretical return on investment argument is probably not going to be enough. I think real change is only going to happen when we can also demonstrate, in very large numbers, that the people in adult education are, in fact, successful. Lawmakers are most interested in investing in actual success, not in theoretical returns.

That to me is one of the reasons why it’s so important that we continue to ask Congress to recognize Adult and Family Literacy week, and to continue to do things like grow the House adult literacy caucus, and continue to build relationships with staff who work on this issue. They need to hear from you—and about you—in greater numbers than ever before.

Lobbying for Literacy

/ The Old Crank

State Advocacy 2013The National Council of State Directors of Adult Education recently released the results of a survey on the use of paid lobbyists for adult education  at the state level.

Eight states reported using paid lobbyists. In all of those states, lobbyists are funded by the state adult education professional association. In six of those states, they work for those associations directly. In the other two states, the associations pay for lobbying services by contributing to coalitions that were organized to advocate for a broader range of education and human service programs.

I suspect the actual number of broad-based coalitions that at least do some advocacy that’s at least relevant to adult education funding or policy is actually a bit larger—even if they don’t do it directly. This survey was apparently focused on direct lobbying for adult education. But most statewide coalitions that advocate for funding for human services or education probably at least nominally include adult education as one of those services. It may be that those coalitions are not actively engaging policymakers on the issue of adult education, and/or may not really be working with adult education advocates in the state to integrate the need for adult education into their talking points. Raising the profile of adult education within these kinds of broad advocacy coalitions is a subject worthy of further discussion, I think.