Advocacy

Study: Poverty Reduces Brainpower Needed for Things Like Education and Job Training

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

New research out of Princeton University suggests that the stress of poverty requires so much mental energy that poor people have significant less brainpower left in the tank to devote to learning:

A person’s cognitive function is diminished by the constant and all-consuming effort of coping with the immediate effects of having little money, such as scrounging to pay bills and cut costs. Thusly, a person is left with fewer “mental resources” to focus on complicated, indirectly related matters such as education, job training and even managing their time. (my emphasis)

Anyone who has experienced financial difficulties knows how stressful and all-consuming worrying about money can be, but this is one of the few studies I’ve seen that links the stress of financial insecurity to cognitive function. The researchers found that subjects consumed with financial insecurity dropped an average of 13 IQ points—the equivalent of losing an entire night’s sleep.

The researchers go on to suggest that services for the poor should be designed to accommodate this cognition loss:

The researchers suggest that services for the poor should accommodate the dominance that poverty has on a persons time and thinking. Such steps would include simpler aid forms and more guidance in receiving assistance, or training and educational programs structured to be more forgiving of unexpected absences, so that a person who has stumbled can more easily try again.

I would take this even further and suggest that this research supports the argument that, overall, we’d see better retention and greater learning gains in adult literacy and adult education among the poor if we alleviated the highly stressful conditions associated with poverty before they enrolled in a program of study or training, instead of just trying to accommodate those stressful conditions as they go along—somewhat analogous to the “housing first” approach to combating homelessness, in which providing stable, permanent housing is viewed as a critical first step before a homeless individual or family can be expected to address the issues that led to homelessness.

Adult education policy is based in large part on the premise that increasing educational opportunity will provide people with the skills they need to lift themselves out of poverty, which in turn is based on the premise (presumably) that a poor person’s lack of education is the primary reason (or at least one of the major reasons) that they are poor to begin with (as opposed to a lack of jobs, a decent wage, child care, health insurance, etc.)

Increasing funding for adult education is a strategy that seems primarily aimed at increasing access to adult education, but if our policy goal is to help people living in poverty  become successful adult learners, this study suggests that removing the highly stressful conditions of poverty for poor individuals before they embark on a course of study is an equally important strategy, instead of relying on adult education to lift them out of poverty after they have achieved some measure of academic success and confidence.

If so, then perhaps advocating for strong anti-poverty measures, such as living wage bills, or against proposals to cut SNAP benefits, needs to become part of the adult education field’s legislative strategy.

h/t Smithsonian SmartNews

UPDATE 9/3/13: The paragraph above that begins “I would take this even further” has been edited a bit so that it would read a little bit better.

Also, it occurred to me this afternoon that this program, which provides low-income single mothers enrolled in college with subsidized housing in residential communities with on-site child care, is a good example of an approach to adult education (in this case, in a community college context), that provides learners with initial and ongoing economic stability (in the form of housing and childcare). Perhaps, in addition to the broad-based antipoverty measures suggested above, policies that encourage the adoption and expansion of program models like this one should also be in the mix.

Republican Talking Points on Immigration Reform

/ The Old Crank

House Republican Immigration Resource KitBefore leaving for August recess, Republican members of the House received this document from the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). According to Rep. Goodlatte, the document was was put together to help members communicate to their constituents “the importance of immigration reform and the House Republican plan to produce solutions that actually fix the problems that plague our immigration system.” The document summarizes the individual immigration bills the House Judiciary has passed this session, as well as a list of concerns about the Senate comprehensive bill. (For those of you involved in adult education or English/Civics instruction, while not mentioned specifically, I think it is safe to say you are probably considered part of the “slush fund” mentioned in “Concern #10.”)

According to some sources, there hasn’t been a lot of activity on either side of the immigration debate during the break, so how I don’t how important these talking points have turned out to be, but I thought the document was interesting to read.

CIRbrief-2013House-SenateBills-Side-by-SideIf you are looking for a less partisan comparison between the Senate comprehensive bill and what the House has produced so far, the Migration Policy Institute has published a helpful side-by-side comparison.

I’m long past my own self-imposed deadline for posting an update on immigration reform  from an adult education perspective—which I’ll try to do this week—but in the meantime I thought I’d pass these documents along.

Remember: Senate Immigration Bill Already Requires Undocumented Immigrants to Learn English—Here’s How It Works

/ The Old Crank

It appears that Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) amendment to the Senate’s immigration reform bill, which would change the way the English proficiency requirement would for undocumented immigrants choosing to become legal residents, may be voted on today.

I just want to review again the way the current bill works, and explain why the Rubio amendment doesn’t really make any sense.

Under the Senate bill, currently undocumented immigrants in the U.S. would be eligible to apply for “Registered Provisional Immigrant” (RPI) status if they meet certain criteria (e.g. have never been convicted of a felony, entered the U.S. before 2012 and have not left the country since then, etc.) and pay a $500 fee.

An undocumented immigrant who attains RPI status would then be considered lawfully present in the U.S. He/she would not be subject to deportation, would be able to legally work here, and be able to travel freely outside of the country. However, RPIs would not be eligible for federal means-tested public benefits (such as non-emergency Medicaid). This is important, and one of the reasons why I’ll argue later that the Rubio amendment is a bad idea.

The bill then establishes a minimum thirteen-year pathway to earned citizenship, which includes a number of benchmarks related to employment, income, and knowledge of English language, U.S. history and civics.

First, after six years, an RPI can renew their status if:

  • They pay the fee again; and
  • They continue to meet the original eligibility requirements; and
  • They establish that they have been continuously employed (unemployed no more than 60 consecutive days at a time); or
    • That they have income or resources at or above 100 percent of the Federal poverty level; or
    • Are enrolled in “full-time” education and training.

Secondly, after ten years, (The pathway to LPR status is a bit shorter—five years—for DREAM Act-eligible RPIs), an RPI can adjust to Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status (i.e., become a “green card” holder), but to do so requires another fee ($1000 this time) and the following:

  • Again, they have to have been continuously employed (unemployed no more than 60 consecutive days at a time); or
    • That they have income or resources at or above 100 percent of the Federal poverty level; or
    • Are enrolled in “full-time” education and training;
  • And, in addition, (putting aside some exceptions for the elderly/disabled), they must demonstrate the level of English proficiency and knowledge of U.S. history/civics that is required for citizenship or demonstrate that they are “satisfactorily pursuing a course of study, pursuant to standards established by the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary, to achieve an understanding of English and knowledge and understanding of the history and Government of the United States, as described in section 312(a)” (i.e. the proficiency level required for citizenship in current immigration law. See page 983 of the bill as reported out of the Senate for the full text.) This is a lot more than just signing up for a course—note that you have to show that you are actually making progress. But the Rubio amendment would remove enrollment in a course of study as sufficient to meet this benchmark.

A couple of key points:

  • The RPI renewal step is important: since you can’t apply for LPR status until ten years have passed, all undocumented immigrants who acquire RPI status would in fact have to renew it if they want to stay on track to become LPRs.
  • LPRs will be eligible for federal means-tested benefits, but not until they have been LPRs for five years.
  • After three years as an LPR, individuals would be permitted to apply for U.S. citizenship—that’s why it’s a minimum a thirteen-year process from registration to citizenship.
  • None of the pathway to citizenship provisions kick in at all—that is, no unauthorized immigrant would be permitted to gain lawful status of any kind—until the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) certifies that the border security goals in the bill have been met.
  • Perhaps the most important point: the Senate bill as it now stands requires all undocumented immigrants to learn English. It allows people to adjust to legal residency status before they get to the level of English proficiency needed for citizenship, but they still have to show that they are actually learning the language, something that current green card applicants do not have to do.

I thought it was important to run through all this in order to explain what I think the consequences of the Rubio amendment would be. It’s pretty clear to me that the bill’s authors (a group that included Sen. Rubio, in fact) were trying to strike a balance between the practical reality that we need to find a way to legalize the undocumented immigrants that are here (and also, importantly, encourage them to legalize), yet establish some kind of punitive measures against them for coming here illegally in the first place. You can argue about whether that was the right way to balance things—and whether it was tipped too much toward the punitive or towards helping people to integrate—but however you come out on that, I think it’s clear that this was the balancing they were trying to work out. It’s a balance that involves issues of not just fairness and justice but also pragmatic policy concerns—and politics.

And it’s a difficult, delicate balance that can be thrown off easily. The problem with the Rubio amendment, in my opinion, is that it does just that—it pushes the punitive end too far and throws off the pragmatic balance that was struck in the original provision.

If we assume that the experts are correct, and well over half of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country have an English proficiency level below what’s needed to achieve legal residency under this bill, it seems reasonable to assume that a substantial number are well below that level and may not be highly literate in their native language (as is increasingly the case among Spanish-speaking immigrants). I think it’s also reasonable to assume that many of these folks are working in relatively low-paying jobs. And, as discussed above, they are ineligible for federal benefits, like medicaid.

It seems to me that, at the end of the day, for comprehensive immigration reform to be considered a success, we want to have moved most of the undocumented population to legal resident status. It’s legal residents who put down roots, build careers, buy homes, and in most cases, become citizens. I understand that some want it to be a long and difficult pathway for those who came and stayed here illegally, but there’s a point at which you can make it so difficult that it’s no longer feasible for a lot of people. The Senate bill already established a pretty lengthy path. But by requiring absolute English proficiency for LPR status, we’d be moving the goalpost way down the field for many. I know ten years (the earliest one could apply for a green card) seems like a long time, but for those with very limited English, who are working full-time (and remember, most of them will have to be in order to maintain their lawful status under this bill)—in addition to whatever other family responsibilities they may have—it won’t be that easy to carve out the time needed to learn English at that level of proficiency. For many, there will not be a class available, or if there is they will be facing long waiting lists.

As a result, I think Sen. Rubio’s amendment would probably increase the probability that a large proportion of current undocumented people who are living in poverty will stay that way for a longer period. However much you may personally dislike the idea that people in the country speak a language you don’t understand, (which, somehow, other well-off democratic societies seem to manage reasonably well), it’s hard to understand the wisdom of setting up a legalization process that is going to likely confine millions of people to a life where they can’t get ahead.

As I wrote earlier this week, reasonable people could argue that the “course of study” langauge in the bill was too vague (I think it was fine, but that’s just my opinion). If that’s the case, the solution is to work to improve the language—perhaps there are more rigorous standards that could be written into the law, for example. But lopping it off completely is applying a blunt instrument where fine-tuning is needed. And frankly, I don’t get why it makes sense even from a political perspective. The “English only” crowd should be pleased with this bill as it stands, because it requires people to at least be learning English in order to become a legal resident—a requirement that has never before existed for those seeking a green card.

Again, if you don’t like this amendment, today is the day to call your Senator.

Nuance on Skills

/ The Old Crank

When the New York Times publishes a scathing editorial against the whole notion of a skills gap, it alarms me, because so much of adult education and training advocacy has coalesced around this idea. It also alarms me because whatever the economic data tells us about the root causes of unemployment, it doesn’t take away from the fact that we still have a substantial number of people who are trying to improve their basic skills, enroll in job training programs, and/or acquire industry credentials. We wouldn’t have waiting lists for services if this wasn’t the case.

Many economists have been arguing for some time that the skills gap has not been a major cause of unemployment. But a case for investing in skills doesn’t need to be dependent on this argument. I’ve often cited an old blog post from Jared Bernstein as an example of a way to argue for skills that isn’t dependent on proof of a skills gap.

The Times piece suggests that skills gap arguments will be increasingly met with skepticism. It’s going to be important not to let that turn into an argument against investing in skills altogether.