Federal Policy

Sequestration Cuts May Be Forcing Some Parents to Quit Their Jobs

/ The Old Crank

This story, from Bloomberg’s William Selway, highlights a really important point about the cuts to Head Start caused by sequestration:

A U.S. preschool program for low-income families allowed single mother Kelly Burford to take a $7.25-an-hour job as a department store clerk in Maryland. Her son, Bradyn, 2, spent the day with friends listening to stories, singing and drawing pictures — at no cost to Burford.

That ended in June, when Bradyn’s school in Taneytown, seventy miles north of Washington, closed after losing $103,000 because of automatic government spending cuts. Without support from the federal Head Start program, Burford, 35, said she had to quit her job and has seen her son’s progress slip. (my emphasis)

I doubt this is the only low-income parent facing the same dilemma. The question is whether anyone is keeping track of this. It’s important that these “hidden” costs of sequestration are taken into account when assessing the impact.

What Makes a Jobs Bill a Jobs Bill?

/ The Old Crank

From an article in The Hill this past Wednesday:

Democrats have said Republicans for the last two years have failed to bring up any major jobs bills, which they generally define as bills that increase spending to fund construction projects.

In contrast, Republicans have said the House has passed dozens of jobs bills, which they generally define as bills that remove federal regulation to make it easier for companies to do business and expand. (my emphasis)

Why the THUD Appropriations Bill Matters for Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

Last week, I mentioned the big gap between the House and Senate Labor-HHS appropriations bills—the congressional spending bills that include, among other things, funding for Title II of the Workforce Investment Act, the largest source of federal funding for adult literacy and adult and family education programs. As I noted in an update to that post, the House Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee postponed (perhaps forever) the markup of their bill last week, and so we never got a chance to see officially what kind of cuts they were proposing in order to stay under the budget cap they were assigned.

This week the news is all about another appropriations bill, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill, which did make it out of committee, but was pulled from floor consideration yesterday. Today, a Senate version of the bill failed to clear a filibuster.

For adult education advocates, the THUD bill is also worth paying attention to. As I often point out, there are several other important sources of federal funding for adult education besides WIA, and the THUD bill includes funding for one of them—the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.

CDBG funds are essentially a form of federal aid to cities. It is consequently very popular among mayors and many members of Congress representing urban areas. Managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), CDBG funding “provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs”—and that can include education and training programs.

I learned when I was working at ProLiteracy that CDBG funds support quite a few urban community-based adult education programs (here’s one example), although it’s hard to figure out exactly how much CDBG money ultimately ends up in the hands of adult education programs because the funding is typically subgranted to programs via another local government entity, and I don’t know of a source that compiles all of the CBOs and other entities that receive subgrants that are funded via CDBG dollars.

But it’s a sure bet that some adult education programs have already taken a hit due to the cuts to CDBG funding that have already occurred due to sequestration (the program is now down to $3 billion). If the additional cuts proposed for FY 2014 in the House bill took effect, the hit on adult education programs that receive CDBG funds would likely be severe: according to Brad Plummer of the Washington Post, the House THUD bill was going to cut the program all the way down to $1.6 billion.

Interestingly, according to Plummer, “this was the cut that doomed the bill, repelling Democrats and some moderate Republicans.”

The THUD debacle thus serves as a reminder to adult education advocates that: (a) there is a very popular federal program outside of WIA that funds a substantial number of community-based adult education programs; and (b) the funding for that program has been cut substantially over the last several years (Plummer notes that states have lost $2.5 billion in CDBG funding since 2010), and remains in a volatile state.

Increased Cost Means “Fewer Adults Will Try to Get Their GED”

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

Let’s take a break from all this federal policy stuff and check back in with the looming GED disaster, by way of this article by Marc Larocque in today’s Taunton (MA) Gazette:

[Carmen] Botelho [director of the Taunton Adult Education Partnership] said that if the more costly 2014 GED exam is implemented as a standard in Massachusetts, it would also put a burden on adult education programs in Taunton and across the state.“Absolutely, it will be tougher for the program,” Botelho said. “We have funds available through the Taunton Literacy Council that we provide to students for the test, if they can write a letter to the council explaining the situation and its approved. It will be tougher for program in that way. It’s definitely going to be a challenge for the students. And the program will also face financial difficulty because there will likely be more requests for assistance.”

Botelho predicted that fewer adult students will try to get their GED if the costs are nearly doubled, as monthly bills and immediate family needs take precedence. (my emphasis)

Whatever the business rationale is for increasing the costs or otherwise making high school equivalency exams less accessible, pricing adults out of the opportunity to earn a high school credential doesn’t make much sense as a matter of public policy, does it? (Presuming we agree that increasing the number people in this country who have high school level credentials is desirable.) Yet despite two or more years of hearing stories like the one above, there seems to me to be sort of grudging acceptance in some circles that it’s reasonable to make the whole process “tougher” and more expensive, and I (honestly) don’t know why.

I realize that this is primarily a state matter but a national discussion about policies that would encourage more adults to acquire their high school diploma in light of these increasing costs (and other challenges) might not be a bad idea.