Local Policy

Grandparents and Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

In many low income communities, grandparents raising children are a critically under appreciated issue. Legislation like this that supports grandparent caregivers makes sense, but as the author points out, it’s just a small piece of the kind of investment needed.

This is another gap issue that those of us involved in adult education policy need to think about as our work becomes increasingly focused on those in the workforce. Some grandparent caregivers in low-income communities have limited literacy skills, and I think it’s safe to assume that a reasonably significant proportion of them are not in the workforce, or going back to it anytime soon, if ever. But wouldn’t parenting classes and mental health programs for this population be more successful if we also increased their literacy skills? Does integrating adult education into parenting classes for those individuals makes sense? If the answer is yes, then what is our strategy for increasing adult education resources for these individuals?

English-Only Laws Are Divisive and Ludicrous

/ The Old Crank

Fredrick Kunkle wrote a story for The Washington Post earlier this week about a proposed English-only ordinance in Carroll County, MD. Kunkle finds it curious that English-only would be much of an issue in a county where only about 2.6% of the resident are Latino. There is no mention in the article of the recently enacted Maryland DREAM Act, and whether the controversy over that measure over the last year or so might have anything to do with the timing of this proposal.

Later in the story we learn that the ordinance wouldn’t actually do anything:

Kim Propeack, political director of CASA of Maryland, said the proposed ordinance’s only significance is its symbolism. Federal and state laws require that services they fund must be accessible in languages besides English. It’s also meaningless in the private sector, where businesses that are eager to win new customers have embraced bilingualism.

“On a policy level, this is just ludicrous,” Propeack said. “You have to wonder what they’re really trying to say.”

Two paragraphs later, we have our answer:

“Send them all back where they came from,” said store owner Shane Fitzgerald, 33.

One other point that can’t be made enough, apparently. If universal, free, English-language instruction were suddenly made available to all, and everyone who wanted to learn English enrolled tomorrow, (and plenty of people would) that would not remove the obligation to provide government services and information in multiple languages, because it actually takes some time to learn a new language. And you’d need to keep those services and information resources accessible to non-English speakers even after all your current residents have learned English, because more non-English speaking people will be coming along right behind them.

That is, unless you take the position that non-English speakers simply don’t have the same rights as those who do.

There just isn’t any remotely legitimate policy interest behind English-only laws. The government has an obligation to treat people equally and fairly, and not every one of us at any given time speaks/read/understands English. It’s pretty simple.

Most non-english speaking people want to learn English. The way to support people to do this is to invest in programs that will help them to learn. I don’t know about Carroll county, but recent reports are that Maryland has an adult education waiting list at any given time of about 1,200-2,700 people. (And a report from a few years earlier had that number at about 5,000, with the vast majority waiting for ESL services.) Waiting list numbers always underestimate the actual demand for services, because many people have given up looking, or can’t find a suitable program in their community to begin with.

h/t @JohnSegota

Justice Department Moves to Shut Off the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

According to The Washington Post, the U.S. Justice Department has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Meridian and Lauderdale County, Mississippi, charging that local officials operate what has become known as a “school-to-prison pipeline”—sort of the evil twin to school-to-career programs, I guess—in which public school students accused of disciplinary violations are subject to arrest and incarceration—in this case, 80 miles away, and without the need to worry over any of those pesky rules concerning probable cause or legal representation.

According to the Post, students can be incarcerated for “dress code infractions such as wearing the wrong color socks or undershirt, or for having shirts untucked; tardies; flatulence in class; using vulgar language; yelling at teachers; and going to the bathroom or leaving the classroom without permission.”

Left unstated is the key characteristic that nearly all of these violators have in common: 86% of the district’s 6,000 students are black, and from 2006 through the first half of the 2009-2010 school year, all the students referred to law enforcement or expelled were black and 96% of those suspended were black.

You can read more about this issue here.

Why Hasn’t Prison Education Led to Better Employment Outcomes in D.C.?

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

According to the Council for Court Excellence (CCE), an estimated 60,000 people in the District of Columbia have criminal records (this is roughly one in every ten persons), and about 8,000 of them return to the city each year after serving their sentences. Unfortunately, half of these individuals will end up back behind bars within three years of getting out.

Reducing recidivism improves public safety and strengthens communities, and is therefore a worthy policy goal. And the research tells us that one of the best ways to accomplish this is to provide inmates with access to education and training while they are in prison.

But it appears that education and training for incarcerated D.C. residents isn’t going to be enough unless we significantly reduce barriers to employment once people are out of prison.

Las year, CCE released a report on the employment challenges facing previously incarcerated D.C. residents after they are released. The report was based on the results of a survey of 550  formerly incarcerated individuals. Among the key findings: there was little or no difference in employment rates for those who earned a GED or job certificate before or after prison and those who did not:

The unemployment rate among survey respondents was about the same after incarceration as it had been prior to incarceration, even among those who used their time in prison productively to increase their skills. Over 30% indicated that they received a GED or higher in prison and 35% indicated receiving a job training certificate of some kind. CCE’s sample showed little or no difference in the unemployment rate for those who had earned a GED or job certificate in or after prison compared with those who had not. (my emphasis)

This finding is at odds with the findings of another recent recidivism study from another jurisdiction, conducted by Jake Cronin, a policy analyst with the Institute of Public Policy in the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.

Cronin studied Missouri Department of Corrections data and found that inmates who earned their GED in Missouri prisons were significantly more likely to find a job after release from prison than those who did not.

But Cronin also noted that recidivism rates went down most dramatically for those inmates had earned a GED and acquired a full-time job after release.

“Employment proves to be the strongest predictor of not returning to prison that we found,” Cronin said. “Those who have a full-time job are much less likely to return to prison than similar inmates who are unemployed. Recidivism rates were nearly cut in half for former inmates with a full-time job compared to similar inmates who are unemployed.”

It makes sense to me that education plus sustained employment has the most lasting impact on reducing recidivism. But in Missouri, at least, attaining an educational credential appears to increase the likelihood of employment, whereas in Washington it may have no effect at all. So the question is whether there are other significant barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated individuals here in the District—other than education—that may not be as prominent in Missouri. And if there are, what do we do about them?

I’ll concede that the biggest barrier to employment for many people these days is the lack of jobs to begin with. I’ll also concede that part of the problem may be that the jobs that do become available in the District may, on average, require more specialized training or post-secondary education than the jobs that are available in Missouri. (I don’t know that for certain, but it seems reasonable.) Nonetheless, there are also policies that can be put in place to make it easier for those returning from prison to find a job, and to encourage employers to hire them.

For their part, the Council for Court Excellence (CCE) believes that barriers to employment unrelated to education do exist, and in their report, they made several recommendations to address them, including, among other things, liability protection for employers and a “certificate of good standing” indicating that an individual has completed his or her sentence and is in good standing with conditions of release.

These two recommendations are the centerpiece of recent bill, the D.C. Re-entry Facilitation Amendment Act, introduced by D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson on July 10th.

UPDATE 9/27/12: My original headline (Why Hasn’t Prison Education Reduced D.C. Recidivism Rates?) was all wrong—I was making a point about employment outcomes, not recidivism rates—and was updated accordingly.