Lack of ESOL Services in New York State Hurting Their Economy

/ The Old Crank

As noted in the New York Times yesterday, the Center for an Urban Future has just issued a report that found the demand for ESOL classes across the state of New York rapidly accelerating in recent years, while the availability of classes has decreased. The report says that state funding for ESOL programs in New York has dropped every year since 1995.

The report frames this issue in economic terms. The authors say that “increasing English instruction capacity would almost certainly yield benefits for the state economy,” and that the failure of the state to meet the demand for ESOL services “threatens the state’s ability to tap the skills of immigrant entrepreneurs and workers to strengthen local economies.”

Rep. Todd Platts, Family Literacy Supporter, Planning to Leave Congress

/ The Old Crank / 2 Comments

Earlier this week Roll Call reported that Rep. Todd Platts  (R-PA) would not be seeking a seventh term in the House of Representatives. Platts was elected to represent the 19th District of Pennsylvania in 2000, succeeding longtime Rep. William Goodling.

Rep. Goodling, a former chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, was the author of the federal Even Start Family Literacy program, and continues to be a strong proponent of family literacy.

Rep. Platts continued in the tradition left by his predecessor. In April of 2009, for example, Rep. Platts and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) wrote a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee urging them to include $150 million for Even Start in the House FY 2012 appropriations bill. (Even Start’s funding had dropped to $66 million annually by this point.)

Even in 2011, when there was tremendous pressure on Republicans in the House to cut programs, Rep. Platts continued to fight for Even Start. In February, he wrote a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers in support of retaining Even Start funding in the FY2011 Continuing Resolutions (CR) bill. (Unfortunately, Even Start funding was ultimately eliminated in the short-term CR that Congress passed in mid-March.) In May, when the House Education and the Workforce Committee met to consider the first of several ESEA reform bills, (HR 1891), Rep. Platts moved to strike the repeal of Even Start that was contained in the bill. Ultimately, his amendment failed, but it was encouraging to see a Republican on the commitee fighting for this program.

Another Workforce Investment Act Bill to Keep an Eye On

/ The Old Crank

(updated below)

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) Holt seems to really likes libraries. According to the NJ Home News Tribune, Holt has visited several of them during the current Congressional recess to talk about various pieces of federal legislation he is promoting that he thinks will strengthen libraries and their role in the communities they serve.

One of them is the Workforce Investment through Local Libraries (WILL) Act, which would allow libraries access to Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funds for job-search support services, and amend WIA to include library representation on state and local workforce investment boards.

I don’t know much about how this would play out in other parts of the country, but I do think here in the District of Columbia, mandating D.C. Public Library representation on the D.C. Workforce Investment Council might be a good idea. If nothing else, the D.C. Public Library plays a large role here in adult literacy, so their participation would likely add an important voice for adult literacy into the mix.

You can read more about Rep. Holt’s thoughts on this bill and other library-related legislation here.

UPDATE (1/16/12): Here is another article on Rep. Holt’s visit to the East Brunswick Public Library last week.

Rep. Camp Defends Imposing Impossible-to-Meet Requirements on Those Seeking UI Benefits

/ The Old Crank

Back in December, when Rep. Dave Camp introduced H.R. 3630, he issued the following statement:

The unemployment program must do more than simply send out checks – it must help people get back to work. The commonsense reforms House Republicans and I proposed included items like requiring those who receive unemployment benefits to actually look for work and work toward a GED if they don’t have a high school diploma. The reforms also would provide states with the ability to administer drug screening programs if they so choose. Democrats only wanted to send out more taxpayer-funded benefits. Republicans want to get these Americans the training and resources they need to move from an unemployment check to a paycheck.

Putting aside the issue that imposing an educational credential requirement would, in Robert Greenstein’s words, “violate the basic compact that the UI system has embodied” since it began, there are tens of thousands of adult leaners in the U.S. today who would love to do nothing more than enroll in a GED class if they could. But, as noted by myself and others, virtually every state in the country has waiting lists for adult education programs, and many states have cut back on adult education services. There are around 160,000 people on waiting lists for adult education services in federally-funded programs alone.

Rep. Camp claims that Republicans want to provide Americans with “the training and resources they need” but this bill does not do that. At best, it creates a desperate increase in the demand for that training while providing absolutely zero new investments for them, leaving many laid off workers with no way to meet the requirements imposed by this new restriction.