Senate Group Issues Framework for Immigration Reform – Press Conference Later Today

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

(Updated below)

A bipartisan group of senators has just issued a five-page set of guidelines for  comprehensive immigration reform, with more details (hopefully) to come later today during a press conference on Capitol Hill, one day before President Obama is set to deliver a major speech on immigration reform in Las Vegas.

As with previously announced principles or guidelines, this document includes a requirement that undocumented immigrants learns English, but there’s no specific details about any additional resources to provide English classes (which frankly I don’t expect):

…individuals with probationary legal status will be required to go to the back of the line of prospective immigrants, pass an additional background check, pay taxes, learn English and civics, demonstrate a history of work in the United States, and current employment, among other requirements, in order to earn the opportunity to apply for lawful permanent residency. (my emphasis)

UPDATE: This group of Senators will be holding a press conference today at 2:30 that will be carried live on C-SPAN.

War Book Drive

Source: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

You Help Build It!

Source: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

I’ve been fascinated with these pictures ever since I saw them on Retronaut a few weeks ago. Both were taken during a book drive at The New York Public Library in 1919 for troops serving overseas during WWI. Poking around a bit I came across a terrific article from last July posted to one of the NYPL’s blogs, by Valerie Wingfield of the NYPL’s Manuscripts and Archives Division, about the Victory Book Campaign during World War II, which included a little bit of information about the World War I book drive recorded in these photos:

During World War I, the Library also participated in a book drive known as the War Library Book Drive. A report from that period reported that the NYPL, the central collection point, looked as though the books within the Library had burst through the hugh Fifth Avenue doors, and overflowed down the curb. The 9th Regiment and the members of the Signal Corps stood nearby. John Foster Carr headed the local drive. William Butt Gamble of the Science and Technology Division of the New York Public Library handed out short pieces of string and would cry out “Tie this round your finger! Remember to bring a book.”

That’s a Big Pile o’ Books

/ The Old Crank

Sen. Murray: Workforce Investment Act in Danger of Not Being Reauthorized

/ The Old Crank

From a blog post by Jonathan Brunt of The Spokane Review this past Wednesday:

[Sen.] Murray was in Spokane to hold a forum about job training programs. After she toured Haskins Steel in East Spokane, she listened to education and business leaders and recently hired workers about the importance of job training programs. Many of the programs discussed at the forum are supported by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which provides job training and job search programs as well as assistance for employers who are recruiting for openings. Murray said the act is in danger of not being reauthorized by Congress. (my emphasis)

“As I take on the chair of the budget committee, our nation is rightfully talking about our debt and deficit, but we also have to be talking about our education deficit and our transportation deficit, our jobs deficit.”

The Case for Adult Literacy, Simply Stated

/ The Old Crank

Adult literacy advocates looking for a good elevator speech might consider a variation of  this quote from Greater New Orleans Community Data Center Director Allison Plyer, taking with WWNO about recent a study showing that 27% of of the working age population in the New Orleans region lack basic literacy skills:

Center Director Allison Plyer says improvements now happening at public schools are not enough to bolster the workforce needed for the future.

“That is absolutely essential, what we need to understand it will take many decades — all the way until 2060 — for our full workforce to have gone through those public schools,” Plyer said. “So we have to really consider the current workforce that is here, because even by 2025 two-thirds of the workforce will be people who are currently working-age adults, and 27 percent of whom are low-skilled.”

Whatever we are doing for K-12 students, none of that advances the skills of the current workforce—in New Orleans, or anywhere else.