Addressing Adult Literacy Can “Create a Legacy of Inter-Generational Achievement”

/ The Old Crank

A New Zealand Literacy group is citing research from Australia, of all places, as further evidence that “addressing adult literacy needs has the potential to create a legacy of inter-generational achievement.”

Research published last week in Australia on the effects of positive parental engagement on children’s learning has serious and urgent implications for New Zealand. Literacy Aotearoa is calling for the government to recognise that adult literacy issues affect not just the current generation of adults, but also the educational performance of their children. (my emphasis)

The study, ‘Parental engagement in learning and schooling: Lessons from research,’ which was commissioned by the Australian Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau, notes that parental engagement has a positive impact on many indicators of student achievement. These include higher grades and test scores, enrolment in higher level programmes and advanced classes, higher successful completion of classes, lower drop-out rates, higher graduation rates, and a greater likelihood of commencing postsecondary education.

The study references academic research, using economic modelling to examine the impact of parental engagement. The research showed that parental effort has a large effect on student achievement, compared with school resources such as per pupil spending on teaching. That effort improved students’ academic outcomes to levels equivalent to those of students whose parents had received an additional four to six years of education.

The study also references a 2003 report into community and family influences on the education of New Zealand children prepared by the Ministry of Education.

“There are three lessons New Zealand can learn from this research conducted by our near neighbour,” says Te Tumuaki (Chief Executive) of Literacy Aotearoa, Bronwyn Yates. “The first is to confirm just how important parental engagement is. The second is to note the implications for children whose parents, despite their desire to see their children succeed educationally, are less able to positively engage in assisting them because of their own difficulties with literacy, language and numeracy. The third is to recognise the opportunity offered by this pre-Christmas report for government and communities to take urgent steps to address the high literacy needs of adult New Zealanders, as a genuinely change-making investment in families for generations to come.” (my emphasis)

Illiteracy for the Defense

/ The Old Crank

Not sure this is where we want to go to in our efforts to educate the public on the social stigma of adult illiteracy, at least without knowing more about the case.

I have no idea if this woman is literate or not, but it’s certainly possible to commit the worker’s compensation fraud alleged here without being able to read.

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?

Politics of the Charitable Deduction, Part II

/ The Old Crank

(Updated below)

Earlier today the White House released a new report from the National Economic Council) that argues forcefully against the idea of a fixed-dollar-amount cap on tax deductions for taxpayers at all levels of income as a viable deficit-reduction strategy. This follows a White House blog post from last Friday by Jason Furman and Gene Sperling, two of President Obama’s top economic advisers, that was also critical of the idea; and a story in The Washington Post, also from last Friday, about a document “being shared with congressional Democrats and other White House allies” that contained “a rebuttal to Republican arguments that eliminating loopholes and deductions could raise just as much money for deficit reduction as raising the income tax rates on top earners.”

In all cases, the administration’s analysis has been focused on a $25,000 fixed-dollar-amount cap on deductions. (I don’t believe the Republicans have actually made a specific proposal yet regarding a cap on tax deductions, other than general support for the idea of limiting deductions and loopholes.)

In addition, the administration’s initial set of objections to the idea of a fixed-dollar-amount cap never appear to have mentioned the President’s own longstanding proposal to lower the cap on deductions at 28% for those earning more than $200,000 a year (and married couples earning more than $250,000 a year), which led me to speculate whether the administration was quietly tabling that idea as well. In the Post article from last Friday, for example, there was a specific reference to a White House desire to “preserve tax breaks for charitable giving,” and no mention of their earlier proposal that would do just that (although in a much, much less substantial way than a fixed-dollar-amount cap would do).

But by late yesterday, just as nonprofit interest groups were leaving town after a huge lobbying effort this week to protect the charitable deduction, that 28% proposal started seeing some daylight again. Most significantly, it was specifically mentioned as an alternative in that National Economic Council report issued this morning. This report contains a more detailed argument as to why a dollar amount cap is a bad idea, (in a nutshell, they argue that it basically wipes out the charitable deduction because under a fixed-dollar-amount cap, after people take their mortgage deduction and other automatic deductions, they’ll hit or already be above the cap). But now they are also making a reinvigorated pitch for the President’s 28% deduction cap on top earners as a responsible alternative.

In an earlier post I suggested that the specific critique coming from the White House last week didn’t matter as much as the fact that the they were coming out so strongly against a cap on deductions at all, without mentioning the President’s earlier proposal. I initially thought that the absence of any reference to that earlier proposal might have meant they were backing off of it completely, which was not the case.

What’s interesting to me about all this is that the nonprofit interest groups, while obviously much more alarmed about the impact of a fixed-dollar-amount cap, (and I think the administration has made a strong case that there is in fact a big difference between a fixed-dollar-amount cap on all taxpayers and a 28% cap on top earners only) were really unhappy about the 28% cap idea when the President first introduced it. Have those groups softened their opposition? If so, is it because the administration has convinced them that the 28% cap is not going to have a significant impact, or is it because they are convinced that at least it’s not as bad as what the Republicans want to impose? (It’s also worth noting again that just after the election, both parties were talking about deduction caps, and less of a distinction was made between Romney and the President’s approaches.)

UPDATE 12/10/12: As I mentioned above, groups that represent the nonprofit sector in D.C. had been pretty clear that were opposed to any changes to the charitable deduction rules. Here is an article from The Philanthropy Journal from just after the election that summarizes this opposition.

Again, White House is now positioning their earlier proposal to limit deductions to 28% for high-income taxpayers as a responsible alternative to what essentially was Mitt Romney’s proposal to limit deductions. I’m still not clear to what extent anyone since the election is still really pushing the fixed-dollar-amount cap he proposed.