President Announces Plan to Reduce Size of Alphabet in Order to Improve Literacy Rates

/ The Old Crank

In a surprise announcement, the President said he hopes to improve literacy rates by dropping the number of letters children would need to memorize at the earliest stages of literacy development. In his proposal, released today, the Administration says it believes it can reduce the number of letters in the alphabet by at least 23% by 2016.

It is not known how Republicans in Congress will respond to the plan. While most Republicans favor downsizing in general, some of the more conservative members in the House have already suggested this morning that the President’s proposal was another example of overreaching, saying that issues concerning what letters to use should be left to families to decide without government intrusion. Some have even suggested that the alphabet should be allowed to expand beyond the current level of twenty six, claiming that letter creation has been stalled under the current administration due to high taxes and excessive government regulations.

House Republicans Introduce Their Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization Bill

/ The Old Crank

Yesterday House Republicans introduced their Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill, H.R. 4297, The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012. This bill more or less pulls together the three separate WIA bills introduced earlier this year by Reps. Virginia Foxx (NC), Rep. Buck McKeon (CA), and Rep. Joe Heck (NV). I learned this morning at a meeting that there is one significant change in this bill from Rep. Foxx’s earlier bill, the Streamlining Workforce Development Programs Act. In the older bill, the provision that allowed states to consolidate different job training programs into one unified plan included Perkins grant funds as one of the programs that could be consolidated. In the new bill, language was added that removes Perkins as a candidate for consolidation. (h/t NASDCTEc)

House Democrats Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization Bill – What’s in it for Adult Literacy?

/ The Old Crank

Here is what they say it will do, anyway:

Developing a 21st Century Delivery System for Adult Education Literacy and Workplace Skills Services:

  • Expands access to adult education, literacy services, and workplace skills training.
  • Expands access to postsecondary education and credentials to achieve and maintain economic self-sufficiency for adult learners.
  • Supports integrated adult education and training.
  • Provides support for English-literacy services and integrated English-literacy and civics education programs for adult learners.
  • Authorizes increased investments in technology (such as online education) and digital literacy, providing needed training and education resources to rural and urban areas.
  • Enhances support for research on innovative methods and policies that help accelerate progress for basic skills students, improving the likelihood that they will receive postsecondary credentials.

The full text of the bill, announced by House Democrats and released today, is available here, via the National Skills Coalition.

Excellent Article on History of Adult Education in California—and Why It’s All Falling Apart Now

/ The Old Crank

Over the weekend, the San Diego News-Tribune published an outstanding guest opinion piece by Dom Gagliardi, principal of the Escondido Adult School, and a past president of both the California Council for Adult Education and the National Commission on Adult Basic Education.

Gagliardi’s article is a great primer on the proud, 156-year history of school-based adult education in California—a system of “adult schools” that is all but collapsing in the wake of massive state budget deficits over the last several years—and a law that has encouraged many school districts to cut adult education from their budgets.

Gagliardi notes that at its peak in 2005, nearly 1.4 million Californians were enrolled in adult education, mostly through this system. But since 2010, 32 adult schools have closed temporarily and 44 have had their budgets cut by more than 50%, all because of a budget mechanism implemented in 2009 known as “categorical flexibility,” which allows districts to divert funds from programs like adult education to support its K-12 programs. As Gagliardi writes:

The increasing economic pressure on school districts to balance their budgets has put them in the untenable and unfortunate position of pitting one program against another. When forced to prioritize instructional services for youth or adults, the choice is obvious and painful. (my emphasis)

That last point can’t be emphasized enough (see point number one here).

According to Gagliardi, there is at least one school district in California that has remained steadfast in continuing to provide adult education despite these pressures—and not surprisingly, it’s his own. Although the district has cut their budget by about 20%, the Escondido Adult School, which serves approximately 10,000 students per year, has survived, at least in part via increased class fees to offset the decreases in state and local funding.

Gagliardi concludes, “[i]t is increasingly evident that giving local school districts the ability to use funding previously earmarked for adult education to support K-12 programs must end before the entire adult education system is decimated. (my emphasis) Once the infrastructure of the state’s adult education program is gone, it will be difficult if not impossible to resurrect.”

That law is supposed to expire in 2015; it’s encouraging to read a call to end this practice now, before it’s too late.

Be sure to go read the whole article if you are at all interested in what is going on there. Again, it’s a great primer on the history of adult education in the state, a good summary of what is going wrong there now, and a call to act before there is nothing left to save.