Quote of the Day

/ The Old Crank

From a New York Times piece on state budget cuts to higher education:

“There has been a shift from the belief that we as a nation benefit from higher education, to a belief that it’s the people receiving the education who primarily benefit and so they should foot the bill,”

– Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute

According to this report from the Center for the Study of Education Policy, (cited in the Times piece), state appropriations for colleges fell by 7.6 percent in 2011-12, the largest annual decline in at least 50 years.

Low literacy as an “Access to Justice” Issue

/ The Old Crank

Earlier this month, the American Bar Association (ABA) released a set of Standards for Language Access in Courts to help U.S. courts do a better job addressing the needs of people with limited English proficiency. According to the National Center on Access to Justice (NCAJ) at the Cardozza School of Law, many courts “have little or no way to communicate with the growing number of Americans who have only limited proficiency in English. As a result, “innocent people have been sent to prison, children have been sent to foster care unnecessarily, and women have found it impossible to get court orders to protect them from domestic violence.”

Hot on the heels of this groundbreaking document comes this excellent article on a similar but largely ignored issue: courts are equally ill-equipped to deal with individuals with low literacy.

Valerie Mutton, a lawyer and freelance journalist from Ontario, wrote the story for the Canadian Press about the family court system in Toronto, but I can assure you from personal experience that the issue is also present in American courts. (Mutton was awarded a grant from ABC Life Literacy Canada to research literacy issues in family courts in Canada.)

Mutton found that the number of people handling their own cases in Canadian family courts has been growing in recent years—and many of these individuals lack the literacy skills to complete the paperwork involved and explain their cases to a judge:

At the busiest family court in the country, located in Toronto, justices Harvey Brownstone and Stanley Sherr see a high percentage of cases involving people who are representing themselves. About half are people for whom English is not their first language.

“As you see legal aid cutbacks, increasingly we see a decline in the number of people with lawyers,” said Sherr. “That was a layer of protection for those who have literacy problems.“ (my emphasis)

Mutton writes that Canadian family courts see low literacy as an “access to justice” issue—and they appear to treat it seriously, like language access. Some courthouses have staff on hand who will assist those who say they have trouble with reading or writing—assuming they come forward. Often, they don’t. Not just because of shame or embarrassment, but also out of fear that it will hurt their case:

For example, in child protection cases, where the possibility of losing parental rights is very real, people may be even more reluctant to mention low reading skills for fear that it makes them look like a bad parent. But with much of the evidence given in writing, not speaking up about low literacy can have devastating consequences.

Cheryl Stephens, a Vancouver-based expert on literacy and comprehension issues in the courts (do we have experts on literacy and courts in the U.S.?) told Mutton that judges in Canada receive training on the issue, but lawyers and others who work within the court system are not often aware of the scope of the problem and need to be educated about it.

(I should add that it’s not just in courtrooms where those with low literacy are at a disadvantage when it comes to exercising their legal rights. In fact, the legal needs of many low-income people with low literacy are more likely to involve accessing government benefits like Social Security, disability, unemployment insurance, and food stamps—accessing these benefits may require navigating a bureaucratic maze, but usually don’t involve a trip to see a judge.)

The ABA language access standards begin with this principle:

“As a fundamental principle of law, fairness, and access to justice, and to promote the integrity and accuracy of judicial proceedings, courts should develop and implement an enforceable system of language access services, so that persons needing to access the court are able to do so in a language they understand, and are able to be understood by the court.”

Standards and practices to address the issue of low literacy in our court system could also be developed under the same fundamental principle. The ABA standards for language access are a first step towards achieving uniform fair access to justice for those with limited English proficiency—and could pave the way for fair access to those with low literacy as well.

But in both cases, the problem is not just a lack of standards and practices, but a lack of resources needed to implement the changes that are needed. Federal funding for the Legal Services Corp., which distributes federal grants to civil legal aid programs nationwide, has been cut from $420 million in 2010 to $404 million last year and $348 million for 2012. According to a recent report from CLASP, “Civil legal aid programs turned away at least as many clients that they served in 2011 and will turn away even more in 2012.”

It was budget cuts to legal aid that led to a greater awareness of the problem of low literacy in Canadian courts, as increasing numbers of  people with low literacy were forced to represent themselves in court without the assistance of an attorney. In light of the legal aid cuts here, I don’t see any reason to believe that the U.S. legal system is not experiencing a substantial increase in the number of people with low literacy struggling to access justice here.

Three New Adult Education Charter Schools Proposed to D.C. Public Charter School Board

/ The Old Crank

As noted by D.C. LEARNs:

Among the 11 charter school applications received this year by the D.C. Public Charter School Board, three are adult-education charters, including one virtual school, according to this recent story in the Washington Examiner.

Jackie Boddie, the board’s school performance officer, noted a strong need for adult-education programs in the city: “Carlos Rosario [International Public Charter School] has a wait list as long as 10 miles, and other adult-ed programs also have wait lists.”

According to the Examiner, Charter school staff will spend the next five weeks reviewing the applications and interviewing each prospective founder, then hold public hearings March 19th and 20th. Decisions will be announced on April 23.

If all three were approved, this would provide 475 new seats (even if some are “virtual”) for adult education students in Washington D.C. It should be noted, however, that some established District adult education organizations have been denied charters in the past, so it’s far from a done deal that any of these will be approved.

Summaries of each application are available on the board’s website; if you are interested in public charter school funding for adult education, they are worth a read.

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Adult Education a Vital and Integral Part of the Entire School Spectrum”

/ The Old Crank

On Thursday, the local Argonaut newspaper published a story that recounted some of the public testimony provided to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education last week when it met to consider a budget proposal that would have eliminated adult education in the district.

That proposal is now on hold: a new budget will be presented on March 13th that will include a $270-a-year parcel tax referendum, which the Argonaut reports could make it to the ballot as early as June. Presumably this would generate enough new revenue to preserve adult education funding in the district. (However, according to the Argonaut, the parcel tax initiative will require a two-thirds vote for approval, and it’s not clear from the story how likely it is to pass).

For anyone looking for great examples of how adult education impacts a community, I highly recommend this piece. The testimony and statements presented at the meeting were excellent.

I was particularly impressed by the statement provided by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson:

“It is our goal at the California Department of Education to consider the ‘whole student’ in our daily work of providing technical assistance and oversight of the multitude of state and federal programs we are responsible to administer,” the schools superintendent wrote to the district in a Feb. 10 letter.

“As such, we consider adult education a vital and integral part of the entire school spectrum.” (my emphasis)

Torlakson touched on some of the same reasons why it is important to preserve funding for schools like the Venice Skills Center and the Venice Community Adult School that students who spoke with The Argonaut did.

“It is through adult education that the parents of the students within our kindergarten through 12 schools can gain the education and literacy skills necessary to better their personal situations, thus benefiting all of California,” he wrote. “It is here that they can advance their own careers, obtain the skills for gainful employment and become better parents and more active participants in our communities.” (my emphasis)

Torlakson added there is evidence that with “minimal fiscal resources, adult education still produces long-term and far reaching benefits.”