adult education

MA Secretary of Education: Return on Investment for Adult Literacy “Huge”

/ The Old Crank

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Secretary Paul Reville, in a blog post from last week:

We know that parents and families are a student’s primary teacher and play an indispensible role in the development of children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. Programs like this one equip families with the skills they need to help children succeed in school and go beyond that to increase adults’ competitiveness in the job market so they can earn a living and support their family.  The return on investment here is huge, yet there are over 450 families still on the waiting list for this program alone because of a lack of resources for Adult Basic Education.

I cannot emphasize enough the enormous difference that effective adult education programs can make in the lives of families.  I felt it in the emotion of the parent testimonies that day and saw tangible results of this program in doors now opened to adults and families through it.  There are currently an estimated 1.1 million adults in Massachusetts in need of Adult Basic Education Services and less than 5% of that population is having those needs met.  We can and should do better. (my emphasis)

It’s encouraging that an education official at this level is arguing for adult education’s return on investment so forcefully. It’s also refreshing—and from a policy perspective, I think this is ultimately going to prove to be more effective—that he views adult education as an investment in families and communities, and not just “workers.” I think this puts job skills, as an outcome of adult education, in the proper context, as one of several outcomes of adult education that work together to strengthen families and the communities they live in.

One other really critical point: Reville’s post was inspired after a visit to a family literacy program in Chelsea, Mass. This is why it’s really important to invite public officials to visit programs so that they can see the impact for themselves. I’d like to believe that every cabinet-level state education official makes a visit to an adult or family literacy program at least once a year. If that’s not the case, it’s something we need to work on.

Read his entire post here. It’s really excellent.

h/t @WorldEdUS

English-Only Laws Are Divisive and Ludicrous

/ The Old Crank

Fredrick Kunkle wrote a story for The Washington Post earlier this week about a proposed English-only ordinance in Carroll County, MD. Kunkle finds it curious that English-only would be much of an issue in a county where only about 2.6% of the resident are Latino. There is no mention in the article of the recently enacted Maryland DREAM Act, and whether the controversy over that measure over the last year or so might have anything to do with the timing of this proposal.

Later in the story we learn that the ordinance wouldn’t actually do anything:

Kim Propeack, political director of CASA of Maryland, said the proposed ordinance’s only significance is its symbolism. Federal and state laws require that services they fund must be accessible in languages besides English. It’s also meaningless in the private sector, where businesses that are eager to win new customers have embraced bilingualism.

“On a policy level, this is just ludicrous,” Propeack said. “You have to wonder what they’re really trying to say.”

Two paragraphs later, we have our answer:

“Send them all back where they came from,” said store owner Shane Fitzgerald, 33.

One other point that can’t be made enough, apparently. If universal, free, English-language instruction were suddenly made available to all, and everyone who wanted to learn English enrolled tomorrow, (and plenty of people would) that would not remove the obligation to provide government services and information in multiple languages, because it actually takes some time to learn a new language. And you’d need to keep those services and information resources accessible to non-English speakers even after all your current residents have learned English, because more non-English speaking people will be coming along right behind them.

That is, unless you take the position that non-English speakers simply don’t have the same rights as those who do.

There just isn’t any remotely legitimate policy interest behind English-only laws. The government has an obligation to treat people equally and fairly, and not every one of us at any given time speaks/read/understands English. It’s pretty simple.

Most non-english speaking people want to learn English. The way to support people to do this is to invest in programs that will help them to learn. I don’t know about Carroll county, but recent reports are that Maryland has an adult education waiting list at any given time of about 1,200-2,700 people. (And a report from a few years earlier had that number at about 5,000, with the vast majority waiting for ESL services.) Waiting list numbers always underestimate the actual demand for services, because many people have given up looking, or can’t find a suitable program in their community to begin with.

h/t @JohnSegota

History of TANF Block Grants Illustrates Why WIA Block Grants Pose a Threat to Adult Education Funding

/ The Old Crank

Yesterday I gave a short talk on federal adult education policy issues at the WATESOL Fall Convention in Maryland, as part of a larger panel discussion on advocacy.

One of the policy trends I mentioned was the Republican inclination toward reducing the number of federal programs and consolidating them into state block grants, thus providing states with more decision-making power in how those federal funds are used. (They also tend to want to reduce federal spending to begin with, of course, at least for non-defense programs.) Their argument is that state officials are in a better position to decide how federal funding can best meet the particular needs of their state.

I want to describe in detail why I think federal program consolidation is a threat to federal funding for adult education.

My specific point of concern is with House Republicans’ Workforce Investment Act (WIA)  reauthorization bill, H.R. 4297 (The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012), which was passed by the House Education and the Workforce Committee in June, (but has yet to be voted on by the full House, and probably won’t be). This bill would consolidate all of the different WIA job-training programs and convert them into a block grant program for states. It’s worth noting that the 2012 Republican platform also proposes consolidation of federal workforce programs into state block grants “so that training can be coordinated with local schools and employers.”

Title II of WIA—which specifically supports programs focused on helping people improve their literacy skills—is not subject to this consolidation provision. However, H.R. 4297 would give states the option to further consolidate their federal adult education funds—and a bunch of other non-WIA training funds—into a Workforce Investment Fund that would be also created under this bill. This option can be thought of as the turbo version of consolidation. If states chose to do this, they would have a great deal of flexibility on how to use the dollars they assign to the WIF. Most significantly, from an adult education perspective, once Title II money is assigned to the WIF, it would no longer have to be used to serve the specific purposes of Title II.

And the evidence seems to be pretty strong that this is exactly what would happen if this bill (or something like it) should ever become law.

The history of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants is instructive. As noted in a recent report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), in the years since the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program was converted into a block grant program, states have often used the flexibility of TANF block grants to redirect TANF funds to plug holes in state budgets or free up funds for purposes unrelated to TANF’s stated purposes.

We also know that money tends to flow away from adult education when public officials have the flexibility to re-purpose adult education dollars. The most dramatic example is in California, where in 2009 the legislature passed a bill that gave individual school districts the flexibility to take money from one funding category and move it into another. In the years since the passage of this bill, hundreds of school districts have used funding originally intended for adult education to fill gaps in their K-12 budget. This has reduced overall state adult education funding in California by nearly half, from $754 million to $400 million. (I argued last year that the CBA is probably the worst piece of legislation for adult education in the entire U.S. over the last several years.)

I’ll concede that in some states, it’s possible that enlightened leadership might actually use the flexibility under the Republican approach to increase services for adult education—and theoretically states could even target more money towards individuals not well-served under the current system. (CPBB notes, for example, that in the case of TANF, some funds were used for child care and welfare-to-work programs— and other reasonable welfare reform efforts—particularly in TANF’s early years.) But I think the evidence above suggests that the opposite is more likely over time: that states would tend to use the flexibility of block grants to steer WIA money away from it’s intended purposes, and that this would lead to budget gaps in job training programs when demand is high. State officials would then be tempted to move adult education funds over to job training programs to shore up those gaps, in the same way that school officials in California diverted adult education money to shore up their K-12 budget gaps.

In it’s report on TANF, CPBB warns that “block grants can lead to less accountability, lessened federal direction and oversight, and significant amounts of federal funds being spent in ways that Congress did not envision or intend.” Given what we know, diminished federal oversight over adult education funding will likely result in a substantial reduction in that funding across the country.

WIA reauthorization my be on hold for now, but I expect consolidation to be part of the WIA debate in the next Congress.

Report: Missouri Ready to Move on from the GED

/ The Old Crank

The Moberly Monitor-Index reports that Missouri is officially looking for an alternative to the GED to serve as the state’s high school equivalency exam.

As many people reading this blog already know, the GED Testing Service, a relatively new for-profit joint venture between the American Council on Education (ACE) and the education publisher Pearson, are in the process of dramatically revamping the GED. The new GED, set to replace the current assessment in January of 2014, will actually include two parts: an updated high school equivalency assessment aligned with the common core, and a second part that will measure college and career readiness. The new GED will also no longer be a pencil-and-paper exam, but a computer-based test.

These changes have been highly controversial. States (New York in particular) have complained about the increased cost of the exam. Most states are expecting the base cost of the exam to rise significantly, which will likely compel them to increase the fee charged to each individual taking the test (the cost to an individual varies depending on how much the state subsidizes the cost). In my experience talking with teachers about adult education policy, the new GED is far and away the most frequently expressed policy concern among adult educators.

A few months ago, a report claimed that as many as 25 states are looking into the possibility of dropping the GED. I don’t have the resources to monitor this closely state-by-state, so I don’t know how many have gone so far as to actually seek proposals from vendors for alternatives. Until I read the Moberly Monitor-Index story this morning, New York was only other state I knew of that had gone forward with such a request.

What’s really interesting about the Monitor-Index story is that the reporter is clearly under the impression that the GED’s days as a “national standard” for high-school equivalency are numbered:

The exact changes that will occur are still unclear, but what is known is that the national standard GED will no longer be in place.

States will soon be able to choose vendors to develop and regulate the tests, which could cause difficulties for adults and young people pursuing the GED option over a high school diploma.

“The challenge I see is that every state is going to choose their own vendor,” Maryville AEL Director Linda Stephens said. “That is different than it has ever been before. I can see problems developing with bordering states and people who relocate.”

Each states education department will be able to set its own standards. The question remains whether credits and scores earned in Missouri will be honored elsewhere.

Stephens has been reviewing information on GED Testing Services sent to her by the state. But there are many vendors out there ready to enter the high school equivalency business. (my emphasis)

From what little I do know, I think it’s premature to state with certainly that a free-for-all is imminent for high-school equivalency tests around the country. But the scenario the reporter lays out here is certainly not far-fetched. Having different exams in different states probably will create confusion. It could be particularly challenging for someone studying for an exam in one state who then unexpectedly finds themselves in a situation where they need to move to a different state—maybe due to a job change, for example. And, as noted above, it’s also not clear whether every state will recognize the validity of every other state’s exam.

For better or worse, the GED, while not by any means the only path towards high school equivalency for adults and out-of-school youth, is our de facto national test. It’s hard to imagine how states dropping it and replacing it with multiple alternative exams won’t create confusion for adult learners and present new challenges to the already under-funded field of adult education. It’s also unclear if there is some point at which enough states drop the test that Pearson is no longer to justify it as a viable for-profit venture. What happens then?