adult education

Early Reports Suggest DACA Increasing Demand for Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

Back in I August I wrote an article suggesting that the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative might increase demand for GED classes—and for adult education classes in general.

According to Miranda Leitsinger of NBC News, it has. Although it’s not clear yet what the impact of DACA has been on the demand for adult education in general, she reports that interest in the GED test is on the rise, at least in some states.

Some GED state testing centers are seeing a spike in requests to take the test or a course, as well as an uptick in calls with questions about the exam since the government began accepting applications for the deferred action program on Aug. 15, according to an informal survey of state GED test program administrators conducted by the GED Testing Service, the official creator of the exam.

In Iowa, centers have experienced a 20 percent rise in English as a Second Language attendance for GED prep, while Massachusetts has seen a 25 percent to 50 percent surge in registration for the test through Spanish. In North Carolina, there has been a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in testing requests, including to take it in Spanish, prompting adminstrators to order more such tests for next year.

I suspect that the main reason an increase in demand is only being reported from some states is due to a lack of data. The GED test program administrator survey cited here, for example, is characterized as “informal,” and it could be that many states did not respond or have not collected data on this yet.

Leitsinger also suggests that DACA is increasing immigration advocates’ awareness of the lack of adult education services available:

I think it’s fair to say that the immigrant rights movement is discovering the education reform movement … and that they’re really coming to understand, first of all, how hard it is to get a GED and secondly, how limited the capacity of adult education programs is,” said Margie McHugh, co-director of the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. “Certainly this 350,000 or so young people are the most immediate concern and the most vulnerable for not making it through the process, and that’s very much related to both the difficulty of pursuing a GED or completing a GED … and also the lack of availability of programs.”

What’s critical about all this is that it means that the relief provided by DACA is going to be much more accessible to those with the means to pay for GED classes. I’d be interested to know the extent to which the administration took into account the availability of free/low-cost adult education services when they formulated this policy, and whether they were concerned that the lack of such services might seem unfair to those with limited means. Secondly, now that there is evidence that the potential DACA applicants are frustrated by the lack of affordable services, whether this presents an opportunity for immigration rights advocates and adult education rights advocates, working together, to ramp up our advocacy on the need for adult education services.

What Does Governor Romney’s Pledge Not to Cut Education Spending Really Mean?

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

During last week’s debate, Mitt Romney made what sounded like, to many, a straightforward promise not to cut federal education spending if elected: “I’m not going to cut education funding. I don’t have any plan to cut education funding and—and grants that go to people going to college… I’m not planning on making changes there.”

How seriously you take this pledge seems to depend a lot on which candidate you support. But it’s fair to argue that there’s some wiggle room in Romney’s statement. For one thing, we know that presidents can propose what are ultimately going to be de facto program cuts to some programs but call them something else. Over the last several budgets, for example, the Obama administration has proposed what are essentially cuts to certain federal education programs by proposing to “consolidate” them under broader program titles. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that overall education spending gets cut, it can lead to certain funding streams being reduced under the new consolidated programs, whatever they may be. (Thus the administration was able to say that they proposed an overall increase to education in FY11, even while creating conditions that essentially resulted in the elimination of federal funding for family literacy when it consolidated away the Even Start program.)

There are also programs outside the Department of Education budget, such as the Corporation for National and Community Service (to pick one example) that provide educational programs. This you could eliminate CNCS while still claiming you are technically not cutting education, even though elimination of this program would effectively reduce federal education resources. (By this logic, some would argue that eliminating funding for PBS, as Romney did say he would do, would also effectively be an education cut.)

And while the automatic, across-the-board sequestration cuts that are currently set to occur on January 2nd can’t by any stretch be considered Romney policy, if he is elected and those cuts go into effect, he will in fact be presiding over a significant cut to education spending, and/or be working with Congress on legislation to eliminate sequestration with another plan.  His pledge to not cut education spending would be more significant, I think, if he would make it explicit that his sequester replacement plan would leave education spending untouched.

Most importantly, as we’ve seen over the last several years, Congress and the administration often must compromise in order to get a budget passed, and in that compromise the administration may be forced to cut programs it would rather not cut in order to preserve funding for programs it believes are more important. If Romney is elected, we can assume that Republicans will retain control of the House, and possibly gain control of the Senate (where Paul Ryan would have the tiebreaker vote). Doesn’t it seem likely that Congressional Republicans would craft a budget with significant education cuts whether Romney likes it or not? And then what would he do? Would Romney actually pick a fight with his own party over these cuts?

I think it’s safe to assume that the Obama administration did not intend to reduce education spending when it took office in 2009. But that hasn’t prevented federal education spending from declining significantly. Is it reasonable to expect that a Romney administration would make the same effort—and with better success—at fighting off Congressional spending cuts to education than the Obama administration has?

A good followup question to Romney about his debate statement would be: Does your pledge not to cut education spending include a promise to veto any legislation passed by Congress that includes education cuts? I hope this comes up again in a future debate.

P.S. For adult education advocates, it’s also worth thinking about what other areas of the budget Romney might propose going after in order to preserve K-12 and higher education funding. Is adult education part of the education funding Romney is pledging to protect? (Doubtful.) If not, would adult education be even more vulnerable to cuts as Romney struggles to find other areas of discretionary spending to eliminate in order to offset the K-12/higher education spending holds?

Why Hasn’t Prison Education Led to Better Employment Outcomes in D.C.?

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

According to the Council for Court Excellence (CCE), an estimated 60,000 people in the District of Columbia have criminal records (this is roughly one in every ten persons), and about 8,000 of them return to the city each year after serving their sentences. Unfortunately, half of these individuals will end up back behind bars within three years of getting out.

Reducing recidivism improves public safety and strengthens communities, and is therefore a worthy policy goal. And the research tells us that one of the best ways to accomplish this is to provide inmates with access to education and training while they are in prison.

But it appears that education and training for incarcerated D.C. residents isn’t going to be enough unless we significantly reduce barriers to employment once people are out of prison.

Las year, CCE released a report on the employment challenges facing previously incarcerated D.C. residents after they are released. The report was based on the results of a survey of 550  formerly incarcerated individuals. Among the key findings: there was little or no difference in employment rates for those who earned a GED or job certificate before or after prison and those who did not:

The unemployment rate among survey respondents was about the same after incarceration as it had been prior to incarceration, even among those who used their time in prison productively to increase their skills. Over 30% indicated that they received a GED or higher in prison and 35% indicated receiving a job training certificate of some kind. CCE’s sample showed little or no difference in the unemployment rate for those who had earned a GED or job certificate in or after prison compared with those who had not. (my emphasis)

This finding is at odds with the findings of another recent recidivism study from another jurisdiction, conducted by Jake Cronin, a policy analyst with the Institute of Public Policy in the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.

Cronin studied Missouri Department of Corrections data and found that inmates who earned their GED in Missouri prisons were significantly more likely to find a job after release from prison than those who did not.

But Cronin also noted that recidivism rates went down most dramatically for those inmates had earned a GED and acquired a full-time job after release.

“Employment proves to be the strongest predictor of not returning to prison that we found,” Cronin said. “Those who have a full-time job are much less likely to return to prison than similar inmates who are unemployed. Recidivism rates were nearly cut in half for former inmates with a full-time job compared to similar inmates who are unemployed.”

It makes sense to me that education plus sustained employment has the most lasting impact on reducing recidivism. But in Missouri, at least, attaining an educational credential appears to increase the likelihood of employment, whereas in Washington it may have no effect at all. So the question is whether there are other significant barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated individuals here in the District—other than education—that may not be as prominent in Missouri. And if there are, what do we do about them?

I’ll concede that the biggest barrier to employment for many people these days is the lack of jobs to begin with. I’ll also concede that part of the problem may be that the jobs that do become available in the District may, on average, require more specialized training or post-secondary education than the jobs that are available in Missouri. (I don’t know that for certain, but it seems reasonable.) Nonetheless, there are also policies that can be put in place to make it easier for those returning from prison to find a job, and to encourage employers to hire them.

For their part, the Council for Court Excellence (CCE) believes that barriers to employment unrelated to education do exist, and in their report, they made several recommendations to address them, including, among other things, liability protection for employers and a “certificate of good standing” indicating that an individual has completed his or her sentence and is in good standing with conditions of release.

These two recommendations are the centerpiece of recent bill, the D.C. Re-entry Facilitation Amendment Act, introduced by D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson on July 10th.

UPDATE 9/27/12: My original headline (Why Hasn’t Prison Education Reduced D.C. Recidivism Rates?) was all wrong—I was making a point about employment outcomes, not recidivism rates—and was updated accordingly.

Clark County Nevada Correctional Education Improves Economy and Public Safety, Budget Is Cut Anyway

/ The Old Crank

Excellent article by Paul Takahashi in the Las Vegas Sun over the weekend about an adult education and vocational training program based at the High Desert State Prison in Nevada, about 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas. According to the Sun, more than 300 inmates are served through this program, operated by the Clark County School District through a partnership with the Nevada Department of Corrections.

About 75% of inmates who receive their GED, high school diploma or a vocational certificate through this program never return to prison. By contrast, the overall recidivism rate for inmates 18 to 20 years old is about 50%.

Unfortunately, funding for adult education and vocational programs at prisons across the state has been dramatically reduced in recent years. Clark County has cut the budget for this program by 28%.

(Corrected on 3/14: forgot to add a link to the original story!)