adult literacy

Scrambling for Dollars

/ The Old Crank

Somewhat unusual state funding scheme, I think, for adult literacy in New Mexico, assuming this story was reported accurately. I think what is going on here is that the state has decided it wants state adult literacy funds that are not part of their 25%  match under Title II of WIA to be reserved for programs not receiving Title II funding.

It’s very challenging, I think, for coalitions to serve as conduits for state funding and still serve as a broad-based coalition for the field. Even when it works well, the dynamic between coalition members and the leaders of the coalition is different when coalition members rely on the coalition for funding. And of course, program directors that don’t get your funding won’t be happy, and when funding gets tight, disputes like this seem sort of inevitable.

I’m be interested in hearing about other coalition organizations that serve as state funding intermediaries.

Study: Diabetes Patients Who Don’t Understand Basic Health Information Significantly Less Likely To Adhere To Prescribed Treatment

/ The Old Crank

Something new today to add to the list of health problems associated with low literacy: in a recent study conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and the University of Washington School of Medicine, a big majority (72%) of the 1,366 study participants turned out to have limited health literacy and significantly poorer adherence to newly prescribed antidepressants compared to other patients.

According to Kaiser Permanente, depression occurs twice as frequently among adults with diabetes compared to adults without diabetes.

Although poor adherence to antidepressant medications has been a known issue with some diabetes patients, what’s new here is the evidence that diabetes patients with limited health literacy were much less likely to refill their antidepressant medications in a timely fashion than patients without such limitations.

Dr. Amy Bauer of the University of Washington School of Medicine, notes that “patients with limited health literacy may require more intensive counseling and clearer explanations about use of antidepressant medications and closer follow-up.” Considering the high number of participants in this study who were found to have low health literacy, I suspect that most doctors should, in fact, be prepared to deal with this issue.

But as a matter of public policy, we could also address this by working on improving the literacy skills of adults in this country to begin with, which would lessen the need for such interventions. Does anyone think it’s likely our health care system can really support the cost of more intensive counseling and closer followup what is likely millions of patients with low literacy/health literacy?

This study isn’t the first report to draw a connection between literacy/health literacy and public health (see link above). Shouldn’t improving adult literacy in the U.S. be a major component of our overall strategy to improve public health and lower health care costs in this country?

Obama Administration: SKILLS Act Fails to Meet the Needs of Adults With “Literacy and English Language Needs”

/ The Old Crank

(Updated below)
STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICYIn case you missed it, here is the Obama administration’s official response (known as a “Statement of Administration Policy”) to the SKILLS Act. The Republican-led bill to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act recently passed in the House, but is likely dead-on-arrival in the Senate.

The administration says the SKILLS Act “would eliminate, or allow the consolidation of, many targeted programs, without providing the critical assistance needed by vulnerable populations,” including “adults with literacy and English language needs.” (my emphasis)

UPDATE: Acting Secretary of Labor Seth Harris also released a statement last week that was critical of the SKILLS Act. He doesn’t mention adult literacy specifically.

Could Immigration Reform Draw Greater Attention to the Legal Needs of Low-Income Immigrants?

/ The Old Crank

Kirk Semple, writing for the New York Times’ City Room blog, reports that a federal appellate judge in New York is proposing an “immigrant justice corps” program that would recruit and train young lawyers to assist illegal immigrants navigate the pathway to legal residency status and citizenship—under the assumption that the immigration reform legislation anticipated sometime this year will provide one. Most expect it will.

The judge, Robert A. Katzmann, envisions something that would look a lot like AmeriCorps VISTA and the Peace Corps. According to Semple, the program would recruit 50 young immigration lawyers every two months for two-year periods of service. Like the programs modeled on Teach for America I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, it would give graduating law students an opportunity for work in what is a tight job market right now for lawyers. Katzmann estimates that he would need $5 million to support the program for a year. Authorizing a few million dollars of federal money in the immigration reform bill itself to provide legal assistance to those trying to meet the requirements of the law should be a no-brainer, but in the current budget-cutting climate, that may not be possible.

As Semple notes, Judge Katzmann has been a longstanding critic of the quality of the legal representation provided to immigrants, and was the leader of a group in New York group that proposed a plan last year to create a network of legal service providers to represent low-income immigrants in the New York City region.

One of the biggest problems facing immigrants in any legal proceeding is lack of English proficiency. I’ve seen firsthand defendants brought before judges in criminal courtrooms, for example, who don’t read or speak English and have no experience navigating the U.S. legal system. Last year, I noted on this blog that the National Center on Access to Justice (NCAJ) at the Cardozza School of Law had concluded that 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.” As I argued in that post, this is a problem not just for non-native English speakers but for native English speakers with low levels of literacy as well.

I agree with Judge Katzmann that the problem of inadequate legal representation for immigrants (especially low-income immigrants) will acquire even greater urgency once an immigration reform bill is passed, but the problem isn’t limited to immigration status issues. Perhaps his proposal will draw greater attention to the need to address language access and low literacy in our justice system generally.