adult literacy

SKILLS Act Approved by the House – Now It’s Off to Die in the Senate

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

If you follow this legislation closely, you already know this, but in case you missed it: the House of Representatives, to no one’s surprise, approved the House Republicans’ Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill, H.R. 803 (known as the SKILLS Act) on Friday, pretty much along party lines. Only two Democrats voted in favor: Rep. Matheson (UT) and Rep. Barrow (GA).

Fourteen Republicans voted against:

Paul Cook (CA)
Gary Miller (CA)
Paul Broun Jr. (GA)
Thomas Massie (KY)
Justin Amash (MI)
Walter Jones Jr. (NC)
Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
Jon Runyan (NJ)
Christopher Gibson (NY)
Michael Grimm (NY)
Peter King (NY)
Michael Turner (OH)
Jim Bridenstine (OK)
David McKinley (WV)

Rep. Tierney (D-MA) offered the Democrats’ substitute bill, H.R. 798, as an amendment, but again, not surprisingly, it didn’t pass.

Interestingly, the two Democratic House members vying for John Kerry’s former Senate seat, Edward Markey and Stephen Lynch, both sat out the vote.

The bill will now go on to find a nice hole to crawl into in the Senate. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee is reportedly working on a bipartisan WIA reauthorization bill, and thus it is extremely unlikely that the SKILLS Act, having received virtually no Democratic support in the House, will ever see the light of day on the Senate floor.

It was a bit frustrating (for me, anyway) to see this bill introduced at this time, since it’s going nowhere in the Senate. Because WIA is so critical to adult education funding, adult education advocates couldn’t ignore it, but I fear that it served as a distraction from immigration reform, where I think there is better opportunity right now to generate some new awareness and support in Congress for adult education.

House Education and the Workforce Committee Democrats Walk Out on SKILLS Act Markup Hearing

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee walked out of the committee vote Wedensday morning on the Republican-backed bill to revamp the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), claiming that the majority refused to work with them on developing a bipartisan bill. The Committee subsequently passed the bill, (H.R. 803), called the “Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills” (SKILLS) Act, by a vote of 23 to 0. (The final bill includes a couple of minor ammendments offered by Republicans, including one that would prohibit the use of WIA funds for lobbying and political activities—as well as “voter registration activities.”) Republican leaders have scheduled the bill for a floor vote next week.

During the hearing, before the walkout, Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) said that the bill “will never see the light of day in the Senate,” and from what I can gather, that is undoubtedly true.

But according to The Hill, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) highlighted the SKILLS Act in a speech last month as part of his “Making Life Work” agenda for the GOP, and really wanted to get this thing to the House floor as soon as possible.

In a joint statement, Tierney, Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said that they viewed “boycotting this proceeding as our only alternative after many months of repeatedly requesting bipartisan negotiations and being rebuffed by committee Republicans,” and claimed that “[i]t would have been a dereliction of duty to continue to participate.”

Tierney, Hinojosa, and Miller sent a letter to Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and SKILLS Act author Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) on Monday, requesting that they cancel Wednesday’s markup and instead hold “member-to-member negotiations to reach a compromise.” The three Democrats said in their statement today that they received no response. And thus the boycott.

I was just sent this exclusive video clip of the hearing, including the dramatic walkout:

Actual webcast of the hearing here.

UPDATE 3/7/13: Some good reporting yesterday from Ethan Forman in the Eagle-Tribune on the concerns of people in the in the field in the Merrimack Valley/Southern New Hampshire are about the Republican bill:

Mary Sarris, executive director of the Salem-based North Shore Workforce Investment Board, said she provided input to Tierney to help craft his version of the Workforce Investment Act update.

Tierney’s bill, Sarris said, would provide opportunities for workforce investment boards to work with certain industries to train workers, such as, for example, offering a program for machinists at a community college. She said the current law does not allow the board to use federal money to provide for group training, which could be more cost-effective.

Wayne Burton, president of North Shore Community College, one of the North Shore Workforce Investment Board’s largest providers, said the Republican bill would have “major repercussions for us of the negative kind” by consolidating programs and making it uncertain where the worker training money might go. The legislation calls for business leaders to sit on workforce investment boards, eliminating community college representation.

“The funding goes to the people that need it, and it’s not hung up in the bureaucracy,” he said.

House Republicans to Democrats on WIA: You Just Got Jammed

/ The Old Crank
Councilman Jamm

Pawnee Councilman Jeremy Jamm

The House Education and the Workforce Committee has announced that it will markup its Workforce Investment Act (WIA) bill, H.R. 803, “Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills Act’’ or the ‘‘SKILLS Act’’ on March 6th. If you missed last week’s hearing on this bill, an archived webcast is available here. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, I do recommend—if only for the sheer entertainment value of it—skipping to about the 1:51 mark to hear Rep. Tierney (D-MA) and Chairwoman Foxx  (R-NC) argue over Tierney’s charge that the Chairwoman has not been willing to work with Democrats on the committee on a bipartisan bill. Lots of talk on the Democratic side about the bill being “jammed through.” Pawnee’s infamous Councilman Jeremy Jamm would be proud.

You can read CQ Roll Call‘s account of the debate between Tierney and Foxx here. In addition to the on-the-record comments made by both, CQ Roll Call reports that the two “participated in a heated exchange off-microphone after the hearing officially ended.”

I don’t have much to say about this. The SKILLS Act is essentially the same bill that Rep. Foxx introduced last session. There are several things to dislike about the bill if you are an adult education advocate, but far and away the most critical problem is that it would allow states to consolidate Title II adult education funding together with job training programs into these big block grants to states that the bill would create, and I don’t believe there is enough in the bill to ensure that states will use their Title II funding for adult education and literacy services (or to ensure that money isn’t shifted away from the underserved populations that many of the Title I training programs were designed to help).

The Democrats on the committee have introduced their own WIA reauthorization bill (H.R. 798)—and, like H.R. 803, it’s also essentially the same bill they introduced last session. They may offer it as an amendment on the 6th.

People close to this issue tell me that it’s very important for groups to voice concerns about H.R. 803 now, before markup, or at least before the bill gets to the floor, rather than waiting for the Senate to take this up. Even if it’s likely (and I think it is) that H.R. 803 passes through committee and the full House without any significant changes, the thought is that speaking up now to build a record of strong opposition from around the country will make it easier for the Senate to push for significant changes if/when they take this up.

Economic Argument for Adult Education Still Has Some Life in Maryland

/ The Old Crank

On Wednesday night, during his annual State of the County address, Montgomery Maryland County Executive Leggett announced something that sort of sounded like a big push to expand adult English literacy services in Montgomery County, which he called “English Language on Demand.” It’s not clear what exactly this initiative will include—in particular, whether there will be significant new funding involved. (One thing for sure, there is excellent umbrella organization—Montgomery Coalition for Adult English Literacy—that does a tremendous job supporting local adult English literacy programs in Montgomery County. They would surely do great things with more funding should it become available.)

But I wanted to highlight a statistic that he cited during this announcement, because it’s a rare example where an old report—you know, those reports that usually just gather dust on a shelf somewhere—actually seems to have resurrected itself (at least one small piece of it). And the fact that the piece in question is an economic return-on-investment argument is encouraging.

The report I’m thinking of is Stepping Up to the Future, a 2005 report by a panel put together by the Maryland Schools Superintendent to make recommendations on improving adult education throughout the state. Leggett cited a nugget of economic data that I’ve only seen in that report—I’ve never been able to get a hold of the original source of the data. Specifically, when he said during the speech that “every dollar we invest in adult English language training… brings us three dollars in higher productivity,” that appears to be derived from an analysis, commissioned by the panel, of adult education and wage data by a group called ORC Macro. They found, among other things, that “every dollar invested in adult education [in Maryland] yields a return of $3.15.” That’s not exactly what Leggett said—he was talking specifically about English language training, and not in the whole state but just in the county—but I’ll bet that’s where that statistic  comes from. And if it’s sort of a sloppy appropriation of it (assuming I’m right), it doesn’t matter. The important thing here is the suggestion that policymakers in Maryland accept the notion that investing in adult education has positive economic returns.

Anyway, it’s always great to hear support for adult education in one of these annual speeches, and credit is due to Leggett for proposing it. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Here are Leggett’s comments on his “English on Demand” proposal in full:

My second initiative is English Language on Demand. In Montgomery, our residents speak many different languages – and that’s good. But here, and increasingly around the world, mastering English is the ticket to opportunity and success. When you speak English, you not only learn another language, you also improve your chances of getting a good job – and then getting a better one. It is the ticket to growing your business and to building a better future for your family — which increases the County’s overall tax base.

I recommend as a goal that every adult in this County who wants to learn English – no matter where they come from – has the opportunity to do so. For every dollar we invest in adult English language training, it brings us three dollars in higher productivity. So, let’s invest the necessary resources to help shorten and, in time, eliminate the long waiting lists for individuals seeking the opportunity to learn English. And, we should also encourage County residents to become “teaching volunteers” in our County English language learning network.