adult literacy

A Charter School Network in New Orleans Increases Parental Involvement – By Offering Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

I was doing some research on charter schools and came across an adult literacy program that specifically targets the parents of children enrolled in a charter school network in New Orleans. According to the Web site of the New Beginnings School Foundation, the Capital One Foundation Adult Literacy Center of Greater New Orleans was set up to serve the “parents of the more than 1,400 students enrolled at Capital One-New Beginnings Charter School Network schools and the greater community served by its schools.”

What got my attention was the link that was being made here in this community between participating adult education and parental involvement in the schools, an issue I have written about recently. In a recent announcement, Dr. Vera Triplett, CEO of New Beginnings Charter School Network, says that “[t]he adult literacy program has helped to bring more parents into the schools,” where they “get to see what their children are doing everyday, and how hard the school is working to help them achieve academically.”

New Cuts to Adult Literacy Programs in California Appear Likely

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

The Sacramento Bee reports this morning that it is likely that California’s revenue expectations will fall far short of what was hoped for when the budget was passed back in in June. The Legislative Analyst’s Office is expecting $3.7 billion less than expected, and according to the budget scheme Governor Brown and the California legislature came up with last spring, this would result in automatic cuts to to libraries, universities and schools. (The governor and the California legislature inserted $2.5 billion in new cuts that automatically trigger if the Governor’s Department of Finance determines California will fall short of their revenue projections.)

These cuts will include $15 million in library funding, which would hit California’s large network of volunteer-driven adult literacy programs pretty hard. The Bee quotes Michael Dillon, a lobbyist for the California Library Foundation, who says the cuts “would significantly impact readers and people trying to get sufficient reading skills.”

In addition, it appears to me that the potential for further cuts to adult education operated by school districts is also a strong possibility. That is because further K-12 reductions are also possible, although the Bee reports that it is unclear how deep into school budgets the state will cut, if at all.

If it does, I would expect further cuts to adult education will result, as school districts respond by continuing to shift dollars away from adult education to shore up K-12 budgets. The California Budget Act (CBA) allows school districts to this, and it has been happening all over California for the last few years. I wrote about one such example here.

The new revenue forecast will be out this week.

Two WIA Bills to Be Introduced in the House on This Week

/ The Old Crank

I was pleased to have the opportunity to join my fellow National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) board members up on the Hill this morning for meetings with Congressional staff. I was particularly pleased we had a chance to meet with staff members of the House Committee on Education and Workforce responsible for Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization. As luck would have it, we were among the first to learn that two WIA bills are going to be introduced in the House tomorrow: one from Rep. Virginia Foxx to that they said was designed to remove duplication and consolidate federal workforce programs under WIA; and one from Rep. Joe Heck concerned with tying job training more closely with the needs of the local business community.

They don’t expect markup on either of these anytime soon. So it’s not huge news—and these two bills will not have much concerning adult literacy in them—but it’s nice to hear that there is any kind of movement on WIA in the House. (Title II of WIA is the primary piece of federal legislation concerning adult literacy, and thus advocates feel that any movement on WIA is a good sign for us.) NCL is also asking House members to consider holding a hearing on adult literacy sometime next year, and we got some positive feedback on that today as well.

Charter Schools and Adult Education: Thoughts on Pending Florida Legislation

/ The Old Crank

According to this report in the Cape Coral/Fort Myers News Press, legislation is about to be introduced in the Florida legislature by Sen. David Simmons, (R-Maitland), and Rep. Janet Adkins, (R-Fernandina Beach), that will, according to the report, “allow charters or non-profit groups to offer adult education classes.”

I’m pretty sure that Florida law does not currently prohibit nonprofits from offering adult education classes, and if you read further, it appears that this is not actually what this proposed legislation would do.

The issue caught my attention because there are several charter schools in Washington, D.C. that provide adult education classes as part of their mission. The D.C. charter law is unique (as far as I know) in that it explicitly includes adult education as a suitable function for D.C. charter school funding. I think that there are other states where the law is silent on the issue.

While I haven’t actually read the proposed Florida bill, it does not appear to be modeled after the D.C. law. Instead, this proposal appears to be designed to provide charters and nonprofits with access to state adult education funds that currently flow exclusively to the K-12 system in Florida. In other words, nonprofits can obviously offer adult education services now — they just can’t currently access state adult education money to do it. The bill is being promoted by a large nonprofit organization, the Volunteer USA Foundation, a non-profit group with strong connections to the Bush family.

The charter school law in the District of Columbia, on the other hand, allows charter schools that serve adult students with the opportunity to access city education funds that otherwise is used for K-12 education. In other words, it created a new funding source for adult education, leaving existing state funds for adult education alone. (The “state” adult ed money in D.C. does not go to D.C.’s K-12 system, by the way, but flows pretty much exclusively to nonprofit organizations through a competitive grant process.) Again, I may be wrong, but it appears that the Florida legislation is designed simply to move adult education money from the K-12 system into private nonprofits and charter schools. It may result in new adult education entities but if so it will be at the expense of services currently being provided by the school system.

I think this distinction is worth mentioning as this issue is often raised in discussions of whether charter school legislation might open up new funding streams for adult education. It did in the District. That doesn’t appear to be what is envisioned in Florida.

P.S. Someone with some extra money lying around should fund someone to do a  comprehensive look at current adult education charter school models, (most are in D.C., but I understand that are a smattering being proposed in other jurisdictions), and look at state charter school legislative language across the country that might theoretically accomodate the growth of adult charter schools.