California

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Adult Education a Vital and Integral Part of the Entire School Spectrum”

/ The Old Crank

On Thursday, the local Argonaut newspaper published a story that recounted some of the public testimony provided to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education last week when it met to consider a budget proposal that would have eliminated adult education in the district.

That proposal is now on hold: a new budget will be presented on March 13th that will include a $270-a-year parcel tax referendum, which the Argonaut reports could make it to the ballot as early as June. Presumably this would generate enough new revenue to preserve adult education funding in the district. (However, according to the Argonaut, the parcel tax initiative will require a two-thirds vote for approval, and it’s not clear from the story how likely it is to pass).

For anyone looking for great examples of how adult education impacts a community, I highly recommend this piece. The testimony and statements presented at the meeting were excellent.

I was particularly impressed by the statement provided by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson:

“It is our goal at the California Department of Education to consider the ‘whole student’ in our daily work of providing technical assistance and oversight of the multitude of state and federal programs we are responsible to administer,” the schools superintendent wrote to the district in a Feb. 10 letter.

“As such, we consider adult education a vital and integral part of the entire school spectrum.” (my emphasis)

Torlakson touched on some of the same reasons why it is important to preserve funding for schools like the Venice Skills Center and the Venice Community Adult School that students who spoke with The Argonaut did.

“It is through adult education that the parents of the students within our kindergarten through 12 schools can gain the education and literacy skills necessary to better their personal situations, thus benefiting all of California,” he wrote. “It is here that they can advance their own careers, obtain the skills for gainful employment and become better parents and more active participants in our communities.” (my emphasis)

Torlakson added there is evidence that with “minimal fiscal resources, adult education still produces long-term and far reaching benefits.”

Disinvesting in Libraries: Anti-Stimulus

/ The Old Crank

Yesterday, the Lompoc Record (Lompoc, Calif.) published a story about a new round of budget cuts facing the Lompoc Public Library system. (Similar cuts taking place all over California, and in other states.)

Budget cuts have already left a “shovel ready” children’s library expansion project in limbo as the Lompoc library recently lost $1.05 million in construction funding. They now need $2.04 million to get the project underway, and “there’s no timeline for construction.”

Meanwhile, Lompoc Public Library board member Maria Aguiniga notes that the cuts to library services “are affecting some of the most vulnerable in the community.”

“I think that some of us are fortunate to have computer and Internet in our household,” Aguiniga said. “We think everyone has the same access and that is not the case. People go into the library to seek employment, to type up resumes and to do research.”

In other words, the Lompoc Public Library has been forced to (1) indefinitely delay an initiative that is immediately stimulative to the economy (construction of a new children’s library), and (2) reduce services that provide a long-term benefit to the economy by providing resources for people to improve their skills and look for work.

Multiply this by a few thousand communities where similar cuts and funding gaps exist, and it’s not hard to imagine how library cutbacks can act as a drag on overall economic growth, especially in states where cuts have been the most severe.

In the District of Columbia, where I live, public library budget cuts haven’t been quite as bad as they have been in states like California, particularly in terms of new construction: several beautiful brand new or revamped branch libraries have opened in D.C. neighborhoods over the last few years. But many of those branches have been forced to reduce their hours, and funds for new materials has been dramatically reduced because of overall budget cuts to the system.

Crazy Idea of the Day

/ The Old Crank

(updated below)

LA Weekly‘s News Blog, the Informer, posted a story today on the Los Angeles adult education funding crisis that included this great little tidbit:

There has been speculation that “zeroing out” the programs was a highly risky strategic move on the school district’s part to attract grants from either the state or federal government.

Is there any way that this speculation could possibly be true? I don’t understand a scenario in which zeroing out adult education would attract federal or state money from some other source.

UPDATE (2/15/12): LA Weekly‘s report today on the LAUSD Board of Education’s decision to postpone their vote on this cut suggests that the proposal to zero out adult education might have been “political theater orchestrated by district officials to galvanize support for a $270-a-year parcel tax proposed by LAUSD for the November ballot.”

What Can We Learn from California’s Adult Education Funding Crisis?

/ The Old Crank

While the President’s proposed FY 2013 budget will continue to be the focus of attention in Washington this week, the most urgent adult education funding battles over the next year are more likely to occur at the state and district level, I think—most notably. Today, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board has scheduled a vote on a proposal to cut most of the $200 million in state money earmarked for adult education in the district.

Is the adult education funding crisis in California unique, or could it happen elsewhere? State funding for adult education has, in fact, been cut in other states in recent years—but California appears to be the most dramatic example, due in large part to a provision in the California Budget Act (CBA) that allows school districts in the state to shift dollars away from adult education to make up for shortfalls in district budgets.

But while the CBA (and the state’s overall position as an economic basket case) makes California unique in some ways, the situation also provides us with a case study in how adult education funding can become vulnerable. The article I cited yesterday in the Contra Costa Times provides a summary of the factors that contributed to the crisis in Los Angeles:

For the last five years, the cash-strapped state government has provided the district with just part of the money it is supposed to receive and has extended IOUs for the rest. This year, for instance, Los Angeles Unified got just $3,338 of the $6,506 it had been promised to educate each student, according to district officials.

Los Angeles Unified, meanwhile, must fulfill its labor contracts — roughly 90 percent of its costs are personnel-related — while coping with the expiration of state and federal grants and stimulus money. Lower birthrates and the exodus to charter schools has reduced district enrollment, resulting in less state funding and making it more difficult to serve the remaining students.

Here then, are some of the conditions to be on the lookout for in your state or district that may lead to adult education funding cut proposals:

  • Lower State Tax Revenue. (Or, at least, lower than expected tax revenue.)
  • Expiration of Federal Stimulus Funding. This is happening everywhere, so go ahead and check this one off on your list.
  • Locked-in Contractual Obligations. Labor contracts, mostly, although there could be other long-term contracts that districts can’t get out of or re-negotiate. (Note that in the story above, 90% of LAUSD costs are labor related.)
  • Reduced Enrollment Due to Lower Birthrates or Population Shifts.
  • Reduced Enrollment Due to Charter School Expansion.

There could be other factors, of course—and they are going to vary depending on how state adult education funding is disbursed (in some areas, for example, school districts are not involved in adult education at all, so school district formula funding based on enrollment is not going to be an issue). The point is, while I realize that California is in some ways a unique situation, I still think it’s useful for adult education advocates to be thinking about the factors that have led to adult education cuts here and in other states and districts across the country, and to be on the lookout for them in your state or district.