The NEA has updated its analysis of the impact of the sequester on major education programs, using the 5.1% cut assumed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). They project a little over a $30 million dollar cut to the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act program, and a nearly $89 million dollar cut to Career, Technical, and Adult Education overall:
Source: NEA
This morning I took a look at a new section on the Senate Budget Committee’s Web site, called “MyBudget,” which they describe as an “online platform for members of the public to weigh in as our nation works to tackle our budget and economic challenges.”
I have no idea how influential this kind of thing is, but it’s an easy way to do some federal budget advocacy. I particularly like the “share your stories” section, where people are asked to write about “about how federal budget decisions have impacted your family, your community, and your job.”
Another page asks for you to let the Committee know “what issues we should be focused on.”
VOXXI on the possibility of immigration reform serving as a lever for increasing the federal investment in adult education:
[A]s talks heat up regarding anticipated immigration reform, the grease used to accomplish such a monumental task will indeed be English adult instruction on a national level.
This is similar to the previous large immigration overhaul in 1986 when $4 billion was earmarked towards states providing English classes. However, [Migration Policy Institute Policy Analyst Sarah] Hooker said whatever reform does happen, plenty of questions remain.
“English classes would likely be an element of any major reform bill,” Hooker said. “The one question would be at what point would someone have to demonstrate English proficiency? Is it going to be at the point of adjusting to a temporary legal status or applying for citizenship or some intermediate point along that pathway?”
I think the biggest difference between now and 1986 is that it is much less likely that an immigration reform bill introduced this year will include any new funds for additional English classes. If anything, we’re more likely to see additional cuts to federal spending for non-defense discretionary programs like adult education later this year. [1]
To me, it would be perverse for a comprehensive immigration reform bill to ignore the dramatic state budget cuts to adult ESL classes in states like California. But it appears Congress is going to be stuck in fiscal austerity mode for some time, and so I’m hard pressed to come up with a scenario in which immigration reform results in a significant new federal investment in adult education.
I’d love to be wrong about this.
h/t @otan
[1] As noted in this commentary by Robert Greenstein, the end-of-the-year “fiscal cliff” budget deal only delayed the scheduled across-the-board sequestration cuts that were supposed to kick in on January 2nd:
Sequestration will hit March 1 unless the President and Congress delay it further or replace it with something else. Republicans are insisting that policymakers must replace every dollar of across-the-board cuts that’s cancelled with a dollar of spending cuts. The White House, consistent with its dollar-in-taxes-for-a-dollar-in-spending principle, wants to replace sequestration with a package that includes equal amounts of revenue increases and spending cuts.
Both sides, in other words, have already agreed that additional spending cuts will be on the table during the next round of negotiations, and while this doesn’t necessarily mean cuts will be made to adult education, any non-defense discretionary program is pretty vulnerable as both sides look for things to cut. Further, the likelihood of any increases in discretionary spending for things like adult education seem to me to be pretty unlikely in an environment where both sides are looking for $2 trillion in deficit reduction…
In a recent article for the Center for American Progress, Joy Moses lists 10 reasons why cutting poverty programs to address the government’s fiscal issues is a bad idea. Reason number three is that spending on many individual programs is “stagnating or declining.” She cites workforce and job training programs as a prime example:
Source: Joy Moses, “Top 10 Reasons Why Cutting Poverty Programs to Resolve the Fiscal Showdown Is a Bad Idea”
I went and looked at the OMB spreadsheet she cites as a source and it looks like those numbers make sense, although I wonder if there is a bit of an apple/oranges problem when comparing federal job programs from 1972 with 2012. I’m also not sure why she compares the 2007 investment with 1972’s expenditure, when it looks like job training spending spiked even higher in the late 70s-1980. (I assume there is a good reason, I just don’t know what it is.) But none of that takes away from her overall point, which should be helpful to workforce/job training advocates.
One slightly more substantive quibble: I’m not sure that I’d describe federal job training as strictly a “poverty program,” since these services are not exclusively aimed at people living in poverty. In fact, as others have pointed out, low-income people currently represent only about half of those receiving job training or related services with federal adult employment and training funding, despite their increased rates of unemployment. It would be useful (and possibly make her argument even stronger) to look at whether the number of low-income individuals receiving federally funded job training and related services has declined in the same proportion as the overall decline in funding.
Literacy & Policy 