legislation

What Would Sequestration Mean for Adult Education?

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

In less than six months, more than 200,000 adults across the country may be facing the possibility of losing adult education services sometime in 2013, and as many as 730 adult education jobs in community colleges, community-based organizations, and public schools could be eliminated. (But see update below.)

These numbers come from an analysis just released by the National Education Association (NEA) on the potential consequences of sequestration on public education. Sequestration is the term used to describe the automatic federal budget cuts that are scheduled to kick in on January 1st, 2013, unless Congress passes some kind of legislation to defer, alter or avert it. Right now these cuts are required by a law that this same Congress passed just last summer—the Budget Control Act (BCA)—which raised the federal debt ceiling in return for an immediate federal budget cut of $900 billion and a commitment to come up with a plan (which could include spending cuts and/or tax increases) to reduce the federal budget deficit by another $1.2 trillion by 2021. The plan was supposed to come from a so-called  Congressional “super committee”—if they failed (and they did), automatic budget cuts were required in both defense and non-defense discretionary spending, beginning on January 1st of 2013, with across-the-board cuts to virtually every federal discretionary program (a few are exempted).

The NEA’s analysis of the impact this would have on adult education includes not only a national estimate, but state-by-state estimates as well. (NEA actually provides two estimates for the country and for each state. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that nonexempt programs would be reduced by 7.8 pecent in 2013; an analysis conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indicates that nonexempt, nondefense discretionary programs and nonexempt mandatory programs would be reduced by 8.4 percent and 8 percent, respectively.)

I asked the author of this analysis, Tom Zembar, about his methodology and he did point out that it’s impossible to know exactly how states and providers would actually react and readjust services once the cuts go into effect, but the point of the analysis was to help people understand the potential consequences of the cut in each state. I’ve included a reproduction of the first page of the adult education analysis below; click on the link to go to the full report. This page, and the state-by-state table that follows, are towards the end.NEA: Impact of Sequestration on Adult Education

UPDATE 8/1/12: A couple of clarifying points:

(1) First, in my lead, for the sake of being dramatic, I strongly created the impression that FY2013 funds will be cut instantaneously on January 1st. I should have pointed out that Adult Education under WIA Title II is a forward-funded program, meaning that funds don’t become available for obligation until July 1st of the fiscal year in which they are appropriated. On the other hand, since states start their budget process over the winter based on the amounts they expect to receive from federal programs later in July, I believe the impact of sequestration would start to work its way into proposed state budgets for adult education pretty quickly,  even if the actual federal reductions might not be felt until later in the year.

(2) Which brings me to my second clarifying point: no one can know with certainty what states are actually going to do once they get their sequestered numbers. I assume that any reduction in the Title II state grants resulting from sequestration would trigger an equivalent reduction in the state’s match and maintenance of effort obligations—but I don’t know exactly how that will work. In any case, a state could, conceivably, respond to the reduction in the federal grant by raising their state’s investment in adult education to offset the cut. I think that’s doubtful, at least on a widespread basis. It seem more likely to me that the NEA estimates above—which, for simplicity’s sake, don’t factor in potential state reductions, but just focus on the student service cuts and job losses resulting from the federal cut—probably underestimate the actual reduction in both services and jobs in most states if sequestration moves forward.

UPDATE 11/15/12: I’ve re-worded the opening paragraph for the reasons noted in the update above.

Metaphor of the Day

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

This was in yesterday’s New York Times:

According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going through Congress attracts riders and amendments, becoming ever more ponderous. (my emphasis)

So if you have figured out how Congress works, you are well on your way to understanding advanced particle physics.

See: Physicists Find Elusive Particle Seen as Key to Universe 

Senate FY13 Labor HHS Bill Would Partially Restore Pell Grant Eligibility for “Ability to Benefit” Students

/ The Old Crank

The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS-ED) Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations bill, (S. 3295), which was approved Thursday, contained a little piece of good news for adult education in the form of an amendment included in the bill by Senator Murray (D-Wash) that would restore Title IV federal student aid eligibility (most importantly, Pell grant eligibility) for “ability-to-benefit” (ATB) students. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2012, (that is, the FY 2012 Federal budget bill), passed back in December 2011, barred individuals without a high school diploma or equivalent from qualifying for this financial aid. In the past, these students could qualify by completing an “ability to benefit” test or by successfully completing six credits towards a certificate or degree.

This eligibility is scheduled to end for all students enrolling in college after July 1st.

Senator Murray’s amendment would not restore Title IV financial aid eligibility for all students, only those enrolled in very rigidly defined career pathways programs. The language in the bill basically mirror previous ATB eligibility requirements but then applies it only to those students enrolled in an “eligible career pathway program.” (See page 133 of the bill.)

In essence, Murray’s amendment protects financial aid eligibility for students enrolled in established programs such as Minnesota’s FastTRAC, Wisconsin’s RISE parternship, and Washington State’s I-BEST program. These programs—especially I-BEST—are the most oft-cited adult education models on Capital Hill. (If there is one thing that Congressional staffers and others policymakers with little knowledge of adult education may have heard of, it would likely be I-BEST.) In addition to the states where these programs are established, groups such as CLASP and Jobs for the Future are highly invested in these models, and those organizations are among the most visible adult education advocates on the Hill. When Congress ended financial aid for ATB students in December, they zeroed in on these models as the basis of their argument to restore financial aid eligibility for ATB students. Politically, it was also in all probability the only realistic strategy of getting any of that eligibility back, since the cost of restoring ATB financial aid eligibility for just those students enrolled in these established programs is probably going to be less than a tenth of the cost of providing full financial aid for ATB students under the old definition. In an excellent fact sheet prepared by CLASP on the subject, they estimated that about 90,000 college students qualified for Pell Grants under the old ATB provision; the number of students who would regain eligibility under Murray’s amendment would be a fraction of that number.

Here is the language in the bill that defines eligible career pathway programs (I’ve bolded what I think are the highlights):

(2) ELIGIBLE CAREER PATHWAY PROGRAM.—In this subsection, the term ‘‘eligible career pathway program’’ means a program that—

(A) concurrently enrolls participants in connected adult education and eligible postsecondary programs;

(B) provides counseling and supportive services to identify and attain academic and career goals;

(C) provides structured course sequences that—
(i) are articulated and contextualized; and
(ii) allow students to advance to higher levels of education and employment;

(D) provides opportunities for acceleration to attain recognized postsecondary credentials, including degrees, industry relevant certifications, and certificates of completion of apprenticeship programs;

(E) is organized to meet the needs of adults;

(F) is aligned with the education and skill needs of the regional economy; and

(G) has been developed and implemented in collaboration with partners in business, workforce development, and economic development.

If passed into law, even this partial restoration seems to me to be a significant win for the adult education community in that it preserves financial aid eligibility for students enrolled in models that have taken the adult education field forward in a promising direction. But it would also narrowly define the “benefit” that a student without a high-school diploma or the equivalent is deemed to be able to gain from a college education, at least for financial aid purposes. Such students would now be deemed to benefit from the education they are receiving only if they are enrolled in a very narrowly defined career pathways program—one that is tied to the skill needs of local employers (see paragraphs F and G, above), not necessarily the needs or interests of the student.

Faith Groups: Republican WIA Reauthorization Bill Steers Federal Support Away from the Most Vulnerable

/ The Old Crank

A group of faith based organizations, including the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, NETWORK, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, have written a letter to the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce expressing their concerns with the Republican’s Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill, H.R. 4297, which is scheduled to be marked up tomorrow at 10 am. It’s a good letter, because it focuses on the crux of what many seem to agree is the fundamental problem with the bill:

H.R. 4297 eliminates the current priority of service for low-income adults and those with barriers to employment. Without priority, dislocated workers, youth, older workers, and those in areas of highest unemployment would continue to be at a disadvantage. Low-income adults now represent only about half of those receiving intensive services or training services with adult employment and training funding, despite their increased rates of unemployment. Elimination of the priority of services, including necessary supportive services like child care and transportation, would further weaken access to these services to low-income adults and youth.

Rather than cutting back on the range of services needed by low-income individuals, low-wage workers, and those with barriers to employment, our interfaith community would prefer to see job training and job creation programs focus specifically on low-income communities and vulnerable populations. Unless special and specific efforts are made to include them, certain distressed communities with disproportionately high unemployment or low earnings will be left out of the mainstream economic recovery. Properly crafted WIA reauthorization legislation must consider populations with unique needs— such as people of color, displaced workers, workers with disabilities, older workers, low-income youth, and people with limited-English proficiency—by providing worker retraining, education assistance, job placement and other job related services. (my emphasis)

In fact, a WIA bill that “focused specifically on low-income communities and vulnerable populations” would be an interesting piece of legislation.