legislation

The Biggest Differences Between the House Republican and Democratic WIA Bills

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

This April 4th story from The Hill highlights the critical issues that stand in the way of a bipartisan Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill in the House. Both Democrats and Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee recently offered their own bills, (H.R. 4227 and H.R. 4297, respectively), and it’s unclear right now whether Democrats will attempt to offer amendments to the Republican bill, or how this will play out. (According to The Hill, The Senate will not take up the Republican bill as it now stands.)

The key issues? The Republican bill would consolidate all of the different WIA funding streams and convert them into a block grant program for states, and would not increase overall funding. Democrats are against block granting, and they would boost WIA funding by $8 billion. The third big issue has to do with the makeup of job training boards:

Aside from the fight over funding levels, the two parties are expected to differ over language dealing with business representation in local boards that distribute WIA funds.

Appointed by governors, state and local workforce investment boards allocate funds to various education and training programs within a state. Under current law, 50 percent of the board has to be business representatives.

Republicans want to increase business representation to two-thirds on these boards and leave the remaining one-third of the board up to the discretion of governors. Under this change, Republican governors could potentially decide to stack the whole board with business leaders.

In contrast, Democrats want to ensure the presence of labor organizations and community college representatives on these boards. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has also lobbied against this Republican provision.

There are plenty of other differences between the two bills, but I think you can make a good case that these are the three most significant areas of disagreement.

For adult literacy advocates, it’s worth noting that the Democrats’ bill increases funding for Title II (Adult Education and Literacy) to $1.1 billion, almost double the current appropriation (which hovers around $600 million). (See page 243 of H.R. 4227.)

UPDATE 4/11/12: Thanks to the person who alerted me to a similar post based on The Hill’s coverage of WIA on another blog, posted about two hours after this post. For the record, I don’t see much similarities between the two posts, and the author did not lift anything from this blog without crediting me. If anyone should be concerned, it’s the editors at The Hill, because several passages from The Hill’s story were copied pretty much verbatim for that post without attribution. (A link to The Hill’s coverage is provided at the end of the post, but the story is never quoted, nor is the The Hill credited as a source for their information.)

But thanks for the heads-up, and the words of support—that was a nice surprise.

House Republicans Introduce Their Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization Bill

/ The Old Crank

Yesterday House Republicans introduced their Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill, H.R. 4297, The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012. This bill more or less pulls together the three separate WIA bills introduced earlier this year by Reps. Virginia Foxx (NC), Rep. Buck McKeon (CA), and Rep. Joe Heck (NV). I learned this morning at a meeting that there is one significant change in this bill from Rep. Foxx’s earlier bill, the Streamlining Workforce Development Programs Act. In the older bill, the provision that allowed states to consolidate different job training programs into one unified plan included Perkins grant funds as one of the programs that could be consolidated. In the new bill, language was added that removes Perkins as a candidate for consolidation. (h/t NASDCTEc)

House Democrats Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization Bill – What’s in it for Adult Literacy?

/ The Old Crank

Here is what they say it will do, anyway:

Developing a 21st Century Delivery System for Adult Education Literacy and Workplace Skills Services:

  • Expands access to adult education, literacy services, and workplace skills training.
  • Expands access to postsecondary education and credentials to achieve and maintain economic self-sufficiency for adult learners.
  • Supports integrated adult education and training.
  • Provides support for English-literacy services and integrated English-literacy and civics education programs for adult learners.
  • Authorizes increased investments in technology (such as online education) and digital literacy, providing needed training and education resources to rural and urban areas.
  • Enhances support for research on innovative methods and policies that help accelerate progress for basic skills students, improving the likelihood that they will receive postsecondary credentials.

The full text of the bill, announced by House Democrats and released today, is available here, via the National Skills Coalition.

Excellent Article on History of Adult Education in California—and Why It’s All Falling Apart Now

/ The Old Crank

Over the weekend, the San Diego News-Tribune published an outstanding guest opinion piece by Dom Gagliardi, principal of the Escondido Adult School, and a past president of both the California Council for Adult Education and the National Commission on Adult Basic Education.

Gagliardi’s article is a great primer on the proud, 156-year history of school-based adult education in California—a system of “adult schools” that is all but collapsing in the wake of massive state budget deficits over the last several years—and a law that has encouraged many school districts to cut adult education from their budgets.

Gagliardi notes that at its peak in 2005, nearly 1.4 million Californians were enrolled in adult education, mostly through this system. But since 2010, 32 adult schools have closed temporarily and 44 have had their budgets cut by more than 50%, all because of a budget mechanism implemented in 2009 known as “categorical flexibility,” which allows districts to divert funds from programs like adult education to support its K-12 programs. As Gagliardi writes:

The increasing economic pressure on school districts to balance their budgets has put them in the untenable and unfortunate position of pitting one program against another. When forced to prioritize instructional services for youth or adults, the choice is obvious and painful. (my emphasis)

That last point can’t be emphasized enough (see point number one here).

According to Gagliardi, there is at least one school district in California that has remained steadfast in continuing to provide adult education despite these pressures—and not surprisingly, it’s his own. Although the district has cut their budget by about 20%, the Escondido Adult School, which serves approximately 10,000 students per year, has survived, at least in part via increased class fees to offset the decreases in state and local funding.

Gagliardi concludes, “[i]t is increasingly evident that giving local school districts the ability to use funding previously earmarked for adult education to support K-12 programs must end before the entire adult education system is decimated. (my emphasis) Once the infrastructure of the state’s adult education program is gone, it will be difficult if not impossible to resurrect.”

That law is supposed to expire in 2015; it’s encouraging to read a call to end this practice now, before it’s too late.

Be sure to go read the whole article if you are at all interested in what is going on there. Again, it’s a great primer on the history of adult education in the state, a good summary of what is going wrong there now, and a call to act before there is nothing left to save.