legislation

Nebraska City’s 2010 Anti-Immigrant Ordinance Comically Off Target, and Irritating to Business

/ The Old Crank

The City of Fremont, Nebraska is providing a good case study on how anti-immigration efforts can backfire. Despite the fact that, according to this article, no one in Fremont has any idea how many of its 1,259 non-citizens are illegal immigrants, (or if there are any at all) anti-immigrant petitioners managed to get a referendum passed in 2010 that requires companies to verify the citizenship status of the people they hire, while forcing renters to swear to landlords that they are legal residents and pay a $5 fee for the pleasure.

But the law doesn’t really do much of anything other than irritate the local business community and antagonize the city’s Hispanic residents. A federal judge threw out part  of it, (because it was in conflict with federal law), making the rental verification piece utterly toothless (the city isn’t allowed to revoke the rental permits if applicants actually turn out to be illegal immigrants); and the hiring verification piece won’t have any effect beyond the city limits of Fremont, which is where most of the immigrant population in the area actually lives and works.

Meanwhile, business owners hate the new rules:

“I’ve spoken to a few businesses owners about it, and … they definitely feel this is just another burden for them,” [mayoral candidate] Paden said. “I don’t feel that it should be up to the businesses to police these matters. We have federal agencies that should be handling that. All this ordinance is now is another hoop to jump through.”

Ron Tillery, with the Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce, questioned Tuesday how effective the ordinance will be. Most of Fremont’s businesses already comply with the E-Verify requirements, he said, and the new housing permits seem to serve little purpose in the wake of the judge’s ruling. He said the city will incur costs to process the rental permits but won’t be allowed to act on the information and deny any permits.

The article also notes that the City Council president, mayor, city attorney and city administrator have all resigned within the last year, suggesting that the fallout from the ordinance is to blame.

So if the law is largely toothless, opposed by the business community, and poison to political leaders in town, what is the point of it?

Petition organizer Jerry Hart said he knows the ordinance won’t eliminate illegal immigration, but he hopes it will inspire other cities and states to act.

“Our goal when we started was just to get the issue to a vote of the people,” Hart said. “The people of Fremont let it be known that they don’t want illegal immigrants in their community.” (my emphasis)

A local grocery owner says, according the article, that the ordinance “is not about illegal (immigrants). It’s about race. The people behind it don’t want Hispanics here.”

Los Angeles School Board Votes Tomorrow on a Cut that Could Deprive Thousands of Children the Support They Need to Succeed in School

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

Tomorrow the Los Angeles Unified School District Board may vote in favor of a budget cut that could result in thousands of children being deprived of the support they need to succeed in school. As permitted by California state law, the board is set to vote Tuesday on a proposal to cut most of the $200 million in state money earmarked for adult education in order to address the district’s $557 million deficit.

As I noted last December, school districts all over California have been shifting dollars away from adult education to shore up K-12 budgets for the last several years because of a provision in the California Budget Act (CBA) which allows school districts to do this when budgets are tight. Los Angeles is the highest profile example to date.

The choice here is not about decimating the adult education system in Los Angeles so that the status quo in K-12 education can be preserved. It’s about choosing a course of action that would be disastrous for many K-12 students as well. As noted in this article on the impact of the cut on one particular adult community school in the district, the loss of adult education impacts not just the adults but the educational success of the children of those adults who are parents or caregivers.

Administrators and faculty at South Gate Community Adult School believe that cutting adult education will affect students at the K-12 campuses, and especially in areas with a high immigrant population. In those communities, parents are learning skills at the adult schools that allow them to help their children academically.

“This morning, we had role play, where a parent was at a conference with their child’s math teacher,” said John Liddle, teacher of English as a second language at South Gate Community Adult School. Using such situations to learn English interest immigrant parents, who want to understand their children’s school experience in the United States. “We use topics that are of high interest to [adult] students, such as health, jobs and parenting,” he said.

Dario Aleman, 41, was a medical doctor in Cuba before arriving in the United States in May 2010. Learning English is very important to him since he hopes to become fluent and renew his medical license. However, the adult classes also help him as a parent, since he can better prepare and help his 6-year-old son.

“If you prepare adults, the adults will then prepare their children,” said Aleman, who is also taking computer skills classes. “We want our children to be excellent [students] in the future.”

It gets worse: According to the article above, adult schools in the District served about 100,000 K-12 students with “catchup” classes so that they could graduate on time from high school.

The scope of the cuts has been so great in California that, arguably, the CBA is the worst piece of legislation for adult education in the entire U.S. over the last several years. If the LAUSD goes through with this cut, I don’t think it will be arguable anymore. Even worse, as research continues to emerge linking the education success of parents and caregivers to children’s success in school, the negative impact on school success generally may be felt in California for a generation.

Rep. Reed Continues to Characterize Restrictions in House UI Proposal As Giving People “Tools”

/ The Old Crank

(edited slightly at 5:33 PM for for clarity)

In yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor story on the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance (UI) extension negotiations, Rep. Reed (R-NY) is again quoted making the claim that the House’s proposal to deny unemployment benefits to those without a GED or high school diploma until they obtain one (or are at least enrolled in a class and making certain undefined progress toward such a credential) is actually providing “tools” to assist these individuals.

“Democrats are not willing to allow states the flexibility they need to give people tools to be reemployed,” says freshman Rep. Tom Reed (R) of New York. A strong advocate for these provisions, Congressman Reed says he’s now prepared to send unemployment benefits back to a 26-week level.

Again, as noted previously, there is nothing in this restriction that provides “tools” of any kind that will help people become reemployed. All the House proposal does is cut off benefits to those who are otherwise eligible but who lack a GED or High School diploma—unless they they can satisfy the vaguely-worded requirement that they are enrolled in a “class” and making “satisfactory progress” toward one of those two credentials (and only those two credentials). It doesn’t provide new funding for those classes, or any other “tools.”

Moreover the only “flexibility” provided for states in this proposal is the flexibility to opt out of the new restrictions the House wants to impose.

If you think the idea of providing more education and training opportunities to the unemployed sounds good, then the House UI proposal is not for you, because it does not actually do that. Instead, I suggest contacting your member of Congress and urging them to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, and to include an additional increase in funding for Title II of that act. That would result in putting actual adult education tools and resources in the hands of the unemployed—and others—seeking adult education opportunities.

Congressional UI Debate: Four Themes to Watch For

/ The Old Crank

(updated below)

As the House-Senate Conference Committee renews their discussion this week on the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extension, here are four things I’ll be watching for regarding the proposal to ban unemployed workers without a high school diploma or GED from collecting unemployment benefits:

We Are Providing Help, Not Taking Away Benefits

As I noted yesterday, proponents have routinely suggested that their proposal is designed to provide “resources” or “tools” of some kind to help those without diplomas or GEDs attain those credentials and get back to work. However, there is no additional education or training funding in the House proposal, just a restriction that would prevent those without such credentials from receiving the benefits they have earned.

General Agreement That a GED or High School Diploma is the Only Option

During the conference committee discussion last week, both sides in the argument seemed to more-or-less agree that for those out of work and without a high school diploma, obtaining that diploma or a GED was bascially the only option available to them. But as the National Coalition for Literacy pointed out in their letter to conference committee members:

[T]he new restriction mistakenly assumes that attainment of a high-school diploma or GED is the most efficient and effective strategy towards reemployment. In fact, industry-recognized credentials and certificates may be a better pathway to a good job. Attainment of such credentials does not necessarily require a GED.

In other words, for many unemployed workers, enrollment in an industry credential program may be the most efficient and logical way to obtain the education and training they need to re-enter the workforce. Some unemployed workers without a high school diploma might, in fact, struggle with the range of academic skills needed to obtain a GED, but have sufficient skills and experience on the job to obtain such a credential. It just doesn’t make any sense to shoehorn people into just one education option.

This is actually just one example of an even more fundamental problem with what the House has proposed: it reflects a simplistic and fundamentally mistaken understanding of the range of adult education needs in this country, as well as the range of options that are required to to address each individual’s needs. As noted above, an unemployed worker may find themselves in a situation where pursuing an industry-recognized credential may be a quicker path to re-employment than obtaining a GED. Others may view the GED as their best option, but due to the lack of decent quality, available classes nearby, they choose to study on their own—not in a class. Others may have literacy skills at such a low level that they sign up for a one-on-one tutoring at a library literacy program—again, not a class, and also not direct preparation for a diploma or a GED.

The drafters of the House proposal, however, appear to be completely unaware of the range of adult education needs, credentials avaialble, and types of instruction practiced in the field. The House proposal is, instead, quite restrictive: you can only remain eligible for benefits if you are enrolled and making satisfactory progress in a class, and only a class that will lead you to the acquisition of a high school diploma or a GED, (or another high-school equivalency credential recognized by the state).

The Impact on Older Workers

From the beginning, opponents to this proposal have used the example of older workers to illustrate the unfairness of this proposal.

Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) made this point in a blog article last month:

The proposal would deny UI benefits to hundreds of thousands of workers — many of them middle-aged — who have worked hard, played by the rules, and effectively paid UI taxes for years and who then were laid off due to no fault of their own. (my emphasis)

At last week’s conference commitee meeting (thanks to the National Coalition for Literacy for the excerpts from the transcript), the older worker issue was a major part of Sen. Jack Reed’s  (D-RI) argument against the proposal:

This provision would disproportionately affect older workers. It’s been estimated that 35 percent of the UI beneficiaries without a high school education are over the age of 50. So you would have a significant number of people who have worked literally for 30 years, who might have more skills, even technical certificates and company training awards than anyone else, and then to ask them to get a GED before they can collect on their unemployment I think is a huge burden.

While I understand the argument that throwing this new requirement at older workers is particularly unfair, the proposal is really unfair to anyone at any age who has been working and effectively paying into their state’s unemployment insurance fund (employers make the contributions on their behalf)—whether it’s been 30 years or just a few. While I don’t think this is being considered, carving out an exception for older workers as a compromise would be arbitrary (how do we define older worker?) and unfair. As Timothy Noah as pointed out, “it’s unfair to impose conditions on drawing from an unemployment insurance fund that don’t exist when you’re paying into it.”

Well, OK… But There’s a Waiver!

When proponents exhaust their other arguments, I’ve noticed that they then turn to a provision in the House bill that would allow the new requirement to be waived for an individual “to the extent that the State agency charged with the administration of the State law deems such requirements to be unduly burdensome.” However, as CBPP and others have pointed out, the waiver language is extremely weak. There is no standard for determining whether such a burden exists. It is not clear from the language whether the burden being referred to is the burden on the individual applying for benefits or on the state in administrating the provision for that individual. Most importantly, it is only an option to waive the requirement; nothing in that paragraph would require a state to make a determination of whether such a burden exists, or actually waive the requirement if it finds one.

It still seems likely to me from what I’m reading and hearing that the Senate will prevail and this provision will be tossed from the final bill, but I do think it’s worth paying attention to the waiver argument, in particular, and whether any opponents to the House proposal find this language sufficient enough to let the provision through.

UPDATE (10:40 AM): Politico and the Washington Post have both published updates this morning on the state of House-Senate conference committee negotiations. Both of which are worth reading for those interested in a big picture take on these negotiations (more is at stake than the GED/high school diploma requirement, obviously). Both articles claim that the House proposal would require recipients of unemployment benefits simply “to pursue a GED,” which is not what the House proposal actually proposes. This might seem like a picky, technical point, but it’s important in light of the second point I make above. The House proposal requires those without a high school diploma or GED to enroll themselves in a class in pursuit of one of these credentials, not merely to “pursue it.” If pursuit of a GED was sufficient, then self-studiers would presumably still qualify.

Also, the New York Times published an editorial yesterday in which they characterize the high school diploma/GED requirement as a “punitive measure designed to stigmatize the desperate.”