literacy

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.

Rep. Todd Platts, Family Literacy Supporter, Planning to Leave Congress

/ The Old Crank / 2 Comments

Earlier this week Roll Call reported that Rep. Todd Platts  (R-PA) would not be seeking a seventh term in the House of Representatives. Platts was elected to represent the 19th District of Pennsylvania in 2000, succeeding longtime Rep. William Goodling.

Rep. Goodling, a former chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, was the author of the federal Even Start Family Literacy program, and continues to be a strong proponent of family literacy.

Rep. Platts continued in the tradition left by his predecessor. In April of 2009, for example, Rep. Platts and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) wrote a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee urging them to include $150 million for Even Start in the House FY 2012 appropriations bill. (Even Start’s funding had dropped to $66 million annually by this point.)

Even in 2011, when there was tremendous pressure on Republicans in the House to cut programs, Rep. Platts continued to fight for Even Start. In February, he wrote a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers in support of retaining Even Start funding in the FY2011 Continuing Resolutions (CR) bill. (Unfortunately, Even Start funding was ultimately eliminated in the short-term CR that Congress passed in mid-March.) In May, when the House Education and the Workforce Committee met to consider the first of several ESEA reform bills, (HR 1891), Rep. Platts moved to strike the repeal of Even Start that was contained in the bill. Ultimately, his amendment failed, but it was encouraging to see a Republican on the commitee fighting for this program.

American Academy of Pediatrics Encourages Pediatricians to Collaborate With Community Groups to Strengthen Families

/ The Old Crank

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement on Monday that reminds pediatricians of the growing body of research linking brain growth and development in infants to the relationships they form during early childhood, and how exposure to family stress (including stress resulting form poverty and related issues) during the early stages of childhood development can lead to mental, intellectual and physical problems later in life. The AAP statement recommends that pediatricians “develop their expertise in assessing the strengths and stresses in families, in counseling families about strategies and resources, and in collaborating with others in their communities to support family relationships.”

That last recommendation is particularly helpful, I think, for those interested in building stronger links between community-based adult and family literacy programs and pediatric caregivers. The authors suggest that pediatricians become more familiar with the variety of different community-based family support program models, and they include skills training and literacy education among the types of programming that “promote parental competencies and behaviors that contribute to parental and infant/child/adolescent health and development:”

Many comprehensive, community based family support programs have been established around the country. These programs aim to support family relationships and promote parental competencies and behaviors that contribute to parental and infant/child/adolescent health and development. The best programs offer a spectrum of services that involve informal and structured groups. Topics may include information on child development, personal growth, family relationships, parenting education, peer support groups, parent-child activities, early developmental screening, community referral and follow-up, job skills training, and/or adult education, especially language and literacy education. (my emphasis)

Among the recommendations: “Pediatricians should work to identify, develop, refer to, and participate in community-based family support programs to help parents secure the knowledge, skills, support and strategies they need to raise their children.”

In addition:

Pediatricians should actively participate in sustaining the social capacity of their communities through their personal participation in local recreational, social, educational, civic, or philanthropic activities and associations. By participating in community-based family support programs, pediatricians can provide technical advice on health and safety aspects of services, serve as a source of professional information for families, and best to contribute to the healthy development of children, families, and communities.

Reading this, I wondered how often pediatricans are recruited to serve on the board of directors or as advisors to local community-based literacy organizations.

 h/t Los Angeles Times

The American Jobs Act: Impact for the District of Columbia

/ The Old Crank

[Cross-posted from D.C. LEARNs]

This is slightly off-topic for us, but I thought visitors to this site might be interested in the just-released fact sheet on the impact of the President’s jobs proposal, if enacted, in the District of Columbia, according to the White House. (Full list of state-by-state fact sheets here.) Scroll to the end of this post for what little I know so far about the impact for adult education and literacy.

Here is a bullet summary of the benefits to D.C. of the American Jobs Act (AJA), according the White House:

  • 20,000 businesses in the District of Columbia will receive the payroll tax cut (which is 3.1% on the first $5 million in wages).
  • The District could receive at least $387,300,000 for highway and transit modernization projects that could support a minimum of approximately 5,000 local jobs.
  • The District would receive $45,100,000 in funds to support up to 500 educator and first responder jobs.
  • The District would receive $84,700,000 in funding to support as many as 1,100 school infrastructure that will modernization jobs.
  • The District could receive about $20,000,000 to revitalize and refurbish local communities, in addition to funds that would be available through a competitive application. They expect this to increase construction jobs.
  • The District could receive $2,500,000 of facilities modernization funds next fiscal year for “its community colleges.” (Note: we just have one.)
  • They think their UI reform plan could put 16,000 long-term unemployed workers in District of Columbia back to work.
  • They estimate that the extension of UI benefits would prevent 5,500 people looking for work in the District from losing their benefits in the first 6 weeks after the plan is enacted.
  • They think the Pathways Back to Work program could place 400 District adults and 1,400 District youths in jobs.
  • They estimate that the expansion of the payroll tax cut passed last December would mean that the typical household in the District of Columbia, with a median income of around $53,000, will receive a tax cut of around $1,640.

A couple of other notes:

  • The White House has also prepared fact sheets on the potential impact of the president’s proposal for various demographic groups, such the impact on women. At a White House briefing yesterday on the AJA for advocates, several participants suggested that the White House prepare a fact sheet on the impact on nonprofits, and Jon Carson, the Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, seemed to agree that this was a good idea. So stay tuned for that.
  • Finally, the adult literacy piece: One of the major education provisions in the bill is “Support for Local Efforts to Implement Promising Work-Based Strategies and to Provide Training Opportunities.” This initiative, according to the White House, “would support efforts that have good records of placing low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly. Local officials, in partnership with local workforce boards, business, community colleges, and other partners, will be able to apply for funding to support promising strategies designed to lead to employment in the short-term.” In the list of examples that follow, several of them certainly implicate adult education and conceivably could involve some basic skills instruction as a component (things like sector-based training, industry credential programs, and career pathways), but only one of the examples mentions adult basic education directly: “Free evening and weekend basic computer training classes, adult basic education and integrated basic education and training models for low-skilled adults, hosted at community colleges or at other workforce-partner sites to prepare individuals for jobs.” This language raises questions for me, such as  how these funds would be distributed ,and to what kinds of agencies. Hopefully this will become clearer in the days ahead.

UPDATE: After I finished as writing this, I discovered a more detailed preliminary assessment on what the AJA might mean for D.C. by Kathryn Baer, posted on her Poverty and Policy blog.