Proposed Budget Slashes Adult Education
updated 7.14.05
The Bush Administration’s proposed budget cuts adult education (Workforce Investment Act Title II) funds by 64%, from $569 million in 2005 to $207 million in 2006. Prison literacy funding is eliminated entirely. The administration’s budget proposal also includes a “WIA Plus Consolidation Grant” program that would allow state governors to consolidate adult education with a large variety of “job training” programs.
- Funding restored by full House vote & by Senate subcommittee
- What’s at stake
- Details on the proposed budget
- The effects of the proposed budget on adult education
- What you can do
- Advocacy strategies tips to help you make an impact
- Making the case resources to help you advocate for funding for adult literacy
What’s at stake
Literacy means opportunity for low-income and immigrant adults, youth, and families. Being able to communicate in English, to read and write, to do math, to use a computer, to reason and solve problems—what we mean when we say “literacy”—is prerequisite to economic success in 21st-century America. Without being fully literate, people can’t get jobs that pay a living wage. Yet 63% of New Yorkers lack the level of skills necessary to compete in today’s labor market, according to the National Adult Literacy Survey.
Literacy helps immigrants participate more fully in American life. One in four adult New Yorkers does not speak English well. Becoming fluent will allow them to become better advocates for their children at school, to play a more active role in civic affairs, and to take advantage of the city’s cultural, recreational, and public programs.
Literacy means better access to quality health care. One-third of all hospital patients lack adequate literacy skills to understand instructions from health professionals, fill out hospital forms, or read a prescription label. These barriers to obtaining good health care are particularly common among poor people, people of color, immigrants, and the elderly.
Literacy means more school success for more children. 37% of New York City public high school students arrived in this country when they were in the seventh grade or later. Less than one in five students graduates with a Regents diploma.
Literacy means more prosperous communities and a more vibrant democracy for everyone.
Details on the proposed budget
- Budget documents from the Office of Management & Budget
- Education Department budget proposal (PDF); click on Office of Vocational and Adult Education.
- Comparison of workforce programs FY2004-06
The effects of the proposed budget on adult education
- President’s Budget Sabotages Pipeline of Skilled Workers from the Center for Law and Social Policy. This detailed report on the effect of the proposed adult education cuts estimates that New York State would lose 40,000 (out of a current 165,000) adult education seats under the administration’s budget proposal.
- Impact on adult education programs in New York State
- Key adult education issues, HR 27 from the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education
What you can do
- Immediate action items: Time-sensitive action alerts
- Follow the advice of So What Can We Do, strategies for local literacy programs compiled by Nell Eckersley of Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst.
- Fax or email your senators and representative. Use Literacy New York’s CapWiz to identify your representative. Show your representatives why adult literacy matters to you, to your community, and to our nation. You can adapt this sample letter written by June White of Afton Central School Adult and Continuing Education.
- Encourage the students in your program to contact their representatives also. Their stories are the most powerful support for continued adult literacy funding. View a template for their letters as a Word document or as HTML
- Make the case with your state and local elected officials. Point out that a federal cut will affect state, county, and municipal budgets, and ask them to take their concerns to Washington.
- Alert everyone you know to the threat to adult literacy education and why everyone should care about this work. Tom Sticht’s flier (PDF, 55K) is a great one-pager (both sides) making the case for adult education.
- Bookmark this page. As local and national campaigns develop strategies, we will post links to them here.
Advocacy strategies
- Strategies for NY State impact on proposed federal cuts in adult education
- Tips on letter-writing campaigns from the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education
- The Adult Literacy Education Wiki offers advocacy campaign strategies (including talking points and sample letters) as well as a campaign Q and A
- Literacy New York offers a variety of advocacy tools including legislative alerts and updates
- Literacy Resources/Rhode Island’s advocacy page, with resources not only on the current budget crisis but also on other public policy issues affecting adult literacy programming
Making the case
Resources supporting the importance of adult literacy:
- Federal and State Cuts Threaten Adult Literacy in New York City, a handy compilation of information on literacy needs and on the impact of federal and state funding proposals on NYC literacy programs, from the CUNY adult literacy/GED program
- Analysis of the PART assessment used to assert that adult education is “ineffective,” from the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education
- Statistics demonstrating how NY State literacy programs met federal targets from the LAC’s ALIES unit
- Statistics on adult literacy in the U.S. and New York
- The Newest New Yorkers report on immigration trends by the NYC Department of City Planning, Population Division
- Health literacy statistics
- Demand vs. supply for immigrant family literacy services (PDF map, 357K)
- Talking Points on the proposed budget’s affect on adult literacy from the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education
- Discussion of the proposed budget cut by leaders in the literacy field, with many useful talking points, on the National Literacy Advocacy listserv