Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, Volume 6

Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice: A Project of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy

John Comings, Barbara Garner, Cristine Smith, John Comings, Barbara Garner, Cristine Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135602710
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Review of Adult Learning and Literacy: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice, Volume 6, includes chapters on: *Demographic change and low-literacy Americans;
*The role of vocabulary in Adult Basic Education;
*Implications of research on spelling for Adult Basic Education;
*Issues in teaching speaking skills to adult ESOL learners;
*The preparation and stability of the Adult Basic Education teaching workforce;
*The adult literacy system in Ireland; and
*Broad-based organizing as a vehicle for promoting adult literacy..

1
The Year 2003 in Review

Noreen Lopez

INTRODUCTION

The year 2003 was one in which any small gains in adult education were noteworthy as most of the nation was focused on the war in Iraq and the state of the economy. With large tax cuts and major increases in spending on the war effort, little federal money was left for increases in education funding, including adult education. Many adult education programs were fortunate to remain at a level of funding comparable to 2002. Lawmakers and the nation were not focused on reauthorizing legislation for welfare reform (Temporary Aid for Needy Families, TANF) and the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), part of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA).

Despite this, there were successes in the policy arena of adult education. These included a moderate increase in federal appropriations; incorporation of field-recommended changes into the Senate version of WIA reauthorization; and, in the Senate version of TANF reauthorization, an increase in the amount of time states can count education toward meeting work requirements.

There were three national-level changes in organizations. The new Board of Directors for the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) outlined its activities for literacy across the life span. In an effort to become a stron- ger organization, the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) incorporated and filed for tax-exempt status. The ERIC Clearinghouses shut down operations due to changes made by the Department of Education.

Individual transitions in the field of adult education included the appointment of a new assistant secretary of education for vocational and adult education. Also, the field lost a major supporter with the death of former Senator Paul Simon.

Discussions of practice were undergirded by a greater emphasis by the Department of Education on scientifically based research and evidence-based practice. All the while, local program personnel continued debates about testing, assessment, and the National Reporting System (NRS), while struggling with insufficient resources.

POLICY

Federal Appropriations

This section covers federal funding levels for fiscal year (FY) 2003 and 2004. Federal funding for adult education under WIA should be appropriated by September 30 of one year for the following program year. The appropriation for federal FY 2003 (October 1, 2002–September 30, 2003) is allocated to the states for the program year beginning July 1, 2003 and ending June 30, 2004. Therefore, any cut in appropriations for federal FY 2003 would be felt at the local level beginning in July 2003.

2003 Appropriations. The federal FY 2003 appropriations, which should have been approved by October 2002, were still in conference committee in late January 2003 while the government continued to operate under a continuing resolution. A continuing resolution allows federally funded programs to continue to operate at the same level as the previous year’s appropriation level until Congress makes the final appropriation. Whereas the Senate bill proposed to cut adult education funding by 2.9% (or $16 million), the House bill proposed to maintain the same level of funding as FY 2002. In the end, the appropriation for adult education and literacy (including English Literacy/Civics funds) was reduced by only $4 million, for a total of $587.2 million, with $571.3 million for the state grants. The President signed it into law in February 2003.

At the same time that the federal appropriation was reduced, states were also beginning to feel the impact of the 2000 census data. The federal government allocates funds to the states based on the number of adults 16 years of age or older without a high school diploma who are no longer enrolled in school. Any shifts in population affect the allocation to the states by reducing or increasing the share of the appropriation. According to data available from the U.S. Department of Education, 20 states or outlying areas experienced an increase in their federal allocation and 39 suffered a decrease.

2004 Appropriations. Even before the FY 2003 appropriations were finalized, the President presented his request for appropriations for FY 2004.
The Administration requested $584 million for state grants (an increase of $13 million over FY 2003 appropriations), but included National Leadership Activities in that line item. The government had previously funded National Leadership Activities as a separate line item at $9.4 million. By November 2003, the House and Senate had passed different appropriation levels (Table 1.1) and, therefore, had to go to conference committee. In addition to working out differences in conference, Congress applied an across-the-board cut to discretionary programs, resulting in the amounts shown in the final column of Table 1.1. As with the FY 2003 appropriations, all budget figures should have been final by October 1, 2003, but were not, requiring a continuing resolution to provide for ongoing services.

Table 1.1 shows the final appropriations level for FY 2002 and FY 2003 (in millions), the Administration’s FY 2004 requested level of funding, levels initially approved by the House and Senate, and the final Conference Report amount with the rescission as approved by the full House and Senate and signed into law by the President in January 2004. The major source of local funds for adult education, the State Grants line item, reflects a slight increase over FY 2003, but is still less than FY 2002, for an overall loss in real spending power. These FY 2004 funds support the program year beginning July 1, 2004.

TABLE 1.1
Federal Appropriations for the Adult Education
and Family Literacy Act and Even Start

All these figures fall far short of the level of appropriations requested by the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) as the level needed to adequately support the field. The NCL policy on appropriations (posted on their Web site at http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/) indicates its goal as follows: State Grants $1 billion; National Leadership $30 million; the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) $10 million; and Even Start $300 million.

Authorizing Legislation

2003 was an important year for reauthorizing two pieces of legislation that greatly affect the provision of adult education and literacy services. The most important is the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, which is Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA). WIA legislation is the controlling legislation for the major funding of adult education, including the money for state grants, national leadership money for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education of the U.S. Department of Education, and the operations of the National Institute for Literacy.

There are at least four players in the development of any federal adult education legislation. One is the Administration, or office of the President, as represented by the Department of Education (USDE). Although the Office of Vocational and Adult Education within the USDE plays a major role in developing and carrying out policy in adult education, policy formulation is often directed by other policy staff within the Administration and Department of Education. Although the Administration cannot directly introduce legislation, it does work with members of Congress to incorporate Administration proposals into the bills introduced or to sponsor an Administration bill.

A second player is the Senate, and a third is the House of Representatives. The House and Senate often have different ideas about the legislation being proposed, and both have major influence in shaping it. When there are differences between the proposals from the two houses, a conference committee with representatives from both chambers of Congress resolves the differences. The Administration’s policy is generally reflected in one or more of the bills drafted by the House or Senate.

The fourth player in the development of legislation is the field of adult education. The field is made up of individuals and organizations. Over the years, various organizations involved in adult literacy have worked together to present a unified voice to Congress on issues affecting adult education and literacy. One national organization whose membership is composed of these many organizations is the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL).

The Omnibus Literacy Legislation Concept Paper. In 2001, realizing that the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act would need to be reauthorized in 2003, the members of the NCL began identifying, and reaching consensus on, issues that should be addressed in any new legislation. The Coalition developed suggested legislative recommendations based on the National Literacy Summit Initiative Action Agenda developed in 2000.
(For further information on the Summit Initiative, see Comings, Garner, & Smith, 2002, pp. 3–4.) The Coalition’s goal was to recommend policy to Congress rather than merely react to policy proposals from the Administration and Congress. The Coalition finalized and approved the Omnibus Literacy Legislation Concept Paper in January 2003. In February, the Coalition distributed their four-page policy brief to all members of Congress. This brief outlined recommendations on reauthorization of the WIA and Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) and appropriations for FY 2004. For TANF reauthorization, the NCL recommended that basic education be classified as “vocational education training” if it is part of an overall employment plan, extending the maximum time limit on vocational education training to 24 months, and limiting the power of the state executive branch in shifting funds from one service area to another under the legislation. The NCL made many recommendations on WIA reauthorization organized around the areas of access, quality, and resources. Some highlights include changes in One-Stop performance requirements, composition of workforce boards, definitions of eligible providers, funding criteria for adult education services, provisions on state leadership and professional development activities, technology use, the funding distribution formula, incentive grants, and national leadership activities. The appropriation recommendations are those cited earlier in the federal appropriations discussion as the goal of the NCL.¹

Workforce Investment Act (WIA). By March 2003, the House Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness approved its version of a reauthorized WIA, The Workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act of 2003. The House approved the Act (HR 1261) on May 8, 2003. The House version renamed the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act the Adult Basic Skills and Family Literacy Education Act, which, as reported in a one-page National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) Policy Alert,² “requires focus on, and State demonstration of progress in, basic skills, such as reading, English language acquisition, writing, and mathematics.” The Policy Alert further states that the bill also reauthorized the NIFL, but redirected its purpose to “provide national leadership in promoting reading research, reading instruction and professional development in reading based on scientifically based research. This purpose will be achieved primarily through information dissemination activities.” The House version, therefore, also shifts NIFL’s purpose from a focus on adult literacy (including reading, writing, speaking, and math literacy) to a focus on only reading but for children, youth, and adults.

Many of the proposals in HR 1261 reflected the Administration’s policies on reauthorization. The Department of Education presented the Bush Administration’s vision to the public in June in a paper entitled A Blueprint for Preparing America’s Future,³ which contained many of the ideas found in HR 1261. These ideas include: focusing on basic academic skills (as opposed to life skills or employability skills), emphasizing readiness for postsecondary education, promoting practice and professional development based on scientifically based research, expanding access through technology and distance learning, and opening up the provider system to a broader array of agencies, including for-profit entities and faith-based organizations. Accountability is emphasized at both the program and state level. The House version also eliminated the role of the USDE in funding national leadership activities through grants or contracts for “developing, improving and identifying the most successful methods and techniques for addressing the education needs of adults,” and carrying out demonstration programs (Van Scoyoc Associates, 2003, pp. 34–36).

The Senate version (S.1627 The Workforce Investment Act Amendments of 2003) included the Administration’s ideas from the Blueprint that would require states to develop state content standards. The Senateversion also incorporated several of the recommendations in the NCL Omnibus Literacy Legislation Concept Paper, including, among other things, policy changes to increase state leadership funds from “not more than 12.5%” of the state allotment to “no more than 15%.” State leadership funds finance activities such as professional development, technical assistance, evaluation, and technology assistance. Another NCL recommendation that was successfully incorporated was the inclusion, under National Leadership activities, of the option of supporting grants or contracts for capacity building in private, nonprofit organizations to help them meet requirements of the Act. Such assistance could help community-based organizations and other nonprofits compete more effectively for funding at the state level by helping them build their skills in areas such as data collection and record keeping, which are needed to meet requirements of the National Reporting System.

Both the House and Senate versions reflect greater emphasis on distance learning and technology when compared to previous legislation.
State leadership activities now specifically allow for the development and implementation of distance learning, and national leadership activities permit the support and development of an entity that would produce and distribute tec...