February 2009 Public Policy Corner

Since my last column, there has been a flurry of activities involving members of the Coalition and our efforts on behalf of adult education and family literacy.  Congress also completed work on H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (stimulus bill).

In addition to our earlier letter to Congress regarding the need to provide funds for adult education in the stimulus bill, we forwarded a second letter to further express the need for funding for our programs.  ProLiteracy assisted the Coalition in this effort by faxing the letter to the Hill.  Look for the letter under Policy & Legislation: Testimony on the website. We also co-signed a letter with a wide-range of organizations, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Council of La Raza, the NAACP, several members of the Coalition, and others in support of an amendment to the House stimulus bill sponsored by Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) (under Testimony).  This amendment would have added funding to address the job training and education needs of English language learners and farm workers, including $250 million for adult education, with a priority on programs that provide English as a second language services.  Unfortunately, the rule governing deliberation of the stimulus bill did not allow for consideration of the Grijalva amendment.

In the end, language was included in Title XIV of H.R. 1, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which provides $53,600,000,000 for activities administered by the Department of Education.  Section 14003 of this title outlines the purposes for which local educational agencies receiving funds can use them, including activities authorized by the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act.

We have heard there may be additional opportunities for adult education to receive funding through H.R. 1 and are continuing to work our way through this huge document to find any other hidden provisions.

In early February, prior to our membership meeting, Coalition members turned out in large numbers to meet with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) to share our ideas for revising the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act.  It was a good meeting, with key Coalition members discussing critical parts of our proposal.  We were told the HELP Committee would like to have a proposal for revising the Workforce Investment Act ready sometime in the summer.  There was a strong indication that they would like to focus on efforts to help economic recovery and to see how our programs will fit into that effort.  We explained our interest in creating career pathways as an option for adult education participants with employment related goals, but stressed that we did not want to lose some of the other priorities for adult education that were not job related, such as helping parents learn to read to their children and helping new Americans learn English.

On February 11, several coalition members met with Adrienne Dunbar with the House Education and Labor Committee to share the Coalition proposal.  At this point, there is no set plan for considering WIA reauthorization legislation. 

The Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness did, however, hold its first hearing on WIA entitled, “New Innovations and Best Practices Under the Workforce Investment Act,” on February 12, 2009.  Additional hearings are expected. For proceedings, go to http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/labor/competitive-workforce/
We will continue to meet with key Congressional staff to share the NCL reauthorization proposal in the next few weeks.  We also forwarded copies of the Coalition proposal to the Office of Vocational and Adult Education and the National Institute for Literacy for review.

Lynn Selmser

NCL Policy Director

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