[GLC] More on the restoration of funding

[Ira Yankwitt]

Dear colleagues:

The following two messages go into more detail about the House
Appropriations subcommittee mark-up, and what we can likely expect as the
appropriations process unfolds.  Its all very promising news.  As you will
see from the first message, the committee restored $362 milllion of
funding, not $325 million as initially reported.  

***********************************************************************
(from Cheryl Keenan, director of the Division of Adult Education and
Literacy at USDOE, and the person responsible for overseeing WIA Title 2
funding nationwide)

The House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations
Subcommittee marked up the FY 2006 appropriations bill this morning. 
Most OVAE programs were level-funded.

Under adult education, all line-items are level-funded. The state grants
are frozen at $569,672,000 and national leadership activities are  funded at
$9,096,000. The National Institute for Literacy is maintained at $6,638,000.

For vocational education, the basic state grant maintains level-funding at
$1,194,331,000. Tech-Prep state grants are level at $105,812,000 and
national programs are funded at $11,757,000. The Tech-Prep demo and the
Occupational and Employment Information Program are eliminated.

A complete chart of the mark up is available at:
<<<http://appropriations.house.gov/_files/LHSCMark.pdf>http://appropriations
.house.gov/_files/LHSCMark.pdf>>.

Cheryl L. Keenan
Director, Division of Adult Education and Literacy
Office of Vocational and Adult Education
U.S. Department of Education
************************************************************

(From Bob Bickerton, state adult ed. director of MA, and longtime advocate
for adult literacy)

It is fabulous news.  Let's do a bit more than "pause" since this represents
quite a significant milestone -- a bit of celebrating comes to mind.  Some
of the things that make this so significant:

* even some of our staunchest allies in Congress were worried about how
tough the funding situation is for all programs, regardless of how worthy;
it sounded like some of them were preparing us for bad news;  

* the subcommittee vote puts us in a far better situation than many other
programs now face -- none of the following "trends" are certain, but I
believe they do have better than 50/50 probability:  the full House
Appropriations committee tends to pay attention to its subcommittees;  it's
tougher to vote against an appropriation that already has some "legs" than
it is to ratify it;  and while this vote will have less impact in the Senate
than it will in the House, it will make it at least a little bit harder to
not vote for restoring ABE funding.  

* it's highly unlikely this vote would have gone this way if not for the
very hard and tenacious work over time that thousands upon thousands of
adult education students, practitioners and their allies poured into
Congress over the past several weeks -- YOU DID IT!  

Special thanks go out to:

* all of you for making it impossible to ignore our voices;  

* the single points of contact for doing SO MUCH to keep us focussed and
organized;

* and to Art Ellison, state ABE director for New Hampshire, for his tireless
efforts to track and size up what was happening and then for crafting and
targeting the right message at the right time to the right people -- he's
shown us what a great campaign manager can do!

Now, with all that said, and along with more than a few tipped glasses of
our favorite beverage, we just can't drop the ball now -- this hard won
(interim) "victory" is now ours to lose -- and losing is still possible.
Let's bring it home.  Doing so will not only keep these resources dedicated
to serving millions of under-educated and limited English adults in the
coming year, victories like this tend to have a longer term payoff in terms
of visability and a bit of extra clout.  Let's make sure that EVERY member
of Congress hears our voices loud and clear -- and let's keep doing it so
that they never forget.  Then we can begin our real celebration!

thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!
bob bickerton, MA director of adult ed and NCSDAE chair


Ira Yankwitt, Director
Professional Development / 
NYC Regional Adult Education Network 
Literacy Assistance Center
32 Broadway, 10th Floor
NY, NY 10004
(212) 803-3356
iray at lacnyc.org