[NLA] Legislative victory for adult literacy

[Thomas Sticht]

I want to add my voice to those thanking advocates like Jon Randall of
the National Coalition for Literacy (NCL), Garrett Murphy and Lennox
McLendon of the National Adult Education Professional Development
Consortium (NAEPDC), Christy Gullion, Alice Johnson, and Andy Hartman of
the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), and others for their efforts
that resulted in transforming the State Grants for Adult Education from
a decrease to an increase for 2002. 

In an earlier post I noted that the President had requested the same
amount for State Grants for 2002 as was available for 2001, that is,
$540 million. Adjusted for a 2% increase in the cost of living, that
would have amounted to a decrease in purchasing power of some
$10,800,000 for an inflation adjusted State Grant of $529,200,000. When
the new amount of $35,000,000 is added to this inflation adjusted
figure, the FY 2002 purchasing power for the State Grants is
$564,200,000, an increase of 4.48 percent over the FY 2001 purchasing
power of $540 million. 

Unfortunately, the new FY 2002 amount for National Leadership Activities
for adult education research, demonstration, and evaluation projects to
improve the quality of services in the Adult Education and Literacy
System was decreased by $4.5 million  from $14 million to $9.5 million,
a 32% drop from FY 2001. When the $9.5 million is adjusted for inflation
by 2%, the purchasing power drops by an additional $190,000 to $9.31
million. 

When the State Grants and Leadership Activities are considered together,
in FY 2001 they amounted to $540 million plus  $14 million equals $554
million. When the inflation adjusted State Grant and Leadership
Activities for FY 2002 are combined they come to $564,200,000 plus
$9,310,000 equals $573,510,000. This is an inflation adjusted gain of
3.5% for the FY 2002 combined State Grants and Leadership Activities
over the FY 2001 funds. 

At a time when talk of federal surpluses have changed to talk of federal
deficits I suppose we should be grateful that the AELS funds did not go
completely into the red column when adjusted for inflation. However, I
can’t help but look at the Reading First ($900 million), Early Reading
First ($75 million), Even Start ($250 million), and 21st Century
Community Learning Centers ($1 BILLION), with a combined amount of $2.25
BILLION, all with a major focus on little children, with some
non-specified amount of funds that can be used for adult literacy
development, and think that if the Congress really understood the AELS,
what it does and the many multiplier effects it has that produce both
immediate and long term returns to investments, they would have been
able to come up with funding for adult learners comparable to that they
provide for children learners. 

But clearly the funding for these different federal programs reflects
policies based on the belief that if we can just "fix" little children,
the need for adult education and literacy development will go away. In
my opinion, this is a belief that left unchanged will forever
marginalize the Adult Education and Literacy System of the United
States. 

Note: For further discussion of issues regarding the marginalization of
the AELS see my paper entitled "The  Adult Education  and Literacy
System (AELS) in the United States: Moving From the Margins to the
Mainstream of Education" which is available on line at www.nald.ca 
under Full Text Documents searched by the first letter of my last name.