Save Your Adult School

Several excellent and informative posts from the "Save Your Adult School" blog:

"Why Keeping Adult Schools Within K-12 Serves Californians Best."

From that blog post:

"The Governor’s Budget Plan recommends that adult education classes be reorganized under the community colleges.  Governor Brown is to be thanked for recommending funding for adult education. However a recent recommendation by the Legislative Analyst’s Office(LAO) that adult schools and community colleges remain two separate systems with better coordination between the two will serve adults better than the Governor’s Budget Plan recommendation that the two systems be joined, for the following reasons: " (Hit the link above to read the full post.)


"SB 173 and SB 174:  Proposed Legislation Regarding Adult Education."

From that blog post:

"Two bills regarding funding for adult education, SB 173 (Liu) and SB 174 (Liu) have recently been referred to the state senate committee on education, and may be acted on as soon as  March 8. SB 173 is concerned with classes in health and safety only; it provides that neither adult school nor community college non-credit classes in health and safety are eligible for state funding, as they are under current law.

 

SB 174 is much more sweeping in its scope; it revises the list of classes that qualify for state funding. SB 174 has some excellent features, chief among them its provision that adult schools will remain part of the K-12 system.  However, the bill unnecessarily narrows the mission of adult education and cancels state funding for some effective programs that serve vulnerable adults well.  It also allows districts to charge a fee for all courses, removing the mandate that basic literacy classes, such as High School Diploma, Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language must be offered free.  Since students without basic literacy skills in the United States tend to have very scarce resources, charging fees could price the students who need instruction most out of an education.
SB 174 is supposed to be a pro-adult education bill; California Council for Adult Education (CCAE) approached Senator Liu to request that she draft this bill in support of adult education.  The bill would be much stronger if it restored some crucial adult education programs that make important contributions to the well-being of California communities and restored the mandate that basic literacy classes, at least, be wholly state funded."