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National Council of State Directors of Adult Education |
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Policy Alerts MEMORANDUM To: SPOC Network From: Art Ellison, Policy Co-Chair Date: July 18, 2005 RE: Update Hopefully this memo will have some information that is useful for you personally and some which you might like to pass along to your state network. The information below is a collection of updates on the legislative process as well as information on some issues that we all need to consider for the future. A. Timeline for Appropriations and WIA Reauthorization At this point we think that there may not be Senate action on our appropriation, instead the Senate will probably go directly to conference with the House in September. Since we have level funding from both chambers (the full House and Senate Appropriations) our appropriation should not be an issue in the conference. The only possible change that we will be preparing to influence in September would be an attempt to implement across-the- board cuts in most education programs to fund increases in a selected few. This action has been utilized on several occasions in past few years in similar circumstances. WIA reauthorization has passed the House and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) but has not yet been scheduled for Senate floor action. We are being told that further consideration of the bill will take place in the fall or winter. Even Start was funded at $200 million in the House and $0 in the Senate. If the Senate does not take up the appropriations bill, advocates for Even Start will be working with the Senate and House conferees to have them reach agreement on the House figure. As we approach September we will identify the Senate and House members of the Conference Committee so that targeted efforts can be made on both adult education and Even Start funding. B. Conference Calls Looking at Our Work In September/October there will be a series of conference calls which will include at least one person from each of the State Single Point of Contact Networks. The intent of the calls will be to spend some time reviewing our work since February, sharing the highlights of the campaign in the states and looking forward to how we can improve our efforts in the future. C. Elections As you know elections for all members of the US House of Representatives and 1/3 of the US Senate will be held in November of next year. It is important that all of us, staff, students and friends of adult education create a presence in those campaigns, similar to the presence that you have established with members of Congress now in office. Two activities that would be useful in this regard are inviting candidates of all parties to visit you programs and attendance by advocates for adult education at any candidate forums that might include the opportunity to ask questions about the candidate's support for adult education funding. The very best method for helping students to sort through the issues that would help them decide to support a particular candidate is Debbie Tasker's, Pick Your Candidate. This document, created specifically for adult education programs and students, may be accessed at http://tech.worlded.org/docs/pick/pickpr.htm <http://tech.worlded.org/docs/pick/pickpr.htm> . D. State Conference Sessions that Support Your Single Point of Contact Work Some states have already started to utilize their summer adult education conferences to focus on building and expanding their state networks. Since most states have an ongoing series of conferences, institutes and workshops throughout the school year, they would seem like a good format to draw more practitioners into the network and develop more extensive components for our work in the future. E. FY 07 Federal Budget Process The process has started for the development of next year's federal budget. All federal departments submitted their budgets for FY 07 to the White House last month. We have been informed that the Department of Education was instructed to use the President's FY 06 Budget as the baseline for next year's requests. This may put us again back at the -66% starting point for the beginning of the budget development process. However it is possible that cooler heads will prevail and the President's budget figure for adult education, which will be released in his budget message in February, 2006 will reflect both an acknowledgement of the true need for these funds and the political reality of attempting another massive cut. F. Thank You Thank you letters must go to the members of the organizations and staff who have been instrumental in creating the network and carrying out our work. This list includes the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education, the Commission on Adult Basic Education, and the National Coalition for Literacy. In any campaign of this nature the real work takes place in the field, in our case it is in your offices and in the programs throughout the states so my heartfelt thank you goes to YOU, THE 103 PEOPLE WHO MAKE UP THE SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT NETWORK. You have carried out a monumental task, one that had never before been attempted in our field. The final outcome of this chapter which seems to be leading to victory is a testimony to your commitment, tenacity, skill and hard work and that of the thousands of people who have joined us in this campaign. Thank you, for your efforts in the past and in advance for the work that we will do in the future. MEMORANDUM To: SPOC Network From: Art Ellison, Policy Co-Chair Date: July 13, 2005 RE: Suggested Action for Senate Appropriations Committee In advance of tomorrow's Committee markup we are trying to get some additional contacts with Republican Senators on the full committee who are not on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee. So this alert is primarily for the states represented by Pete Domenici-New Mexico, Christopher Bond-Missouri, Mitch McConnell-Kentucky, Conrad Burns-Montana, Robert Bennett-Utah, Sam Brownback-Kansas and Wayne Allard-Colorado. It would be helpful if we can get approximately 40 telephone calls today and 20 tomorrow morning to the Washington offices of the Senators listed above asking the individual Senator to "support the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Sub-Committee decision to fully fund adult education" when the full Appropriations Committee meets tomorrow. We do not want to tie up the telephone lines into these offices so we are asking that you do not exceed the number of calls listed above. Please let me know if you need additional information or have any questions. Keep up the great work. MEMORANDUM To: SPOC Network From: Art Ellison, Policy Co-Chair Date: July 13, 2005 The Appropriations bill approved today by the Senate Appropriations Sub-Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies contains no funding for Even Start. The House approved appropriation for the program is $200 million. At this point there are two strategies that should be pursued. Hopefully a Senator who is not on the Appropriations Committee can be convinced to offer an amendment to the Appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate. Senate debate on the bill will probably take place sometime in July, before the month long August recess. If the final Senate Appropriations bill does not contain any money for Even Start an effort should be undertaken to have the conference committee on appropriations accept the House position of $200 million. This was the process that took place last year when the House approved $220 million, the Senate $0 and the conference committee acceptedthe House figure. We will keep you posted.
MEMORANDUM To: SPOC Network From: Art Ellison, Policy Co-Chair Date: July 12, 2005 RE: Another Victory You have won another victory in our effort to restore adult education funding! The Senate Appropriations Sub-Committee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies has just approved the FY 06 Appropriations bill that fully funds adult education at the FY 05 level. The full Appropriations Committee will take up the bill on Thursday. My thanks again for the wonderful work on this issue. More information later. Art Ellison
Last Updated: 07/25/2005 |
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Contact us: Dr. Lennox
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