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Marshall Adult Education
Editorial: Adult
education/Support doesn't match need March
15, 2004
STAR TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL 3/15/04
Minnesota's recreation centers,
schools and other community-based places where adults get a second chance at
learning are bustling with activity. They are the places where new
English-language learners, late-blooming young adults or middle-aged dropouts
can pick up the skills they need in an understanding, welcoming atmosphere.
Adult basic education (ABE) programs
are bursting at the seams with eager learners. Yet while demand is clearly
growing, state support for them is moving in the other direction.
Two years ago, the state spent about
$35 million on ABE; this year it is down to about $33 million as a result of
state budget cuts. Moreover, those reductions come at a time when just over
80,000 Minnesotans use ABE services -- double the number of participants in
1995. Nearly half are immigrants yearning to learn English and become citizens;
the rest are people who finally want to earn that high school diploma or GED or
master the basic skills they need to get a better job.
This is no time to reduce investment
in helping state residents become more self-sufficient.
As with K-12 education, the
percentage cut to adult programs was not large compared with the hits taken by
some other state agencies. And funding had grown fairly steadily until last
year. Yet for a program already operating on a shoestring, the cuts translated
into staff layoffs, decreased hours, larger class sizes and more students turned
away.
Together Minneapolis and St. Paul
ABE programs, for example, serve about 30,000 people and have several thousand
on waiting lists. Because enrollees tend to be lower-income, cuts in other
social service areas affect their ability to go to class. Centers around the
state report that participants drop out because they lost child care or
transportation subsidies under health and human service cuts.
These programs deserve expanded
support because they ultimately benefit all of society in multiple ways.
National estimates show adult education is an economic development tool; for
every dollar spent on adult education, $5 to $7 is saved or pumped into the
economy later on.
People who speak English well and
have high school degrees are more employable, earn more and pay more in taxes,
rather than being a constant drain on government resources. Getting basic
education also makes students eligible to move on to higher learning and even
stronger financial futures for their families.
And when parents become more
literate, they are better able to teach their own children. A recent Minnesota
school readiness survey of entering kindergartners showed that those least
prepared for school tend to come from lower-income, poorly educated families.
When adult literacy improves, so does the academic achievement of their
children; parents with strong reading and writing skills are better able to help
their daughters and sons with homework and get involved with the schools.
Funding for ABE is based on the
hours spent teaching, not the numbers of students, so a little goes a long way.
Still, the government commitment is not meeting the growing need. Both the state
and federal government should keep pace and expand support for such an obvious,
worthy return on investment. |
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Lyon County Government Center • 607 W. Main St. • Marshall, MN 56258 • (507) 537-7046
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