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From left to right, Bruce Neuberger, George & Kristen Pursley Cynthia Eagleton At the 2015 Network for Public Education Conference in Chicago , Kristen Pursley, Bruce Neuberger, and I presented a panel entitled, "The Battle for Adult Education." The Conference was deep and powerful. An AEM post on the conference is coming soon.  Cuts and reform in California Adult Education are part of a larger puzzle affecting every piece of Public Education in the US.  To understand what is happening in Adult Education in California - and to influence it in a positive direction - we need to understand what is happening elsewhere - and we need historical context. Historical context is what Kristen provided at our panel discussion.  Kristen is a lead ESL teacher at West Contra Costa Adult School.  She is a founding member of COSAS - Communities Organized to Support Adult Schools, a group that formed in response to the cuts six years ago and has met w...

Even as things are generally improving for Adult Schools and Adult Education, yet another Adult School faces a serious challenge.  This time, it's West Contra Costa Adult School, where Kristen Pursley, author of the Save Your Adult School blog and founder of COSAS (Communities United to Save Adult Schools), works.  Other COSAS members work there, as well.   Many parts -if not all of - the Adult Ed program at WCCAS is under threat of dissolution.  West Contra Costa Unified School District serves a population where almost 60% of the kids live with one or more foreign-born parent and 25% of the children live in poverty.  ( Kidsdata.org )   I think we can safely assume Adult Education is needed.   Supporting adults with language, civic, community, and job skills directly benefits school age children .    What the heck is the West Contra Costa Unified School District thinking? Visit this Save Your Adult School bl...

State Funding for Older Adults and Parent Education Adult Education will end in July of this year. All along, many folks have thought these programs were valuable.  They simply didn't think there was enough money to pay for them, coming out of Great Meltdown of Wall Street, Main Street, and Adult Education. Others, like the folks at the LAO (Legislative Analyst Office), thought the mission of Adult Education should be narrowed to a more work-oriented focus.  (They also thought the two systems - K12 Adult Ed and Community Adult Ed should stay as they were - separate, just better coordinated.)   Meltdowns are the perfect time to re-form things because everything is nice and gooey and often there have already been losses, changes, etc.  This idea is the central tenet of the Shock Doctrine .  Before you get too upset about that, just remember that can swing in any direction.  It might be a direction you like.  It might be a direction you don't like....

The video of Wednesday's Joint Legislative Informational Hearing on Adult Education: Moving Forward is available on The California Channel.   Click here to go right to the video . This was an informational hearing. In other words, no one voted on anything. It was a sort of check-in on the whole AB86 process.  Folks checked in to report what is happening in the whole mighty, messy, complicated everyone come together under the big tent Regional Consortia Creation Game.  The legislature needs to know what is happening and how things are going and whether or not people are being served or will be served or won't be served because the Legislature will be voting on these matters in future when it votes on a budget.  I highly recommend that you watch or listen to it as you chop vegetables, fold laundry, flea-comb your cat, or perform some similar task which enables you to listen while you work. It is a long, meaty hearing full of information about what is hap...

It's Spring - and that means conferences and conventions and legislative hearings and meetings and lots of talk about budget leading up to July 1st, 2015, the start of a new fiscal year and a new era for Adult Education in California. Each event has its own focus.  Every event is a chance to connect with and learn from others.  Here's what's happening in the world of Adult Ed Spring 2015 along with my notes about how the event connects with advocacy for Adult Ed. 1.  CCAE Bay Section Conference February 28 in Berkeley , Northern California.   State Senator Loni Hancock and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates will speak.  There will be a variety of valuable workshops, including a SMAS  presentation on The Power of Student Leadership.  The Conference will be held at Berkeley Adult School which  recently faced the possibility of being uprooted or decentralized .  This brings home the truth we are still in the process of stabilizing A...