Advocacy

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PAACE member, adult and continuing education staff, student, and partner support is needed to ensure quality education programs to continue. Click on the links below to learn more about the issues and how you can be involved.

PAACE Opposes PEL Report Recommendations
Keep Adult Education in the Department of Education

Appropriations

Advocacy Resources


PAACE opposes PEL recommendation
Keep adult education in Department of Education!
The Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL) distributed a report that included recommendations for Pennsylvania's workforce development efforts. The report included a recommendation that governance and oversight of WIA Title II Adult Education and Family Literacy and Act 143 state funding be transferred from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE), to the Department of Labor and Industry, Bureau of Workforce Development Partnerships.

Advocacy efforts include:

  • The PAACE board unanimously approved a motion to oppose this recommendation and make a formal response to Governor Rendell.
  • A letter was sent to Governor Rendell urging him to reject the PEL recommendation to move ABLE to the Department of Labor while supporting ongoing collaboration between adult basic education and local Workforce Investment Boards. The document is available here as a PDF file for free distribution.
  • An online petition was created that asked people to sign their support for keeping adult education services in the Department of Education. The petition is still open online for signing or viewing the list of signatures and comments.
  • On August 8, PAACE sent Governor Rendell an 84-page hard copy of the PAACE petition opposing moving adult basic and literacy from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor & Industry. At the time of the mailing, the petition carried 2,056 signatures and two pages of selected comments from the petition.
  • PAACE emailed state legislators a copy of the petition and signatures.

Thank you to everyone who signed the petition and helped to support adult education services for Pennsylvania residents.

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How YOU can support PA adult education services
NOW is an opportune time to make an appointment to visit your state legislators. They will be in their districts until mid-September, at which time they reconvene in Harrisburg. Please take a student with you on the visit if possible.

Below are talking points for your legislator contacts. You can fill in these talking points with your program’s experiences. Share this plain-English PAACE editorial with your legislators and others to help inform them of the issue. Please inform PAACE Legislative Chair JoAnn Weinberger if you meet with your legislators

Talking Points: Keep Adult Education in the Pennsylvania Department of Education!

1. We, on behalf of our program and students, are asking [name of legislator] to let Governor Rendell know how important it is to this district that Adult Education and Family Literacy programs remain in the Department of Education.

2. The Department of Education has effectively administered adult basic education programs since their inception in 1965. The Pennsylvania Economy League has recommended that these programs now be transferred to the Department of Labor & Industry, and the Governor is currently considering this recommendation. Adult education is and always has been an education program and as such needs to be in the Department of Education, which has specialized expertise.

3. Adult Education and Family Literacy programs work cooperatively with Labor & Industry toward workforce development goals but also promote social and economic growth through basic literacy, ESL, family literacy, health literacy, and a spectrum of adult basic education services not directly aimed at employment. If these programs were transferred to Labor & Industry, many critical literacy needs would be shortchanged.

4. It is important that [name of legislator] contact the Governor’s office immediately to let him know that Adult Education and Family Literacy programs should remain in the Department of Education.

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State appropriations update:

At the State level, the Legislature passed the 2008-09 budget and the Governor signed it into law. Although there were big wins for K-12, the appropriation for adult and family literacy decreased by $305,000 to $23,129,000.

THANK YOU to all PAACE members who contacted their state legislators and who sent the yellow postcards. Our push for an increase of $1 million as a cost of living allowance was important. Your actions have meant that our voice has been heard in Harrisburg.

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Federal appropriations update:

The House and Senate have now reached an agreement on the Budget for 2009. This budget agreement sets the overall funding levels for the 2009 budget, which includes funding for WIA Title II and Even Start Family Literacy for the program year 2009-2010.

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Successfully Advocacy Efforts

Capital Hill Day visits make an impact with US Senators offices.
On November 7, 2007, representatives from three Pennsylvania adult education agencies participated in ProLiteracy's Capital Hill Day. Rosemary Grove (Susquehanna Valley Adult Literacy Cooperative- Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit), Marianne Bellesorte (Pathways PA), and I met with aides from Senator Specter and Senator Casey's office. Walter Long, a former GPLC student who is now on the ProLiteracy Board of Directors came along as well.

We met with Rich Spiegelman, legislative aide for Senator Casey and Jennifer Castagna, education aide for Senator Specter. We sat with both aides for over 40 minutes and talked about our programs which varied from very small to very large. We stressed that we represented PAACE, our professional organization, and the 128 federally funded programs in PA. We thanked the senators (through their aides) for the 12.5 million dollar increase after so many years of flat funding and threw in a pitch for future funding, noting that all PA programs had lost funding in 2007/2008 because of the on-going effects of reapportionment.

Walter was wonderful in stressing that he viewed himself as a participant in PA adult ed and that others like him could be found in any of our programs. He talked about his history and the ways his life and his children's lives have been enriched by adult education. As soon as Walter realized that Rich Spiegelman from Senator Casey's office had also worked for the late Governor Robert P. Casey, he started talking about how much the Governor's wife Mrs. Ellen Casey had affected his life. He mentioned that in the year when he won adult educator of the year, she had given a speech about how important it is to give back to your community, and that he had taken that really to heart. He then talked about his own outreach efforts and his recent visit to literacy programs in South Africa. He suggested that Senator Casey might want to follow in his mother's tradition and make adult literacy his issue as well.

We left information about our programs with both aides. Both mentioned how important it was that we had brought along with us someone who had received services from our programs. We all left the meetings feeling that we had been a good team and that we had made a real impression on both Jennifer and Rich. Visiting your elected officials and/or their aides is an effective way to add a personal touch to your advocacy efforts.


PAACE Legislative Committee Documents

PAACE Fact Sheet (facts at your fingertips about PAACE and adult education, for use in your advocacy efforts)

Stand Up and Be Counted (Legislative Committee's "how to" advocacy manual, updated 2004)

Tips on How to Advocate Effectively

See the latest issue of PAACE News for quarterly legislative news.

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Find your Elected Officials

Below are links to help you identify your elected officials:

State (PA) Elected Officials
Click on the link above to locate your state Representatives and Senators. Once the page opens, enter your zip code or county in the upper right-hand corner of the page to locate your state Representatives and Senators.

Federal (US) Elected officials
Click on the link above to locate your United States federal elected officials. This page has links for contacting the President, US Senators ,and US Representatives.

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Pennsylvania Appropriations and Leadership Committee Lists

PAACE Western Region Representative Alex Down has compiled a list of Pennsylvania Appropriation Commitee members and Leadership Committee members. Elected officials on this list are often critical to our advocacy efforts. Check this list to see if your local elected official is on this list. If he or she is not, it is still important for you to educate him or her on the importance of adult and continuing education services.

Pennsylvania Appropriations and Leadership Committee Lists

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Portable Document Format (PDF)

To view and print PDF documents, you will need the FREE Adobe Reader.

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This page was last updated on August 15, 2008

All additions, questions, and concerns regarding this site should be addressed to Scot Mentzer, PAACE Webmaster, at web@paacesite.org
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