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.

• Advocacy efforts to date
• How you can support adult education services
• Talking points and resources

Appropriations

• State appropriations
• Federal appropriations

Advocacy Resources

• Find your elected officials
• Pennsylvania Appropriations and Leadership Committees
• PAACE Legislative Documents
• Successful advocacy efforts

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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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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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.

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