Saturday, March 20, 2010

Budget Cuts to California Adult Education Programs

Next year, 2010-11, is not looking good for adult education in California. This is the second year that adult education has been in Tier 3 of the education budget, meaning that districts will receive the same amount of adult education funding that they received in 2007-08, but they are not required to run the program. The first year, many districts were able to backfill their budget deficits with reserves, including adult education reserves, and with federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, but this year there is no more ARRA funding and in many districts reserves are already spent, so they are looking for ways to make cuts.

OTAN has created a Budget Cuts Wiki page to keep track of news articles from around the state about how the budget cuts are affecting districts and local agencies. It's mostly sad news, but it's helpful to see that this crisis is not specific to any one program or district. It is pretty much across the board.

1 comment:

tinkerbellchime said...

ESL teachers are really in for a difficult spell over the next few years. One of my part-time ESL jobs got cut, so I'm down to 12 hours a week. Luckily, ESL teachers in California can file for unemployment by going to www.ca.gov. If they are denied benefits, they can appeal and cite Cervisi v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board (1989). UI Code, section 1253.3 (c) protects part-time faculty with hourly assignments. Hope this helps.