HOUSTON � The National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) has been hoping for a $1-billion federal appropriation for adult education for the past two years, but the actual figure has yet to break the $400-million mark. Now the NCL members may be ready to mount a full-court press for $1 billion in fiscal 2000, but only if state adult ed officials are prepared to give community-based literacy organizations (CBOs) true "direct and equitable access" to federal pass-through funds.

The NCL has potentially huge lobbying clout on Capitol Hill because it includes all of the nation's major adult and family literacy organizations, each of which has hundreds or thousands of grassroots members.

But even with that clout, and even though the NCL believes $1 billion is justified, it has never actually asked Congress for that much. Most recently, the NCL asked for $500 million in FY'99. The result was a $385-million appropriation, up from $361 million in FY'98.

On Oct. 16, Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) lobbyist Jon Randall posted a message on the National Literacy Advocacy listserv [nla@ world.std.com] asking, "Is the field ready for an all-out campaign?" He asked the same question here in Houston Oct. 21, when the NCL held its quarterly meeting in conjunction with the LVA's national convention.

"If we're going to make this a $1-billion program, people are going to have to roll up their sleeves and write letters and make phone calls and visits [to Capitol Hill]," Randall explained. As he had said on the listserv, "The efforts of a handful of diehards are not going to carry the day."

Lobbying Will Have a Price Tag

But before the grassroots members of the LVA, Laubach Literacy and other CBOs are mobilized, their leaders will demand something in return: true direct and equitable access to federal adult ed/literacy funds distributed by state-level education officials.

The CBOs have been guaranteed such access on paper since the National Literacy Act of 1991. That guarantee was strengthened this year when Congress passed the Adult and Family Literacy Act (RLP, Aug. 20, pp. 121-24).

But many CBOs believe the guarantee is an illusion. Little if any of the federal money flowing into their states ever finds its way to CBOs, they complain; it keeps right on flowing to the local school districts or community colleges or other entities that have always received it.

Randall says that will have to change if state and local adult ed officials expect the grassroots members of CBOs to help lobby for a $1-billion appropriation. In an interview with RLP he explained how that can happen:

Right now, state education officials nationwide are racing to write five-year adult ed and literacy plans they will have to submit to the U.S. Education Department before they can receive their federal FY'99 allocations next summer. As part of those plans, they will have to spell out the performance standards they will set for local programs receiving federal pass-through funds.

The danger, as Randall and other CBO leaders see it, is that states may adopt standards that apply to relatively high-functioning adult learners. For example, those who need only a few weeks or months of instruction to pass the GED test.

These students are the bread and butter of the programs that have traditionally received federal funding, but CBOs typically deal with lower-level students, such as those who cannot read well enough to help their children do homework.

Goal Is Multi-Level Standards

Randall and other CBO leaders will soon present the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education (NCSDAE, another NCL member) with a proposition: If you want our help lobbying for a $1-billion appropriation, we must have some assurance that the money will not just flow to the usual suspects.

To see that it doesn't, the CBOs will ask NCSDAE members to adopt both high- and low-level performance standards, so that all kinds of local programs can have a fighting chance to qualify for funding. The NCSDAE's national leadership is amenable to that request, but it will be up to officials in each state to decide just how direct and equitable access really is.

Contact Jon Randall, LVA Government Relations Office, 8413 Park Crest Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910-5404; (301) 588-5304; e-mail: [email protected].