RE: Adult Education's Flexibility; A Resource to All

Hear, hear! We have discussed the idea of a ballot initiative to make adult education a mandated program in the state budget (not mandatory for the students, but mandatory for the service to be provided). The pace of social and technological change requires a commitment to lifelong learning, retraining and continuing education. The state plan calls for making all K-12 students bilingual. Why not all adults? A serious goal for this state. Why not authorize adult schools to offer language instruction as a vocational as opposed to an academic course. There are tens of thousands of adult service providers in medicine, education, law enforcement and a thousand other fields who want and need to learn other languages. We have a barbering and cosmetology apprentice program at our school (at which I get my hair cut; I teach ESL). Students have repeatedly asked why we don't have a class where they can learn Spanish. You can bet that there are numerous auto mechanics, teachers, bartenders, doctors, police officers and others who would be able to provide a tremendous value-added boost to the economy with such courses. Why not free up the potential of adult education to develop, design and offer courses that meet felt student and community and industry needs in a timely fashion as opposed to being shoehorned into archaic programmatic guidelines and spending limits.