RE: Adult Education

I'd like to clarify the role of adult education administration as it relates to K-12. I was taken aback to read that the MP committee thinks that K-12 adult educators' perspectives "are not focused on students at all", and that there are "redundant administrative structures that drain resources that could otherwise be directed to direct student services." 

This is what I do:
As a high school principal in my district I am charged with participating in the development and implementation of a quality high school diploma program that meets state and district requirements and standards. I attend all high school principal meetings, and am presently working with my colleagues to offer curricula that prepare our students to pass the High School Exit Exam and Algebra. Every student who graduates one year and 17 days from today must meet these requirements, and the adult school is charged with meeting the needs of those who don't.

As a member of our district's School Readiness Workgroup I meet monthly with our preschool director, our Prop. 10 school readiness coordinator, and Family Resource Center director to plan and implement a comprehensive program to support parents as their child's first and most important teacher. We work together to offer classes, share outreach efforts, and have just submitted a collaborative Even Start grant application.
As our district's CBET provider I work on an ongoing basis with our district's director of English language development, collaborating on training, sharing teachers and facilities, providing ESL  and family literacy classes for the parents of the district's EL students, and supporting our district's English language advisory committees with activities such as an annual EL Family Education Fair.

As a founding partner agency of our One Stop our school participates in a variety of activities to make workforce preparation resources available to the community we serve, including resume development, job search training, on-site job recruitments, One Stop bus tours, job fairs, classroom presentations, and referrals.

As part of our county-wide Adult Education/ROP Calworks collaborative we pool our Calworks support services funds to provide a range of services, including education specialists as resources at all of our county One Stops.

As a board member of our local hospital's community clinic I collaborate with our local hospital to provide on-site ESL for employees, a community-wide partnership on adult literacy, and a menu of health-related services, programs and speakers for our adult students.

I run a program that serves 9,000 students per year at 27 sites with over 100 exemplary part time teachers who make under $30 per hour, with four full time certificated, three full time classified employees and 10 portables. This is what adult education administrators do, and we do it well, and we are happy to do it because it provides life-changing opportunities for the students we serve. We know that it is true because our students tell us that they would not have lives that they live without the experiences and the skills that they received here.
What's wrong with that?