San Fran failed government schools are getting creative. After years of declining enrollment, after the announcement of a PRIVATE school for Chinese students, after an average of 30% absentee rate, they are looking for ways to get students and earn money.
So they are going after the adult population in San Fran. This is desperate time for them. Currently, the tech people are leaving town, the middle class is leaving town—only the homeless and the illegal aliens are replacing them. They do not want an education—they want welfare, phones and freebies.
“School districts and community colleges are the state’s main providers of free continuing-studies courses, which include English as a second language, GED or high-school diploma equivalency, career and technical job training, and prerequisite proficiency classes in reading, writing and mathematics.
While the state legislature passed the 2024-25 budget bill to support a 1.07% cost-of-living adjustment for the California Adult Education Program — the state’s main funding pipeline for adult education — Sanchez said the programs are historically financially challenged.
Nice publicity—but little will change—and the taxpayers will finance failed government education—and do little help for adults.
Educators say demand for adult courses booms amid stagnant funding
By Allyson Aleksey, SF Examiner, 7/29/24 https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/education/california-adult-education-demand-rising-as-funding-stunted/article_a2b32e26-4dc6-11ef-a67e-2bd4bc13258c.html
As public-school districts across California face declining K-12 enrollment, participation in adult-education classes — sometimes known as continuing education — is going the other direction.
Although state-level funding for these programs remains stagnant, adult-education teachers and advocates say the demand for these courses is increasing, and that lawmakers should take note.
“We’re not seeing declining enrollment, as far as I can tell,” Adriana Sanchez, executive director of the California Council for Adult Education, told The Examiner. “The voices I hear from the field are saying that they are either meeting the need or have waiting lists.”
School districts and community colleges are the state’s main providers of free continuing-studies courses, which include English as a second language, GED or high-school diploma equivalency, career and technical job training, and prerequisite proficiency classes in reading, writing and mathematics.
While the state legislature passed the 2024-25 budget bill to support a 1.07% cost-of-living adjustment for the California Adult Education Program — the state’s main funding pipeline for adult education — Sanchez said the programs are historically financially challenged.
“We’ve been fortunate in the most recent years to whenever there’s been a cost of living increase for community colleges or K-12 districts, we’ve been able to have parity and get that COLA,” she said. “But the best kept secret is that we are underfunded.”
San Francisco’s history of adult-education coursework predates the Civil War.
According to the California Council for Adult Education, the state’s first recorded adult-education class was held in the basement of The City’s St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1856.
That year, the San Francisco Board of Education approved a program to teach English to Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants. John Swett, who later became the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, was the first volunteer teacher to lead the adult-education class.
For adult students then and now, advocates say access to these courses provides a lifeline and can lift families out of poverty. A free English course, for example, could give a non-native English speaker the opportunity to pursue work that would be otherwise unavailable.
Community colleges such as City College, where Leila Easa teaches, are “especially situated for adults to seek continuing education,” she said.
Easa teaches creative writing courses and students from all walks of life — some have already completed undergraduate or graduate degrees. Others need courses for ongoing continuing-education requirements or to learn new skills when switching fields or adapting to changing work requirements, she said.
“As both a community-college teacher and an older student who returned to graduate school in my 40s and is working on my third degree since, there are many reasons why adults might seek continuing education,” she said.
