Adult schools are the primary provider of English as a Second Language instruction to California’s large immigrant population. They offer a second chance at an elementary and high school education for adults who were unable to finish school as children, and provide educational opportunities for adults with disabilities. These students all tend to face more than the usual barriers as they pursue their educational goals.

But California’s adult schools have been hobbled by chronic underfunding since the Great Recession of 2008. Funding fell by about half from 2008 to 2013, and has been frozen ever since (even as funding for other branches of education has recovered).

The state also now mandates that adult schools and community colleges divide the work of educating adults. The community colleges, which are much better funded than the adult schools, generally educate the higher level students, the ones who are closest to being able to complete college level work. But it leaves the adult schools with the neediest and hardest to serve adults, and too little money to adequately serve them.

The state is currently in the process of creating next year’s budget; now is the time to ask the governor and state legislature to restore adult school funding.