Changes in the municipal funding formula for adult education programs have left some community organizations with decades of experience without contracts to continue teaching their classes – for now. Six organizations that did not receive funding reported waiting lists with thousands of people.
In the next two weeks, Tiziana Perkins hopes to pass the final science exam she has pending to obtain a diploma through a high school equivalency program (HSE) at St. Nicks Alliance, an organization that serves low- and moderate-income New Yorkers in Brooklyn. “I will graduate in August,” said a smiling Perkins, 38, via a Zoom call. “As for the program, it helped me gain more confidence; to believe in myself and to have a network that I had been looking for for a long time.”
Perkins entered the HSE program in September 2023. Her goal is to become a phlebotomist and earn a degree in the medical field. “As for my graduation, it helps me motivate myself to go beyond my limits, and know that I am capable of achieving what I want to achieve in terms of my goals,” she added.
For years, the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) has worked with community organizations and educational institutions to develop an adult literacy system for New Yorkers over 16 years old, offering a range of literacy, English, math, and other subject classes. But although the overall budget for these programs has grown in recent years, changes in how the city awards funds have recently left out many experienced providers, who say they have established relationships and trust with the communities they serve. At least six organizations that previously offered these services saw their funding cut at the start of the new fiscal year in July, forcing some to cancel programs and lay off staff. Among them is the St. Nicks Alliance adult education program, which has since been teaching classes without funding.
“Without this funding,” says Larry Rothchild, St. Nicks’ managing director of development, “the most marginalized members of the community are at risk of not achieving the economic stability needed to obtain a high school diploma and work towards getting a job and [a] professional career.”
In the last two fiscal years, the base budget for DYCD’s adult literacy programs was set at $11.8 million, awarded to community-based organizations that opt for contracts through requests for proposals (RFPs). The fiscal year that ended on June 30 included additional funds for these programs, totaling $16 million. Following a tough battle during this year’s budget negotiations, advocates and lawmakers secured $27 million – including a one-time contribution of $10 million funded by the City Council – for fiscal year 2025, which began on July 1.
For this funding batch, DYCD used a new formula for its RFP focused on organizations within Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs), which are areas with low English proficiency and educational achievements and high poverty rates, according to census data. Under the new rules, priority is given to community organizations within an NTA, and only one organization within an NTA can receive funding. While providers claim that the new RFP language looks good in theory, in practice, they argue, it oversimplifies the complexities and nuances of adult literacy programs, which by definition serve economically disadvantaged individuals.
“The RFP’s excessive emphasis on NTAs seems to have defunded high-performing agencies with full enrollments and waiting lists of the target population, while resulting in NTAs where no contracts have been awarded to any agency,” said John Hunt, associate dean of LaGuardia Community College for pre-college academic programs, whose classes are among those affected.
In addition, providers argued that the new RFP did not take into account the needs of the thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers who have arrived in the city since 2022. DYCD did not directly respond to this criticism but argued that the data from the American Community Survey on which the new formula is based is “the most comprehensive national survey available today” to account for how poverty and other indicators of need have changed in the last decade. Four of the 50 organizations with contracts awarded so far are new providers, according to DYCD.
Previously, DYCD has defended the system by arguing that it allows them to expand their reach to more neighborhoods. “The Adams administration is committed to bringing equity to all New Yorkers,” said DYCD Commissioner Keith Howard in a statement at the end of June, “which is why DYCD developed a new formula with an RFP that incorporated poverty rates and expanded adult basic education programs recently to communities like East Harlem, Concourse Village, and Soundview.”
Over the past few weeks, the city has been notifying selected community organizations. Seven of the 57 calls are still awaiting a decision, said DYCD. The spokesperson did not specify when all designations will be completed, adding that the timeline for each request depends on various factors and follows established guidelines.
This delay in notification, in turn, is also delaying the allocation of $10 million to programs that were not selected in the form of discretionary funding from the City Council, which is trying to help fill the gap, according to a spokesperson for Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. It is not clear how many providers have been rejected, although six that were not selected for funding told City Limits that they had waiting lists with hundreds of people, with more than two thousand prospective students.
As the fiscal year ended in June, these organizations are currently at a crossroads weighing whether to close their programs altogether or stretch a few dollars to continue providing the service, knowing that it is not sustainable in the long run.
Johan Lopez, director of adult and immigrant services at Sunnyside Community Services in Queens, explained that not being selected decimated their programs, funded 98 percent by DYCD. The organization was forced to lay off four full-time employees and nine instructors.
“We had 39 classes,” in fiscal year 2024, said Lopez in a Zoom interview. “This year, with our funds as they are, we will be able to offer three classes.”
Monica Guzman, Sunnyside’s deputy executive director, said they have reached out to private donors to recoup some of the lost funds. They also hope to secure some of the additional $10 million obtained by the Council.
“It will take a long time to rebuild this program; we are really waiting to see what the Council will do with that $10 million,” Guzman said via Zoom.
The Center for Immigrant Education and Training at LaGuardia Community College, which offers adult literacy classes, also lost all its DYCD funding on July 1, resulting in a loss of 145 spots.
“Some of those students were hoping to return to campus in the fall to continue advancing in our intermediate-low levels of ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages], so their educational itineraries are interrupted,” explains Hunt.
The Mercy Center is another organization without funds: from 38 classes offered in the last fiscal year – and about 2,150 ESOL students enrolled – it went to only three this fiscal year, for just 200 students. So far, the Mercy Center has laid off 10 ESOL program employees and expects to lay off more if the funds are not restored, said Judit Criado Fiuza, director of adult education, immigration, and development.
Agudath Israel of America, another provider based in lower Manhattan, advised their teachers to apply for unemployment benefits and suspended all classes until further notice.
Anna Kaganova, grants director at the Center for Family Life, explains that their organization is half a block from the NTA in Sunset Park but was not selected.
“We have not yet heard from DYCD about why we were not selected for the program,” said Kaganova. “But the awarding of a single contract per NTA seems like a restrictive model.”
“We serve a lot of people from the NTA we applied to, but we are not directly located in it,” she adds. “But we also serve a lot of people from outside that NTA in the broader sense of our community.”
Funding issues arise as providers of these programs have seen an increase in demand for classes, especially after more than 210,000 new immigrants arrived in the city in the last two years, 64,300 of whom remain in the shelter system.
Jude Pierre, program manager at CAMBA’s Adult Literacy Center, explained that they had to close registration for English classes from the winter of 2023 to the spring of 2024 while receiving about 100 applications per day.
“We temporarily reopened registration for English classes just before this summer,” Pierre wrote in an email, saying they have a waiting list of nearly a thousand people. “As we do not have as many classes as before, we were overwhelmed fairly quickly and had to close registration again.”
“We have seen a significant increase in the last year of newly arrived English students applying for ESOL services on campus,” explained Hunt, from LaGuardia. “Many of those applicants are newcomers to the city and need basic adult literacy services; all are low-income New Yorkers who speak only basic English, if they speak it at all.”
Without additional funds, said Hunt, applicants for LaGuardia’s ESOL program will remain on a waiting list for over a year. He emphasized that those who cannot access ESOL or GED classes face greater barriers to civic participation, educating their children, accessing post-secondary education, and professional training.
“In fiscal year 2024, we enrolled more than 2,000 students, all low-income immigrants, 75 percent of whom had critical housing issues,” explained Criado Fiuza, from Mercy. “The demand was such that we could have enrolled twice as many students if we had the funds and space.”
Still, providers hope that the additional funds from the Council will allow them to revive their adult programs. “Thanks to these additional $10 million, as of the fall, more English classes can be offered throughout the city. We hope that CAMBA will be among the service providers considered for funding.”
For more information on this news, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To contact the editor, write to Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.