ON WEDNESDAY evenings, while most are busy studying or watching "The West Wing," a few University students volunteer at the Charlottesville Adult Learning Center's English as a Second Language Program. This organization provides classes and events such as their "dialogue café" for those in Charlottesville struggling to learn the English language. Dialogue Café is an open forum whereby local inhabitants from other countries can come to practice their English in an informal, relaxed setting. Adults from places such as Mexico, Brazil, China, Afghanistan, Russia and Vietnam gather together to share information about their own cultures, discuss life in America and talk about every other imaginable topic in an effort to improve their English. Dialogue Café is hosted by a teacher from the Adult Learning Center, and is also facilitated by University volunteers through Madison House.
The Adult Learning Center receives funding from the federal, state and city governments. As a result, its classes cost only a small fee, and programs such as Dialogue Café are completely free. However, President Bush's recent budget proposal for the fiscal year 2006 will reduce funds for adult education and literacy from $569 million to $207 million nationally. As a result, state and local governments will feel pressure to increase their financial support of adult education. This will be a serious problem for Virginia given the recent budgetary problems, especially in education.
Virginia, like many other states, is struggling to emerge from a record deficit. Education, as well as Medicaid, are the quickest mounting expenditures for Virginia. With Bush's proposed cuts in education totaling $1.3 billion, the state will feel a terrific economic squeeze. The Charlottesville Adult Learning Center's budget will end up being cut by seventy-five percent. It will no longer be able to pay its staff, who already work at low salaries. In short, without the Center these adults will have immense difficulty in learning the English language and assimilating to the United States.
Many might ask the question, "Why should my tax dollars go towards educating people who aren't even United States citizens when we have enough problems educating our own people?" This indeed is a valid concern. What many do not know, however, is that people at places like the Charlottesville Adult Education Center contribute to society in meaningful ways that help our economy, scientific progress, culture and country in many unforeseen ways. Many who come seeking to learn English as a second language at the Center are visiting scholars. One man from China is an expert scientist, living here to study and search for a cure to diabetes. Another visiting scholar, who also comes to the Dialogue Café to practice his English, studies water-flow engineering at the Engineering School in an effort to reduce water pollution from factories near waterways. Likewise, one woman from Russia attended Dialogue Café this past fall; she is now teaching an upper-level history class at the University largely in part to the language skills she developed at the Center. Lastly, there are those, such as a twenty-two year old from Ecuador, who work at local businesses in the Charlottesville area.
People such as this take pride in their duties of cooking, cleaning and many tasks that others do not want. Their knowledge of English allows them to contribute to the growth and success of small businesses. The money that all of these people earn is largely put back into the American economy, thus helping to revitalize it.
There are also those people who flee from their country due to oppression, genocide, violence and persecution. They are granted help by the International Rescue Committee, which helps refugees all over the world. The Dialogue Café had a woman from Afghanistan, whose family was murdered under the brutal oppression of the Taliban. She fled to Turkey and sought asylum with the IRC. Thousands of miles away from her surviving loved ones, she now is working to learn English in order to gain a job and support herself.
President Bush's budget proposal will set a new, record-setting $427 billion deficit. But, one must wonder why the cuts that do exist in the budget are aimed at education, a cornerstone and building block for our society. His proposal eliminates over 48 education programs in addition to adult education, including Drug-Free Schools State Grants and Educational Technology State Grants. State and local governments, already under immense fiscal pressure, are going to be squeezed in the upcoming years due to this budget proposal. While one cannot imagine the complexities in creating and figuring out a national budget proposal, the Bush administration might want to take a look at some of its proposed cuts in areas vital to America's success such as education.
John Markowitz is a third year in the College and a Arts and Entertainment staff writer. He has volunteered with Madison House for the past year.
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