Adult Education: A Survival Plan. Management Paper Number 2.

Overview & Synopsis

This report contains the preliminary findings and recommendations of a study of the New York City Board of Education adult education programs, which was initiated in order to find ways of continuing to provide educational programs for adults in the face of budget cuts. Key objectives in a restructuring of adult education programs are identified and steps by which programs and sites might be consolidated are proposed. Lower Manhattan adult education programs are analyzed to present an example of how programs could be streamlined to reduce custodial and supervisory costs. Four major sections are included: (1) Present Status of Adult Education (a discussion of the city's four types of adult education programs including program description, programmatic and site analysis, and problems of the present adult education structure, (2) Restructuring Adult Education (discusses objectives that should be attained (and subsequent steps that should be taken) in the revision of the structure and relationships of adult education programs, (3) Continuing Education Program (discusses this program's operation of centers of adult education programs and what steps should be taken to make these centers self-sustaining following the withdrawal of tax-levy support, and (4) Conclusion (gives an overall framework for what is needed to restructure adult education programs. Numerous charts, city maps, and tables supplement the text. The two appendixes include the names and addresses of district supervisors of continuing education in the New York City area, and a formula for custodial subsidy. (SH)