Trends in NYS Enrollment fiscal years 2005 to 2011

October 25, 2012

The NRS Deadline is around the corner which means that I get a fresh batch of data to play with.  It seemed like the right time to look back over the years to see how our enrollment has changed (or not).  Let's look at some charts.  ABE stands for Adult Basic Education (reading, writing, math) and ESL stands for English as a Second Language instruction. 

This one shows how the enrollment has dropped over the years from a high of 159,408 in fiscal year 2005 to the current 122,833 in fiscal year 2011.  The actual numbers are below.

One possible reason for this drop in enrollment are increased costs (while funding has remained the same).  However, it is also true that students are receiving better instruction as evidenced by the rise in educational gain percentages. In Fiscal year 2005, the educational gain that we reported, as a state, an overall ed gain percentage of 31% (for the NRS newbies, this means 31% of enrolled students were able to move to a higher educational level based on standardized test scores).  In 2011 the overall state ed gain percentage was 54%.  

Below are some additional charts looking specifically at enrollments by level for ABE and ESL instruction separately.  Again, for the NRS uninitiated, there are 6 ABE levels and 6 ESL levels.  Where a student is reported depends on the pre test score she or he received at the beginning of the fiscal year.  

To get an overall sense of trends look at how the different levels stack up on the left of the chart.  Then look at how they stack up on the right side of the chart.  For example, you can see how the ABE 4 level which had the most student in FY05, drops below ABE 3 enrollment in FY11.  

Below is ESL enrollment by level across the years.

Any comments or suggestions for further study are welcome.  

Jobs First Panel Presentation

Please find below the presentation I did on a panel at the Jobs First meeting Friday, October 5th.

Prospects for DACA GED graduates

The White House and USCIS has made a decision to exercise prosecutorial discretion and exempt certain illegal immigrants from deportation procedures.  The beneficiaries of this policy, known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, are individuals who came to the United States as children.


The complete fact sheet on DACA (courtesy of the New York Immigration Coalition) can be viewed or downloaded here.  
Deferred Action_Info Sheet 8.30.12 Extended Ed

The seventh criteria includes those who may be enrolled in adult education programs.  The current period of deferment is two years, after which the participants can apply for another two years.  However, for young adults enrolled in adult education programs, the criteria for continued deferment is that they should have gotten their GED.  

Is two years enough for adults to get their GED while participating in a GED prep program?  We decided to take a look at ASISTS data to see what it tells us.  

Using the ASISTS database, we looked at all GED graduates over the years to look at the length of time they had spent in programs before getting their GEDs.  

This is a pretty large group of students, nearly 40,000 students over the past 12 years.  We included all students regardless of the instruction they received who had achieved the outcome of obtaining a GED.  Below are some of the statistics we were able to determine:

• An overwhelming percentage of the students (97%) were Adult Basic Education students, which meant that they received instruction on reading, writing and math.  Some students were in classes specifically designed for GED instruction.  It is hard to determine the number in GED prep classes because many adult education providers categorize their classes as ABE classes, not GED offerings.  
• Contrary to expectations students entering classes at all levels (based on their pretests) received their GEDs.  Students entering at level 4 (grade levels 6 - 8.9)  formed the largest contingent of successful GED test takers at 42%.

• We also looked at the length of time these students spent in their program before getting their GED.  The average number of months before these students got the GED was 9 and the median number of months was about 5.  The disparity between the mean and the median indicates that there is a great deal of variability in this measure.  But all but 9% of the students got their GED in less than 2 years.  
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However, the analysis itself ignored some key facts.

• DACA beneficiaries are more than likely to be ESL (English as a Second Language) students.  However, most of the students recorded as getting the GED in ASISTS tend to ABE (Adult Basic Education students) who receive instruction in reading, writing, math and GED preparation.  In fact, the data shows that only 3% of GED graduates ever participated in ESL instruction.  
• ESL students participate in adult education programs for very different reasons than getting their GED.  Do they come back to these programs to get their GEDs?  That is a question that is beyond the scope of ASISTS data to answer.  

We are working with the New York Immigration Coalition to further refine our analysis.  Accordingly, we are looking at the data from another angle.  The next step for us is to take a closer look at students from Mexico and their experiences in adult education programs.  More to follow.  

Census Training Powerpoint

This is the Powerpoint for my Census Training that I did at the LAC on the 13th of September.  

For those of you who are dying to get regional stats, fact sheets, all of them!

Finger Lakes Region Adult Education Student Statistics 2011 West Region Adult Education Student Statistics 2011 LI Region Adult Education Student Statistics 2011 HV Region Adult Education Student Statistics 2011 CST Region Adult Education Student Statistics 2011 NYC Region Adult Education Student Statistics 2011

Sorry for the long break.  But summer vacations exist for a reason.  Oh well, back to work.  My goal is to post at least once a week and if possible, twice a week.  

The New York State Education Department provides staff development and technical support through its Regional Adult Education Network.  There is one RAEN in each of the seven regions in New York State.  Please find below a map of the seven regions that you can download and print.  





County Region

Please click here for contact information for seven RAENs.

The NYS adult education system serves a student population that is as diverse as New York itself.  


Below is a breakdown of the student population by race/ethnicity. The numbers below were reported by NYS adult education providers for fiscal year 2011 which began July 1, 2010 and ended June 30, 2011.  

Stepping back - An overview of the NYS Adult Education System

After having some posted some snippets, let me step back for some data that provides an overview of the NYS Adult Education System.  But let me add a qualifier:

• The statistics below represent students served by programs receiving funds from the New York State Education Department (NYSED).  The numbers come from data reported by these programs in fiscal year 2011 which began July 1, 2010 and ended June 30, 2011. Based on Federal reporting guidelines, all these students have attended classes for at least 12 hours.

In Fiscal Year 2011, NYS Adult Education programs served a total of 122,833 students.  Please see the regional breakdown in my posting dated February 27, 2012 .  


NYS adult education programs are almost as diverse as the students they serve.  See below for a breakdown of students by the type of program they attended.  

Patterns of Instruction in NYS Regions

The type of instruction offered in the different NYS regions vary greatly.  The chart below shows enrollment reported by NYS programs in fiscal year 2011 (7/1/2010 to 6/30/2011). 

Please note:

• ABE instruction refers to Adult Basic Education and is reading/writing/math instruction at the lower levels.  ASE (Adult Secondary Education) instruction refers to ABE instruction at the higher levels and is commonly referred to as GED prep.  ESL instruction refers to English as a Second Language targeted towards non-English speakers.  
• The upstate regions such as Capital North (Albany area), Central Southern Tier (Syracuse area), Finger Lakes (Rochester area) and West (Buffalo area) have programs offering more ABE than ESL instruction.  The downstate programs in Hudson Valley (Yonkers area), Long Island and New York City (all 5 boroughs) offer much more ESL than ABE or ASE instruction.
• The relative size of the student populations is reflected in the height of the bar charts.  

The actual numbers are in the table below:

Posted May 8th, 2012

Enrollment by NYS Regions

New York State Adult Education providers serve close to 130,000 students every year. Please see below for a breakdown of the enrollment by the seven regions into which the AE system is divided.