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Strengthening State Adult Education Policies for Low-Skilled Workers |
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From Center for Law and Social Policy: This brief, prepared for the Working Poor Families Project(WPFP), provides an overview of state adult education policies and programs and recommends ways they can be strengthened to provide better job advancement opportunities for lower-skilled adults and older youth. The poor state of the Nation's literacy has dire consequences for the long-term strength of the U.S. economy and society as a estimated $60 billion loss in productivity. Adults with less than a high school diploma earn 25 percent less over their lifetimes than high school graduates and 86 percent less than those with a college degree. Most of these adults only qualify for low-wage work. More than one in seven adults (some 25 million) between the ages of 18-64 have not finished high school or obtained a GED. In addition, some 17.5 million adults do not speak English well.5 However, the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) suggests that our basic skills and English language pro-NAAL found that over 90 million people have limited prose and quantitative skills, which enables them to perform only simple everyday literacy activities. WPFP encourages states to focus on adult education policies and programs, which are typically supported through state and federal resources. Only 30 percent of enrolled adult education students with a goal of transition to postsecondary education or training did so after exiting the program. As low as this number is, it greatly overstates the number of students who transition because it is based on the number of students who express postsecondary education as a goal of their studies; not the total number of students enrolling in adult education. With many states facing greater demand for literacy services than available resources can offer, states need to explore ways to increase funding. This is particularly true in states with an increasing limited English population, where ESL is the fastestgrowing portion of adult education programs. States should also consider increasing access to basic skills and literacy instruction in the workplace.
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