Vocational outcomes among transition-age youth receiving special education services are critically poor and have only incrementally improved since the implementation of the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act. Few studies highlight whether interviewing may be critical to obtaining vocational outcomes such as competitive employment or internships.…

Adult basic education's role, from the beginning, has been about serving people with foundational skill needs. The author, Judy Mortrude, agrees with the argument that adult literacy education needs to be repositioned within a new framework of lifelong and life-wide learning, a framework in which new policies are formulated, programs are designed…

This playbook provides ways in which business and industry can blur the lines between high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce. Business and industry play a significant role to Raise the Bar for student success by developing an "education-to-workforce system" focusing on Unlocking Career Success.

Organizations advocating for federal, state, and local level support for adult education have long relied on the power of individual story to influence both public perception and public policy. They have developed training programs, provided advocacy toolkits, and organized visits with policy makers in order to promote and sustain awareness of the…

Right-to-work (RTW) laws neither provide opportunity for gainful employment nor a higher standard of living. In truth, by ending a union's ability to charge administrative fees to employees who benefit from their collectively bargained contract, these laws aim to weaken unions and silence workers. They are designed to help employers, not workers.…

Dr. Jacobson's analysis of "hard to serve" is well founded, especially from an academic and theoretical perspective, yet the author is left wanting. Is the solution to merely change the language, the terminology of the legislation, or the terminology used by policy makers as well as practitioners? Are these adults hard to serve or ill…

When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

This hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions examines COVID-19 recovery supporting workers and modernizing the workforce through quality education, training, and employment opportunities. Opening statements were presented by: (1) Honorable Patty Murray chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and (2)…

The tables have turned on Michigan's public school boards and other school officials. As a result of changes to the state's labor law in 2023, school districts face the risk of losing some authority to determine who should be teaching in their classrooms. Teachers unions are empowered once again to demand districts treat teachers as if they are…

In the 20 years since the implementation of the Work Investment Act (WIA), federal funding for adult literacy education has remained largely stagnant, and actually decreased in inflation-adjusted dollars from FY2001-FY2019, despite the fact that the field serves fewer than 5% of those in need. Yet over these two decades, the field has moved away…

In 2014, the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) thrust adult educators into a dramatically new landscape of service expectations and partnership requirements to increase the ability of providers to meet the employment needs of students and employers. The coronavirus pandemic created an accelerating demand for adult education…

Building on the Center for American Progress' workforce equity framework, which proposes creating and filling quality jobs with career options for all workers, this report proposes changing workforce accountability standards in order to drive labor markets toward quality job creation. It argues for restructuring workforce accountability from its…

This qualitative study examines how six Adult Basic Education (ABE) students perceived success in their personal and academic lives. Policy discourses concerning ABE learners offer perspectives on success, and these discourses influence, correspond with, and contradict learners' discourses on success in various ways. However, the organizational…

Secondary educators implement an array of work-based learning activities that expose transition-age students to the demands of post-secondary employment. One such strategy, internships, provides students with a formal opportunity to acquire transferable employment skills that lead to meaningful post-secondary employment outcomes. Facilitating…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of utilizing an evidence based, "Train the Trainer" approach to increase the safety knowledge and awareness of secondary students. Participating teachers attended a 10-hour, inquiry-based summer training workshop utilizing National Safe Tractor and Machinery Operations Program…