Book Description

The state-administered grant program authorized under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), enacted as Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, is the major source of federal support for adult basic and literacy education programs. The purpose of the grant is to provide educational opportunities to adults sixteen and older, not currently enrolled in school, who lack a high school diploma or the basic skills to function effectively in society, or who are unable to speak, read, or write the English language. When AEFLA was reauthorized in 1998, Congress made accountability for results a central focus of the new law, setting out new performance accountability requirements for states and local programs that measure program effectiveness on the basis of student academic achievement and employment related outcomes. To define and implement the accountability requirements of AEFLA, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) established the National Reporting System (NRS). To monitor data collection procedures and to promote data quality improvement, OVAE developed data quality standards to clarify the policies, processes, and materials the states and local programs should have in place to collect valid and reliable data. To assist states in meeting the standards, OVAE has provided resources, training, and technical assistance activities to improve data quality. OVAE has provided individual technical assistance to states on NRS implementation, published documents further refining NRS requirements, including guidelines for conducting follow-up surveys. Since 2001, OVAE has made available online training resources to states and local providers. States continue to make improvements to their data collection systems and procedures, moving away from reliance on individual student survey methodologies to collect and report performance on the employment-related and postsecondary outcomes. The use of administrative records to identify post-program outcomes (i.e., consulting unemployment insurance wage records or other state agency administrative records) is becoming more prevalent, and states are also improving their assessment methods for measuring educational gain. Due to the requirements for certifying data quality through the use of a data quality checklist, more states are improving their local data collection systems. In program year (PY) 2002-2003, the program enrolled 2,736,192 learners, of which just under 40 percent were enrolled in Adult Basic Education, 18 percent were enrolled in Adult Secondary Education, and 43 percent were enrolled in English Literacy programs. This paper serves as the Office of Vocational and Adult Education's annual report to Congress for Program Year 2002-2003. (Contains 7 tables and 6 exhibits.).