National Coalition for Literacy

The National Coalition for Literacy has been asked by Hill staff, “Of the NCL WIA Reauthorization Priorities, which are most important?” The answer to that question is that they are all important.

From July 19 – August 6, the National Coalition for Literacy held a guest blog discussion on Reauthorizing the Workforce Investment Act—What is a priority for you? During this period, guest bloggers from the Coalition wrote about why each NCL WIA reauthorization priority is important and invited comments from the field.

Substantive discussions resulted over multiple weeks about why these are priorities for the field. We invite you to read the blog articles linked to each NCL WIA Reauthorization Priority below, review the comments, and consider how each of these priorities can be incorporated in a WIA reauthorization bill.

Participants also had the opportunity to share their priorities if they were not listed among the NCL WIA Reauthorization priorities. Those can be found in the Comment section here.

If you have questions about any of the priorities or the resulting discussions, contact Jackie Taylor, Public Policy Chair at jackie@jataylor.net .

NCL 2009-2010 Priorities for Reauthorizing the Workforce Investment Act[i]

A reauthorized WIA should include provisions that:

• Align the activities of Title I and Title II for the benefit of adult education students, specifically by: establishing goals for co-enrollment; establishing shared accountabilities for serving adult education students; explicitly allowing career pathways, integrated education/training and dual and concurrent enrollment; and creating a new funding stream to support a career pathways leadership grant program.

• Use a consistent definition of adult education and allowable local adult education activities in Title I and Title II.[ii]

• Authorize annual appropriations for adult education of $1 billion or more.

• Authorize and codify the English Literacy and Civics part of Title II.

• Establish an independent National Center for Adult Education, Literacy and Workforce Skills to provide the resources necessary to improve practice and provide high quality services to the adult education community and those they serve.[iii]

• Increase the amount of state leadership funds from 12.5% to a minimum of 15% to improve teacher quality by providing more professional development, improving working conditions, professionalizing the workforce, and researching what practitioners need to be effective.

• Fund and improve the use of technology for teaching and learning through innovation grants and pilot projects.

• Strengthen the direct and equitable provisions of the law to ensure that all local eligible providers[iv] have access to apply and compete for grants and contracts.

• Fund programs of sufficient intensity and duration for participants to achieve substantial learning gains, recognizing that programs providing individual instruction may provide fewer hours than programs employing group instruction.

• Eliminate the current incentive grant program and allow those funds to be added to the formula grants for states.

• Create a separate funding stream in Title I for the operation of the one-stop delivery system.

• Fund a review of, and update, the National Reporting System, to ensure that required outcomes measures are appropriate for all levels of adult education students.

• Amend the state grant funding formula under WIA Title II to include the population of English language learners with a high school diploma or equivalent, along with a hold harmless provision so that no state sees any reduction in its current funding level as a result of this change.

• Fund research and development projects to identify, disseminate, and support the transfer of findings into best practices in adult education.

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[i] The priorities are listed in no particular order at this time.

[ii] Please see the  WIA Side-by-side Analysis, Section 203, Definitions, Column 2, Coalition Proposal.

[iii] Please see the National Center Policy Principles and the detailed Center recommendations.

[iv] The 1998 Workforce Investment Act, Title II, defines “eligible providers” in Section 203, Definitions, as: a local educational agency; a community-based organization; a volunteer literacy organization; an institution of higher education; a public or private nonprofit agency; a library; a public housing authority; a nonprofit institution that… has the ability to provide literacy services to adults and families; and a consortium of the agencies, organizations, institutions, libraries, or authorities described in [the foregoing].