Early Local Implementation of Adult Education under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

A new IES report, Linking Adult Education to Workforce Development in 2018-19: Early Implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act at the Local Level, examines the extent to which local implementation of federally funded adult education in 2018-19 reflected key reforms that the legislation made to strengthen the link between adult education and workforce development. Key findings include— Providers widely reported offering the types of instruction WIOA encourages to link adult education to workforce development, but learner participation in these offerings was less widespread. Many providers indicated that they offered instruction that links basic and occupational skills, but only in a modest share of courses in which relatively few adult learners were enrolled. Instruction designed to help transition or “bridge” adults to further education or occupational training was more broadly available but still was estimated to have enrolled less than half of learners. Consistent with WIOA’s emphasis on collaboration as a way to improve the workforce development system, the majority of providers reported coordinating with partners to provide instruction and transition services, although challenges existed. For example, more than a quarter of providers reported that partnering to provide occupational skills training was very challenging. Some providers reported challenges with performance-reporting requirements that make adult education accountable for workforce development outcomes. Although WIOA expands requirements for states to collect and use performance data in funding decisions, over half of providers indicated that aspects of collecting data on workforce-related outcomes were very challenging. View the report at https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/2023001/. The same link also provides access to a comprehensive compendium with detailed tables supporting the policy report.