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Breaking Through: Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter andSucceed in College and Careers

November 2004

Produced with funding from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Breaking Through: Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter and Succeed in College and Careers

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Preface: Why Adult and Basic Education Matter to Workforce Educators in Community Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Part I. The Scope of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Pursuit of Economic Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Individual and Institutional Barriers to College Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Part II. Synergistic, High-Leverage Strategies to Increase Access and Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Strategy One: Integrate Institutional Structures and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Strategy Two: Accelerated Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Strategy Three: Labor Market Payoffs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Strategy Four: Comprehensive Supports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Part III. Promising State Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Governance and Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Funding Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Part IV. The Road Ahead: Opportunities and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

A Long-Term Commitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Barriers to Further Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Promoting and Accelerating Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Acknowledgements

Marty Liebowitz and Judith Combes Taylor are the authors of this report. They werebacked up by the JFF research team of Mary Frances Mitchner, Amy Robins, and MoniqueSheen. Jerry Rubin helped conceive the project, conduct the research, and shape the find-ings. Marlene B. Seltzer, Richard Kazis, and Sue Goldberger of JFF reviewed early drafts.From beyond JFF, special thanks go to George Boggs, Davis Jenkins, Joan Fitzgerald, KarinMartinson, Robert Lerman, and Julie Strawn, who graciously reviewed a draft report andprovided extremely valuable comments under tight deadlines. We would also like to thankNan Poppe and Jim Jacobs for their support at every stage of the project, from developingthe initial proposal, to contacting the colleges, to making suggestions for the text. Finally,our appreciation goes to the community college and program leaders who spent time withus, explained their goals and approaches, and enabled us to understand both the rewardingnature of their work and the difficulties with which they struggle.

Around the country, innovative community collegesare playing a larger role in helping low-skilledadults gain the valuable skills and credentials that

are the gateway to family-supporting careers. BreakingThrough looks at whether—and how—these institutionscan significantly improve the odds that low-income, low-skilled adults earn the college-level occupational and tech-nical credentials that remain elusive for many Americans.The report is based on a literature review, site visits toinnovative colleges and programs, interviews with practi-tioners and researchers, special sessions at national confer-ences, and a convening of practitioners who discussed theirprograms and reviewed preliminary research findings.

High-Leverage Strategies to Increase Access and Success

Exciting approaches at a number of community collegesshow promise for helping larger numbers of low-skilledadults advance their education beyond high school.Innovative programs are setting new benchmarks for whatis achievable and raising the bar for program performanceand outcomes. For example:

• At the Community College of Denver, Certified NursingAssistants at the lowest level of developmental math cangain the skills needed to enter a degree program leadingto a Licensed Practical Nurse degree. The workforcedevelopment program takes 24 weeks, compared with 45weeks in traditional developmental education.

• In Kentucky, the integration of Jefferson County’s adulteducation run by the K-12 school department with thecommunity college’s developmental education programhas enabled 77 percent of “dually enrolled” students totake college-level programs, compared to 30 to 35 per-cent nationally.

For low-skilled adults, successful approaches like theseuse four strategies to open up pathways from multipleentry points to a common goal: postsecondary credentials.Not every college or program implements all four, butJFF’s research suggests that impact is enhanced when thesestrategies are integrated into a synergistic approach to creat-ing multiple paths that adults can navigate toward occupa-tional or technical degrees.

Strategy One: Integrated Institutional Structures and Services.Innovative community colleges are integrating adult edu-cation, workforce development, developmental education,and non-credit programs to create multiple paths for stu-dents with low basic skills or pre-college skills to enter andsucceed in occupational and technical degree programs.

To integrate programs and services, communitycolleges:

• Connect ABE and ESOL to workforce programmingand mainstream college programs, with aligned coursecontent and credentials;

• Integrate developmental and degree programs, using thecontent of credit-level courses as a context for improvingskills, increasing the number of students who make itthrough gatekeeper courses, and improving motivationand persistence;

• Combine a range of public and private funding sourcesto expand access from multiple entry points to degreeprograms; and

• Create clear, easy-to-navigate transitions from non-creditto credit programs and from multiple entry, exit, andreentry points to the degree programs.

Strategy Two: Accelerated Learning. The longer it takes tolearn skills and complete programs, the less likely an adultis to advance from one stage to the next. Innovativeinstructional practices and program designs accelerateadvancement to meaningful learning gains and programcompletion.

While accelerating learning and improving completionrates in varying ways, these programs commonly improvestudent outcomes through three key strategies:

• Diagnostic assessments that create individualized, com-petency-based instruction focused on what each studentneeds to master;

• Short-term, intensive learning programs that enableadults to progress rapidly and complete programs morequickly; and

• Contextualized course content, using an occupationalfocus to help students learn more and faster.

Breaking Through: Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter and Succeed in College and Careers

Executive Summary

2 Breaking Through

Strategy Three: Labor Market Payoffs. Promising strategiesdirectly link education to meaningful economic payoffs.Deeply rooted in local labor markets, these strategies aredriven by employer needs and economic development pri-orities. The strategies:

• Focus on high-demand occupations, offering high wagesand opportunities for advancement;

• Actively engage employers so that adults develop skillsfor real jobs; and

• Tie the acquisition of reading, writing, math and Englishskills to how broad occupations or career paths use thoseskills.

Strategy Four: Comprehensive Supports. To help low-incomeadults succeed in college even when struggling to supporttheir families, innovative institutions are implementingvarious approaches to providing comprehensive supports:for example, career counseling, tutoring and other aca-demic supports, personal case management, and learningcommunities. Breaking Through documents, through fieldresearch, how community colleges are organizing theirown departments, as well as other providers, to supportthe creation of pathways connecting multiple programs.These supports:

• Are provided through the college and/or through part-nerships with external organizations;

• Provide career guidance or job search support that linkeducational advancement to economic payoffs; and

• At their best, address the issues facing low-literacy adultsattempting to advance educationally.

Promising State Policies. The primary concern of this studyis institution-level strategies, but each field-based exampleillustrates the significant impact of state policy on thecapacity of community colleges to promote advancement.Only a few states have policies that support transitionsfrom adult education and workforce development to col-lege, and from non-credit to credit programs; many states’policies inhibit such transitions.

Promoting and Accelerating Innovation

Innovative practices remain the exception rather than therule, yet there is an opportunity to strengthen emergingapproaches, spread them within institutions and to morecolleges, and make them more sustainable.

JFF’s research identified two populations of low-skilledadults who are most likely to benefit from these efforts.Initiatives should target: 1) adults with sixth- to eighth-grade-level skills, helping them move quickly to completehigh school, develop pre-college skills, and benefit fromdevelopmental education; and 2) adults with eighth- totenth-grade pre-college skills, helping them develop col-lege-level skills and enter credit programs.

Moreover, the research points to the kinds of collegesbest able to make sustainable progress: those that arealready committed to developing and implementing inno-vative practices. It is extremely difficult to drive program-matic and institutional change externally.

Discussions with community college leaders and prac-titioners suggest placing a priority on and directing sup-port to the following types of activity:

• R&D assistance for “early adopter” community colleges,in order to promote institutional integration, acceleratedlearning, connections to the labor market, and compre-hensive student support, with all efforts systematicallydocumenting individual outcomes;

• Peer learning among colleges receiving R&D assistanceto promote the rapid exchange of knowledge aboutpromising practices and avoid “reinventing the wheel”;

• Broad peer learning and other awareness efforts amongcommunity colleges nationally to increase understandingof promising practices that support advancement forlow-literacy adults;

• The strengthening of community college leadershipcommitted to this agenda through leadership academiesand related activities; and

• The identification and support of state policies thatadvance programmatic and institutional changes benefit-ing low-income adults.

Jobs for the Future 3

These are challenging times for community collegeworkforce educators. On the one hand, the com-munity college continues to grow and develop as

one of the most important parts of American highereducation. Over half of the students entering highereducation credit programs start in community college.Moreover, our institutions are beginning to be wellknown by the public. A recent national poll of 600adults showed strong public support for communitycolleges to become the institutions of higher educa-tional opportunity for all Americans. Eighty-one per-cent of the respondents knew or were related to some-one who attended a community college.

At the same time, there is great uncertainty aboutthe specific mission and role of workforce educationwithin the community college environment. There aredebates within the community college movement overthe importance of non-credit instruction, the rolewithin workforce education of the “new vocationaloccupations” (information technology, health care,teaching), and the linkage of liberal arts and criticalthinking skills to technical skills. In a real sense, specificissues of mission and focus become even more criticalas all education becomes concerned with workforceeducation.

Our debates over the future of workforce educationoccur within an extraordinary context. The growinginequality of American society, coupled with theincreasing significance of formal education for economicsuccess, is driving large numbers of low-income studentsto our institutions. In addition, globalization trends areincreasing the number of new immigrants who are stillmastering English. The challenge facing these individu-als is not simply to master technical skills; they oftenlack the basic literacy skills needed to do college-levelstudies. Nor it is sufficient to tell these students to con-tinue or restart their education in the traditional linearfashion of developing foundation skills and then movinginto postsecondary education. Many of these studentsneed to take literacy and basic skills training as part oftheir technical training. Many will learn English bestwithin the context of technical education.

The learning demands of these low-income stu-dents and their families are the next major challenge for

workforce educators. We believe that community col-lege workforce education can play a major role in rais-ing the college participation and completion rates forlow-income students and their families. Indeed, theexperiences of allied health and nursing programs atcommunity colleges indicate that when students havethe prospect of obtaining a good, stable job, they oftenmaster basic math and science concepts far morequickly than students from higher-income, better-edu-cated backgrounds. The promise of a better economicfuture is a great motivator.

The task of creating technical programs for low-income students will not be easy. Community collegesface fresh challenges in attempting to serve the needs oflow-income working adults, most of whom seek basiceducation and literacy skills.

Some of the solutions to these dilemmas can befound within our own organizations, including theNational Council for Workforce Education. Whilemany community colleges possess extensive basiceducation and ESOL programs, these are often discon-nected from the rest of the institution and staffed bypeople who are uninvolved in the college’s centralactivities. As Breaking Through indicates, though, somecolleges are taking a different approach, linking adultbasic education not just to GED or ESOL programsbut to the offerings that motivate low-wage workers toattend community college in the first place: those thatprepare students for success in the workplace. We havejoined with Jobs for the Future in this initial study sowe can begin to detail some of the features of theseprograms.

Here are some success stories. Northern VirginiaCommunity College has collaborated with local med-ical providers to connect adults who have low literacyskills to allied health degree programs. The CommunityCollege of Denver took a struggling job training pro-gram for entry-level health care workers, redesigned thecurriculum, and produced college-ready workers in lessthan six months. Tacoma Community College inte-grated its ESOL and early childhood programs to helpstudents earn credits toward a degree in child care. Allthese innovations benefit low-wage workers by helpingthem increase their wages and upward mobility.

Preface:

Why Adult and Basic Education Matter to Workforce Educators in Community Colleges

4 Breaking Through

Common to these stories are several importantdesign elements:

• Credit and non-credit programs are connected so thatadults can move seamlessly into college.

• The curriculum is contextual and relates directly tospecific occupational fields.

• Support services do not stop at a specific literacy levelbut instead focus on helping students enter degreeprograms.

• There is attention to the “hand offs” within an insti-tution as students move from one part of the collegeto another.

• Knowledge is organized in shorter “chunks,” withdegrees and credentials of value granted early in theprocess.

• Attention is paid to the financial conditions of stu-dents and their families as the institutions seek waysto overcome the biases of traditional student aid andother student service issues.

Basic and adult education programs, includingmost ESOL programs, should become a feeder systemfor community college occupational programs. Thoseindividuals who work in the adult education programsof our institutions are part of workforce education.Indeed, an organization such as the National Council

for Workforce Education might aid in fostering aninstitutional respect for these activities within theinstructional units. Many of the most promising initia-tives are coming from the heroic efforts of a few tal-ented and dedicated individuals whose work will vanishwithout an organizational presence. We believe theycan and should be members of organizations such asNCWE. And we believe this study conducted by Jobsfor the Future in partnership with NCWE will help usrecognize our common interests and aid in uniting ourwork.

There are justifiable concerns about the cost andcomplexity of these programs, yet they offer a hugeopportunity—for both students and colleges. The con-nection between adult education and college workforcedevelopment is precisely what policymakers considerimportant for the future, as evidenced by the manystate governments that are placing adult education pro-grams within their community college structures.

Such programs are central to the mission of com-munity colleges. Now we must rise to the challenge ofmaking them central to our organizations. TheNational Council for Workforce Education sees this asan important area for our future efforts. BreakingThrough is only the first step. In the coming year, theNCWE will continue our partnership with Jobs for theFuture to develop practical projects that link adult edu-cation to technical and occupational training. We urgeall community college practitioners, and those whosupport this work outside of the colleges, to join us inthese efforts.

On behalf of the National Council for WorkforceEducation,

Jim Jacobs Nan Poppe

Jim Jacobs is associate director of the Community College ResearchCenter at Teachers College, Columbia University, the director ofthe Center of Workforce Development and Policy at MacombCommunity College, and president of NCWE. Nan Poppe ispresident of the Portland Community College Extended LearningCampus and a member of the NCWE Executive Board


I n today’s economy, postsecondary credentials are thedifference between family self-sufficiency and notbeing able to make ends meet. Yet half of all adults in

the United States have only a high school credential orless; 20 percent have not graduated from high school.1

That so many adults lack both the skills and the creden-tials they need to get good jobs and support a family isan immense challenge for individuals and the nation.

Around the country, innovative community col-leges are taking steps to play a larger role in helpinglow-skilled adults gain the skills and credentials that area threshold for most family-supporting careers.Breaking Through looks at whether and how commu-nity colleges can significantly improve the odds thatlow-income, low-skilled adults with a high school edu-cation or less can earn college-level occupational andtechnical credentials. It focuses on promising strategiesthat community colleges are using, internally andthrough partnerships, to create pathways that enablelow-income, low-skilled adults to gain occupationaland technical credentials. It looks at the challenges thatcommunity colleges face in developing and implement-ing promising strategies and practices. And it examinesthe opportunities for, and barriers to, bringing promis-ing strategies to greater scale.

The study addresses the intertwined concerns of theNational Council for Workforce Education, Jobs forthe Future, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.With an institution focus, NCWE asked JFF to iden-tify strategies and practices that community collegescan use to increase the number of under-prepared stu-dents who enter and succeed in occupational and tech-nical degree programs. With a population focus, theMott Foundation, which funded this research, is inter-ested in strategies and practices for helping low-income,working-age adults attain postsecondary skills and cre-dentials, leading ultimately to economic gains.

The analysis in Breaking Through is based on anintensive review of research literature coupled with afield investigation of transitions: 1) from adult educa-tion and other basic skills programs to GeneralEducational Development credentials; 2) from GEDsand workforce programs into community colleges; and3) from developmental education into and through col-lege-level degree programs.2 The research focused onthe barriers that low-income, low-skilled adults face at

every stage of education and career advancement, whatactually happens to low-skilled adults in basic skills andcommunity college programs, and strategies to over-come these barriers and achieve better outcomes.

Field research built on community college networksand connections available through NCWE and priorwork by Jobs for the Future to identify innovative pro-grams and colleges for further study. The findings arebased on site visits to innovative community collegesand adult education programs; phone interviews withhighly regarded practitioners and researchers in thefields of adult literacy, developmental education andworkforce development; interviews and special interestsessions conducted at national conferences; and a con-vening of twelve practitioners in these fields who dis-cussed their own programs and reviewed and com-mented on preliminary findings from the research.Nineteen sites were selected for visits, based on referralsfrom the research process and from experts in commu-nity college adult education practice.

Breaking Through can be used by community col-lege leaders at the institutional level and by programleaders and practitioners in adult education, workforcedevelopment, developmental education, non-creditcontinuing education, and occupational and technicalcredit programs. It provides a guide to developing, sus-taining, and expanding strategies that create pathwaysfor low-skilled adults from multiple entry points tooccupational/technical certificates and degrees. Thereport can also be used by adult education state andprogram leaders, by state workforce and economicdevelopment leaders, and by local workforce boards todevelop and implement changes that expand opportu-nities for education and economic advancement.

The emphasis of the research was the institution,looking at what colleges can do and how well they cando it. Nevertheless, state policies can play an importantrole in enhancing or stifling the development andimplementation of strategies for helping low-skilledadults advance toward postsecondary credentials andfamily-supporting careers. The findings of this reportcan inform state officials and policymakers as theyseek to encourage promising strategies, remove obsta-cles to those strategies, and strengthen the connectionsbetween promising state policies and communitycollege practice.

Introduction

An occupational or technical Associate’s degree is thegateway to family-supporting career employment. Menwho have attained an occupational Associate’s degreeearn 30 percent more than high school graduates withsimilar backgrounds; women with occupational creden-tials earn 47 percent more. The earnings advantagefrom occupational Associate’s degrees is significantlygreater than the gains from one year of community col-lege, from advanced certificates, or from academicAssociate’s degrees (Silverberg et al. 2004).

This valuable credential is elusive for too manyAmericans. Almost 90 million adults over age 25 have ahigh school diploma or less and no postsecondary edu-cation: 36 million adults did not graduate from highschool and 52 million have a high school credential butno further education. The problem is most serious forAfrican-American and Latino adults (see Chart 1).More than one quarter of African-American adults andnearly half of all Latino adults did not graduate fromhigh school, compared to 15 percent of white adults.Almost 60 percent of African-American and 70 percentof Latino adults have a high school credential or less,compared to 45 percent of white adults.

It is estimated that a total of about 65 million 18-to 64-year-old adults—42 percent of all working-ageadults—lack the skills needed to succeed in postsec-ondary education and the modern workplace. Theseinclude nearly 7 million adults with limited Englishproficiency, 23 million adults who did not graduatefrom high school, and 34 million high school graduateswho lack the basic skills needed in the modern work-place (Comings, Reder, and Sum 2001).

The Pursuit of Economic Advancement

This is not to suggest that these individuals do not seekto advance: more than 17 million adults with a highschool credential or less participate in formal educationor training. Almost 3 million are in adult education,more than 4.5 million in part-time postsecondary edu-cation, and almost 10 million in work-related educa-tion (see Chart 2). It’s important to note that enroll-ments in ABE/ESOL, programs that are often theexclusive focus of research in this area, make up lessthan 20 percent of the total enrollment.

Unfortunately, though, very few participants in anyof these programs manage to move up. There are major

6 Breaking Through

Part I.

The Scope of the Problem

Associate's Degree or Higher

Some College, No Degree

High School Only

Less than High School

All

Ad

ult

sB

lack

His

pan

ic

19.6%

27.2%

47.6%

28.6%

29.8%

22.1%

21.0%

22.5%

15.6%

30.7%

20.0%

14.7%

ABE1,730,000

ESL1,180,000

Part-Time Postsecondary 4,555,000

Work-Related9,936,000

Total in Any Program17,401,000

Total # of Adults88,165,000

CHART 1

Educational Attainment by Race and Ethnicity,Adults 25 and Older

CHART 2

Participation in Education and Training by Adultswith a High School Credential or Less

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, P148A-D. Sex by EducationalAttainment for the Population 25 Years and Over. Data Set:Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF3), Sample Data. Accessed athttp://factfinder.census.gov

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Table 359, accessedat http://www.nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/dt359.asp;and Table 359, accessed athttp://www.nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/dt360.asp


leakages at every point in the pipeline from these pro-grams to credit-level degree programs in communitycollege.

Transitions from Low Basic Skills to High SchoolCompletion

As an example of the leakage, the GED system is pri-marily an alternative route to high school completionfor recent dropouts with higher cognitive skills ratherthan functioning as a pipeline for low-skilled olderadults. While the terms “adult education” and “GEDprep” are often used interchangeably, in reality only 30percent of GED recipients come through the adult edu-cation system; 70 percent prepare for the tests in otherways. About 40 percent of GED recipients are 19 oryounger, two-thirds are 24 or younger, and nearly 80percent are younger than 30.3 Half of all GED creden-tials issued each year are earned by dropouts within twoyears of what would have been their high school gradu-ation. GED recipients spend an average of only 30hours preparing for the tests, meaning that the processdoes little to improve academic skills.

In one adult education program serving 600 stu-dents—a well-run program serving a high proportionof low-skilled adults (half of the students read at asixth-grade level or less)—only 15 to 20 students earn aGED credential each year. These numbers are typical.Nationally, only 7 percent of students in federal- andstate-funded WIA Title II adult education programsearned a GED in the year after program participation,and only 2 percent entered college (see Chart 3) (U.S.Department of Education 2002).4

Transitions from High School Completion toCollege Enrollment

The primary economic value of a GED credential liesin providing access to college and eligibility for finan-cial aid. Taking skill level and prior education intoaccount, there is little difference between the earningsof high school dropouts and those who earn a GEDand stop their education at that point (Boesel, Absalam,and Smith 1998).

However, very few people who earn GEDs enroll incollege and far fewer get a college credential: although65 percent of people who take GED tests say they aredoing so in order to go to college, 30 to 35 percent ofGED recipients actually enter college, 10 to 15 percentfinish one year of college, and only 4 percent earn anAssociate’s degree (see Chart 4) (Reder 1998).

Most GED recipients, along with many high schoolgraduates who enter postsecondary education, are notprepared to succeed in credit-level degree programs.About 40 to 50 percent of all students who enter com-munity college must take at least one developmentaleducation course. In urban community colleges thatserve low-income, low-skilled adults, as many as 70 to80 percent of students take developmental courses.

From College Enrollment to a Degree

While occupational degree programs represent a majorgateway to jobs paying family-supporting wages, manycommunity college students do not make it into orthrough degree programs. Half of all entering studentsdo not complete their first year of community college.Developmental education does help many students with

CHART 3

Title II System High School Completion andPostsecondary Outcomes, 2000-2001

Source: U.S. Department of Education 2002

CHART 4

Postsecondary Outcomes of GED Recipients

Source: Reder 1998

All Students2,673,000

Have High School Completion As a Goal600,000

Complete High School198,000

Enroll in College54,000

Take test to enter college65%

Enter college30-35%

Finish at least one year of college10-15%

Earn an Associate's Degree4%

pre-college skills enter and succeed in credit-level pro-grams, but for many others it is a formidable barrierblocking the way into credit-level degree programs.5 Onestudy found that only a quarter of students who tookthree developmental courses had completed all threecourses five years later; only 4 percent had graduated; 78percent had left without a credential (Grubb 2001).

Traditional degree programs are not designed toreflect the realities of life for low-skilled working adults,many of them with families. While Associate’s degreesare frequently referred to as “two-year degrees,” it takesan average five to six years to earn them. Many commu-nity college students are adults who can only attend part-time and in spurts. Overall, 68 percent of communitycollege occupational students complete less than a year’sworth of courses in five years (Silverberg et al. 2004).

Institutional and Individual Barriers toCollege Success

Low-income, low-skilled working adults have to over-come difficult barriers in order to complete high school,enter college, and make the transition from pre-collegeskills into and through credit-level degree programs. It isnot easy for working adults to balance education withwork and family obligations. Low-income adults alsoface institutional barriers caused by lack of access toaffordable housing, health care, child care, and trans-portation. These obstacles are compounded by the frag-mented, disconnected, and difficult to access nature ofthe education, training, and support services they need.

These barriers weaken persistence at every level.While many GED recipients have the cognitive skills tosucceed in postsecondary education, the risk factorslinked to dropping out of high school remain seriousbarriers to success in adult education, workforce devel-opment, and community college (Boesel, Absalam, andSmith 1998):

• Despite high cognitive skills, many GED recipientsdid not do well academically in high school and needhelp in developing academic “survival skills.”

• GED recipients have, on average, about four of the sevenrisk factors that are predictors of postsecondary attritionfor non-traditional students; high school graduates withregular diplomas average about one risk factor.6

• GED completers who enter college have significantlylower incomes than other high school graduates.GED recipients in college come from families thataverage near the bottom third in socio-economic sta-tus, while high school graduates with regular diplo-mas rank almost twice as high.

• The socioeconomic status of GED recipients whoattend college is similar to that of high school gradu-ates in developmental education. This indicates thathigh school graduates who are not prepared for col-lege face many of the same barriers as postsecondarystudents with GED credentials.

Fragmented and Unconnected Education Programs

Although community colleges offer many of the adulteducation, workforce development, social support, anddevelopmental education services that low-skilledadults need, they are often unconnected and frag-mented, even though such programs serve many of thesame people:

• ABE and ESOL programs in community colleges areoften disconnected from workforce programs and therest of the college.

• Developmental education and occupational degreeprograms are often separate and sequential rather thanintegrated. Developmental programs frequently focuson traditional academic skills needed for introductoryEnglish and math courses, rather than on the reading,writing, and math skills students need for careers.

• Much of the work-related education and trainingoffered by community colleges does not result in col-lege credit; students cannot build on the courses theyhave completed toward a college degree.

• Advising and academic and social supports often failto reach adult education and workforce developmentstudents.

• With the exception of occupational programs, com-munity college programs at every level are too rarelylinked to labor market skills or to direct economicpayoffs.

• Education is often organized around long-term pro-grams, rather than meaningful short-term credentialsor economic payoffs. Adult education students whodo not get a GED and community college studentswho do not get a degree often get no credentials evenafter spending years in education programs.

Adult education, workforce development, anddevelopmental education practitioners often see them-selves as part of separate and unrelated fields, ratherthan viewing their role as preparing students for thenext level of education and career advancement or asserving as stepping stones to technical credentials. Inmany cases, the academic mission of community col-leges does not recognize the importance or legitimacy

8 Breaking Through


of integrating workplace competencies into the curricu-lum, and the staff of adult education programs do notbelieve that helping students improve occupationalskills should be part of their mission. In turn, manyworkforce programs do not see the importance ofimproving basic reading, writing, mathematics, orEnglish language skills. It is as if elementary school,middle school, and high school were operated by differ-ent agencies, used different funding streams, the exitcompetencies of each level were unrelated to the entrycompetencies of the next level, and each saw its missiononly in terms of completing its level.

The Barrier of Time

It takes strong motivation and great persistence to makethe sacrifices necessary to stay on track. Most workingadult students attend educational programs part-timeand in spurts. Low-income, low-skilled adults may haveto juggle classes with work and family obligations;many study late at night after their children are asleep.It takes years to make the transition from low basicskills to high school completion and college entry, andmore time to advance from developmental educationinto credit-level degree programs. The time it takeseven to see progress, let alone complete programs, has anegative effect on motivation and persistence:

• Half of the adults who enroll in adult educationclasses drop out before 35 hours or 10 weeks, andonly 10 percent of ABE and 25 percent of ESOL stu-dents attend classes continuously for a year (Comings,Parella, and Soricone 1999).

• Nearly 70 percent of occupational students finish lessthan a year’s worth of community college over fiveyears (Silverberg et al. 2004).

Weak Connections to Employment andEconomic Payoffs

Low-income, low-skilled adults regard education as apath to economic opportunity. While they may spendyears pursuing a high school diploma or a collegedegree, they need short-term economic payoffs thathelp them get better jobs and higher pay.

Many community college students come fromschools with weak advising programs, which providelittle understanding of the education and skills neededto achieve occupational goals. Lack of compelling goalsweakens persistence in adult education (Comings,Parella, and Soricone 1999). At several community col-leges, JFF found that more than 40 percent of the stu-dents lack a career path or major and see no connection

between degree programs and career opportunities. Strong connections to employment and career lad-

der advancement linked to skill development showpromise in increasing the persistence and success oflow-income, low-skilled adults in achieving occupa-tional and technical credentials. However, because ofthe community college’s multiple missions and the pri-orities established by different institutions, many edu-cation programs are not designed to meet labor marketneeds, do not ensure that students learn skills valued byemployers offering high wages, and do not directly con-nect education milestones to meaningful credentials,articulated career ladders, and economic payoffs.

The development of career pathways, in turn, is asignificant challenge. It requires community colleges to,for example: build strong partnerships with employersdriven by labor market skill needs, develop new compe-tency-based curriculum, piecing funding together frommultiple unconnected funding streams, and gain thesupport of leaders and practitioners from multipleprograms.

Dropping Out and Stopping Out

Many working adults are one step away from a crisisthat can force them to drop out or stop out of educa-tion programs. This is especially true of single parentsand families where both parents work. Many of thesestudents are in jobs with high turnover; they haveunstable child care arrangements and inadequate healthcare; they live in increasingly expensive rental housing;and they rely on old cars or inadequate public transit.

As a result, almost half of the students who leaveadult education do so because of non-instructional fac-tors, such as the loss of child care, a job change, per-sonal or family illness, a change in housing, or trans-portation challenges (Comings, Parella, and Soricone1999). JFF’s phone survey of Portland CommunityCollege students who completed developmental coursesbut did not advance to the next level found that finan-cial aid and health problems were the key reasons forleaving.

Programs that incorporate academic and personalsupport services as an essential component of studentsuccess can improve retention and persistence for non-traditional adult students. However, almost all collegesthat choose to provide supportive services to non-tradi-tional students must support them with “soft” fundsrather than as part of the core college budget. Whensoft funding runs out, colleges face difficult choicesabout institutionalizing effective programs.

Despite the many challenges, some community collegeshave reorganized programs and services to becomemore responsive to, and successful with, low-skill, low-income adults. At a number of community collegesacross the country, JFF’s research found excitingapproaches that show promise for helping larger num-bers of low-skilled adults with a high school education.Community colleges are setting new benchmarks forwhat is achievable and raising the bar for program per-formance and outcomes.

• The Community College of Denver Social ServicesGED lab enables welfare recipients with seventh-grade skills who attend an average of 15 hours a weekto earn a GED in four months rather than severalyears. Its CNA-to-LPN workforce development pro-gram enables working adults at the lowest develop-mental math level to gain the skills needed to enterthe LPN degree program in 24 weeks; it takes 45weeks in traditional developmental education.

• The integrated adult and developmental educationprogram at Kentucky’s Mayo Campus of the BigSandy Community and Technical College Districtenables 85 percent of adult education students toenroll in credit-level programs; the vast majority ofGED recipients nationally have to take one or moredevelopmental courses. Moreover, 90 percent ofadult/developmental education students who enroll incredit courses graduate, compared to 15 percentnationally (Chisman 2004).

Programs like these, and the strategies and practiceson which they are based, show promise for significantlyincreasing the number of adults who advance from lowskills and low incomes to postsecondary credentials andfamily-supporting jobs. They are achieving results bydeveloping new approaches to basic skills education thatblur the traditional boundaries between adult education,workforce development, developmental education, andoccupational and technical postsecondary education.

Successful programs are based on four synergisticstrategies that are designed to reduce the barriers thatlow-skilled adults face and that open up pathways frommultiple entry points to the common goal of postsec-ondary credentials:

1. Integrating institutional structures and services toestablish links among programs and create pathwaysthat low-income, low-skilled students can navigateto gain postsecondary skills and credentials;

2. Accelerating learning to help students learn more,learn faster, and complete programs more quickly;

3. Providing labor market payoffs to help studentsgain intermediate credentials valued by employers,get a first or better job, and advance up career lad-ders as they gain skills and credentials; and

4. Providing comprehensive supports to help studentsdevelop education and career plans that providecompelling motivation to continue their educationand to provide academic and social supports thathelp students persist through difficult transitionpoints.

While many of these strategies and practices havebeen identified in previous research, all too often theresearch has been focused on one discipline only (suchas ABE or workforce education), masking the extent towhich these practices are needed in all the separate dis-ciplines. Moreover, much less is known about how toevolve and implement these practices, the obstaclesthey face, and the strategies they use to overcome thosebarriers. JFF’s field research has begun to identify someimportant lessons about how creative leaders and prac-titioners are developing these approaches and the obsta-cles they have to overcome.

We believe that the field would benefit tremen-dously from further research and development to gain adeeper understanding of how promising approaches aredeveloped, sustained, and spread to other parts of thecollege. This could play an important role in promotingthe development and implementation of theseapproaches and in accelerating the learning curve bothwithin and across colleges.

JFF also found promising strategies in a wide rangeof developmental stages and scale. We found promisingstart-up programs operating in a single departmentwith a creative leader, serving a small number of stu-dents, and focusing on a narrow range of populationsin a small number of career paths. We also found insti-tutions that are further along in the developmental

10 Breaking Through

Part II.

Synergistic, High-Leverage Strategies to Increase Access and Success


process. They have, over a period of years, improvedprogram quality, adopted promising strategies in alarger number of programs in different parts of theinstitution, and taken important steps toward institu-tionalizing innovative practices.

It is unusual to find a college that is implementingall four strategies. However, the research suggests thatthe impact of these strategies will be enhanced whenthey are integrated into a synergistic approach to creatingmultiple paths that adults can navigate across multipleprograms toward occupational/technical degree pro-grams.

Accelerated learning can strengthen persistence andimproves the odds of success in adult education anddevelopmental education. The time it takes to developskills and complete programs is a major barrier to per-sistence and success for working adults who attendpart-time and in spurts. Regardless of whatever otherstrategies are used, it appears that the faster adults canlearn and the more quickly they can complete programsand see progress, the more likely they are to stay oncourse.

Labor market payoffs and clear connections to gain-ing labor market skills also appear to strengthen persist-ence and increase the likelihood of success, regardless ofother strategies. Students can see tangible, meaningfulresults from their efforts and have concrete goals forfurther education. The ability to gain credentials valuedby employers and get higher pay at key milestones cantransform work into an asset rather than a barrier.

Of the four strategies, comprehensive services arealmost always implemented along with other strategies.The day-to-day challenges of life for low-income work-ing adults make it difficult for them to participate ineducation programs and are a major reason why manystudents stop out or drop out. Comprehensive advisingand support services can strengthen persistence by help-ing students deal with forces in their lives that pullthem away from continuing their education.

These innovative practices remain the exceptionrather than the rule. In many cases, they emerge insmall programs with soft funding and operate outsidethe traditional adult education, workforce develop-ment, or developmental education systems. This pro-vides a level of autonomy from policies, regulations,and traditional practices that is conducive to develop-ing innovative strategies, but it also raises importantquestions about whether and how innovative strategiescan spread to other parts of the college and affect main-stream institutional practice.

Strategy One: Integrate InstitutionalStructures and Services

To serve students with low basic or pre-college skills,some community colleges are redesigning internalstructures in order to integrate adult education, work-force development, developmental education, and non-credit programs and create multiple paths leading intoand through occupational and technical degree pro-grams. Some colleges are moving toward integration onan institutional level, while others pursue integration atthe program level among some, but not all, depart-ments. In either case, according to Nan Poppe, presi-dent of the Portland Community College ExtendedLearning Campus, the goal is for all programs to pro-vide access to career pathways, with no student engagedin education that does not lead to a degree.

Integration represents a mindset that is driven bythe needs of students rather than program or depart-mental boundaries. It requires a shift, for example,from gauging the effectiveness of developmental educa-tion not only by skill development and completionrates but also by the number of students who makerapid and successful transitions into credit-level degreeprograms. Thus, the process of developing an inte-grated adult/developmental education system atJefferson Community College was based on challengingdiscussions between practitioners in both fields. It led,as an interviewee told JFF, to a shared belief that “ittook awhile, but we realized that their students wereour students.”

Field research found community colleges that areintegrating their programs and services to create path-ways to occupational and technical degree programs.They do this by:

• Connecting ABE and ESOL to workforce program-ming and mainstream college programs and aligningcourse content and credentials;

• Integrating developmental and degree programs toalign content, using the content of credit-level coursesas a context for improving skills, increasing the num-ber of students who make it through gatekeepercourses, and improving motivation and persistence;

• Combining a broad range of public and private fund-ing sources to expand access from multiple entrypoints to degree programs;

• Creating clear, easy-to-navigate transitions from non-credit to credit programs; and

• Providing road maps that students can use to chart acourse to occupational degree programs from multipleentry, exit, and reentry points.

While JFF found promising examples of integratedstructures and systems that make a real difference forlow-skilled adults, we also found barriers that make itdifficult to build smooth transitions between tradition-ally separate programs that have different missions andgoals. For example, leaders and practitioners in adulteducation, workforce development, non-credit pro-grams, and developmental education often identifywith their fields or disciplines, rather than see theirniches as a continuum of stepping stones that help stu-dents advance from multiple entry points to credit-leveldegree programs. They may see conflicting missionsbetween adult education and workforce development,adult education and developmental education, creditand non-credit programs, and academic and occupa-tional programs. They may be divided by issues of pro-gram autonomy and competition for resources. While astrong leadership commitment makes it easier to insti-tute structural changes, it is far more difficult to forgemeaningful integration among program leaders andpractitioners.

In many cases, federal and state policies and regula-tions can pose serious obstacles to integration. Forexample, some regional directors of the WIA Title II(adult education) program do not allow adult educa-tion funds to be used for career pathway programs. Andsome state adult education and workforce developmentdirectors are more interested in protecting their turfthan in aligning their programs. Conversely, theresearch found several examples of state policies thatencourage integration within community colleges andbetween community colleges and programs beyondtheir walls.

Within this context of barriers and incentives, serv-ices integration is taking place at different levels in anumber of community colleges across the UnitedStates. The following examples are selected from thesites visited for this research.

Portland Community College and Mt. HoodCommunity College: Career Pathways forLow-Skill Adults

Portland Community College (PCC) in partnershipwith Mt. Hood Community College is integrating abroad range of programs and funding streams to createmodularized career pathways from adult education andworkforce development programs to credit-level occu-

pational/technical degree programs. These pathwaysmeet the needs of working adult students who can onlyattend in spurts and often have to “stop out.” They pro-vide multiple entry, exit, and reentry points into andthrough a broad range of programs that are directlylinked to jobs and specific employment outcomes.

The program targets jobs critical to the local econ-omy and create educational stepping stones to betterjobs and postsecondary certificates and degrees. Thisrequires ongoing analysis of the local labor market, aswell as strong partnerships with employers, in order toidentify skill needs and develop modules linked tomeaningful credentials and economic outcomes. Thecareer pathways trainings provide a 30-hour career cur-riculum, peer learning, community support, and jobsearch and placement assistance that offer a supportivefoundation for student success.

Modularized career pathways break degree pro-grams into manageable “chunks” of courses that aredriven by employer skill needs. The modules aredirectly linked to credentials valued by employers andto specific career ladder payoffs. This enables workingadult students to achieve short-term economic goalswhile working toward a degree, avoiding the need todevelop and seek approval for new curricula.

Nine professional technical career pathways provideshort-term occupational training that prepare low-liter-acy adults for jobs and mainstream postsecondary edu-cation. In addition, four “bridge” pathways trainingsserve non-native English speakers.7 The 13 career path-ways trainings serve 225 to 250 people annually, andapproximately 200 students enter internships each year.Two new professional technical and one new “bridge”pathway are under development.

The career pathways recruit students from OneStop Career Centers, TANF programs, GED classes,and ESOL classes. This multiple pipeline design is sup-ported by Oregon’s governance structure, which housesworkforce development, adult basic skills (ABE/GED/ESOL), and community colleges in one state agency.

Cohorts of participants enter through a one-termor two-term career pathways training, with internshipsprovided for most trainings. Staffing and infrastructureare funded through WIA by the local WorkforceInvestment Board. The career pathways training teamsserve as brokers with academic departments and coordi-nators to the 13 training cohorts, work with otherdepartments to develop new trainings, and providecareer planning, curriculum, internship coordination,and job development and placement services. Students

12 Breaking Through


enrolled in the professional technical career pathwaystrainings can use financial aid to complete other mod-ules because the modules are part of existing collegecertificate and degree programs (Kazis and Liebowitz2003). GED completers can enter through the promiseof 19 free college credits, which they can use to com-plete the first module of a pathway (but only in a singlesemester).

The development of integrated pathways is sup-ported by a core of creative leaders, many of whomhave been at PCC for many years and have worked in abroad range of adult education, workforce, non-credit,and developmental programs. They share a strong com-mitment to integrating these programs with oneanother and with the college’s credit-level side. Severalwho began as program leaders now serve in key posi-tions at PCC and are mentoring a new generation ofprogrammatic leadership.

The college faces several barriers to extending mod-ularized career pathways to other occupations and sec-tors. The development of pathways began with facultywho were most interested in moving to a competency-based modularized approach, and new pathways arestill being developed by faculty who want to do it.Getting faculty who are not supportive to adopt a mod-ularized pathways approach could present new obsta-cles. Similarly, pathways have been developed onlywhere there are strong relationships with employers.

The career pathways approach reflects an under-standing that a college has to go beyond a singleencounter with students to multiple encounters,because so many working adults stop out and returnmultiple times. Many students who achieve certificateslinked to better jobs achieve their goals and do notreturn to continue toward a degree. Like other collegesdesigning curricula and certification to meet the needsof working adults, PCC and MHCC face the challengeof how to get students to come back after achievingshort-term goals. To do this, PCC is developing a Web-based system of access to the college through which stu-dents will be able to post their personal academic plansand goals, see their progress, and decide what to donext. The college plans to use the system to stay moreconnected to students who have stopped out and tosend customized emails to targeted groups of students,such as developmental students who completed acourse but did not continue on.

Jefferson Community College: IntegratingDevelopmental Education with an IndependentABE System

A partnership in Kentucky between JeffersonCommunity College and the adult education systembased in the public school district has made majorstrides toward an integrated adult/developmental edu-cation system, with the common mission of strengthen-ing adult transitions from basic skills and literacy pro-grams into college. This demonstrates how much canbe achieved when state and local leaders agree on a goaland collaborate to make it happen.

At the heart of the partnership is an agreement thatanyone who enrolls in Jefferson Community Collegewith a COMPASS8 score below a cutoff point isassigned to the adult education program; students withscores that are higher, but still below the college mini-mum, enroll in developmental education. Such stu-dents are “dually enrolled”—and therefore help bothsystems meet their annual enrollment targets. They aretaught by teachers from the adult education system, butthe program is taught at the college campus, and stu-dents have college IDs, email addresses, and other col-lege perks.

The curriculum is designed to promote college suc-cess. For example, the curriculum includes research-ing/report writing because the academic dean feltstrongly this is a key skill for college; it was missing intraditional ABE. And it is free, because it is adult edu-cation rather than college developmental education.

A real effort is made to create a supportive environ-ment: counselors support students from the pointwhere they learn their COMPASS scores, through pro-gram enrollment and beyond. It took time for the sup-port program to gel—for one thing, ABE and the col-lege used different computer systems—but progress hasbeen steady. A total of 2,830 students had been “duallyenrolled” through August 2004; 77 percent have goneon to take credit classes. Overall, the college increasedits enrollment of GED grads by 9 percent between2003 and 2004.

Ironically, several years ago, Jefferson County mighthave stood as an example of why the “transitions” taskis so difficult. The public school system and the com-munity college were jousting over the right to run theadult education program. Leadership changes at thecollege, along with some incentives and technical assis-tance from the state, changed that. Today, leaders ofboth systems have signed a memorandum of under-standing setting out their respective responsibilities,

and they meet regularly to review goals and strategies.As one teacher said, “It took awhile, but we realizedthat their students were our students.”

Supportive state policies have provided a crucialimpetus to the the integration of adult education anddevelopmental education. While adult education andcommunity colleges are governed by separate agencies,Kentucky provides strong incentives for an integratedapproach to creating smooth transitions from one sys-tem to the other. State incentives and performancemeasures drive both systems to operate in ways that gobeyond their traditional boundaries to promote eco-nomic development, provide customized workforceeducation, and improve transitions to postsecondaryeducation (Chisman 2004).

Kentucky’s policies spring from a series of legislativereforms aimed at improving economic strength througheducation, driven by the state’s low ranking in educa-tion outcomes, economic strength, and living standardsfor adults with low skills. Data from one recent reportshow why commitment is so high in Kentucky: in2003, for example, 83 percent of GED exam takersreported incomes under $10,000 (Newberry andScoskie 2004).

Kentucky’s 1998 Postsecondary Reform Act isdesigned to help low-income adults with low skills,such as those taking the GED tests, and to reduce thelarge skills shortage that hinders economic develop-ment. The act sets several performance targets, withincentives for community colleges and adult educationprograms to collaboratively develop innovativeapproaches to meet those targets. Performance bench-marks include increasing the number of Kentuckianswho are ready for college, increasing transitions fromadult basic education to postsecondary education, rais-ing enrollments in college, and increasing advancementthrough the system. Statewide, adult education enroll-ments have quadrupled in the past four years; the col-lege-going rate of GED recipients has almost doubled(King and King-Simms 2004).

Tacoma Community College: Merging ABE/ESOLwith Technical Training

Tacoma Community College in Washington recentlyintegrated its ABE, ESOL, and workforce programs tocreate pathways from low literacy into degree programsin several occupational areas. The changes started over ayear ago, when the opening of a deanship coincidedwith state efforts to connect adult literacy programs tojob training. The State Board of Community and

Technical Colleges had convened the state Council ofWorkforce Educators and the Council of Adult BasicEducators together and brought in speakers fromaround the country to explain what they had done toconnect education and technical training.Subsequently, the board sponsored regional meetingsof the same people and made small grants to supportinnovation.

When the deanship opened up at Tacoma, collegeleaders saw an opportunity to be more deliberate in fol-lowing the state’s guidance by reconfiguring the posi-tion to combine basic skills ABE and ESOL with work-force training. A state grant helped support the creationof the new Department of Workforce Education. Thenew Dean of Workforce Education and the director ofadult education have developed a model for pathwaysthat integrates contextualized ABE or ESOL with tech-nical training in career paths. These are designed as thefirst stage in advancement from basic skills to newlycreated certificates linked to higher wages and articu-lated to degree programs.

Tacoma has implemented the models in early child-hood education. Low-paid assistants with limitedEnglish speaking ability have been recruited from localchild care centers—with the full support of theiremployers. They enter a program that integrates thecurricula of ESOL and introductory early childhoodeducation in an intensive, team-taught course. At thecompletion of the program, graduates receive ninehours of credit toward a two-year degree and a certifi-cate that entitles them to higher wages at local childcare centers. The instructors, who originally were reluc-tant, now are its champions.

The program provides counseling about degree pro-grams, helps students with the application and financialaid processes, and provides job placement and educa-tional planning support. Classes are held in the eveningso students can work during the day. Students spendthree hours each week on occupational content, ninehours on ESOL support, and ten hours in a practicumor work experience.

A major start-up cost was the development of anintegrated ESOL and occupational curriculum basedon the competencies required for a ChildhoodDevelopment Associate certificate and articulated tocredit-level degree programs. Another challenge was thecost of team teaching: double that of having oneteacher per course.

Currently, Tacoma is implementing the model inhealth care. The idea is to link entry-level nurse assis-

14 Breaking Through


tants, including those with very limited English, tohigher-skilled and paying jobs.

San Jacinto College North: Restructuring theCollege to Support Low-Skill Adults

In 1996, a new leadership team at San Jacinto NorthCollege saw the lack of coordination among its techni-cal, academic, continuing education, and student serv-ices divisions as a key problem. Since then, SJCN hasfocused on integrating all parts of the college to supportstudent success. Every program plan now must includea Student Success Initiative, with such elements aslearning communities, supplemental instruction, ortutoring.

A large proportion of GED recipients and ESOLstudents enter SJCN through continuing education. Inthe past, few made the transition from this level intocredit programs. To change this, the college developedlinked courses in which continuing education andcredit-level students take the same course with the samecurriculum. If continuing education students decide toenter credit-level programs, they can petition to getcredit for their work in the linked courses. This innova-tion required agreement from credit-level faculty, whichwas made possible by the president’s strong commit-ment. SJCN had 38 linked classes by 2001, and almostall technical courses are taught as linked classes.

The college also has built a strong partnership withadult education provided by the Harris CountyDepartment of Education. The key is a division oflabor: the college focuses on advanced classes, and theschool district operates beginning classes. The collegeand the county share resources and students. The col-lege makes a special effort to recruit GED graduates,and county programs refer former students to SJCN.State adult education benchmarks—for the number ofstudents who get GEDs and the number of GED grad-uates who enter postsecondary education—encouragethe collaboration. The president of San Jacinto CollegeNorth speaks at every county GED graduation cere-mony, encouraging graduates to see their new diplomaas the first step toward postsecondary education. Thecollege has tables outside the ceremony to help studentsfill out application and financial aid forms. SJCN sendsa recruitment letter to every GED recipient.

About 40 percent of SJCN students enter without acareer path or major. Career counselors help themdevelop a clear idea about why they are there. Enrollingstudents who have not decided on a major go to thecounseling center for testing and career evaluation. The

fall-to-spring retention rate for undeclared majors whoparticipated in career counseling has increased from 48percent to 83 percent, addressing a major cause of first-year attrition.9 The impact of career counseling isenhanced by locating educational advising within theacademic and technical programs to better help stu-dents navigate a course to certificates and degrees thatwould enable them to achieve their career goals.

Many SJCN programs are modular—in partbecause the state prefers that approach. Students earncertificates for completing modules, which they canaccumulate for a degree. Students can enter and exiteducation as their circumstances permit.

After the college identified improvement of devel-opmental education as a cornerstone of institutionalimprovement, it reorganized that program using aHigher Education Act Title V grant. Faculty receivedprofessional development on effective adult educationinstructional practices; SJCN also created computer-assisted learning labs and established a math and readinglearning community. As a result, the number of stu-dents entering college-level courses from the develop-mental program has more than doubled since 1996.SJCN’s developmental program was the first in thenation to be certified in reading, writing, and math bythe National Association of Developmental Education.

Strategy Two: Accelerated Learning

A major barrier to persistence and success is the time ittakes working adults—who attend part-time, attend inspurts, and face serious barriers to persistence—toprogress from basic skills to pre-college skills, from pre-college skills to college readiness, and from collegereadiness to degrees. The longer it takes to learn skillsand complete programs, the less likely it is that an adultwill advance from one stage to the next.

JFF found innovative adult education programsand community college basic skills programs that areimplementing instructional practices and programdesigns that accelerate the advancement of adults tomeaningful learning gains and credentials. Newapproaches to teaching basic skills go outside the tradi-tional practices of adult education, workforce develop-ment, and developmental education.

While accelerating learning and program comple-tion in different ways, these programs use three keystrategies to improve performance and student out-comes:

• Diagnostic assessments are a foundation for individu-alized, competency-based instruction that focuses on

what each student needs to master and spends as littletime as possible on what students already know.

• Short-term intensive learning programs enable adultsto make rapid progress and complete programs morequickly. This strengthens persistence by enabling stu-dents to see progress, and it meets the needs of work-ing adults who attend in spurts.

• Course content is contextualized, usually with anoccupational focus to help students learn more andfaster. This helps students see the meaning of whatthey are learning and how that moves them closer totheir goals. It also is effective for many adults forwhom traditional high school instructional practiceswere not effective.

There are several barriers to accelerating learning.Some states, for example, set requirements for seat timein formal classes that must use the same curriculum forall students, precluding individualized diagnosis andinstruction. States that establish sharp boundariesbetween adult education and workforce developmentcreate barriers to contextualized learning strategies, asdo state and federal funding policies that prohibit theuse of adult education funds for integrated career path-ways. At a program level, funds are scarce for develop-ing contextualized curricula and computer-assistedassessment in basic skills.

For all these reasons, many accelerated learningprograms operate outside the traditional adult educa-tion, workforce development, and developmental edu-cation systems. Often they are found in innovative,basic skills programs that use soft funding to adopt anintegrated approach to learning basic academic andoccupational skills.

Owensboro Community and Technical College:Adult Learning Center Helps Low-Skill AdultsQualify for Local Jobs

At Owensboro Community and Technical College inKentucky, supportive state policies with funds attachedand a strongly committed college president have com-bined to create an adult learning system that enableshundreds of local adults to learn literacy and job skillsat an accelerated pace. As noted above, Kentucky’suniquely coherent approach directs the adult basic edu-cation system and the community and technical collegesystem to collaborate to advance skills and prepare aworkforce that attracts and retains businesses. AtOwensboro, the college president takes that mandate toheart and is committed to ensuring that even the low-

est-literacy members of the community benefit. The first step was to merge the workforce and eco-

nomic development unit with adult basic education.The new department’s leadership has, in turn, estab-lished an attractive and welcoming adult learning cen-ter that is individualized, self-paced, and diagnostic(students only study the material they need to learn).The assessment system, which is computer-based, is thesame one that virtually all the town’s major businessesuse to assess candidates for new hires and promotions.Any resident whose literacy skills fall short of thoseneeded in a desired job has free access to the adultlearning center, which can quickly design a self-pacedprogram centered on the skills needed for the desiredjob and, later on, certify to the employer that the jobseeker has attained those skills.

Because literacy is linked directly to getting a job,motivation to commence and complete literacy pro-grams is high. Because the adult education program isindividualized, motivated individuals never have towait: there are no waiting lists. Because the state haspaid for the computerized system, including its costlytesting program, residents pay nothing.10 Local busi-nesses are happy because they get meaningful help fromthe college in improving the skills of their workforce.

Adult Education in Kansas City, Missouri: “Mini-Courses” Enable ABE Students to Advance Quickly

The director of the adult literacy program of KansasCity, Missouri, has held this post for over ten years, cre-ating a precious opportunity for continuity in program-ming. From the outset, she has taken a “continuousimprovement” approach, so that staff are on the look-out for problems with an eye toward solutions. Thisorientation, which never accepts the status quo as goodenough, resulted in Kansas City’s accelerated learningstrategy.

Over a year ago, the Goals Committee—chargedwith improving the adult literacy program’s overallachievement levels—identified poor retention as aproblem. The committee reviewed applicants’ TABEscores and found two things. First, there was a seriousdrop-off problem among applicants with low scores;they never showed up for class or, if they did, persist-ence rates were low. Second, a finer analysis of the datashowed certain common problems, such as very poorperformance in fractions. The committee concludedthat applicants would be more likely to enroll and per-sist if they were told, “Our testing has identified somesubjects you need to focus on to succeed and get your

16 Breaking Through


GED.” Further, because there were no extra funds, thecommittee asked the program’s best teachers if theywould volunteer to prepare special “mini-courses” inthe topics identified by the TABE analysis as presentingspecial barriers to applicants: fractions, decimals andpercents, proportions, essay writing, and algebra.

Each eight-hour mini-course is held for two hours aday, twice a week, for two weeks, and the classes areoffered at convenient times. The teacher/developers feelthat the mini-courses enable them to pinpoint learninggaps preventing students from progressing. The fractionsteacher, for example, said his students rated that topic upwith scorpions among their greatest fears; he designedthe first part of his curriculum to overcome that fear.

While the program lacks the financial resources fora formal evaluation, it does give pre- and post-programtests to participants. (“We test these students to death,”one staff person said). Initial results have been favor-able. For one group taking the fractions mini-course, allseven students progressed (from 9 to 10.5 in gradeequivalency, at one end of the range, from 2.3 to 3.7 atthe other end.) In another group, five of seven studentsimproved—two of them close to doubling their scores.Overall, some students advanced to GED qualifyinglevels as a result of taking one or more mini-courses.

The Goals Committee reviews new data as part ofits commitment to continuous improvement, but inthe absence of a more formal evaluation, the KansasCity ABE program cannot explain why some studentsdo not benefit, while most do and some dramatically.Based on feedback from students and teachers, the pro-gram has authorized several other mini-courses, includ-ing grammar and geometry.

Community College of Denver: Speeding Up theAcquisition of Basic Skills

An intensive social services GED lab for welfare recipi-ents at the Community College of Denver makes itpossible for students with seventh-grade skills to earn acredential in four months rather than several years. Theprogram provides individualized learning based on anassessment of what each student needs to learn in orderto pass each GED test, with a concurrent focus on test-taking and critical-thinking skills. Half of the day isspent in classes, with intensive mini-classes in key skillsand small group discussion, and half is devoted to inde-pendent study. The results reflect instructional practicesthat enable students to learn faster, as well as an inten-sive program design in which students attend an aver-age of 15 hours a week.

Strategy Three: Labor Market Payoffs

Strategies that link skills and credentials to specific eco-nomic outcomes are critical to the persistence and suc-cess of low-income working adults who often “stopout” and may, or may not, return when their lives makeit possible. Because it takes so long to advance from lowskills to occupational/technical credentials, it is impor-tant for adults to get better jobs and higher pay as theyreach key interim milestones.

JFF’s field research found promising strategies thatdirectly link education to meaningful economic payoffs.These strategies are deeply rooted in local labor markets,and they target high-demand high-skill occupations thatpay high wages and provide opportunities for advance-ment. Organized around strong partnerships withemployers, they are driven by employer skill needs andlocal economic development priorities. These strategiesare most effective in occupations, industries, or sectorswhere clear career ladders link incremental skill levelsand credentials to specific types of jobs.

Effective partnerships serve dual customers:employers who need a skilled workforce and employeeswho need education and training directly linked towell-defined career ladders. The goal is education thatprepares adults for jobs in the local economy and pro-vides credentials valued by employers and industry sec-tors. These promising strategies:

• Focus on high-demand occupations with high wagesand opportunities for advancement;

• Actively engage employers so that adults develop skillsfor available jobs, employer needs are met, educationis linked to career ladder advancement, and studentsearn credentials valued in the labor market; and

• Tie reading, writing, math and English skill develop-ment to the ways those skills are used in broad occu-pations or career paths.

The research identified innovative basic skills pro-grams that provide ladders to existing occupationaldegree programs. Some take sectoral programs to ahigher level by extending education and career laddersto career jobs requiring postsecondary skills and creden-tials. Some create education and career ladder pathwaysthat extend all the way from entry-level jobs requiringlow basic skills to professional and technical positionsrequiring occupational or technical college credentials.

In some cases, partnerships are initiated by commu-nity colleges, in other cases by intermediaries, economicor workforce development agencies, employers, or

employer organizations. Regardless of how they start,they must be driven by employer and labor market skillneeds, employers must be deeply invested based ontheir own interests, community colleges have to provideeducation and training tailored to employer needs, andthere is need for structures to build and maintain effec-tive collaboration among employers, colleges, andadults, who may be both students and employees.

A number of conditions provide incentives andsupport for the development of programs that arestrongly linked to the local labor market and offer eco-nomic payoffs, including:

• Strong employer need for skilled workers up to thelevel requiring occupational/technical skills and cre-dentials;

• Skills shortages in occupations or sectors with well-defined career ladders that link credentials and skillsto higher pay and job promotions;

• Large employers and/or effective business organiza-tions or intermediaries, especially in sectors domi-nated by small to mid-sized businesses;

• Relationships between community colleges andemployers or business organizations, most oftendeveloped in customized training and continuingeducation;

• State or local policies and political support that pro-vide flexibility in using adult education and workforcedevelopment funds, create interagency collaborationand integrated funding streams, and provide the flexi-bility to develop integrated basic skills programs thatteach academic and occupational skills in a contextu-alized way; and

• A level of internal integration within community col-leges or through partnerships among adult education,workforce development, developmental education,and credit-level occupational/technical credit pro-grams in order to provide a coordinated continuum ofeducation and training from basic skills to credit-leveldegree programs.

Genesis Health Care Systems, WorkSource, Inc.,and Community College Consortia: RegionalPartnerships

Genesis Health Care Systems, the largest extended careprovider in Massachusetts, and WorkSource, Inc., alabor market intermediary, are partnering with a con-sortium of community colleges to operate a careeradvancement program designed to help entry-levelworkers in CNA, housekeeping, and dietary positions

move on tracks toward LPN and RN jobs in two partsof the state. This program is made possible by the state’sExtended Care Career Ladder Initiative, designed tomeet an acute nursing shortage in the long-term careindustry and provide interagency funding for careerladder pathways.

The partnership provides intensive career counsel-ing and case management to incumbent employees andfacilitates access to education and training. The“Campus on a Campus,” on site at Genesis’s Agawamfacility, provides a range of education and training,including an LPN degree program. Employees meetwith career counselors to set career advancement goalsand begin to map an education plan to reach thosegoals. Regional partnerships with community collegesin Western Massachusetts and in the city of Lowellmeet employer and worker needs with a variety of edu-cation and training offerings:

• GED, ESOL, and basic literacy programs for employ-ees who are held back by limited ability to communi-cate or lack of high school credentials;

• Pre-college courses, including developmental educa-tion, for workers who are ready to advance in healthcare careers but need preparation to qualify for col-lege-level courses;

• College-level pre-nursing courses that are prerequi-sites for entry into LPN or RN programs;

• Skills training that helps workers take the next careerstep, such as CNA training for service employees orgeriatric nursing assistant specialist training forCNAs; and

• An onsite evening and weekend LPN program thatenables Genesis CNAs to combine work and study.

Community College of Denver: A Pathway toNursing

The Community College of Denver has created a dual-customer, CNA-to-LPN career ladder program fundedby the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development. Theprogram enables incumbent CNAs to advance from thelowest development skill level into an LPN degree pro-gram in half the time required in traditional develop-mental education programs. Students at the lowestdevelopmental math level can gain the skills needed toenter the LPN degree program in only 24 weeks.Students with higher developmental skills can enter theLPN program in only 8 to 16 weeks.

The program improves upon traditional develop-mental education by providing:

18 Breaking Through


• A meaningful and tangible goal, getting into the LPNprogram;

• A direct bridge to an LPN program;

• Intensive, accelerated learning that cuts the timeneeded to attain college-level skills almost in half;

• Contextualized learning that uses health care as a con-text for learning reading, writing, and math skills;

• A cohort model to provide strong peer support; and Pervasive case management.

CNA workers are highly motivated to participatebecause they see the basic skills bridge program as thefirst step in a college nursing program leading to a sig-nificant economic payoff. The direct link to economicdevelopment and employer skill needs has made it pos-sible to use workforce development funds to pay for thebridge program and employer tuition reimbursement topay for the LPN degree program.

This program has strong political and employer sup-port, as well as flexible workforce development fundingtargeted to advancement into a community collegedegree program. Strong employer commitment, drivenby a serious LPN shortage, includes tuition reimburse-ment for participation in the LPN degree program andrelease time for classes. Local political support ismatched by the college president’s strong commitmentto success. In addition, there are well-defined, highlyvisible performance measures for the number of stu-dents who: complete the bridge program, enter the LPNprogram, and attain, in the longer term, LPN creden-tials. The innovative approach to integrated and contex-tualized basic skills instruction is driven by the limita-tion of workforce development funding to 24 weeks; thecollege is committed to developing new strategies thatwould accelerate learning to meet this time frame.

The Community College of Denver also operatesthe Essential Skills Program, which began as a welfare-to-work program. This employment-driven basics skillsprogram contextualizes ABE, ESOL, and GED prepa-ration: broad career paths—such as business services,early childhood education, and information technol-ogy—are the context for learning basic academic andoccupational skills. The program is directly linked tothe labor market through strong employer partnershipsthat provide internships and recognize Essential SkillsCertificates for entry-level employment. About 70 per-cent of the students complete the program, 86 percentof graduates become employed, and there is 84 percentemployment retention after one year.

While the program focuses students on developingbasic skills and getting a first job, intensive career coun-seling highlights the importance of postsecondary edu-cation and credentials for jobs that can support a fam-ily. About 25 percent continue into postsecondaryeducation, with the highest percentage in the earlychildhood track, which has the clearest career ladderwith wage increases linked to education increments.

NVCC Medical Education Campus: Access to aWide Array of Health Careers for Low-IncomeAdults

The Medical Education Campus (MEC), one of the sixcampuses in the Northern Virginia CommunityCollege system, has established a pathway for lower-lit-eracy adults into allied health certificate and degreeprograms. Development of the MEC, a 122,000 squarefoot, state-of-the-art facility that opened in 2003, grewout of the system’s longstanding commitment to eco-nomic development through workforce development,combined with severe labor shortages in certain healthcare occupations. The system’s vision—a full campusdedicated to medical education—came to fruitionquickly in part because of the efforts of the NorthernVirginia Health Care Workforce Alliance. The missionof this consortium of leaders in the private sector, busi-ness, government, community, education, and healthcare is to establish a long-term, business-driven strategyto address northern Virginia’s shortage of health careworkers. It also helped that a former president of thecommunity college system became theCommonwealth’s Secretary of Education. The resultingfull-service campus offers general education courses aswell as a wide array of nursing and allied health clinicalcourses.

NVCC’s strength in economic development isequaled by its commitment to serving its diverse con-stituencies. In health care, this translates into a dualmission for the MEC: to provide medical services to theregion’s residents and to train health care professionalsand paraprofessionals. MEC’s Clinical Network, con-sisting of four community-based clinics in NorthernVirginia and the Primary Care Clinic at the MECMedical Mall, provides both care and clinical practice.It has the capacity to serve 10,000 ambulatory carepatients per year at a minimal cost to the patients,many of whom are indigent. Students learn throughworking at the clinical sites; their training is evaluatedboth on clinical skills and their ability to interact withpatients in a culturally and linguistically sensitive man-ner. The MEC’s Medical Mall provides primary care,

dental, and vision care clinics, and, in the near future, apharmacy, physical therapy, cardiopulmonary rehabili-tation, and laboratory and diagnostic services.

Low-income residents have access to the MEC’sextraordinary training resources and employer connec-tions through the Health Careers OpportunityProgram. The HCOP provides academic preparationand social supports specifically aimed to prepare adultswith moderate literacy skills to enter health careers. Theeight-week summer program combines an academicreview, early intervention in cognitive social develop-ment, and service learning opportunities. Students whocomplete the program are guaranteed seats in one ofthe Allied Health training programs.

A series of certificates (e.g., dental assisting, medicalcoding) articulates to degree programs (dental hygiene,health information technology, radiography). The centerhas a systematic process for applying non-credit work tocredit for degree programs. This helps students withnon-credit certificates advance into degree programs.

Strategy Four: Comprehensive Supports

While there is little rigorous data about student out-comes, research suggests that career counseling, advis-ing, academic and social supports, and case manage-ment improve the persistence and success oflow-income, low-skilled adults in community colleges.According to Elaine Baker, Community College ofDenver’s Director of Workforce Initiatives, “Supportservices and case management are not frills; they arecentral to student success.” Comprehensive academicand social supports are an essential component in virtu-ally all promising programs.

Many community college students do not under-stand how what they learn leads to better jobs, and theyfrequently cannot articulate reasons to succeed in col-lege. Without goals, low-skilled working adults have lit-tle motivation to make the sacrifices necessary to stayon course for the time it takes to complete high schooland get a postsecondary degree. Academic and careercounseling strengthen motivation and persistence byhelping students develop compelling goals leading to abetter life.

Many low-income working adults, especially whenthey have families, drop out or stop out of adult educa-tion, workforce development, developmental educa-tion, or credit-level degree programs without achievingtheir goals. Comprehensive student support servicescan help students deal with child care, health care,housing, work, and transportation emergencies.

Academic support services can make it possible foradults who are not adequately prepared for college toovercome the skills gap and succeed.

Colleges rely largely on soft funding and partner-ships with community-based organizations to providethese supports. Many of the programs—often fundedby federal TRIO programs, Title III, Title V, PerkinsAct, or foundation resources—show dramatic improve-ments in retention, persistence, and academic perform-ance.

Funding remains a huge challenge, limiting capac-ity to provide academic and social support services.Community colleges face barriers in finding resourcesto develop and implement programs and to continueoperating a program after soft funding ends. In somecolleges, though, the development or grants office islinked directly to strategic institutional priorities, andthe identification of resources for support services is acentral focus.

Many different kinds of support programs have sig-nificant impacts on retention, persistence, and aca-demic success. Given the limited resources available forsupport services, selecting the most cost effective strate-gies is extremely important. A key question, whichneeds to be answered by further research and demon-stration, is whether it is more effective to provide anarray of services to a smaller number of students or thereverse—for example, to provide career counseling forsome students and academic supports for others.

Another key question is whether it is more effectivefor community colleges to deliver support servicesthemselves or to partner with others to do it. Some col-leges have partnered with community-based organiza-tions and public agencies as a way to expand access tothe support services that low-income adults need. Thesepartnerships demonstrate the power and impact ofleveraging services available in the community.

Capital IDEA and Austin Community College:Partnering with a Community-Based Organizationto Support Students

The partnership between Austin Community Collegeand the workforce intermediary Capital IDEA provideslong-term counseling, education, and support services,opening up access to high-demand, high-skill careersthat require postsecondary credentials. The program isdesigned to enable all students to attend college full-time, recognizing that part-time students are morelikely to drop out. This partnership, which is based onextremely strong community and political support,brings substantial new resources to the college.

20 Breaking Through


Community-based organizing has also driven institu-tional change within the college to more effectivelyserve low-income, low-skill adults.

The program pays for tuition, fees, books, childcare, case management, emergency assistance, andtransportation. It also provides counseling, mentoring,tutoring, and job search and post-placement support.Throughout the program, participants meet weeklywith their peers and a career counselor, with a focus oncase management, mutual support, counseling, studyskills, financial management, parenting skills, andproblem solving and critical thinking skills. Thesemeetings are a primary strategy to support retentionand persistence.

Program graduates who entered employment in2003 were earning an average of $30,084 a year, almosttriple their average pre-program earnings of $11,617.Participants also graduate at nearly twice the rate ofAustin Community College students who do notreceive the supports the program provides.

St. Philips College: Combining Funds from ManySources to Support Students

St. Philips College, a campus of the Alamo CountyCommunity College system in San Antonio, Texas,enjoys the distinction of being the only community col-lege in the country that is both historically black andhistorically Hispanic-serving. The Southwest Campusoffers technical training in four industry clusters: alliedconstruction, drafting and design, multi-modal trans-portation, and repair and manufacturing.

As a result of its historic mission, the college iscommitted to serving low-income and non-traditionalstudents. Recognizing that these students face a widerange of challenges to persisting in postsecondary edu-cation, St. Philips’ Equity Center, housed in the careerdevelopment office, provides an extensive array of serv-ices. St. Philips has pulled together foundation, corpo-rate, and public resources (especially WIA, Title III,and TANF funds); it uses them to offer a broad array ofstudent services: child care funding and information,low-cost child care, bus tickets and textbook loans, anemergency food bank, a clothes closet, counseling,information and referral, financial aid resources, a stu-dent resource guide, support groups, a resource library,and mental health information. The college has alsodeveloped a guide for faculty and staff on working withstudents in distress.

St. Philips has an extensive diagnostic and disabilitytesting capacity, as well as related services.11 Quite

unusually, it has also developed a customized set ofservices for learning disabled students. According toStudent Services, this is very helpful for older adultworkers, who are often not aware when they qualify foracademic supports. Special services available to thesestudents include class notes, extended testing, and largeprint books.

Community College of Baltimore County: IntensiveCounseling Support for ABE Students

The Community College of Baltimore County’s sup-port for adults in literacy programs extends back fiveyears, when the county commissioners transferredresponsibility for adult education from the publicschool system to the college. The commissioners’ goalwas to connect low-literacy adults to training in skillsimportant to the county economy. Five years later, liter-acy classes are still offered in high schools and atlibraries, but increasing numbers of classes take placeon the college campus. The director of the program,who was recruited from a neighboring ABE program,says, “Frankly, it took me a little while to learn the‘back of the house’ operations that enable this programto function effectively in a college environment.”

The director is fortunate that the college’s leader-ship is deeply committed to providing postsecondaryeducation to the county’s disadvantaged and minoritystudents. For example, the chancellor helped obtain agrant to close the gap between whites and minorities indevelopmental education and views adult literacy as animportant bridge to postsecondary education for low-income students. Perhaps equally fortuitous, the pro-gram inherited a 501(c)3 dedicated to raising funds forBaltimore County adult education students; its suc-cess—along with resources contributed by the col-lege—has enabled the program to offer a generous arrayof supports.

From the perspective of the Lifelong LearningDepartment, which houses the adult literacy program,support for adult education students starts with a col-lege identity and connections to college. A college iden-tity gives participants higher status than the ABE label,and college connections give participants a flavor ofcollege life in a non-threatening environment. Oneexample: students receive tickets to college-sponsoredcultural events.

Equally important is counseling support, which israrely available to students in traditional ABE/GEDclasses. “A phalanx of counselors,” as one official put it,is available to students in the program. One of the

counselors’ responsibilities is following up with stu-dents who miss class. The support becomes more inten-sive as students move into GED prep classes. The sup-port structure was designed several years ago, when thecollege obtained a grant to research TRIO programs forpromising practices that could be integrated into GED.The result is a transformation of traditional GEDinstruction (teachers in classes) into a dual structure: inthe new GED Prep, traditional teachers teach “pre-paredness,” and guidance counselors teach “awareness,”with the latter responsible for one out of five classes.

The change process to the new structure was notalways smooth sailing. Early on, the counselors triedcontacting students individually, but that didn’t work.Then they tried getting classroom time by volunteeringto help the instructors. Eventually, the current structureevolved, and the counselors’ domain (support, informa-tion, career and college counseling) is now recognizedas valid GED prep.

Wayne County Community College: ABE as a College Feeder Program

Wayne County Community College in Detroit has astrong, clear mission. Founded in 1968 as a response tothe Detroit riots, it has a number of key administratorswho started working at the college not long after; they

feel keenly the mission of extending postsecondary edu-cation to the region’s disadvantaged.

The mission can be seen in action in the adult edu-cation department. While the college is not the admin-istrator of ABE for Detroit (the public school systemis), it has developed a fairly large department using dis-cretionary grants and college funds. The college viewsthe department as a “feeder” for its degree programsand supports the program generously to ensure well-prepared college students. All students in theABE/GED program are enrolled in the college. “Oncea student is enrolled on the campus, we hope to keepthem on the road to postsecondary education comple-tion, and we do everything we can to keep them mov-ing,” said the vice chancellor whose department housesadult education. Last year, of 55 GED grads from theprogram, 45 enrolled in the college. (The program hasa waiting list of 5,000.)

The college works hard to understand its ABE stu-dents and their needs. For example, it will offer a newworkshop this year on budgeting; this course will bebuilt around the recognition that, for example, many ofthe participants receive food stamps. In fact, the ABEprogram offers an extraordinary array of helpful work-shops, all of them developed from the observation ofstudent needs: stress management, test taking, note tak-ing, and critical thinking. Program officials believe thisapproach is vital to building students’ confidence, andthat confidence is a key factor is success. They note, forexample, that most of the ABE students are terrified oftests (including the GED test) and freeze up withoutpreparation in test taking.

Wayne County Community College designed theprogram’s instructional approach to be as comprehen-sive as possible: computer-assisted instruction based onindividualized diagnostics, drill and practice, regularclassrooms, and peer tutoring. The instructors aremostly tenured faculty (including the chair of thefinance department), fostering the program-to-collegeconnection.

Finally, students receive support in a traditionalsense. Through a partnership with the Wayne StateSchool of Social Work, interns help adult educationstudents “navigate systems”— from obtaining housingto finding child care. Career guidance and employmentconnections are equally important, including a careereducation class, a formal skills assessment, special careerdays, and even a job fair.

22 Breaking Through


Breaking Through focuses on institution-level strategiesthat can create pathways for low-skilled adults to post-secondary skills and credentials. However, it is clearthat state policies, which vary greatly, can have a signifi-cant impact on a community college’s capacity to pro-mote advancement.

While a systematic analysis of state policies isbeyond the scope of this report, JFF’s research identi-fied policies that can support or impede promisinginstitutional strategies to enable low-skilled adults togain postsecondary skills and credentials.12

Governance and Mission

The governance of community colleges, adult educa-tion, and workforce development, and the relationshipsamong them, vary widely. In some states, strong centralboards govern community colleges. State incentives—in the form of policies, funding mechanisms, and per-formance measures—can play an important role indriving and supporting institutional change. In statesthat do not consider advancement for low-skilled adultsa core community college mission, strong central gover-nance can impede institutional strategies that help low-skilled adults gain postsecondary skills and credentials.In many states, community college governance isdecentralized: local boards of trustees largely controlthe colleges. This autonomy permits colleges that havean institutional commitment to advancement todevelop innovative strategies, but it does not provideincentives for other colleges to follow that path.

How states define the mission of community col-leges is an important question. Community colleges arecomprehensive institutions that provide a broad rangeof academic transfer, basic skills, developmental, work-force, occupational, and non-credit programs. Statesbalance these multiple missions in different ways.Several states – Kentucky, North Carolina, Washington,and Oregon—make community colleges a major focusof state economic development and workforce skilldevelopment strategies. This emphasis provides incen-tives for community colleges in those states to expandservices to low-literacy adults.

Governance of adult education affects the capacityto create articulated pathways from low basic skills to

community college occupational/technical degree pro-grams. Adult education is governed by the K-12 depart-ments of education in thirty-two states, by the depart-ment of higher education in thirteen states, and by thedepartment of labor in five states (Morest 2004).

The role of community colleges in providing adulteducation services varies. More than half of adult edu-cation students are enrolled in community colleges in11 states, while community colleges serve less than one-quarter of adult education students in 19 states (Morest2004). State differences in governance and the level ofadult education services provided by community col-leges affect capacity to create internal transitions fromadult education to college through institutional changeor the need to create integrated transitions throughpartnerships with other adult education providers.

States vary widely in the extent to which they havesystems and structures to integrate adult education,workforce development, and community colleges at thestate and local levels. In some states, community col-leges are a primary provider of adult education andworkforce development. Oregon, for example, has inte-grated the community college and workforce develop-ment systems into a unified Department ofCommunity Colleges and Workforce Development.While adult education is governed separately, commu-nity colleges are the primary provider of adult educa-tion and workforce development. This creates institu-tional potential for community colleges to developinternal pathways from their adult education and work-force development programs to developmental educa-tion and credit-level degree programs.

Kentucky promotes integration in a very differentway. Community colleges and adult education are gov-erned separately, but state policies strong encouragethem to collaborate in promoting transitions to post-secondary education. State policies support smoothtransitions to college through a division of labor: adulteducation and developmental education programs workin concert to help low-skilled adults enter college anddevelop the skills to succeed in credit-level programs.Kentucky is using incentives and performance measuresto promote interagency collaboration among separatelygoverned community college, adult education, and

Part III.

Promising State Policies

workforce development systems (Chisman 2004).Massachusetts has taken a programmatic approach

to transitions from adult education to community col-lege. It provides funding for college transition programsorganized around partnerships between communitycolleges and school district or community-based adulteducation providers. The state is building interagencycollaboration to strengthen economic and workforcedevelopment, with community colleges playing a majorrole. As a central component of these efforts, intera-gency funding for regional employer-focused career lad-der programs comes from two programs: BuildingEssential Skills through Training, and the ExtendedCare Career Ladder Initiative. Partnerships provideeducation and career ladder pathways from entry-levelwork and basic skills to professional career jobs andcommunity college degrees in a number of occupationsand sectors that are directly linked to wage increasesand promotions.

Funding Policies

The levels of funding for community colleges, and reg-ulations around that funding, have major implicationsfor the capacity to open up pathways for low-skilledadults to credit-level occupational/technical degree pro-grams. Funding policies send a strong message to com-munity colleges about priorities and direction.13

States must decide what programs or services tofund and the levels at which to fund them. Many statesprovide per student (“FTE”) funding only for students

in credit-level programs. Some states treat developmen-tal education as a credit-level program for funding pur-poses, even though credits cannot be used for gradua-tion, while other states provide no FTE funding fordevelopmental education. Oregon, California, andNorth Carolina provide FTE funding for all non-creditprograms, but most states do not fund non-credit con-tinuing education programs.

The capacity of community colleges to create path-ways from low skills into and through college degrees isshaped to a large extent by the level of funding theyreceive for students in non-credit and developmentalcourses. Funding structures can provide strong incen-tives for colleges to provide services that promoteadvancement for low-skilled adults, but they can alsoprovide strong disincentives to do so. The varying levelof FTE funding for programs is especially importantbecause some programs have higher per student costs.In some cases. states provide higher FTE funding forprograms with higher costs, but often they providelower FTE funding for occupational programs andother programs that have higher per student costs.

Lack of start-up funding for program design, cur-riculum development, and partnership building is amajor obstacle to developing and implementing inno-vative programs. Washington and California have allo-cated TANF resources to help community collegesdesign and implement programs to meet the needs ofwelfare recipients and other low-income adults. Theexistence of funding for program development providesincentives for colleges to adopt strategies that promoteadvancement for low-skilled adults.

Not only is the level of funding important; so, too,are restrictions on its use. There is variation amongstates in flexible funding for integrated basic skills pro-grams, such as vocational ESOL, vocational ABE, andinnovative basic skills programs. Federal regulationsprovide some flexibility in how TANF, WIA, and adulteducation funds can be used, and states use this flexibil-ity to different degrees and in different ways. In addi-tion, states have discretion in how they use state fund-ing in these areas, with flexibility in how state resourcesare used at the local level. States vary widely in both thelevel of TANF, workforce development, and adult edu-cation funding they provide and in how these resourcesare used.

24 Breaking Through


JFF’s research found evidence of promising strategiesand approaches in a number of community colleges,However, promising approaches are far from the norm.They are being implemented by a minority of commu-nity colleges and often exist within a small number ofprograms or departments within the institution. Theyare emerging approaches that need further develop-ment, support, diffusion, and study.

There is an opportunity to strengthen theseapproaches, spread them more broadly within individ-ual institutions and to a larger number of colleges, andmake them sustainable. It will not be easy; there are sig-nificant barriers to improvement.

The research identified two populations of low-skilled adults who are most likely to benefit from, andwho should be targeted by, these efforts: 1) adults withsixth- to eighth-eighth-grade-level skills who can movequickly to complete high school and develop pre-col-lege skills that enable them to benefit from develop-mental education; and 2) adults with eighth- to tenth-grade pre-college skills who can develop college-levelskills and enter credit programs. While adults withskills below sixth grade have significant educationalneeds, it would take them so long to reach the eighth-grade level that very few would benefit from programsdesigned to increase access to postsecondary degree pro-grams.

JFF’s research further suggests that efforts shouldfocus on colleges that offer fertile ground for makingprogress that can be sustained when program fundingends or creative leaders leave. It is extremely difficult todrive programmatic and institutional change from theoutside. Therefore, scale-up efforts should focus oncommunity colleges that are developing and imple-menting innovative practices, and where there is ademonstrated institutional commitment to strategiesthat accelerate the advancement of low-skilled adults,an infrastructure of programmatic leaders, and support-ive policies and political environment.

A Long-Term Commitment

Some institutions have been developing, expanding,and improving promising strategies for a number ofyears. Portland Community College and Community

College of Denver have been growing innovative strate-gies and programs, adopting them in multiple parts ofthe college for multiple populations, improving pro-gram performance and outcomes, developing spinoffs,making innovative programs more sustainable, and tak-ing steps to incorporate promising approaches intomainstream institutional practice. For example, PCC’smodularized career pathways evolved out of a work-force development training program for dislocated andunemployed adults. CCD’s Integrated AdvisingSystem, which serves 3,000 students, grew from aneducational case management strategy developed in abranch campus for the vocational training of welfarerecipients.

These colleges provide important lessons. Portland,Denver, and other community colleges show the poten-tial for small, innovative practices developed in adulteducation, workforce development, and non-credit pro-grams to grow in scale and affect mainstream institu-tional practice. Both colleges have maintained a clearand consistent focus on improving success for low-skilled adults over the course of a decade. The prioritiesfor institutional improvement were key criteria in theselection process for new presidents, and there is astrong leadership infrastructure at the program anddepartment levels. Moreover, innovative leaders haverisen to positions of greater responsibility and are men-toring a new generation of program innovators.

On the other hand, some colleges studied are in theearly stages of innovative strategies, often in small pro-grams or in single departments. They have made insti-tutional commitments to going further in developing,implementing, and expanding these approaches. Thesecolleges, too, provide important lessons, for the start-upphase and for creating conditions favorable to contin-ued progress.

In some cases, state policies support and facilitatethe development and implementation of promisingapproaches and institutional commitments to movingin this direction. For example, some states offer freecollege tuition, usually one semester, for GED com-pleters. These institutions suggest how state policymak-ers and college leadership can collaborate to deepen theimplementation of promising strategies in colleges that

Part IV.

The Road Ahead: Opportunities and Challenges

have already adopted them and to increase the numberof colleges that respond to the incentives that state poli-cies provide.

Unfortunately, most states make no effort to sup-port transitions across programs, and some state poli-cies create disincentives to making connections. Thirty-two states place governance of the adult basic educationsystem (WIA Title II) in their K-12 public educationsystems, virtually ensuring that adults in those stateswho seek educational advancement have to negotiatepassages between two systems to enter postsecondaryeducation. Many financing policies inhibit connectionsas well. For example, Virginia requires community col-leges that offer ABE programs to match grant funds,making ABE a potentially costly undertaking (Morest2004).

Barriers to Further Progress

Practitioners revealed much about the challenges theyface in spreading promising approaches to other partsof their colleges and to other populations—challengesto increasing their scale, making them sustainable, andincorporating them into mainstream institutionalpractice.

Most of the promising new approaches for improv-ing basic skills go beyond traditional adult education,workforce development, and developmental educationpractices by developing new ways to integrate academicand occupational learning. They are often started inmodest programs with soft funding, where they findthe autonomy to do new things in new ways. Yet evenas they have autonomy within their own program, theyoften face institutional and policy barriers, both toexpanding promising approaches to different popula-tions in different parts of the college and to continuingprograms after their funding runs out. Recent budgetdeficits and funding reductions for community collegesmake it even harder to institutionalize innovative pro-grams into core budgets. With resources scarce, collegesmake tough decisions about what to cut, and resistanceto cutting existing programs is usually fierce.

Perseverance in the face of these and other prob-lems is invariably the result of strong leadership. SanJacinto College North in Houston, Texas, is a case inpoint. About eight years ago, SJCN faced up to the factthat its community had changed drastically—nowlargely Hispanic and African-American, with a dysfunc-tional public schools system and high dropout rates.The college brought in new leaders committed to serv-ing this community and charged them with overseeing

thoroughgoing change. Using the comprehensive plan-ning needed to apply for a Title V Hispanic-ServingInstitution grant, SJCN revamped developmental edu-cation, transitions from non-credit to credit programs,and student support services. Since then, enrollmentsof students of color have increased; transition ratesfrom developmental education into credit courses haveimproved, as have transition rates from adult educationto the college; and the retention, persistence, and grad-uation rates of first-generation college-goers and stu-dents of color have gone up.

The Community College of Denver providesanother example. For over a decade, it has been build-ing the leadership necessary to shepherd and sustaininstitutional change. In 1990, CCD set goals toincrease its enrollment of students of color and elimi-nate the gap in performance and outcomes betweenstudents of color and white students. With strong com-mitment from its board of trustees and a core of com-mitted program leaders, the college has stayed oncourse to fulfill these goals through several presidents.Commitment to these goals has been a criterion in thepresidential selection process. The graduation rate ofstudents of color increased from 20 percent in 1987 to50 percent in 2002.

However, the development of multiple paths tocredit-level degree programs requires an all-too-rarelevel of integrated leadership. Incorporating innovativeinstructional approaches from small programs intomainstream adult education, workforce development,and developmental education programs requires sup-port from leaders and faculty in each of those depart-ments, which often operate in separate divisions underdifferent leaders. Changing basic skills and pre-collegeprograms toward a more individualized, contextualized,and accelerated approach would require buy-in fromeach of these departments for doing things in a funda-mentally new way.

Federal and state adult education policies can alsohinder the development of innovative basic skillsapproaches. State regulations that require minimumseat time can be a serious obstacle to innovative basicskills approaches. The same is true of requirements toteach the same curriculum to all students in formalclasses or to maintain the separation of the adult educa-tion curriculum from workplace skills.

Institutional and state policies often pose barriers tothe integration of non-credit and credit programs. Thisis especially true where the transition to four-year col-leges is the primary focus of the credit side, whether

26 Breaking Through


due to college or state priorities. A lengthy and difficultapproval process within the college and, in many cases,at the state level is often required to change creditcourses or create new ones. It takes strong leadershipfrom the president and leadership by credit-level deansand faculty to overcome these barriers and build transi-tions from non-credit to credit programs.

Inertia to change can be a barrier to spreading andincreasing the scale of innovative approaches, especiallyin the absence of performance measures and incentivesfor doing so. Without accountability for how long ittakes students to develop skills or complete programs,adult education and developmental education have noincentive to adopt accelerated strategies that can dra-matically speed up the time it takes to get a GED orgain skills needed to enter credit-level degree programs.There is little reason for programs to change unlesshigher benchmarks, developed in innovative programs,are translated into performance measures that can onlybe met through more effective approaches.

JFF found many committed and creative practi-tioners, but for the most part they are not connected toone another, and they work independently, often recre-ating the same wheels. In some cases, it might be possi-ble to shorten program development time and improveperformance outcomes by enabling innovative practi-tioners to build on one another’s work.

Promoting and Accelerating Innovation

Based on JFF’s research and discussions with commu-nity college leaders and practitioners, we see an impor-tant opportunity to help the kind of innovations high-lighted in this report to spread, become moresustainable, and reach significant numbers of adults inmany more institutions. We believe that such effortsshould focus on deepening and broadening work in thefield and on identifying how and where state policiescan promote the kind of institutional and systemchange we found.

Here are some of the ways additional public and pri-vate investments can promote and support innovation:

• Provide more compelling documentation that thesekinds of approaches make it possible to achieve sub-stantially higher outcomes, and demonstrate this indifferent kinds of institutions and for different popu-lations.

• Spread promising strategies more widely within insti-tutions to serve a greater number of students andmore populations in a broader range of programs anddepartments.

• Make promising approaches and programs more sus-tainable when grants and other forms of soft fundingend or when creative leaders leave.

• Provide greater awareness in the field of how collegesare developing, implementing, expanding, and sus-taining promising approaches, as well as the obstaclesthey face and the programmatic and institutionalchange strategies that help them overcome these barri-ers.

• Take steps to incorporate promising strategies thatimprove mainstream adult education, developmentaleducation, non-credit workforce programs, studentadvising and support services, and occupational/tech-nical credit programs.

• Increase the number of colleges that adopt promisingapproaches for advancement of low-skilled adults,especially within states where policies provide incen-tives for community colleges to move in this direc-tion.

• Identify high-leverage areas in order to focus prioritiesfor institutional change and increase knowledge aboutthe cost effectiveness of strategies and practices.

• Develop data categories and tracking systems forcross-college use that would enable funders and poli-cymakers to assess the effectiveness of supportive poli-cies and investments.

Our discussions with community college leadersand practitioners indicate that further progress towardthese activities can be promoted through:

• R&D support to “early adopter” community colleges thathave demonstrated commitment and capacity, in orderto promote institutional integration, acceleratedlearning, connections to the labor market, and com-prehensive supports, with all efforts including the sys-tematic documentation of individual outcomes;

• Peer learning among colleges receiving this support topromote the rapid exchange of knowledge aboutpromising practices and avoid “reinventing thewheel”;

• Broader peer learning and other awareness efforts tothe field of community colleges to increase under-standing of promising practices that support advance-ment for low-literacy adults;

• Strengthening and expanding community college leader-ship committed to this agenda through leadership acad-emies and related activities; and

• Identifying and supporting state policies that advanceprogrammatic and institutional changes benefiting low-income adults.

Peer learning would be most effective if it includes amix of institutions at different stages of development,synergy, scale, and institutionalization: colleges that arewell along in adopting promising strategies and institu-tional change, as well as those in the next tier of col-leges that want to go beyond what they now do. Peerlearning among colleges engaged in institutional changecan provide an opportunity for innovative leaders andpractitioners to build on the collective experience ofcolleges that are moving in a similar direction, and toshorten the learning curve for program development,scale-up, and institutionalization.

Strategic support for broader peer learning, such asa learning institute, could play a valuable role in mak-ing the best approaches more visible and influential inthe community college, adult education, and workforce

development fields. This could help increase the num-ber of institutions that adopt promising approaches andbuild a constituency and enthusiasm for developingand scaling up effective approaches to helping low-skilled working adults advance.

There is also value in strategic investments that sup-port state policy analysis and advocacy. While JFF’sresearch focused on the institution level, state policiescan enhance or impede the capacity of community col-leges to adopt and scale up promising strategies.Expanding the development, scale-up, and institutional-ization of promising strategies requires knowing moreabout how and where state policies can promote prom-ising institutional changes, in particular for improvingtransitions from adult education and workforce develop-ment to college, transitions from non-credit to creditprograms, and the development of career pathways frommultiple entry points to credit-level degree programs.

28 Breaking Through


This bibliography includes works consulted in the prepara-tion of Breaking Through. Other sources include 19 site visitsto innovative community colleges and adult education pro-grams; phone interviews with practitioners and researchers inthe fields of adult literacy, developmental education, andworkforce development; interviews and special interest ses-sions conducted at national conferences; and a convening of12 practitioners in these fields who discussed their own pro-grams and reviewed and commented on preliminary findingsfrom the research.

Bailey, Thomas, G. S. Keinzl, and D. Marcotte. 2003. TheReturn to a Sub-baccalaureate Education: The Effects ofSchooling, Credentials, and Program of Study on EconomicOutcomes. New York, NY: Community College ResearchCenter, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Bailey, Thomas, Norena Badway, and Patricia J. Gumport.2004. For-Profit Higher Education and Community Colleges.Stanford, CA: National Center for PostsecondaryImprovement.

Beder, Hal. 1999. The Outcomes and Impacts of Adult LiteracyEducation in the United States. Cambridge, MA: NationalCenter for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy.

Boesel, David, Nabeel Absalam, and Thomas M. Smith.1998. Educational and Labor Market Performance of GEDRecipients. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Researchand Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Carnevale, Anthony P. and Donna M. Desrochers. 1999.Getting Down to Business: Matching Welfare Recipients’ Skills toJobs That Train. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Chisman, Forrest P. 2004. Adult Education & Literacy andCommunity Colleges in Kentucky. New York, NY: Council forAdvancement of Adult Literacy.

Comings, John P., Andrea Parella, and Lisa Soricone. 1999.Persistence Among Adult Basic Education Students in Pre-GEDClasses. Cambridge, MA: National Center for the Study ofAdult Learning and Literacy.

Comings, John P., Stephen Reder, and Andrew Sum. 2001.Building a Level Playing Field: The Need to Expand andImprove the National and State Adult Education and LiteracySystems. Cambridge, MA: National Center for the Study ofAdult Learning and Literacy.

Greene, Jay P. and Greg Forster. 2003. Public High SchoolGraduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States.New York, NY: Manhattan Institute for Policy Studies.

Grubb, Norton W. 2001. From Black Box to Pandora’s Box:Evaluating Remedial/Developmental Education. New York, NY:Community College Research Center, Teachers College,Columbia University.

Jenkins, Davis. 2003. The Potential of Community College asBridges to Opportunity for the Disadvantages: Can It BeAchieved on a Large Scale? New York, NY: CommunityCollege Research Center.

Jenkins, Davis and Katherine Boswell. 2002. State Policies onCommunity College Remedial Education: Findings from aNational Survey. Denver, CO: Education Commission of theStates.

Kazis, Richard and Martin Liebowitz. 2003. ChangingCourses: Instructional Innovations that Help Low-IncomeStudents Succeed in Community College. New York, NY:MDRC.

King, Cheryl D. and Shauna King-Simms. 2004. “ImprovingAdult Education to Postsecondary Transitions for Low-SkilledAdults.” PowerPoint presentation. Accessed athttp://adulted.state.ky.us/NGA_Final_Presentation.ppt.

Knell, Suzanne and Janet Scogins. 2004. The IllinoisCommunity College System and Adult Education. New York,NY: Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy.

Liebowitz, Martin. 2004. Adult Education and Literacy inCommunity Colleges in Massachusetts: A Case Study for theCouncil for the Advancement of Adult Literacy. New York, NY:Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy.

Liebowitz, Marty, Leslie Haynes, and Jane Milley. 2001.Driving Change in Community Colleges: Building Systems forAdvancement to Self-Sufficiency. Boston, MA: Jobs for theFuture.

Mathur, Anita, with Judy Reichle, Julie Strawn, and ChuckWiseley. 2004. From Jobs to Careers: How Community CollegeCredentials Pay Off For Welfare Participants. Washington, DC:Center for Law and Social Policy.

Morest, Vanessa Smith. 2004. The Role of Community Collegesin State Adult Education Systems: A National Analysis. NewYork, NY: Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy.

Newberry, Tony and Julie Scoskie. 2004. “Partners forSuccess.” PowerPoint presentation. Accessed athttp://adulted.state.ky.us/NGA_Final_Presentation.ppt.

Reder, Stephen. 1998. Adult Literacy and PostsecondaryEducation Students: Overlapping Populations and LearningTrajectories. Annual Review of Adult Learning and Literacy,Vol.1. Cambridge, MA: National Center for the Study ofAdult Learning and Literacy.

Silverberg, Marsha, at al. 2004. National Assessment ofVocational Education Final Report to Congress. Washington,DC: U.S. Department of Education.

U.S. Department of Education. 2002. Adult and FamilyLiteracy Act Report to Congress. Washington, DC: U.S.Department of Education.

Bibliography

1 See U.S. Census Bureau, P148A-D. Sex by EducationalAttainment for the Population 25 Years and Over. Data Set:Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF3) - Sample Data.Accessed at http://factfinder.census.gov

2 We use the term “adult education” to describe adult basiceducation (ABE) and English for speakers of other lan-guages (ESOL) programs. The term “other basic skills pro-grams” denotes innovative programs that integrate adulteducation and workforce development practices. The term“developmental education” describes remedial programs forcollege students who do not have the skills required forcredit-level study.

3 ACE News, July 2002, “GED Exam Surpasses One MillionAdult Test Takers in 2001,” accessed athttp://www.acenet.edu/news/press_release/2002/07july/ged.release.html.

4 Title II programs only provide data for outcomes for oneyear following participation.

5 “Pre-college skills” describes reading, writing, and mathe-matics skills between the eighth-grade and tenth-grade lev-els, as measured on college placement tests. “Basic skills”described a broad range of skills below the eighth-gradelevel as measured on college placement tests.

6 Risk factors of nontraditional students are delayed enroll-ment and older age, part-time enrollment, full-timeemployment, lack of parental financial support, being a sin-gle parent, having dependent children, and having an alter-native high school credential.

7 The professional technical career pathways are: account-ing/bookkeeping, office skills, CNC operator, criminal jus-tice, medical coding, medical lab, emergency communica-tor, phlebotomy, and HVAC. The bridge pathways areoffice skills, health care, customer service, and food service.

8 JCCC and many other colleges use COMPASS tests todetermine whether students are academically prepared toenter degree-level courses. There are a variety of such tests;some of them are available nationally, and others are usedexclusively in a state or other jurisdiction.

9 The grant that supports career counseling is running out;the college is looking for ways to incorporate it into thebudget.

10 Owensboro’s system is based primarily on WorkKeys—instructional, job profiling, and skills assessment. The Platosystem is also used, especially in the DevelopmentalEducation Department; college leaders hope to use Plato tobuild bridges to the adult education unit. While most resi-dents use the adult learning center for free, some pay anominal fee due to rules attached to various fundingsources.

11 The college has, for example, experienced an increasingenrollment of deaf students.

12 Several national initiatives are addressing state policy issuesrelated to community colleges and low-wage works.

JFF is one of seven national partners in Achieving theDream: Community Colleges Count, a multi-year initiativelaunched by Lumina Foundation for Education. Twenty-seven community colleges in five states are participating inthis effort to enhance the academic success of low-incomeand minority students. Achieving the Dream addresses anational imperative: increasing success for the growingnumber of students for whom community colleges are thepoint of entry into higher education, particularly low-income students and students of color.

Pathways to Advancement, a project of the NationalGovernors Association and FutureWorks, is designed tohelp states expand postsecondary access and attainment forlow-income working adults. The project is a 28-monthprogram of research, development, and demonstrationwith teams of officials from five to six states. It assists thosestates in changing policies and practices of higher educa-tion financing, program and accreditation requirements,and student financial aid to support larger numbers of low-income working adults in attending college and pursuingpostsecondary credentials. The project is funded byLumina Foundation.

Bridges to Opportunity, launched by the Ford Foundation,is a grant-making initiative designed to promote state poli-cies that enhance the capacity of community colleges toimprove educational and economic opportunities for low-income adults. The foundation awarded planning grants toteams in six states that convened groups of such stakehold-ers and engaged them in planning and advocating for moresupportive policies in each state. It has now funded the sixstates to implement the plans they have developed over thenext two years.

13 For more information on funding, see Jenkins and Boswell(2002).

30 Breaking Through

Endnotes


Marty Liebowitz is a consultant on policy, practice,

and institutional change related to community colleges,

adult education, workforce development, and educa-

tion reform. Before working as a consultant, Mr.

Liebowitz was a program director at Jobs for the Future

and director of research and development for

Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, a national

education organization partnering with urban districts

to promote comprehensive school change. His accom-

plishments include numerous articles and reports on

institutional change in community colleges and the role

of community colleges in adult education. His profes-

sional experience also includes serving as senior policy

analyst for the Commissioner of the Boston

Department of Health and Hospitals and policy analyst

for public education for the Mayor’s Policy Office, City

of Boston. Mr. Liebowitz earned his B.A. at State

University of New York in Binghamton and his M.A. at

Washington University.

About the Authors

Judith Combes Taylor is a program director at Jobs for

the Future, where she works in research and develop-

ment, best practice analysis, system change, and policy

design related to workforce development initiatives

designed to advance low-income youth and adults in

the labor market. She recently served as project lead for

JFF’s Fair Cities project for the National Employment

Panel of the United Kingdom; this project researched

and reported on employer-led workforce development

efforts that produce results for minorities. Dr. Taylor is

the author of Learning at Work in a Work-Based Welfare

System: Opportunities and Obstacles; The Framework for

Labor Market Systems Reform for Jobs Initiative Sites,

with Peter Plastrik and Marlene Seltzer; Systems Reform

in the Jobs Initiative: Lessons from Using the Framework

for Labor Market Systems Reform, with Peter Plastrik;

Workforce Development and Community-Based

Organizations, with Peter Plastrik; and Beyond Welfare-

to-Work: Helping Low-Income Workers Maintain Their

Jobs and Advance in the Workforce, Paper #1: Demand-

Led Retention, with Jennifer Freeman. Dr. Taylor

received an A.B. from Oberlin College and a Ph.D.

from Arizona State University.

Jobs for the Future seeks to accelerate the educa-

tional and economic advancement of youth and

adults struggling in today’s economy. JFF partners

with leaders in education, business, government,

and communities around the nation to: strengthen

opportunities for youth to succeed in postsecondary

learning and high-skill careers; increase opportuni-

ties for low-income individuals to move into family-

supporting careers; and meet the growing economic

demand for knowledgeable and skilled workers.

The National Council for Workforce Education

is a private, nonprofit, professional organization com-

mitted to promoting excellence and growth in occu-

pational education at the postsecondary level.

NCWE, an affiliate council of the American

Association of Community Colleges, provides a

national forum for administrators and faculty in

occupational, vocational, technical, and career educa-

tion as well as representatives of business, labor, mili-

tary, and government, to affect and direct the future

role of two-year colleges in work-related education.

88 Broad Street 1900 Kenny RoadBoston, MA 02110 Columbus, OH 43210www.jff.org www.ncwe.org

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