Millions of Adults Need Support
The infographic shown below prepared by Digital Promise summarizes key findings from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It highlights the the need versus resources to support the millions of U.S. adults with low literacy and math skills.
U.S. Federal Funding for Adult Education
The U.S. Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998 (AEFLA) established the Adult Education Basic Grants to States program that provides the primary federal funding support for adult basic education and literacy education in the U.S. The 2011-12 AEFLA Annual Report to Congress reported that 1.8 million learners were enrolled in Basic Grants to States programs with a federal allocation of $585,597,759.
The Adult Basic Education Resource Gap
Given that 30 million adults in the U.S. need support for adult basic education and federal funding supports only 1.8 million enrollments, 28.2 million adults are left to seek education from other sources. This is a massive gap between needed and available adult basic education resources. Chipping away at this gap in resources is what we have chosen as our aim in this service-learning course.