Adult Education and Family Literacy Act Program

PY 16 was a grant continuation year for Indiana Adult Education regional consortia and partner providers. Funding was allocated to each economic growth region using a formula allocation that took into account regional program performance, percentage of statewide enrollments, and regional unemployment rates. Each regional consortia subsequently allocated funds to eligible consortia partner providers based on a variety of performance based formulas.

Indiana funds all section 203 eligible adult education and literacy activities. These include:

• Adult education;
• Literacy;
• Workplace adult education and literacy activities;
• Family literacy activities;
• English language acquisition activities;
• Integrated English literacy and civics education;
• Workforce preparation activities; or
• Integrated education and training.

Examples include:

• Serving clients most in need of service - One area of focus is increasing the number of low skilled individuals’ transition to postsecondary education and employment. DWD will fund all eligible providers to integrate workforce preparation activities into all adult education, literacy, and English language acquisition activities by the mandatory use of the Integrating Career Awareness curriculum. DWD made use of this tool a requirement in 2016. Additionally, use of Indiana Career Explorer a state funded career exploration assessment tool, is a recommended best practice for all programs. Both of these initiatives, integrated into the adult education class prepare students for transitions. Other targeted activities include strong collaboration with one-stop agencies, increased collaboration with post-secondary institutions, integrating technology, employability skills, and financial literacy in classes and lessons. DWD is coordinating efforts between the K-12, postsecondary, One Stop and Adult Education systems to establish consistent employability skills benchmarks recognized and supported by Indiana employers. DWD is also exploring the potential of system wide career advisor training, which will focus on all WIOA Core Partners as well as others mentioned above.
• Immigrant integration initiatives - Due to growth in English Language Learner enrollments, DWD has been working on immigrant integration initiatives. Indiana was a participant in the ESL Pro technical assistance program in 2016. Our focus was on ELL and Career Pathways. In 2016 DWD, using a newly established train the trainer model, will disseminate resources to the field on understanding barriers ELL face when entering Career Pathways and learning strategies for assisting ELL’s as they transition through programming. This is being done with the goal of increasing ELL participation in the WorkINdiana occupational skill training program. WorkINdiana, a state funded program, is available to all students concurrently while enrolled in any WIOA Section 203 funded programming. Students can enter a career pathway and earn one of approximately 30 entry level certifications. Eligible certifications are determined by each economic growth region and align with occupation in demand in the region. While transitioning in PY16, in PY 17, WIOA Section 243 providers will be required to offer, or partner with training providers to offer occupational skills training to program participants. DWD anticipates using WorkINdiana as well as additional WIOA Title I to fund the occupational training portion of these classes.
• Workplace Education - One promising practice DWD funds and plans to expand in PY 17 is the provision of Workplace Education. Several providers are offering workplace classes this year, and several more are in the development process. These employer adult education partnerships offer adult education and literacy activities that concurrently include workforce preparation activities so that low-skilled incumbent workers can improve their skills and more easily advance to more high-demand occupations with their current employers.

Adult education and literacy services at a minimum targets native speakers of American English who function below a high school equivalency in one or more basic academic skills, who demonstrate a need for remediation to test into credit-bearing college level coursework, or who lack the employability skills needed to transition into work. Other adults eligible for these services include non-native speakers of American English who have successfully acquired a level of proficiency in English, either through federally-funded English literacy programs or other ways, to be able to function adequately in adult education and literacy classes with native speakers.

Adult Education grant applicants are required to describe in their funding proposals the activities that are planned to support the Family Literacy Activities purpose of the act and meet the needs of undereducated parents in their area. Specifically, applicants will be asked to discuss (1) outreach efforts for attracting parents with low literacy skills to the program; (2) program design accommodations particularly focused on the needs of parents (i.e., child care, class times and locations, curriculum content, and materials); and (3) linkages established with schools and community partners to facilitate the integration of services for families. At the State Level, DWD is reaching out to providers of early childhood education and home visiting programs to share information and discuss potential partnerships or collaborations to address family literacy from a Two-Generation Approach.

Indiana’s English language acquisition programs are designed for non-native speakers of American English whose communicative competence in the language is nonexistent or significantly limited. Furthermore, these programs are to target adults who intend to remain in the United States. English will be the primary medium of instruction, even when all students in a class speak a common language. The goal is not to produce students with perfect pronunciation or fluent English grammar, but rather to produce students whose ability to communicate in English (which includes reading, listening, comprehension and speaking) is proficient enough to function adequately in other educational settings, on the job, in the family, and/or in society.

In order to prepare the English Language Learner population for unsubsidized employment in in-demand industries and integrate them into the workforce system, DWD will support extending the existing English Literacy and Civics education with employability skills and integrating digital literacy skills. Through the already established technical assistance and monitoring processes, the providers of Adult Education and English Literacy/Civics will be supported in their efforts to increase coordination with local One Stop Centers to support English Language Learners in their transition into postsecondary education/training and/or employment.

The English language acquisition component of integrated English literacy and civics education activities is required to align to the College and Career Readiness content standards. In their application for funds, eligible providers are required to describe the curriculum and instructional materials to be used for the civics component of integrated English literacy (which includes reading, listening, comprehension and speaking) and civics education, which must, at a minimum, include instruction on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and civic participation. DWD also requires that the civics educational component include basic instruction in U.S. history and workforce preparation activities and align to the Indiana Employability Skills Benchmark tool. Eligible local providers are required to describe in their application for funds how the curriculum and instructional materials that will be used are aligned to the Indiana Employability Skills tool.

All adult education, literacy, and English language acquisition activities are required to be based upon the DWD adopted College and Career Readiness standards for English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Eligible local providers are required to describe, in their application for funds, their plans for supporting the transition to and implementation of these standards. Local providers are required to address professional development and ongoing assistance for all instructors; development and acquisition of curriculum and instructional materials aligned to the standards; and monitoring and ongoing technical assistance.

All workplace adult education and literacy activities must be based on the College and Career Readiness content standards. All workforce preparation activities must be based on Indiana’s Employability Skills Benchmark tool. Eligible providers are required to describe in their application for funds how the instructional materials to be used meet these requirements.

All integrated education and training activities must align the contextualized curriculum and materials they will use for the adult education component of the integrated education and training to the DWD adopted College and Career Readiness content standards. They must also align all workforce preparation activities to Indiana Employability Skills Benchmark tool. Finally, the occupational training component must be based on industry standards. Eligible providers are required to describe in their application for funds how the contextualized instructional materials they will use meet these requirements.

DWD will hold a competition for PY 17 funds in the winter of 16/17. For the initial year of the grant, funds will be allocated by county using a formula comprised of several metrics including the number of individuals without a HSE/HSD as well as an unemployment metric including discouraged and underemployed individuals into the UI rate. DWD will use the considerations specified in section 231(e) of WIOA to fund eligible providers by incorporating each of the considerations into the narrative portion of the application. DWD is developing a point-based scoring rubric weighting each of the considerations. Applicants will be required to provide narrative detail to demonstrate how they will meet each consideration.

The remaining specifications of the competition will be determined by October 2016.