Adult Basic Education To Community College Transitions Symposium Proceedings Report PDF Download

A college education is becoming more and more of a necessity in today's competitive economy: ninety percent of the fastest-growing jobs require postsecondary education or training. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has called on states, institutions and the federal government to work together to carry out the recommendations of "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education" in order to make postsecondary education more affordable and effective. The Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education called together leading thinkers in the field of adult education to generate a national dialogue on postsecondary transitions with regard to adult basic education (ABE) students. This publication recaps an Office of Vocational and Adult Education-sponsored ABE to Community College Transitions Symposium held in Washington, DC, on September 14, 2006. At the symposium, nationally recognized adult education experts shared their ideas about how to help adult learners transition successfully to postsecondary learning. The symposium was organized into two roundtable discussions. The first roundtable, "Why Are We Here? The Challenge of ABE to Community College Transition," focused on challenges faced by ABE programs in promoting transitions to community colleges and identified student, organizational, and policy challenges. Panelists for the first discussion included John Comings, Davis Jenkins, Israel Mendoza, and Jerry Rubin. The second roundtable, "Where Are We Going? Promising Approaches to Promote ABE to Community-College Transition," focused on organizational and academic approaches to making ABE more successful in promoting college transitions. Participants for the second discussion were: Johannes Bos, Debra Bragg, Ding-Jo Currie, Silja Kallenbach, and David Seith. Judith Alamprese provided a summary and recommendations for potential next steps, including: (1) Creating a system of lifelong learning that promotes the concept that learning is an ongoing part of adults' lives and that many adults will need to develop new skills or knowledge as they grow older; (2) Clearly articulating and systematically coordinating the components of career pathways to include academic training, career awareness and planning, and the provision of support services; (3) Building the awareness of incumbent workers about opportunities for participation in postsecondary education and the payoff in the workplace from their development of new or enhancement of existing skills; (4) Continuing to educate community colleges and state policymakers about the issues of ABE learners' transition to community college; and (5) Conducting rigorous experiments to test promising approaches to facilitating ABE learners' enrollment in and completion of postsecondary programs. Cheryl Keenan provided closing remarks calling for further research and demonstrations projects to assess conclusively the practices that promote and sustain postsecondary transitions among ABE students. Three appendixes include: (1) Panelist and Presenter Biographies; (2) Participant List; and (3) ABE to Community College Transitions Project. [This report was prepared by MPR Associates, Inc. for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education.].