Beyond the School Doors

Individually administered literacy assessments were conducted with approximately 6,000 adults representing the 20 million persons served by the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Employment and Training Administration through the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) or the Employment Service/Unemployment Insurance programs. Information-processing skills were measured in three areas key to the day-to-day management of life: prose comprehension skills, document literacy skills, and quantitative skills. Some of the findings of the study were the following: (1) people in the DOL programs who have higher levels of literacy skills tend to avoid long periods of unemployment, earn higher wages, and work in higher-level occupations than program participants with lower skills; (2) 40-50 percent of clients had literacy skills in the lowest 2 of the 5 defined literacy levels; (3) about one-fifth of the clients had literacy skills at the highest two defined levels; (4) Black and Hispanic populations were not different from each other, but they were disproportionately represented at both ends of the literacy scale compared to Whites; and (5) 35-40 percent of high school graduates tested scored in the lowest two levels of the scale. The following conclusions were reached: (1) outcome measures should ensure comparability across individuals and time periods; (2) literacy requirements of key job families should be identified; (3) individuals with low literacy levels will have limited success in job training programs and the job market; and (4) there is a significant need for adult education programs for low-literate persons. (KC)