The Value of Adult Basic Education 
Visualize you have the time and resources to look into the lives of 70 of your most successful students, several years after they left your class or program. What should you learn about:
* Your impact on their lives?
* Their sense of themselves?
* Their employment progress?
* Effects on their kids?
* Their community involvement?
For many years, the Department has proudly celebrated the stories of the state’s adult learners, by publishing a booklet profiling ten exemplary students in text and picture. It’s that you might want to do for your program, perhaps as a display in your facility if not as a published booklet.
In recent times it was examined the long-term ("longitudinal" is the jargon) impact on the lives of 70 former award recipients, through interviews between two and 32 years after their participation in programs, plus third-party comments and a couple of Quality of Life inventories.
Education is the light that illuminates the darkness of ignorance
What lessons emerge from studying 70 marvelous people like this? In general, there was a 90% drop in unemployment and food stamp usage, a 27% increase in salaried employment, a record of community service and impressive educational attainment by participants’ children.
Participants entering a tutoring or classroom situation were not yet successful adult learners but they had been tested in life’s fire and not found wanting. Some of them had strong support systems, some stood alone and some battled spouses trying to bring them down. Most of them had been wounded in their struggle for literacy and educational advancement.
The study also reveals the ways in which adult education is a catalyst for change in people’s lives, strengthening self-confidence and sparking higher goals in learning, work, and life. Many adults are drawn to "helping" jobs. Their kids act in response positively them as role models.
Even successful participants identified some issues which practitioners should heed:
1. The word "illiteracy" is distressing to many participants in literacy programs.
2. Adult learners often need time – more time than policy-makers like to permit. Literacy, ESL, and GED graduates all pleaded for patience on the part of tutors, teachers, and administrators.
3. The push for professionalism sometimes replaces many experienced but non-credentialed teachers with fewer full-time novices with degrees but less skill and availability.
4. Funding to permit successful graduates to pursue higher education is often unavailable but would be money well-spent.
The value of ABE participation cannot be assessed solely by skills gained in the classroom. The authority of adult education lies in its ability to improve the lives of our students, their families, and their communities. Being adult educators, we must join with adult learners to tell their personal stories.
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