ABE - Adult basic education programs gradually more are being viewed as a bridge to the next destination rather than a student's final stopping place in education. Various factors are prompting the development of activities to assist adults enrolled in ABE, English as a second language (ESL), and General Educational Development (GED) instruction to enter postsecondary education. ABE staff, for the most part those in community colleges, recognizes the resources their institutions offer learners in developing their skills and knowledge so that they can access better opportunities in the labor market. For assisting learners in accessing these resources, ABE staff are enhancing instruction and identifying support services to enable learners to enroll in college-credit courses. State offices of adult education also are encouraging ABE programs to work with admissions and counseling offices in community colleges to orient learners to the requirements of postsecondary education.
National initiatives are supporting ABE programs in developing services to help students be prepared to succeed in college. The disputes these efforts face are to identify adults whose skills and life circumstance allow them to participate in postsecondary skill training or academic courses successfully, and to develop coordinated services that can prepare and support adult learners in making a successful transition to undergraduate education.
State of Transition Activities
Transition activities stand for an emerging area of service in adult basic education. A number of efforts are on the go to describe practices and learner outcomes as an initial step in developing robust research on this topic. For instance, as the connections between ABE program and community college enrollment data are improved, programs and states are better able to determine the patterns of ABE student enrollment in college courses. In Idaho and Oregon, state policymakers track the enrollment of ABE students in college courses and encourage their ABE grantees to promote postsecondary participation. These programs are collecting data on the outcomes of adults participating in their transition services in an effort to document, understand, and evaluate the results of these activities. It is documenting emerging practices in its study on ABE Transition to Postsecondary Education, which includes transition activities undertaken by community colleges, school districts, and community-based organizations. Some other studies are focused on the role of the community college in ABE transition. The Advancement of Adult Literacy Council is investigating ways of strengthening the community college role in adult education, is conducting a project entitled Adult Basic Education - Community College Transitions. Since models of service become better defined and data about learner outcomes from these services become available, the stage will be set for a scientific test of the effects of ABE transition activities.
Transition Approaches
Complete information about the variety of current ABE transition activities is not available. An understanding is emerging from descriptions of transition programs as well as from other research underway. ABE transition activities range from orientation and advising about the opportunities and requirements for postsecondary participation to multi-component programs designed to place students in community college credit classes. Even though the audiences for transition activities tend to be adults in GED and high-level ESL classes as well as learners who have completed their GED, some ABE programs also provide awareness information on postsecondary opportunities to adults receiving high-level ABE instruction.
The growth of transition activities moves ahead in stages. ABE staff tries innovative strategies, test them with groups of learners, and then refine them based on learners' reactions and the availability of new information. Every so often a model is provided to staff to use in organizing services. As a result, the New England Literacy Resource Center (NELRC), which manages the project, asks grantees to follow a multi-component framework in developing transition activities as part of the demonstration. Despite the approach, the early lessons from designing and implementing services can be helpful in building models that can then be systematically evaluated.
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