The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act provides finances to states to provide local programs for adult education and literacy services. The office of literacy and family services contains workplace and family literacy programs, for English and civics educational programs. Those who participate in these programs are traditionally16 years of age and older.
Studies have reported that roughly 40 million adults ages 16 and above are marginally illiterate and therefore not prepared with the abilities needed to successfully obtain and or maintain employment.
The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) aids literacy programs in efforts to concentrate on the literacy skills needed by adults to adequately perform in the workforce. Skills that will be required of them include reading, language and self-reliance. In efforts to achieve these goals several legislative mandates that include AEFLA, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and various other ABE (Adult Basic Education) programs have been instituted.
States that use the AEFLA embrace it on the basis of servicing: low-income learners, learners with disabilities, and single parents. They also included individuals with other educational barriers as well as those with limited English proficiency. States must follow certain requirements for awarding grants to local programs. The states that utilize the acts are encouraged to integrate themselves with existing adult education programs. Reasonable access to state funding will also be provided for nonprofit agencies, institutions of higher education, libraries and public housing authorities. Awards will be given on multi year basis.
While the Declaration of Independence specified that “All men are created equal” three amendments were subsequently written to address equality. In 1865, the thirteenth amendment was written that put an end to slavery. In 1866, the fourteenth amendment that gave due process of law and equal protection of the law to newly freed slaves. Conclusively, in 1870 the fifteenth amendment was enacted that prohibited states from disallowing anyone the right to vote because of their ethnic group. However despite these amendments many state enacted laws called Jim Crow laws that made segregation legal. These laws stated that blacks and whites could not share public facilities, ride the same buses, or attend the same schools.
In 1896 an African-American by the name of Homer Plessy was arrested for not giving up a train to a white man. He fought the action based on the fact that it was in violation of the fourteenth amendment. This case was a precursor to the Brown vs. Board of Education that was heard when by the Supreme Court in 1952. It was well known that the schools for blacks were inferior to those white students. The separation of the students perpetuated the feeling of one race being inferior to the other. Thus the court case was race based with the idea of public schools that were separate but equal. The law with the imposed sanctions insured that the black students would be deprived of the quality education that was given to the white students. Reading literacy was being withheld and without AEFLA it will continue to be withheld.
President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in January of 2002. In reality this act dated back more than 50 years to the United States Supreme Courts outlawing of ethnic separation in the public schools Brown vs. Board of Education case. No Child Left Behind continues the legacy of educational accountability that was begun Brown.
NCLB was intended to assist disadvantaged students and work towards closing the educational gap in areas of mathematics and reading literacy. All districts were to submit data of their student’s achievement during the 2002-2003 school year. By the end of the 2005 – 2006 school years every core content area teacher was directed to exhibit aptitude in his or her content area. In 2010 it was reported that thirty-eight