/REACH HIGHER, AMERICA/ focuses on the adult education and skills crisis
facing American workers, proposes a fundamentally new approach to adult
basic education and workforce skills preparation in America, and lays
out the fiscal and social benefits that would result from substantially
increased public expenditures for programs and services.  It examines
the literacy and job-training needs of the low-skilled population,
including workers, the unemployed, immigrants with limited or no
English, parents and caregivers, incarcerated adults, high-school
dropouts, and high school graduates not adequately prepared for college.

Among other things, the Commission recommends transforming the current
adult education and literacy system, which reaches about 3 million
adults annually, into an adult education and workforce skills system
with the capacity to enroll 20 million adults by the year 2020 and a
mission of readying adults for postsecondary education and job training.
The report offers a "domestic Marshall plan" for meeting workforce
education needs -- including recommendations for federal and state
government, business and labor, philanthropy, and the general public. A
clear message of the report is that unless the nation gives much higher
priority to the basic educational needs of the workforce -- adults
beyond the reach of the schools -- America's standard of living, its
status as a leading world power, and its very social fabric will be
further eroded.

For a copy of the report and various related materials, go to
http://www.nationalcommissiononadultliteracy.org.

www.peoplewho.org