603 COMMENTARY We Are What We Do: Adult Basic Education Should Be About More Than Employability Alisa Belzer, Jeounghee Kim A policy focus that goes beyond the current emphasis on workforce development is needed to more fully leverage the benefits of improved adult literacy skills. E ducational policies and programs tend to continu- ously evolve over time, reflecting changes in politi- cal, social, and economic contexts. This evolution sometimes takes away from the goals that the policies and programs were originally designed to address and can have negative consequences for the very populations that they are intended to serve. In this commentary, we de- scribe an example of this by reviewing federal adult basic education (ABE) policy since its inception in the 1960s and then relate the most current policy regulations to findings from economic research on employment and earnings and population studies of adult cognitive skills. ABE includes basic literacy and numeracy, English- language learning, pre-GED, GED, and adult high school instruction for adults. Federal money provides only about 44% of support for ABE; an additional 45% comes from state funds (Foster & McLendon, 2012). In spite of repre- senting less than half of all funding for ABE, federal allo- cations play a substantial role in influencing practice at the local level. This has been impactful with regard to who gets served, under what circumstances, and what gets counted as effective practice and successful outcomes. Although it has sometimes helpfully focused the field, we argue that current federal policy has narrowed ABE, over- all, to primarily serving a workforce development aim. Although beyond the scope of this commentary, others have argued that it also has the potential to narrow who gets served (Pickard, 2016). This narrowing undercuts the value of increasing skills that can support improvements related to other important social outcomes. From Focusing to Narrowing, Federal Policy From 1964 to 2014 Federal funds for ABE were first authorized by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as part of the War on Poverty. Although funds have been allocated ever since, the statute enabling this has only been updated periodi- cally. When funding was transferred to the U.S. Office of Education in 1966, it became formally recognized as part of the education system (Rose, 1991). Rose de- scribed the evolution of the ABE system from then un- til the 1980s as relatively gradual, with an emphasis on growth and development. Allocations to states included funds for teacher training, curriculum development, and demonstration projects and research, in addition to providing program operating funds. Over that time period, the scope of service provision expanded to in- clude more people with more diverse educational needs in more varied types of learning contexts. ABE has al- ways been a core service area within federal work-based antipoverty strategies for the poor, lowest skilled popu- lation in the country. This was based on the assump- tion that improved literacy skills would lead to better employment outcomes. Little was done, however, to ex- plicitly and systematically create a pipeline from ABE to employment. Although a 1974 amendment to the spend- ing authorization saw the requirement that state plans must demonstrate coordination with the workforce development system, a major revision in 1978 explicitly framed the purpose of ABE around full human poten- tial development and assumed that literacy skills were Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol. 61 No. 6 pp. 603–608 doi: 10.1002/jaal.693 © 2018 International Literacy Association ALISA BELZER is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA; e-mail alisa.belzer@gse. rutgers.edu. JEOUNGHEE KIM is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA; e-mail jeoung@ssw.rutgers.edu.