was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of .

Child care is so expensive for parents in college that it often exceeds the cost of their education. For years, one federal program has been helping lower those costs, until this year when the program has faced cuts under the Trump administration.

Now, Democratic lawmakers are leading a push to save it.

House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and Sen. Tammy Duckworth are reintroducing a bill Thursday to dramatically grow the $80 million Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program, which awards four-year grants to about to offer child care to low-income students, the lawmakers shared exclusively with The 19th.

Duckworth and Clark have been reintroducing this legislation for almost a decade, but this year has brought new challenges.

In his 2026 budget, President Donald Trump called for a , saying that “subsidizing child care for parents in college is unaffordable and duplicative.” It’s an effort the president has supported . The House also recommended eliminating the program, and the Senate has suggested maintaining the current level of funding, but a budget has not yet been finalized.

Already, fewer schools are participating this year because the Department of Education decided not to open the application process, so schools that would typically be reapplying for a four-year grant were shut out, experts told The 19th.

Then in August, the department made an unusual move: It notified 13 other colleges that they would no longer be receiving grant funding to run their child care programs, arguing that some of the recipients were teaching toddlers about gender ideology and the concept of race. The decision is part of the administration’s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, though advocates said what was being taught were simple concepts to help toddlers, who are beginning to understand race and gender.

The Education Department did not respond to The 19th’s questions about cuts in grant funding, but Ellen Keast, a spokesperson for the department, that the “Trump administration will not fund programs that are not in the best interest of the American families they are intended to serve.”

Rescinding more than a dozen grants in the middle of their cycles — impacting schools in California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and other states— has been destabilizing for those programs, experts told The 19th. Edward Conroy, a senior policy manager on the higher education team at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said that schools relied heavily on CCAMPIS funding to operate and that some will likely be closing their on-campus centers when the money runs dry. That could be as soon as this month. The schools were informed just before Labor Day, when some had already begun their school years.

“If you’re on a four-year grant cycle, unless something goes really sideways, you’re expecting those funds to continue for the four years,” Conroy said. “It’s very unusual for them to be ended. It’s even more unusual for them to be ended with essentially no warning.”

Some institutions are appealing, but the future of the federal program is in question.

Clark argued that this all means it’s “even more reason to continue to push” for her bill. But that effort is also likely to face some opposition in the current political climate because Clark and Duckworth are not only suggesting the program continue operating, they want to raise its budget by more than six times what it is now.

The new price tag: $500 million.

More than 3 million college undergrads — 1 in 5 — have children, and about have kids under the age of 6. An estimated of those students are women, many of them and . The largest share of those students are .

The CCAMPIS program, which was established in 1998, targets those low-income students to help them reach graduation. Overall, student parents are about to drop out of college, and only about of single mothers who are students reach graduation within six years.

But in , the cost of center-based infant care exceeds the cost of in-state college tuition.

“There is no reasonable way for someone to be a full-time student, work and also afford child care,” said Elliot Haspel, a national child care expert who has written on the subject. “The math doesn’t math. It can be back breaking, which is why we need parents to access some kind of subsidy.”

The CCAMPIS program not only supports students (those who qualify for the Pell Grant can access the program), but smaller community colleges that don’t have the discretionary funds to operate their own child care programs. Grantees can either establish their own on-campus centers or partner with local facilities. One study at Monroe Community College in New York analyzing data from 2006 to 2014 found that 71 percent of students who used on-campus child care , compared with 42 percent of student parents who did not use on-campus child care.

“It really punches above its own weight in terms of what it can do,” Duckworth told The 19th. “Many of these programs are training centers for students who are getting degrees in early childhood education so it’s a real win, win, win, and it’s a relatively cheap program for what it provides.”

But only a small share of the students who need on-campus child care are being covered by the program as it exists now. A report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that about parents were supported by the program in 2018. An earlier report from the analyzing program data from 2016 to 2017 found some 4,000 children were on waitlists. And because the funds are offered on a sliding scale to students, some only get a covered by the program.

It’s a : Care is too expensive and too hard to find, and those who can’t afford it or find it have to make difficult decisions around whether to care for their kids or continue to work .

“We are asking parents of young children to foot this incredible bill when we need them and it is in the interest of everyone to help them find and be able to afford child care,” Clark, who represents Massachusetts, told The 19th. “It is not only good for families and good for kids, it is really good for our economy.”

By expanding the program and its funding, Clark and Duckworth are hoping it can be better designed to actually support what students need. On-campus child care options declined from 2012 to 2021, according to a report from New America. And though CCAMPIS has been steadily receiving more funding annually, from $15 million in fiscal year 2017 to $75 million in fiscal year 2023, fewer institutions have received grants.

Advocates believe a $500 million price tag would allow the program to better cover the cost of administering child care, cover more students who need it and . New America estimates that expansion would cover .

“The $500 million is based on need and what we are seeing from people who would love to access this program but can’t,” Clark said.

The bill would reauthorize CCAMPIS through 2031 and raise the minimum grant amount in the law’s statute from $30,000 to $75,000  and establish a maximum grant amount: $2 million. It will also require that on-campus child care centers meet either federal or state quality standards, or be accredited by a respected national early childhood accrediting body; grant funds can be used for these quality improvements.

Clark told The 19th the legislation is also about giving smaller colleges the funding they need to more efficiently stand up the infrastructure to establish on-campus care. A higher minimum grant amount is “going to encourage more colleges, more universities to participate in this,” she added.

In prior years, the bill has had Republican co-leads. This year it doesn’t. Still, some Republicans do want to see improvements to the program, including Rep. Nathaniel Moran, from Texas, who has previously to also raise the minimum grant amount and add additional flexibility into the program.

Duckworth said that reintroducing the bill is in some ways about sending a message on priorities, that they are not giving up on improving the program.

“It’s also about getting the word out so colleges in and universities in red districts and red states can speak to their congressmen and their senators and say, ‘Hey, you know what? You should probably sign on to this,” Duckworth said. “There are students everywhere that have children, and they need the help, and so I’m hoping eventually somebody will sign up.”

But the $500 million price tag is likely to be a sticking point at a time when the federal government is looking for areas to cut costs.

Richard Davis Jr., a policy analyst for higher education at New America, said that while increases are badly needed for the program, “there’s still a real fight ahead to sustain funding.”

For American families, child care is a major line item in family budgets for those with young children, yet the Trump administration has not made the issue a priority despite it being one that across the political spectrum would like to see the federal government address.

“Given there is so much talk about a pro-family agenda with the Republican Party, we think there is a really great opportunity for increasing support for children and families in this way,” Davis said.

And, Haspel added, even if the $500 million figure is aspirational for advocates, there is some value in introducing legislation that draws Americans’ attention to efforts that directly address their needs.

“Something like introducing a bill and saying, ‘Hey, we actually want to increase it,’ can help force that conversation,” Haspel said. “Make those who oppose it say why.”

This story was originally published on The 19th.

Amid this flurry of activity, one major potential shift in federal education policy has received little attention: the $0 budget line for adult education programs in Trump’s proposal for FY 2026.

Many people may be unfamiliar with adult education programs and the services they provide. These programs serve adult learners who aren’t part of the traditional K-12 or higher education sectors. There are two main constituencies: adult dropouts and others with skills below the high school leve,l and adults who lack English language skills.

The roots of federally supported adult education stretch back to the Revolutionary War, when George Washington ordered chaplains to teach basic literacy to troops at Valley Forge. The modern system took shape under President Lyndon Johnson, whose 1964 Economic Opportunity Act established adult education as a pillar of his Great Society agenda.

Today, more than 1.2 million adults enroll in programs offered by libraries, school districts, community colleges, and nonprofits across all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories — at an average cost of just $2,000 a student, a fraction of K-12 or college education.

The Trump administration has already sought to withhold current funding for adult education, only to release the money along with other grants. It defends eliminating federal funding for adult education by claiming that K-12 improvements will make adult programs unnecessary and that existing efforts show “dismal results.” Neither claim holds up.

The idea that stronger K-12 outcomes will erase the need for adult education ignores the millions of adults already outside that system. And while research is still developing, the best studies show clear benefits. In our of an adult ESL program in Massachusetts, participants saw earnings gains that led to increased tax revenues when compared to similar adults who applied to the program but did not win an enrollment lottery. The increased tax revenue more than covered the cost of the program, yielding an estimated 6% return to taxpayers.

Public adult education programs, as we know them, are highly dependent on federal funds. Federal funding represents a much larger share — about one third — of funding for adult education than for K-12 (about 10%), meaning cuts to federal revenue will hit this sector particularly hard. 

Federal funding also provides incentives for investments in adult education by states, which are required to provide matching funds of at least 25%, a requirement most states substantially exceed. Moreover, the constituencies affected by these cuts will be geographically and politically broad: the target populations for these education services, low-skilled adults and immigrants,  are concentrated or growing most rapidly in red states. 

Trump’s proposed budget is now in the hands of Congress. As economists and researchers in the field, we envision a future where continued investment — and rigorous study — helps us better understand how adult education delivers value for individuals and society. But we already know enough to act. The evidence to date points clearly in one direction: Adult education works, especially for English learners. Congress should reject these proposed cuts and reaffirm its commitment to educational opportunity at every stage of life. 

Federal funds for adult education services were among those blocked by the Trump administration on July 1, causing immediate cuts to Alaska adult education and workforce development programs and staff layoffs.

The U.S. Department of Education has more than $6 billion in congressionally approved grants for education, including over $629 million for adult education basic grants, and more than $85 million in adult integrated English literacy and civics education grants. The administration has said that it’s withholding the federal funding to review the grant programs to ensure they

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Adult education can range from classes that help adults learn basic literacy to programs that assist students in gaining certificates equivalent to high school diplomas, and can teach skills that are essential to performing certain jobs.

Alaska had over $1.1 million as part of an adult education basic grant, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, which administers the grants. A department spokesperson said on Tuesday the grant amounts for English literacy and civics education this year were not available, but the state received more than $99,600 last year.

The withheld funds means immediate cuts to services for Alaska adult learners and staff layoffs, according to grant recipients.

“We were definitely blindsided,” said Lucie Magrath, executive director of the Literacy Council of Alaska, a Fairbanks-based nonprofit that provides adult education programs, including adult literacy, English language learning, civics and General Educational Development, or GED, preparation classes.

Magrath said an estimated $180,000 in federal funding, or over half of their budget, was impounded, causing immediate cuts to services and staff layoffs. While the organization did not identify the number of layoffs in an interview last week, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that there were five layoffs.

“So we are having to make some pretty drastic decisions with staffing and programming,” she said in a phone interview on Thursday. “We likely will not be able to serve nearly as many people this year, and we’re making staffing cuts right now.”

The organization provides in-person and virtual instruction and mentoring to adult learners in Fairbanks, as well as in villages in the Interior and Western Alaska, stretching from the Yukon Flats to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

They also have a workforce development program, the Pathways Program, serving youths and young adults ages 16 to 24, and run the used bookstore in Fairbanks, which provides revenues for its programs, jobs training and employment.

Shelby Cooke is the assistant executive director of the Literacy Council of Alaska, and said it’s difficult to fill such a large funding gap, especially on such short notice, and Alaskans will be impacted.

“The real detriment is to our students and Alaskans who need that GED credential to go to work, or maybe they’re a super-skilled person in their native tongue, but they need enough English to be able to navigate a job interview,” she said. “Those are the folks that are suffering, and in turn, our economy suffers too.”

Magrath said some programs will be suspended immediately. It’s possible that these suspensions will be temporary, as her organization figures out its next steps. “We’re looking at restructuring some of our programs just to be able to use the resources that we have to the maximum impact for our community and our students,” she said. “So we have a lot to figure out right now.”

Southeast Regional Resource Center, a nonprofit educational services agency that provides a variety of services statewide, including adult education, English language learning and workforce development programs. In addition, SERRC provides educational and business services to school districts, including special education programs, human resources and grant administration.

“We do have some state funds, and so we’ve had to modify our budget just off what we know we have for funding — for state funds — and we are looking at having to reduce our staffing,” said Chris Reitan, its executive director, in a phone interview Thursday. He said the organization is looking at cutting at least two staff positions and a few part-time positions. “So we are concerned about the ability to have the same level of impact.”

Reitan said the federal funding freeze withheld over $86,600 for adult education programs in Southeast Alaska, and over $64,000 in the Aleutians region.

He said SERRC’s program served 112 students last year in the areas of GED support, English language learning and workforce development across the state.

“Number one, adult education provides a kind of a lifeline for Alaskans seeking to improve their lives, and it also helps strengthen our state’s workforce,” he said, and will have an immediate impact on adult learners, “which then could immediately impact their ability in regards to getting good-paying jobs, their ability to provide for their families, their ability to contribute to their local communities.”

He added: “I see this as being a significant impact across the state, in regards to our citizens being able to have the opportunity to better themselves.”

SERRC and the Literacy Council of Alaska are two of across the state with grant funding administered by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. A department spokesperson, Adam Weinert, said by email that the department has continued to award available state matching funds for the programs, totaling more than $1.9 million.

“Sub-grantees were informed that we were moving forward at this time with state funding only,”  Weinert said of the programs. “Once federal funding is released, we will move forward with a budget modification to provide for the federal funding.”

The full impact of how the freeze will affect some programs in the long term remains unclear.

The University of Alaska system has several adult education programs, funded in part by federal funds, as well as state and local funding. Jonathan Taylor, the university’s director of communications, said by email Monday that “discussions are ongoing” around funding but those programs are scheduled to continue.

Taylor said at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the program will start up in August with funding from Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp.

Within the University of Alaska Anchorage, there are adult education programs at , serving the Kodiak Island Borough; , serving the Soldotna, Homer and Seward regions; and , serving the Valdez, Cordova and Copper Basin regions.

“We have received assurances that all three will receive some sort of funding this year,” Taylor said. “To our knowledge, the state will initiate these awards using either state funding or federal funding it has access to. If additional Federal Funds become available, the state will amend the agreements to make up to the original intended funding amount. Currently, this is an active endeavor and ongoing discussion with the state.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.

FORT WORTH — Tiphainne Wright tapped her foot as she flipped through her copy of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the dystopian novel. To be dismissed from class that November day, Wright and her fellow students had to identify a metaphor or motif in that week’s reading.

“I’m never getting out of here,” Wright said, filling in the silence in the room, a nervous smile played on her lips.

Eventually, she thought of an example and jotted it down. She turned it in to her teacher, Mrs. Dory, and received a fist bump.

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The 22-year-old dropped out of high school her junior year after having a baby. She never liked school anyhow. The hectic environment was not conducive to her learning, she said.

She’s trying again, four years later, so she can get a job that will support her and her son.

The flexibility of afternoon and evening classes at her adult high school “gives me extra time to spend with him and encourage him to finish school and push him to be somebody better than I was,” she said.

Wright attends New Heights High School, where adult students like her get a second chance to earn a high school diploma and a training certificate at no cost. The charter high school opened this year out of a Tarrant County College building. The school is part of a statewide effort to help those who dropped out of high school enter the workforce.

Students come to New Heights with a range of academic histories. Their previous high school credits will count toward a diploma — which on average takes about two years to earn and includes workforce training from the junior college.

About one in six Texas adults never finish high school. The main alternative is the General Equivalency Diploma, or GED. But in the past decade.

Not completing high school has reverberations on the wages Texans earn later in life. Adult workers who have a diploma see on average nearly than those who don’t.

New Heights High School sits on the southeast fringes of the North Texas city, past the railroad tracks in a mostly Black, mostly low-income neighborhood called Stop Six. There’s no full-service grocery store, no anchoring place to gather, no major employers.

Dropping out of high school in this neighborhood can feed the cycle of poverty that has had a tight grip on Stop Six families – impeding employment, limiting salaries, and increasing the poverty rate of children.

When New Heights English teacher Schnique Dory was in school, her mom drilled into her that she would not become a part of the problems in the Stop Six neighborhood she saw nearly every day. Today, the streets are still dotted with abandoned houses. Unemployment rates are nearly triple the rest of the city.

Dory was the first person in her family to graduate from college. She has since returned home to teach in Fort Worth and Stop Six.

Teacher Schnique Dory reads from “The Handmaid’s Tale” with her fourth period students at New Heights High School. (Maria Crane/The Texas Tribune)

“Teaching my hood, teaching my community, investing in people who came from where I came, I’m hoping that it’s going to pay back generational change,” she said. “They can all increase their incomes, get better jobs, and have better lives.”

The first modern adult high school was opened 11 years ago. State lawmakers first created an Austin pilot program for 150 learners. About 48 students graduated in the first year, and 61 in the following year, according to the state’s evaluation of the program.

In response, the adult charter high school model was cemented into state law in the following sessions. Lawmakers added guardrails for funding and established accountability metrics relevant to adult learners coming in at a range of reading levels.

Like other charters, these schools receive public funding and do not charge tuition. While they operate outside the traditional school district governing structure, they must meet many of the same state requirements and accountability metrics.

During the most recent legislative session, lawmakers established a way for adult high schools to enter partnerships with nonprofits and community colleges. The Fort Worth school is one of the first adult high schools to team up with a community college, along with the Goodwill Excel Center. These partnerships allow the charter school to access additional funding and offer additional credentials that can be attractive to adults seeking a leg up in their field.

Charter schools across the state are starting to follow suit. An existing charter work network, ResponsiveEd, has already announced they are opening adult high schools in 23 cities across Texas.

Charter school critics say they take money from traditional public schools, which can translate to reduced services for students in the district. The adult model, however, taps a different population of learners, Traci Berry, the CEO of the New Heights argued.

“We’re actually supporting their families,” said Berry, who had had a hand in the lawmaking effort. “And ISDs know that if the parents of their children are doing better, then their children are going to [do] better.”

Gustavo Mora, 36, has tried to get his GED, the high school equivalency test. He’s put time and money into GED programs but the classes in those programs felt too hands-off, Mora said.

“You still have too much space to think and doubt. Am I gonna make this happen? Is this really me?” Mora said. ”It came to a point where I couldn’t really take time out of my day to do education.”

Mora was in high school when he became a father. His high school at the time kicked him out because he was missing too many classes to work full time.

The personalized attention and the traditional classroom setting at New Heights has made this time feel different. He can’t turn around a hallway corner without a teacher checking in on him, he said.

From left: Students Tiphainne Wright, 22, and Gustavo Mora, 36, discuss the day’s reading in class at New Heights High School. The school serves adults who previously dropped out of high school. (Maria Crane/The Texas Tribune)

And this time, he’s been able to make school a priority. The technicians at the auto body shop he owns know to text three times if there’s an emergency on the days he’s in class. He purchased the materials for his class project on “The Handmaid’s Tale” at the Dollar Tree before fixing dinner for his six kids and he finished the project when they were asleep.

“It’s an all-day, everyday thing for me, Monday through Sunday. It’s not a day off,” he said. “I want to be able to show my family, especially my kids, I have graduated.”

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

This was late in the aughts, when I had just begun working with adults who couldn’t read. I had no materials, no guidance, no mentors — just a slowly growing group of students who kept finding my GED-prep program and coming back night after night to wait patiently, wearily, for me to figure out how to teach them to read. I’d quickly discovered this challenge was beyond my untrained, intuitive approach.

But now I had a solution! An experienced reading tutor had offered to work with two students. The catch — they would have to travel to her library in another part of the city.

One of these men, Nelson (student names have been changed to protect privacy), was a fierce guy in his early 30’s. He had a shaved head, a gold earring, and a stony, unsmiling face. The other, Joseph, was in his 60’s, tired and worn out from the stress of caring for his aging father and his sick grown daughter on the wages of a man with no reading skills. The two had become friends; I relished the thought of them working with this experienced tutor. I assumed they’d share my excitement, but they just stared blankly back at me. I jumped around trying to explain the qualifications of this tutor and what a lucky break this was. They didn’t budge. Finally, I asked, “Why aren’t you excited about this?”

Nelson glared furiously at me; Joseph finally offered, “We can’t get there unless someone takes us first.” The deep impact of low literacy skills was first revealed to me in this moment. Unable to read directional signage, these able-bodied grown men couldn’t even pursue a solution to their predicament. 

In my 15 years of working with adults who can’t read I’ve seen and heard countless examples of the limitations that low literacy skills impose on adults. But while educators across the country bemoan the reading crisis and call for the heads of Balanced Literacy icons, the discourse entirely avoids the adult education world. 

Those They will soon be adults who can’t read. 

The Same. 

And then what? 

It is long past time for the adult ed world to embrace the evidence and catch up to the Science of Reading. There are obstacles, of course. Adults are not only less cute than children; fewer education dollars are allotted to them, fewer teachers and schools are concerned with them, and absolutely nobody is making bank writing books to entice them to read. There is no Captain Underpants or Dr Seuss for adults reading at a 1^st or 2^nd grade level.

Forty-eight million adult Americans Forbes Magazine that the plague of low literacy skills could be costing the US $2.2 trillion annually in health care, social services, and lost wages. Worse, low literacy is handed down to children; the biggest indicator of a child’s literacy fate lies in the mother’s reading level. 

Economics aside, virtually everyone, on both sides of the aisle, wants adults to be able to read. Clearly this is an issue worthy of our attention; naturally we would expect that the reading wars, the push for evidence-backed methods, the revolution that has taken down the shibboleths of the last decades are impacting the world of adult ed, right? 

You tell me. Let’s look.

Imagine your spouse or parent or neighbor can’t read. 

You know about the . You listened to . You believe that is a discredited theory and that is not an effective way to teach reading.

You set out to find services. You look at libraries, literacy centers, or maybe your local municipal website. You make the happy discovery that many of these sites offer basic literacy services for adults. But when you click on the links you discover the next layer: that phrases like “adult literacy classes” and “adult basic literacy” actually mean classes in computer-training, ESL, job certifications, or GED. Lovely and essential programs, but what about those 48 million who need to learn to read? Where are the structured phonics programs for adults? 

Some literacy centers are clear that they simply don’t offer services for readers below the 4^th grade level. Others aren’t so clear. In New York City, the Mayor’s Office website offers various Adult Basic Ed links for adults who want to learn to read, but when you click to learn more there are circular links and even broken links. A prominent adult literacy foundation names its core methodology for teaching reading as Whole Language, which is like a state-funded health clinic listing blood-letting as one of its services. 

Back in the aughts, under pressure from the students in my program who were so desperate to learn to read that they wouldn’t leave, I began asking around: How do you teach reading to adults? The response from education directors, foundation presidents, teachers, and advocates was dismaying. “Are they retarded?” a director of adult education programs asked. “They probably need to work harder,” said one adult ed program manager.

“We let the students pick their own curriculum,” the local director of a regional literacy program that serves hundreds of students told me. I was confused. “You’re teaching higher level students, then?” I said. “They can read?”

“No, they can’t read,” she said. “But they’re adults so they get to choose what they want to work on.” By then I was several years into learning how to teach reading, and as a literate college graduate I was still struggling to figure it out. But this program expected low-skilled readers to direct their own hero’s journey. 

Where are the materials? 

My early group of adult students was so desperate to learn to read that they tolerated my clumsy early efforts. I cringe to remember what I put them through. The children’s books, the random workbooks, the naïve assumption that I could just show them how to sound out and that would do the trick. Here’s what I know from years in these trenches: for most of these students learning to decode is extremely difficult.  

Adults who didn’t learn to read are often the most dyslexic, had the least effective teaching, and are the most impacted by socio-economic factors. Some, if they are immigrants, never went to school at all, or they may have dropped out in second or third grade.

If raised in the U.S., most either dropped out at the earliest moment or languished for years in special education classrooms.  

All of them now have adult lives, usually with jobs (or job searches), families, and health issues. They have adult brains, often weary, and rigidly attached to ineffective decoding strategies.

The most popular strategies 

Short on decoding skills, most adults come up with strategies. First, they memorize as many words as they can by sight. Second, they use the context to make a guess. Third, they stare in frustration at the word and wait for it to pop into their head. Of course there are unique flourishes. One student would re-write the word repeatedly while sternly admonishing herself: “Get it, girl. Come on, get it.” Many will unleash a chaotic, seemingly panicked jumble of guesses.

The one thing every single one of the adult basic literacy students I’ve met shares is a complete lack of awareness of the reading code. Not one has come into my program with the understanding that sounds are more relevant than letter names or even that sounds are a thing. 

They are, as a group, a case study in the importance of direct instruction of phonemic awareness and phonics.

As much or even more than any group they require the best teaching methods.  

Why then the almost total absence among adult ed programs of evidence-backed basic literacy programs?  Why the attachment to Whole Language principles? Why the undying love for Paolo Freire, who gives us zero specific strategies for teaching reading to adults? 

Is it any wonder that basic literacy students are often considered impossible to retain for more than a few months and not really worth the trouble to run a program for? Look at what they are offered. Why stick around?

I was lucky. 

Carried along by the persistence of that first group of students, I stumbled upon the concept of evidence-based methods for teaching reading — to children. I got certified and brought the program back to my tutoring center. Through the years I kept tweaking the curriculum to better serve both adult students and volunteer tutors until I finally re-wrote the whole thing, making a simple, scripted structured phonics curriculum that volunteers can be trained to use and that follows the evidence to the best of my ability. 

Those two men I mentioned were in my program too early to reap the full benefits. They were subject to the low end of my expertise curve. But they did learn. Nelson, the younger man, told me he’d never known there was anything to reading besides memorizing all the words. He learned slowly and painstakingly to tap and blend the sounds of simple words. He came in one day trying not to smile as he told us that his uncle had left him a note, and he’d read it. Another time he told me he’d gotten lost and started reading street signs. His ex-wife, on the phone with him trying to help, started shouting, “You can read!” He told me, “Words jump out at me everywhere I go.” He was a volatile young man, often disappearing for weeks on end and then shaking his head slyly when I’d ask what he’d been up to. One day he never returned. 

Joseph learned, too, also slowly. He later said that the entire first year of tutoring gave him an excruciating headache. It was worth it. From all of our students I hear the same thing: “Why didn’t they teach us this when we were young?”

If the numbers of children currently reading below grade level are correct, we are heading into an even worse adult literacy crisis than we have now. The rallying cry for effective instruction methods for children is loud and clear. But it is time to sound the bell for the refugees of the broken reading education system as well: all those children who didn’t learn and are now adults, still not reading.

Rosemely Osorio is swiftly becoming the educator that, years ago, she wished for.

When, at age 9, she and her family came to Rhode Island from Guatemala, Osorio recalls struggling academically as she navigated an unfamiliar system.

“When I came here and I started at the schools, I remember, I didn’t know how to speak any English. … I didn’t have a mentor who told me, ‘Hey, it’s really important that you work extremely hard in high school so then your GPA is good.’ I didn’t know what a GPA was,” she said.

In 2014, she graduated high school, the first in her family to accomplish the feat, but college remained out of reach because of finances and her immigration status — Osorio is a DACA recipient, the Obama-era program that provides deportation relief and work permits to undocumented residents brought here as children.

Now, years later as an adult learner in College Unbound and the Equity Institute’s TA to BA program, she’s just a semester away from earning her bachelor’s degree and teaching certification, key steps toward becoming exactly the role model she yearned for as a young person. At the same time, she works as a paraprofessional in the Central Falls high school she once attended, which serves a high share of Central American immigrant students.

“They see in me someone that they can count on,” said Osorio. “They’re like, ‘Oh, she knows how to speak Spanish. She looks Hispanic. So I can actually talk to her.’”

After only two years in operation, the teacher training program that opened doors for Osorio has scaled up more than six times beyond its original capacity and is launching cohorts in a second city, with talks underway to expand to a third, leaders say.

“The program has grown pretty tremendously,” said Carlon Howard, who helped launch the TA to BA fellowship and is chief impact officer at the Equity Institute. “There’s a lot of interest in initiatives such as these given that, across our country, schools and districts are challenged to find enough educators to staff their buildings.”

The Rhode Island program, which served 13 fellows in its inaugural 2020-21 class, will train 75 paraprofessionals this year. Two new, 10-student cohorts will launch in Philadelphia, where College Unbound already operates other programs, thanks to funding from the school district. Over 40 people remain on the waiting list, said David Bromley, College Unbound’s Philadelphia coordinator. In nearby Camden, New Jersey, the college is working with the teachers union to roll out programs there, too, he added.

“Investing deeply in our staff who already work closely with our students to bring them to the next stage of their career is a shining light of positivity in the midst of a difficult few years,” Larisa Shambaugh, chief of talent for Philadelphia public schools, said in an emailed statement to ����Ӱ��.

‘Untapped talent’

Many paraprofessionals are highly skilled educators with years or even decades of classroom experience, Howard said, but still may feel like they have a “glass ceiling above their head” because they lack college degrees and financial resources.

Participants in the fellowship often study tuition-free thanks to the Equity institute’s “last dollar” scholarships covering costs not offset by federal Pell grants.

“We target folks who already work with kids … and all we’re trying to do is help them realize their greatest potential,” Howard said.

TAs are an “untapped talent” pool from which to recruit and train high-quality educators, agreed David Donaldson, managing partner for the National Center for Grown Your Own educator pipeline programs.

Students take two College Unbound courses a semester, scheduled outside of the work day, plus a lab component specifically geared to prepare them to lead a classroom. Thanks to a process at the college for measuring and awarding credits for prior learning experiences, some students are able to take an accelerated path to graduation. Osorio, for example, will finish in under two years.

“It’s been a lot of work,” she admits, cramming in classes while also working full time and taking care of family responsibilities. “But I don’t regret it.”

Addressing diversity, combatting shortages

Educators like Osorio — those who reflect their students culturally and linguistically — are in short supply in Rhode Island’s schools and nationwide. Roughly 1 in 10 teachers in the Ocean State are people of color while 4 in 10 students identify as Black, Hispanic, Indigenous or Asian. Meanwhile, educators of color and those who speak multiple languages improve outcomes for all students, but provide a particular boost to students whose identities they match, research shows.

Classroom aides, on the other hand, tend to be much more racially and linguistically diverse than teachers. The positions generally do not require a college degree and can be more accessible to people from low-income backgrounds. All her fellow teaching assistants, Osorio said, speak Spanish and the vast majority are people of color, whereas the teachers at her school are predominantly white and speak only English.

“To be honest, everything we see is all these teachers in the classrooms with a bunch of Hispanic kids, but the teacher doesn’t speak their language,” said Osorio. “That’s what my biggest motivation was to apply and getting certified was that students need teachers in the classroom that they can relate to.”

David Quiroa is joining the TA to BA fellowship this fall and works as a paraprofessional in his home community of Newport, Rhode Island.

“So many TAs who are in the [Black, Indigenous and people of color] community already have been putting in the work for several years … and they’re never given the opportunity to pursue higher education,” he said. “With TA to BA and College Unbound, it really is showing these communities, ‘Look, we are here, we are federally approved, we have all of the accreditations, we have so (many) established connections here in our community. You guys have been doing the work. We just want to give you your proper salary.’”

Meanwhile, districts across the country are facing acute staffing shortages and going to extreme lengths — including tapping college students or dangling $25,000 bonuses — to entice new hires.

In this climate, the grow-your-own approach is “getting a lot of attention now,” Donaldson said, even though turning to programs that provide a work-based pipeline to train new teachers is a longer-term solution.

His organization recently announced that seven states with existing or emerging apprenticeship programs to train educators launched an all-new National Registered Apprenticeship in Teaching Network. It comes on the heels of a June announcement from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging states to invest in grow-your-own programs, including those that begin in high school and with apprenticeship programs.

“Missouri, like other states, is struggling to address staffing issues created by teacher shortages. The Teacher Apprenticeship is an additional, innovative model to help address this issue,” Paul Katnik, Missouri’s assistant education commissioner, said in a release after the network was announced.

The other participating states are California, Florida, North Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

‘We got you’

The relationship faculty build with participants is a secret to the program’s success in Rhode Island, and soon in the new Philadelphia cohorts, fellowship leaders and students say.

Osorio’s advisor “has played a big role in the way that I have been able to develop in this program,” said the College Unbound student. In addition to checking in academically and emotionally, the faculty member who runs her teaching lab class allowed Osorio to make up credits when she fell behind after a devastating miscarriage. And when Osorio was short on cash to renew her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status and fearing she would lose her work permit, she again asked for help.

“Don’t worry about it. We got you,” was the response from College Unbound. “And they actually sent me a check home so I could pay for that application.”

That support is by design, said Howard, who explained that the program trains its faculty to uplift participants and be there for them. Even as the fellowship scales up, he’s confident the family-like culture among cohorts will remain.

The TA to BA leader believes it’s within the program’s reach to train 200 paraprofessionals into full-time teachers in the next three to five years. If all goes according to plan, he hopes to serve 500 by 2030 and may also add a high school teaching apprenticeship component.

Quiroa, the Newport TA, is “thrilled” about the expansion, he said, because there are “absolutely” others in his field who could benefit from the opportunity. “Having this organization, this program, thrive … I think is the best thing we can do to move forward and break a lot of these inequities.”

Osorio, for her part, can visualize the impact that seeing someone like her at the helm of a classroom could have for immigrant students. Hispanic role models were vital in her professional life after graduating high school, she said, and now she can finally pass on the favor.

“I get how important mentors are so now I can be that for those students.”