(1) The general assembly finds that: (a) Increased educational attainment is a proven pathway out of poverty. In general, research shows that average annual earnings increase and unemployment rates decrease with each successive level of education or training that a person achieves. (b) Postsecondary education and credential attainment are increasingly central to a person's ability to earn family-sustaining wages, participate more fully in Colorado's twenty- first-century workforce, and contribute to the state's economic health and vitality; (c) Both nationally and in Colorado, projections indicate that by 2025, two-thirds of all jobs will require some level of postsecondary education or technical skill training; (d) Colorado has a substantial "middle-skill gap" in its workforce. Middle-skill jobs require some postsecondary education or training but less than a four-year degree. These positions make up approximately forty-seven percent of the state's jobs, but only thirty-six percent of Colorado workers have the training necessary to fill them. (e) Before Colorado can meet its workforce, educational attainment, and poverty- reduction goals, the state must address the need for adult education. A significant percentage of the state's working-age population lacks a high school diploma or its equivalent. Many of these individuals do not have basic literacy, digital literacy, or numeracy skills and are unprepared for participation in postsecondary education and for participation in the twenty-first-century workforce. Further, these individuals are unprepared to provide the learning support and advocacy that their own children or the children they care for require. (e.5) Literacy and level of educational attainment not only impact an individual's ability to gain employment at a self-sufficiency level, but extensive research shows that they are also key determining factors in the educational success and future employment potential of the individual's children or children for whom the individual is a caregiver. A two-generation approach to increasing literacy, digital literacy, and numeracy skills is essential for the workforce of today and tomorrow and for helping to break the cycle of poverty. (e.7) While some adults require educational programs that will improve their literacy, digital literacy, or numeracy skills to gain higher-paying levels of employment, many adults have not completed ninth grade or may otherwise be identified as lowest-level learners. Before these adults can aspire to higher-level employment, they require more basic educational programs that specialize in English language skills and assistance in obtaining a high school diploma or an equivalency certificate. (f) Effectively addressing the need for adult education requires the appropriation of state money to fund adult education and literacy programs that participate in workforce development partnerships or education attainment partnerships and that enable individuals to acquire the basic and more advanced skills needed to function effectively as parents, caregivers, employees, and citizens of the United States. Although there are several postsecondary programs that focus on workforce development and skills acquisition, these programs typically assume that participants are or have been in the workforce in some capacity and have already attained a base level of literacy, digital literacy, and numeracy. Adult education and literacy programs, however, are typically designed for adults who have been unable to enter the workforce in a meaningful capacity or are limited in their ability to support their children's education or participate in society due to a lack of basic literacy, digital literacy, and numeracy skills. (g) In return for state investment in adult education and literacy programs, these programs must refocus their mission to ensure that more low-skilled, low-income adults attain the basic literacy, digital literacy, and numeracy skills that they lack so that they may improve their own and the next generation's ability to participate in the current and future in-demand sectors of employment, function effectively in supporting and advocating for their children's education, and actively participate in society; and (h) Successfully refocusing the mission of adult education and literacy programs requires the active collaboration and coordination of a variety of state agencies and organizations that are involved in adult education and literacy; elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education; training and credential attainment; workforce development; economic development; and human services. (2) The general assembly finds, therefore, that it is in the best interests of the state to establish an adult education and literacy grant program to provide state funding for public and private nonprofit adult education and literacy programs. Investing in these programs will enable them to serve a larger share of the state's eligible adult population and ensure that more adults can reach and complete the next level of education and training, thereby leading to better employment outcomes that enable more low-income, low-literacy adults to ultimately achieve economic self-sufficiency and leading to an adult population that is better prepared to support the educational attainment of the next generation and actively participate as citizens in a democratic society.
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