Colleagues,

Many in the adult education and literacy field will find a new 
publication from the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) of interest. 
It is titled: WHATEVER IT TAKES: How Twelve Communities Are 
Reconnecting Out-of-School Youth. Its authors are Nancy Martin and 
Samuel Halperin, the latter a member of the CAAL board of directors.

I recently learned from the U.S. Department of Education that a bit 
more than one-third of adults in federally-funded ABE programs 
nationally are the under-25 age group. (That comes from federal data 
on 2002-2003, and 2003-2005 enrollment reports.) The larger number of 
high school dropouts ABE programs have been seeing lately almost 
certainly will produce an increase in the one-third percentage.

The report from AYPF -- published in cooperation with the National 
Conference of State Legislatures, National League of Cities, National 
School Boards Association, National Association of Secondary School 
Principals, and Council of the Great City Schools -- documents what 
committed, innovative educators, policymakers, and community leaders 
in twelve communities across the country are doing to "reconnect 
out-of-school youth to the social and economic mainstream." It 
"provides background on America's socially, economically, and morally 
unacceptable dropout problem" and profiles several major service 
programs.

Significant tie-ins are made in the publication to adult education 
and literacy -- see pages 4 and 165 among others.

Copies are available from AYPF by phoning 202-775-9731 or a PDF 
version (181 pages) is available free at www.aypf.org.

Gail S


-- 
Gail Spangenberg
President
Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy
1221 Avenue of the Americas - 46th Floor
New York, NY 10020
212-512-2362, fax 212-512-2610
www.caalusa.org