An Analysis of the Office of Vocational and Adult Education Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies U.S. Country Report

• In Event: A Fresh Look at Adult Skills in the United States and Around the World: Key Findings From the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012 and Their Implications

Abstract

This presentation will provide an overview of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) PIAAC U.S. country report. This report analyzes the performance of U.S. adults on PIAAC in the context of several other indicators and trends. It is different from the NCES presentation in that it will focus solely on the performance of U.S. adults and provide some discussion of the policy implications of these results.

The first part of this presentation will compare U.S. PIAAC scores with trends from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to demonstrate how young adult cohorts' performance (measured at age 15 by PISA) appear to manifest in adult outcomes in the labor market (measured at ages 16-65 by PIAAC).

Second, this presentation will focus on how educational attainment relates employment, wages, and other labor market characteristics such as whether individuals’ skills are a closely matched to their jobs. The presentation will highlight and focus on the most educationally disadvantaged groups – those with a high school education or less.

The third area of focus will examine a variety of social and educational outcomes and how these relate to literacy and numeracy proficiency. For example, the report will answer how participation in adult education and training relates to literacy and numeracy proficiency. Furthermore, social outcomes including level of trust, health status, volunteering, and voting are also explored as a function of literacy and numeracy proficiency. Additional analyses by race and ethnicity, absent in the international PIAAC report, shed light on the distribution of skill proficiencies in the U.S. population and spotlight inequalities.

The analyses presented here provide insight into intergenerational patterns of low educational attainment and how the achievement gap has matured (Murnane & Duncan, 2011). The OVAE report will put considerable attention on young adults with weak skills because these adults have the greatest number of years ahead in the workforce.

Policy recommendations from the OVAE PIAAC U.S. Country Report range from a focus on evidence-based interventions that show promise to remediate weak skills while simultaneously addressing employability, such as integrated education and training to career pathways, to building the political will to close the long-standing results of the achievement gap.

This presentation will introduce findings and recommendations, but more importantly, discuss the policy levers available to intervene on targeted issues identified by the U.S. PIAAC results. This presentation will be of interest to policymakers and practitioners working in adult education and workforce development.

R. Murnane & G. Duncan (Eds.), (2011). Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality and the Uncertain Life Chances of Low-Income Children. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.

Author

• Johan Uvin, U.S. Department of Education