Sponsors (11)
Introduced April 9, 2025 by Lucy Mcbath · Last progress April 9, 2025
The bill expands funding, local partnerships (including libraries), and program offerings to broaden adult education and career navigation for low-income Americans and families, while increasing federal spending and imposing new administrative, operational, and provider compliance costs that states and local partners must absorb.
Low-income adults, adult learners, students, and parents gain expanded access to career navigation, digital/information literacy, and family literacy services through navigators and expanded adult education programming, helping them build job-related and civic skills.
Federal authorization increases resources for adult education and navigator grants (FY2026–2030), providing funding to expand workforce development capacity and support local providers and navigators.
Inclusion of public libraries and community organizations as eligible one-stop partners improves geographic and local access to services—especially in rural or transportation-limited areas.
Taxpayers face several years of increased federal spending to authorize navigator grants and expanded adult education funding, which may raise budgetary pressures or require offsets elsewhere.
States, local agencies, and providers will face increased administrative and compliance burdens from new definitions, expanded reporting/evaluation requirements, IES national evaluations, and statutory updates.
New professionalization, credentialing, and quality requirements may raise costs for adult education providers, potentially reducing program flexibility or capacity if additional funding is insufficient.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Revises WIOA and the Adult Education Act to expand definitions and roles, raise authorized funding for FY2026–2030, add pilot authority for new accountability systems, and strengthen digital and family literacy supports.
Revises the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act to expand and clarify definitions, add new roles and literacy categories, raise authorized funding levels for FY2026–FY2030, and create a pilot authority for alternative performance accountability systems. It requires timely federal review of pilot applications, mandates national evaluation of pilots, increases transparency around non‑Federal matching funds, and broadens state and national leadership activities to support family literacy, digital and information literacy, and program quality improvements.