Adult Education in the 1980s

Adult Education in the 1980s 

By: Bob Phelps 

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EDAC 631

Adult Community Education

Bob Phelps

Group 2 – Fall 2019  

Ball State University

Introduction

The 1980s, referred to as the ‘decade of indulgence’ (Hannah, 2017) brought big spending on fashion, entertainment, and technology. Although an education remained important, Americans needed more than a degree and a stable home to prove their worth in society (The 1980s Lifestyles And Social Trends, 2003). Flaunting high-end fashion, fancy cars, and health club memberships gave the appearance of success. Perhaps the high style and elegance of the 1980s can be attributed to the two-term president leading the nation. Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, encouraging Americans to spend, like strip malls, retail shops, and mass-produced goods popped up from coast to coast (The 1980s Lifestyles And Social Trends, 2003). 

So-called ‘Yuppies’ across America were dressing for success and living lives of excess. High spending on luxurious lifestyles lead to a spike in drug use, promiscuity, and sexually transmitted diseases, like AIDS (Christensen, 2016).  With a widespread increase in illegal activity came high incarceration rates, overcrowding of jails, and increased spending on federally funded drug rehabilitation programs. State correctional funding jumped 427 percent for the 25 years following 1986 (State Spending for Corrections, 2013).

Highlights

On November 30th, 1979, President Jimmy Carter created the United States Department of Education and appointed Shirley Hufstedler as its first secretary. In its first year, the adult education branch of the DOE had an operating budget of $90 million to aid the state-run federal programs that had their highest enrollment of over 2 million Americans (Eyre, 2013). Through federal legislation, Carter’s vision expanded to include educational funding for the elderly, institutionalized, community colleges, and bilingual adults. Federal funding for adult education was ramping up as conservative Ronald Reagan took office. Reagan quickly began to reduce the role the federal government had in education and hand over control to the state and local agencies. Reagan wanted to reserve the US Department of Education’s role to controlling social experiments and creating programs that can lead to an overall improvement to the nation, not create direct educational opportunities (Eyre, 2013). One of Reagan’s first initiatives was to add English as a second language learners (ESL) to the Adult Education Act in 1981. 

The 1980s saw an increase in federal funding for adult education at the federal and state levels. Adult education legislation and federal funding was expanded to serve the growing number of adults with the inability to read or write. In 1983 President Reagan announced the Adult Literacy Initiative to study and increase awareness of adult illiteracy which included a National Ad Council Awareness Campaign (Eyre, 2013). By the mid-1980s approximately 1 in 8 American adults could not read, according to a government study. Although the federal government started to take action towards adult education with the Adult Education Act of 1966, the social awareness of the literacy problem in America started to really pick up speed. Congress passed legislation providing funding that totaled $421 million for adult basic education from 1985 through 1988 (Eyre, 2013).

Influential Factors

During the 1980s there was an increase in the need for vocational education and on-the-job training. In 1984 David Kolb published his experiential learning theory that knowledge is created by reflecting on our experiences. Kolb sought to change the way learning was approached by connecting learning to work and life activities and creating knowledge based on those experiences. Kolb explained in his book Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development (1984) that learning and knowledge is “formed and reformed through experiences.” Critics of Kolb’s theory argued that the lack of concrete outcomes from the exposure of information made knowledge immeasurable and assessment becomes more difficult. Kolb’s focus on hands-on learning takes students out of an educational environment where information is absorbed through exposure and puts the learner in a situation where knowledge and skills are gained through experience (Kolb, 1984). 

With a focus shifting towards manufacturing and on-the-job training in the 1980s, the federal government increased funding for vocational education. In 1984 the Vocational Education Act of 1963 was amended as the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act (Perkins Act, 1984). The Perkins Act was expanded to focus on providing training that would lead to employment opportunities for single parents, adults needing training or retraining, incarcerated adults, and handicapped or disadvantaged individuals (Perkins Act, 1984). In the 1980s, more Americans needed retraining as technology advancements were picking up speed. The Perkins Act of 1984 provided funding for state-run programs aimed at adults who switched careers,  experienced displacement due to the rising divorce rate in America from the late 1970s through the 1980s (Wilcox, 2009), and adults that never finished high school and working towards obtaining their General Education Development degree. The Perkins Act expanded the funding for post-secondary and vocational training for adults wishing to upgrade their skills due to unemployment or a threat of unemployment “as a result of technological change or industrial dislocation” (Perkins Act, 1984).

Implications

The 1980s and Ronald Reagan set the tone for the role the federal government would play in the educational system across America, from kindergarten through adult education. Americans were spending and so was the federal government. Although Reagan took a back seat to how the states would run their educational systems, including adult education, he increased the funding from the federal level that allowed those state-run federal programs to flourish. Reagan brought attention, and with that came funding, to the national problems of adult illiteracy and the skills gap among the workforce in America. Those issues remain a challenge for many Americans today. In the 1980s, there was a stronger push for training incarcerated Americans, non-English speaking immigrants, and high school dropouts. The funding for these groups was put in place during the 1980s through the Perkins Act of 1984, and remains federally funded today. The Perkins Act has been reauthorized multiple times since 1984, the most recent of which was 2018, referred to as Perkins V, but officially called the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act.  Funding for secondary, postsecondary, and adult vocational education, now referred to as Career & Technical Education (CTE) is at an all-time high, $1.3 billion (Strengthening Career and Technical Education, 2018). 

References

Christensen, J. (2016, June 1). AIDS in the '80s: The rise of a new civil rights movement. CNN.

Corbett, A. (2005). Experiential learning within the process of opportunity identification and exploitation.  Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice., 29(4).

Eyre, G. (2013). An American heritage: Federal adult education: A legislative history 1964- 2013. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/ Adult_Ed_History_Report.pdf

Hannah, E. (2017, December 5). 1980s: The biggest trend of today. Collegiate Times.

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.

U.S. Congress. (1984). Carl D. Perkins vocational education act. 

U.S. Congress. (2018). Strengthening career and technical education for the 21st century act.

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. NCJRS: State Spending for Corrections: Long-Term Trends  and Recent Criminal Justice Policy Reforms, NCJRS: (2013). Washington, D.C.

Wilcox, W. B. (2009). The Evolution of Divorce. National Affairs.