Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related
Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce
Handbook One: Planning and Implementation Tips
for Program Planners and Administrators

Acknowledgements

Prior to the development of Handbooks One and Two for Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce, numerous groups of adult education practitioners, employers, representatives of the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Workforce Commission, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and local workforce development networks across the state offered valuable contributions. They shared their own experiences, articulated priorities and concerns, reconstructed success stories, and identified obstacles to planning, implementing, and sustaining successful workforce-related educational initiatives at the local level. Members of the state Workforce Literacy Resource Team (WLRT) also provided input in an effort to assist Adult Education in implementing its strategic action plan, Destination 2010.

Charting a Course is a direct response to Education Rider 82 (79th State Legislative Session, 2005), Destination 2010, and the workforce literacy needs of Texas’ adult learners. A number of adult education programs across the state have been delivering quality workforce-related instruction to emerging, incumbent, and dislocated workers in their local communities for a number of years. Many of their strategies and promising practices are reflected in Handbooks One and Two. A special thanks to those who have generously shared their experiences, provided input toward the development of the handbooks, and were courageous enough to try out one or more of the handbook’s templates, forms, and suggested strategies in draft form.

Texas LEARNS thanks the following individuals for their contributions and support:

Dr. Shirley Neely, Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency
Dr. Raymund Paredes, Commissioner of Higher Education
Dr. Philip Cochran, Education Services and Waivers, Texas Education Agency
Joanie Rethlake, State Director of Texas LEARNS
Federico Salas-Isnardi, Assistant State Director of Texas LEARNS
Anson Green, Workforce Business Services, Texas Workforce Commission
Dr. James Goeman, Program Director for Academic Affairs, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
Chakib Chehadi, Deputy Executive Director, Alamo WorkSource
David Lindsay, Employer representative, Lyondell Chemical (retired)
Francisco Castellanos, Executive Director of Cameron Works
Sally Perez, Project Specialist, Cameron Works
Jim Ratliff, Mary Geiger, and Jeannie Pruitt, East GREAT Center
Stan Ashlock, Central Texas GREAT Center
Mary Helen Martinez, Director of Adult Education, Community Action, Inc.
Donna Byrum, Adult Education Director, Grayson County Community College
Dorris Baker, North GREAT Center and Dallas ISD
Eduardo Honold, Director, Far West GREAT Center

Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce, has been developed for the Texas Education Agency with funding from federal state leadership funds (WIA, Title II [PL 105-220]). Its contents build on the research included in A Summary Report of Findings in Response to Education Rider 82, published February 2006. Both the report and the handbooks have been developed by Barbara Tondre-El Zorkani, adult educator and workforce development consultant / contractor. For additional information, contact the Adult Education State Office at Texas LEARNS toll free at 1-866-696-4233.