English Plus Integration: Shifting the Instructional Paradigm for Immigrant Adult Learners to Support Integration Success
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Highlights
Federal mandates have narrowed adult education to employment outcomes, crowding out the civics, digital literacy, and family skills immigrants need to integrate long-term.
- Adult education served fewer than 1.5 million people in program year 2016. This met only 3.4 percent of need, and most programs report lengthy waiting lists.
- The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act's six mandatory outcome measures—focused on employment and credentials—create incentives to exclude parents, citizenship-seekers, and others with non-employment goals.
- MPI’s proposed English Plus Integration model combines English acquisition with digital literacy, civics and systems knowledge, and family economic skills, and builds capacity for continued independent learning after program exit.
For the past 50 years, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes provided through state adult education systems have been the primary means of meeting English acquisition for immigrants and refugees, and, to a limited extent, their integration needs. Yet these systems meet only a fraction of the total need for all adult education services—less than 4 percent nationally. They also face serious constraints when it comes to supporting long-term immigrant integration.
The federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which governs both workforce and adult education programs, measures program performance primarily based on participants’ employment outcomes and postsecondary completion. By placing little value on other essential integration topics—such as knowledge of U.S. civics, understanding of how local systems work, and digital literacy—these measures make it difficult for programs to cover the full range of skills and knowledge immigrants need in their roles as parents, workers, and citizens.
With these limitations in mind, this policy brief proposes a new instructional model to complement the existing adult education system: English Plus Integration. This approach maintains a central focus on English acquisition while also building the critical skills and systems knowledge important for long-term integration success. By supporting digital literacy and familiarity with self-guided learning tools, such a model would make the most of participants’ time in the program and support their continued learning after their exit.
This brief also tackles the crucial questions of how states could begin to fund and scale up this type of integration-focused programming. Rethinking how state funding is allocated to adult education and fostering partnerships between state and local adult education providers, employers, private funders, libraries, community organizations, and other stakeholders are promising first steps toward allowing states the flexibility they need to more equitably meet the integration needs of their immigrant and refugee learners.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Adult Education and Integration Success: Identifying Needs and Filling Gaps
A. English Plus Knowledge of U.S. History, Culture, and Local Systems
B. English Plus Economic Integration and Parent/Family Success
C. English Plus Digital Literacy and Other Self-Directed Learning Skills
III. Looking Ahead: Implementation Opportunities
A. Financing, Piloting, and Scaling of an Integration Success Course
B. Leveraging the Power of Local Systems and Partnerships
C. Implications under Potential Immigration Reform Legislation
IV. Conclusion
About the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy
The Center is a national hub connecting policymakers, educators, community leaders, and service providers with evidence-informed policy research, technical assistance, and data to advance effective immigrant integration at U.S., state, and local levels.
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