Abstract
Basic education for adults has been one of our more popular remedial treatments financed under the War on Poverty. To date, though, very little is known about the effectiveness of this treat ment upon the economic well-being of individual participants. The need for evaluation is especially relevant, since adult basic education programs must compete for a limited amount of public revenue. However, serious methodological and conceptual prob lems, as well as the problems of definition, exist inhibiting sound evaluation.
In an attempt to solve some of the difficulties associated with research in this area, this paper examines the principal benefits and costs of basic education with special emphasis on economic bene fits ; reviews some of the major methodological problems associated with the measurement of these benefits and costs; and seeks to establish the best possible research design, given these problems. Evidence will be drawn from evaluation of poverty programs which contain large remedial educational components. Particular attention is given to reporting the lessons learned from an evalu ation of ABE under the MDTA.
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