Policy Report

How to Unlock
the Power of
Prison Education
Stephen J. Steurer

THE ETS CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON HUMAN CAPITAL AND EDUCATION

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Preface ..................................................................................1
Introduction ..........................................................................4
The Current Backdrop: Skills and the Incarcerated
Population ............................................................................5
The Limited Federal Role in Correctional Education 6
Definition of Correctional Education .........................7
Insights from PIAAC .............................................................9
The Education and Skills of America's Incarcerated
Population .................................................................. 10
Work Experience and Skills of America's
Incarcerated Population ........................................... 11
Benefits of Focusing on Education and Work Skills ...... 13
Enhancing Reentry Planning .................................... 13
Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons ............. 14
Bureaucratic and Associated Obstacles ................. 15
Correctional Prison Standards ................................. 16
Failure to Incentivize Education Participation ....... 16
Reentry and Job Acquisition ..................................... 17
Educational Technology............................................ 18

This report was written by:
Stephen J. Steurer
S&J Enterprises LLC

The views expressed in this
report are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the officers and
trustees of Educational Testing
Service.
Copyright © 2020 by ETS. All
rights reserved. ETS, the ETS
logo and HISET are registered
trademarks of ETS. All other
trademarks are the property of
their respective owners.
August 2020
ETS Center for Research on
Human Capital and
Education
Research and Development
Educational Testing Service
Rosedale Road
Princeton, NJ 08541-0001

Postsecondary Education Issues ............................. 20
Recommendations............................................................ 20
Training and Programs ............................................. 21
Correctional-Education Legislative/Policy
Recommendations .................................................... 22

Suggested citation: Stephen J. Steurer.
How to Unlock the Power of Prison
Education (Princeton, NJ: Educational
Testing Service, 2020).

National Research Recommendations ................... 25
Conclusion ......................................................................... 26
Experts Interviewed .......................................................... 27
Appendix ............................................................................ 30
Appendix A: About the Profiles in This Report ...... 30
Appendix B: PIAAC Proficiency Levels ..................... 31
About the Author .............................................................. 33

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

1

Preface

Preface
A recent U.S. Department of Justice study shows that roughly two-thirds of those released
from prison are re-arrested within three years.1 Research on recidivism demonstrates an
array of adverse impacts on the individuals who are re-arrested, their families, and the
communities in which they live. High rates of recidivism are also shown to be a financial
burden for governments and U.S. tax payers. It makes sense, then, that actions shown to
reduce recidivism rates be adopted and fully supported across U.S. prison systems. In this
new report commissioned by the ETS Center for Research on Human Capital and Education,
author Stephen Steurer, a nationally recognized expert in prison education, argues that these
actions are not happening.
Using data from two of the most recognized studies on the incarcerated population, the U.S.
PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults2 and a comprehensive evaluation by the RAND
Corporation for the Bureau of Justice Assistance,3 as well as insights from interviews with
leading experts in the U.S. penal system and his own observations made over four decades
working in prison education, Steurer explores the role of education in reentry planning and
recidivism and presents a compelling case for why we need to take immediate steps to
improve the education and skills of the incarcerated population.
Many incarcerated adults will face challenges upon reentry but doing so with a skills and
education deficit presents a nearly insurmountable barrier in today's labor market. To
demonstrate the significance of this challenge, Steurer turns to data from the U.S. PIAAC
Survey of Incarcerated Adults and highlights large educational deficits across this population.
Thirty (30) percent of the incarcerated population in 2014 had not obtained a high school
credential, which was more than twice the percentage of those not incarcerated.4 Steurer
digs deeper into this issue to demonstrate that even where educational attainment might be
expected to signal a significant achievement, there were vast skill deficits. For example, while
64 percent of the incarcerated population in 2014 reported earning a high school credential,5
two-thirds had PIAAC literacy skills that fell below what experts deem necessary for success in
today's labor market.6 Of additional concern is the fact that nearly one-quarter lacked the
most rudimentary literacy skills.7 What's more, PIAAC data revealed that those with low skills
also were less likely to be engaged in employment, creating a disastrous set of circumstances
for a population that already faces great obstacles upon reentry.
Equally important, research conducted by RAND® concluded that participation in educational
programs while incarcerated not only reduces recidivism, this investment is cost effective in
that it pays for itself in future dollars by reducing crime and reincarceration.8
Despite the findings from these two studies, no systematic plan for prison education is in
place. Steurer explores some of the reasons for this in order to offer a road map for action.
These include insufficient funding, lack of quality data required for educational planning, and
little coherent structure for delivering these programs. In the final part of the paper, a series
of pragmatic and actionable recommendations are presented across three key domains:
improvements in training to emphasize the critical role of education in rehabilitation efforts,
advancements in policy supportive of correctional education and skill development, and a call
for an expansion of a national research agenda to inform continuous improvements for
prison educational programming.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Preface

2

With this paper, Steurer presents a cogent argument, which is based both on recent research
and many years of experience that should underlie a well-defined set of policies required to
improve correctional education nationally. What's needed next is a commitment from all
levels of government, and within the systems themselves, to enact those policies.
Irwin Kirsch, Director
ETS Center for Research on Human Capital and Education

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

3

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments
There are many people who have encouraged and motivated me over the years to care about
all human beings and to become a teacher. Above all, they include my parents, Leone and
Stefan Steurer, who were not able to complete high school due to the Depression, for
motivating me to value and pursue higher education. Next, my best friend and loving wife,
Judith Friedman, who has always supported my prison work, and our wonderful loving
children, Aliza, Erin, and Stephen Steurer, who pursued their own education and now
encourage their own children; the many teachers over the years who motivated me to excel
and to teach others, especially Fr. Thomas Tallarida and James Androff, my Notre Dame High
School history and science teachers; First Lady Barbara Bush for supporting correctional
education in the Barbara Bush Foundation; James Duffy, president of ABC Television and
cofounder of Project Literacy U.S., for his support of correctional education and his long
personal friendship; Charlie and Pauline Sullivan, the founders of CURE National, who
advocate endlessly for prison reform including correctional education and the expert
consultants; and colleagues and friends Lois Davis, Jon Galley, John Linton, Stefan LoBuglio,
John Nally, and Michelle Tolbert.
A special thanks to Irwin Kirsch, ETS, who invited me to write this paper and for sage advice
all along the way; Anita Sands, ETS, for her kind manner and encouragement with great ideas
for my first drafts; Larry Hanover and Kim Fryer, ETS, for their thoughtful editing of the paper;
and Donald Powers, Catherine Millett, and Kevin Williams, ETS, for their excellent review and
suggestions that made the paper so much better. I would also like to thank Jeffrey
Abramowitz, the Coalition on Adult Basic Education, for his very positive review and
suggestions.
Finally, thank you to the many incarcerated men and women I met behind bars who motivate
me because they personify the truth that education changes lives.

In Memoriam
During the development of this paper, two of the experts interviewed tragically died of cancer
— Jon P. Galley and John Linton. Both were very close friends who were instrumental in my
choice of correctional education as a career. They will be missed dearly, and this paper is
dedicated to their lasting memory.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Introduction

“

4

"... when society places a person behind walls and bars, it has an obligation —
a moral obligation — to do whatever reasonably can be done to change that
person before he or she goes back into the stream of society."
— Chief Justice Warren Burger, 1981, speech at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

”

Introduction

There were 875,000 adults paroled from federal and state institutions at the end of 2016,
according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In addition, several million more individuals are
released from local jails each year.9
More often than not for these populations receiving the chance at a fresh start, release is
simply part of a cycle of being arrested and imprisoned again. Almost two-thirds are arrested
again within three years, and they face numerous barriers to reentering society
successfully.10 These barriers include, but are not limited to, poor access to education and
job opportunities during imprisonment.
Compounding these problems have been a trend of budgetary cutbacks that started in 2000
and a failure to provide adequate incentives for inmates to participate in education and work
programs. Furthermore, sentences have been getting longer for the last few decades,
meaning more and more individuals are affected. Such obstacles have immeasurable
negative consequences not only for those who have been through the correctional system
but their families ... and society itself.
Society says it wants those who were incarcerated to be responsible citizens after release.
However, it is extraordinarily difficult for many to achieve this. While a number of American
leaders have echoed the sentiment of Chief Justice Warren Burger for a moral imperative to
provide educational programs to the incarcerated population in an effort to improve reentry
outcomes, delivering those programs has never been a political priority. Instead, our nation
has concentrated more on the public-safety side of the equation. Federal and state
governments, for example, have spent exorbitant sums in recent decades to arrest,
prosecute, and sentence criminals. Would those expenses be lower if even a fraction of the
funds were redirected toward quality prison education programs that focus on building
critical skills? After spending nearly four decades in prison education, I believe they would.
I began my career as a correctional education teacher and program administrator, eventually
rising to be executive director of the Correctional Education Association (CEA) from 1986 to
2015 and serving as a consultant for correctional education after retirement. Over those
years, people familiar with the prison system would regularly ask me why we can't do a
better job of providing education and job programs to help improve outcomes. They saw
anecdotally what the available data show empirically: More education and stronger skills are
associated with better reentry outcomes, including reduced recidivism, which is a boon to
public safety and budgets. So, why, as a society, don't we invest more — politically and
financially — in prison educational programming?
I believe part of the answer is that we — researchers, educators, and other members of the
field — have fallen short in our efforts to argue the case. Sound investments in educational
programs that seek to improve the skills of the incarcerated population would be more
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

5

The Current Backdrop: Skills and the Incarcerated Population

broadly supported by the public if they knew that, in the end, those programs would not only
save taxpayer dollars now directed toward public safety, but that these investments might
actually make them more safe.
In fact, what has struck me over the years is that although our nation has not shown a
willingness to back prison education, it has supported other critical efforts to improve
outcomes for the incarcerated population. For example, the government has backed
evidence-based research into substance abuse programs, resulting in increased funding for
programs in state and federal prison systems. The U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services provides grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration to juvenile and adult justice systems to reduce addiction and related activities,
providing significant services for inmates.11 A report by the Council of Economic Advisers
shows that spending a dollar on such programs reduces future crime costs by as much as
$3.12 However, a seminal study by the RAND Corporation indicates the return to be as much
as $5 for education programs, so it is puzzling why there has not been more federal
support.13
The purpose of this paper, given the government's willingness to provide these other types of
services for inmates, is to seek to have it take the next step and give quality, comprehensive
educational programming the support it deserves. To do this, I rely on insights from previous
research, including information from the Programme for the International Assessment of
Adult Competencies (PIAAC)14 and the aforementioned RAND study,15 interviews with
leading experts in the U.S. penal system,16 as well as my own observations. My argument
opens with a brief discussion on why the incarcerated population needs investments that
improve their education and skill levels and then turns to key issues and barriers that
confound a national commitment to, and expansion of, educational programming in the
prisons. In the final section of the paper, I set forth a series of practical policy
recommendations aimed at improving the scope and effectiveness of correctional
educational programs at all levels – federal, state, and local. The report is mainly focused on
incarcerated adults, but it addresses some issues related to juveniles as well since the
problem is not limited to one population or the other.

The Current Backdrop: Skills and the Incarcerated
Population
For the incarcerated population, it's impossible to overstate the need to attain skills given the
rapid changes in recent decades in our society and labor market. Much has been written
about the ascendance of robots and artificial intelligence and the vast impact these
technologies are having on the labor force of today and tomorrow.17 These vast
developments have profoundly changed what skills, training, and education are necessary for
successful reentry.18
In the 1990s and again in the early 2000s, two large-scale assessments of adult literacy in
America were conducted that proved of great assistance to researchers studying these
issues. The National Adult Literacy Survey (1992) and the National Assessment of Adult
Literacy (2003) included data not just on adults in general but on those who were
incarcerated. Educational Testing Service (ETS) followed up each release with reports using
that data: Captive Students: Education and Training in America's Prisons (1996) and Locked Up
and Locked Out: An Educational Perspective on the U.S. Prison Population (2006).19 Both reports
highlighted the need for increased educational programming in the prisons — work that I
seek to build on here. The first report pointed out that even though two-thirds of the
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

The Current Backdrop: Skills and the Incarcerated Population

formerly incarcerated population in the United States could not perform basic tasks such as
writing a letter to explain a billing error or calculating miles per gallon, only 30 percent of
them had been to education classes offered behind bars.20 The second described how the
surging rate of incarceration meant large numbers of the formerly incarcerated population
would reenter society with three strikes against them: difficulty finding a job with a living
wage, lack of the kind of experience that employers value, and employer reluctance to hire
formerly incarcerated individuals.21 So, while the data across these large-scale assessments
are not statistically comparable, they nevertheless paint a similar picture that deficiencies in
education and skills among America's incarcerated adults are severe. This paper uses
analysis of PIAAC data to demonstrate with much greater specificity the kinds of educational
and workplace skill deficiencies identified in the previous two ETS studies that need to be
addressed in the correctional population in order for incarcerated individuals to be
successful after release.
In the same year, RAND Corporation released a key report that provided another critical
component of the story, illustrating the payoff when we focus on the education of those
people in prison. How Effective Is Correctional Education, and Where Do We Go from Here? The
Results of a Comprehensive Evaluation presented evidence that when the incarcerated
population participates in educational programs, there are significant reductions in
recidivism.22 Even more importantly, for those correctional and political leaders who do not
generally support correctional education programs, RAND concluded that the investment
paid for itself several times over in future dollars saved by reducing crime and
reincarceration.23

The Limited Federal Role in Correctional Education
To help the incarcerated population attain the necessary skills, funding is a critical element,
as is a good structure for delivering educational programs. Most correctional education
funding comes from state and county budgets. This situation comes with the advantage of
local control for correctional education. However, it comes at the price of having little of a
broad national effort behind quality educational programming.24 It also creates a
fragmented structure for delivering that education across the 50 states.
Foremost among the handful of federal programs is the U.S. Department of Justice's
investment toward emphasizing literacy as well as a high school equivalency credential or
career education. These efforts are overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where career
education programs are often linked to jobs in its prison industries program.
States also are able to access certain federal grant funds for education programs for the
incarcerated population. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds can be used
for special education programs for incarcerated youth in juvenile facilities, as well as youth
and young adults up to the age of 22 in adult facilities — although, ironically, the bureau was
exempted from IDEA educational requirements for students with learning disabilities. The
funding for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA) and the Vocational and
Technical Education Act (better known as the Perkins Act) come through other federal
departments and allow states to invest a small percentage of dedicated funds in state and
county correctional education programs.
Previously, the federal government had provided general support for postsecondary
education for the incarcerated population in federal and state prisons. However, in 1994,
during the "get tough on crime" period under the Clinton administration,
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

6

7

The Current Backdrop: Skills and the Incarcerated Population

eligibility for federal Pell grants for postsecondary education was eliminated for the
incarcerated population. In 2015, during the Obama administration, a Second Chance Pell
Experimental Sites Initiative was initiated that brought the program back to an extent,
allowing the Federal Bureau of Prisons and states to apply for Pell grants. A total of 65
colleges in 27 states received awards. The program has continued and been expanded under
the Trump administration.

Definition of Correctional Education
Since federal funding in corrections is relatively small, one consequence of those limited
dollars should not be a surprise: the absence of an overall federal definition of correctional
education or what such a program entails. In fact, each state has its own program, and there
are a variety of different administrative models.25 These circumstances prevent arriving at a
definition of correctional education that is uniform and would fit the various state programs.
Although summarizing program structures into a general model may not be possible, there
nevertheless is some commonality. These elements can be found across most prison
systems:
• adult skills in reading, mathematics, and writing in English (including English as a
second language for nonnative speakers), as measured by commercially available
skills and grade-level tests leading to high school program placement
• adult secondary education, including a regular high school diploma or a high school
equivalency completion, as certified by passing the nationally accepted high school
equivalency exams (the GED® test, the HiSET® exam,26 or the TASC™ test), as well
vocational or career education courses certified by locally developed tests
• computer skills used in society and the workplace, as certified by software program
completion
• training in general employment skills and specific job or industry skills, as certified by
nationally accepted industry exams
• postsecondary education, including college-level instruction provided by local or state
colleges and community colleges, leading to certificates of completion or associate or
bachelor's degrees
On the surface, this might seem like the broad outlines of an effective program to provide
skills and education. But it's just that, an outline — one that is full of holes. Not the least of
them is a lack of data on the education and skill levels of the incarcerated population, as well
as a systemwide commitment to ensure programs are of sufficient scope to improve skills
and quality.
Looking at educational data, information on the level of education of the incarcerated
population is typically gathered at the time of entry into the prison system. However, it is
usually general in nature and frequently insufficient, exemplified by blanket statements in
official records such as "high school dropout," "finished high school," or " passed a high
school equivalency test." This leads to situations where prison educators have limited
information from which to work and plan educational and workforce programs.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

The Current Backdrop: Skills and the Incarcerated Population

8

Anthony is a very likable, hard-working 30-year-old man who badly wanted to get his
high school equivalency degree.27 He had presented no behavioral problems since
entering prison but said he had a rocky career as a young troublemaker who was taken
out of regular high school, enrolled in an alternative high school, dropped out, got into
legal trouble, and ended up in a juvenile facility. Since then, he had been working very
diligently on his English, science, and social studies high school equivalency subtests,
yet he had not been able to pass the mathematics subtest. He said this was because he
needed more time to work through the questions. Anthony had an individualized
education plan when he attended public school because of a diagnosis of attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The GED Testing Service, an agency that
administers high school equivalency exams, allows extended time for students who
provide proof of a disability, but public school special education records are often
sealed, and many are destroyed after seven years, so it is difficult to prove the
existence of a learning disability. As a result, this lack of data prevented him, like
many others, from getting needed services and accommodations.
Nevertheless, general educational attainment data provides some basic insights into the
background of those who are imprisoned.
In 2014, as a supplement to the U.S. PIAAC assessment, which was a survey of skills of the
overall adult population, a new set of data on the incarcerated population was collected via
the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults.28 While the study focused on the levels of skills
in key domains, including literacy and numeracy, among the incarcerated population, it also
provided a rich collection of background data, including educational attainment information.
According to PIAAC data, 29 nearly two-thirds of the incarcerated population nationally in
2014 entered prison having graduated high school (or equivalent), and roughly 6 percent had
obtained some level of postsecondary education (4 percent earning an associate degree, 2
percent earning a bachelor's or above.) In comparison, 9 percent of the general population
had earned an associate degree, and 28 percent had earned a bachelor's degree or higher
(see Table 1). These are stark differences in degree attainment.
When the percentage of the incarcerated population is compared to the household
populations who had not completed high school (or earned an equivalent degree), the
differences are dramatic: 30 percent of the incarcerated population had not obtained a high
school degree or equivalent, according to PIAAC, compared to 14 percent of the general
population, for a greater than 2-to-1 ratio.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

9

Insights from PIAAC

Table 1: Percentage Distribution of Adults by Educational Attainment for Prison
and Household Populations: 2014
HIGHEST LEVEL OF EDUCATIONAL
ATTAINMENT

U.S. PRISON

U.S. HOUSEHOLD

Below high school

30*

14

High school credential

64*

50

Associate's degree

4*

9

Bachelor's degree

1*

17

Graduate or professional degree

1*

11

* Significantly different (p < .05) from the comparison category, U.S. Household.
Source: Bobby D. Rampey, Shelley Keiper, Leyla Mohadjer, Tom Krenzke, Jianzhu Li, Nina Thornton, Jacquie
Hogan, Holly Xie, and Stephen Provasnik, Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills,
Work Experience, Education, and Training. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies: 2014,
NCES 2016-040 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics, 2016),
Table 1.1, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016040.pdf.

Viewing the educational needs of the incarcerated population through the lens of educational
attainment alone fails to capture the deeper challenges faced by many who are incarcerated,
a fact that becomes clear in the next section where I explore the level of skills for the
incarcerated population by degree attainment using data from PIAAC.30

Insights from PIAAC
PIAAC is designed to measure the distribution and level of ability on a series of tasks across
three key skill domains — literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving in technology rich
environments.31 Higher levels of skills in these domains have been shown across numerous
studies to be correlated with better education, health, social and labor-market outcomes.32
Responses on the PIAAC assessment are represented on a 500-point scale. In addition to
providing average scores, PIAAC presents the percentages of the population across five levels
of proficiency, from a high of level 5 to a low of "below level 1" (see Appendix B for more
detail on PIAAC literacy and numeracy proficiency levels). Besides providing means and
percentages at proficiency levels, PIAAC permits an analysis of the skills of the incarcerated
population by an array of background variables including level of education and work
experience.
The mean PIAAC literacy score for the U.S. incarcerated population, at 249, was 21 points
lower than that for the general population (270).33 The distribution of skills among the
incarcerated population versus the U.S. household population shows there is a much larger
share of the prison population with what experts deem to be very low literacy — skills that
fall at or below level 1 on the PIAAC literacy scale. Nearly 30 percent of the incarcerated
population had very low literacy skills compared to 19 percent of the U.S. household
population.34 Those who perform in this category are thought to lack the "most basic
information-processing skills considered necessary to succeed in today's world."35

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Insights from PIAAC

10

The Education and Skills of America's Incarcerated Population
Digging deeper, there are even more troubling results for the incarcerated population when
the relationship of skills to educational attainment is considered. Figure 1 presents the
distribution by PIAAC literacy proficiency level for the incarcerated population for those
whose highest level of education is a high school degree (or equivalent) and for those who
did not complete a high school degree. As noted earlier, 94 percent of the U.S. prison
population fall into these two educational levels.
According to PIAAC, two-thirds of the incarcerated population with a high school degree (or
equivalent) scored at or below level 2 in literacy — which experts consider below the
minimum level necessary for success in today's workplace.36 And, worse, nearly one-quarter
(23 percent) performed at levels deemed to be very low — despite having a diploma.37
The data also showed that 90 percent of those without a high school credential performed at
level 2 or below on the PIAAC literacy scale; half of this group had very low literacy skills (level
1 or below).
Figure 1: Percentage of Incarcerated Adults at Each Proficiency on the PIAAC Literacy
Scale by Select Educational Attainment Status: 2014
Below Level 1

Level 1

Level 2

20%

Less than High School
(30% of prisoners
have this level of education)

High School
(64% of prisoners
have this level of education)

13

4

Level 3

40%

60%

36

19

Level 4/5
80%

42

44

100%

10

29

4

Graph
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Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Program for the International Assessment of
Adult Competencies (PIAAC), U.S. National Supplement: Prison Study 2014.

These findings beg a deeper understanding of the distribution of not just educational
attainment, but skill levels, across the incarcerated population. I believe — and the PIAAC
data support — that meeting incarcerated individuals where they are in terms of their
current levels of skills, independent of their educational degrees or certificates, and
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

11

Insights from PIAAC

developing strategic programs and interventions to build their skill capacity would be
immensely valuable toward their reentry efforts. Such efforts could potentially reduce overall
recidivism rates as well.

Work Experience and Skills of America's Incarcerated Population
In addition to information on educational level, PIAAC collects data on the work experience
and skills of the incarcerated population prior to and during incarceration.38
Before being incarcerated, PIAAC shows a majority of inmates had some work experience. In
fact, two-thirds (65 percent) worked full or part time in the year prior to incarceration (49
percent full time, 16 percent part time), while 19 percent were unemployed.39 Sixty-eight
percent of those with a high school credential and 60 percent of those who did not earn a
high school credential reported having been employed full or part time prior to
incarceration.40
The pattern of overall employment prior to incarceration largely continued while in prison.
Overall, 61 percent of the incarcerated population held a prison job at the time of the PIAAC
assessment. When examined by level of education, PIAAC showed that over two-thirds (67
percent) of those with a high school credential had a prison job, while less than half (48
percent) of those who did not have a high school credential were employed in prison.41
Research using PIAAC data for the general population suggests that those with low literacy
and numeracy skills are much less engaged in employment over their potential working lives
than those with higher ones.42 This finding holds true for the incarcerated population as well.
Those who reported currently having a job while in prison had, on average, stronger PIAAC
literacy skills than their peers without jobs.43
Also, of interest are the data on job training programs for the incarcerated population. Here
PIAAC findings show about one-quarter (23 percent) participated in job training programs
during their current prison term.44 As Figure 2 shows, participants who had engaged in job
training scored higher on average in literacy than those who had not.45

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Insights from PIAAC

12

Figure 2: Average Scores of Incarcerated Adults on the PIAAC Literacy Scale, by
Whether They Have Participated in a Job Skills or Job Training Program During their
Current Incarceration: 2014

Scale Score
500

Literacy

275

258*
250

247

225

200

0

Yes (23)

No (77)

Graph
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"No"
The
For
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those
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incarcerated
job
on
participated
or
skills
abetween
job
500population;
or
training
point
population.
jobthe
in
training
scale.
a
program
scale
job
and
skills
program
score
(Yes),
oraverages
job
the
(No),
training
average
the
of the
average
program:
scale
two groups
score
scale score
in(pliteracy
> .05).
in literacy
was 258.
was
* Significantly different (p < .05) from the comparison category, incarcerated adults responding "No."
Note: In the figure, percentages of incarcerated adults in each response category are shown in parentheses beneath the
applicable bar.
Source: Adapted from Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults. Data from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center
for Education Statistics, U.S. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), U.S. National Supplement:
Prison Study 2014.

Ultimately, data from PIAAC reveal a series of critical findings regarding skills, education, and
work experience. First, a large percentage of the incarcerated population has very low literacy
skills. Prison systems that rely exclusively on educational attainment indicators to measure
what inmates have in terms of training and skills run the risk of vastly underestimating and
misunderstanding this population's needs.46 In addition, while all can benefit from training
and education during their time in prison, it's those with higher level skills who tend to
pursue those opportunities — a situation that can be seen in terms of both educational
opportunities as well as in employment.In other words, skills beget skills.
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

13

Benefits of Focusing on Education and Work Skills

In the next section, the discussion focuses on how inroads must be made for all groups of
incarcerated adults while recognizing that the needs of those with higher skill levels differ
from those without. To do this, however, better data on skills and education are essential to
match these individuals with the types of educational and training opportunities geared to
their needs.

Benefits of Focusing on Education and Work Skills
Enhancing Reentry Planning
It is logical to think that targeting educational programming to the needs of incarcerated
individuals would not only vastly improve their educational and job skills, but reentry
planning and outcomes. The very term "reentry job-preparation program," as covered under
The Second Chance Act of 2007, implies that a high school education and adequate skills are
needed to engage in training for a job.
Unfortunately, most correctional staff are not trained to understand the educational and skill
gaps that could — and should — be addressed during imprisonment. Correctional staff who
administer prison programs instead are usually trained in the areas of criminology, social
work, or counseling. Because of the general movement to reduce recidivism by improving job
acquisition after release, some enlightened correctional administrators tend to think of
education as an integral piece of the entire rehabilitation program, which also includes
mental health services and substance-abuse and reentry programs, all of which target the
inmate's personal growth and development in hopes they will stay out of prison after release.
Stefan LoBuglio, a nationally recognized reentry specialist and former chief of prerelease in
Montgomery County, Maryland, as well as the former head of the Council of State
Governments Reentry Program, was interviewed for this paper. He believes that most
correctional institutions fail not only to identify the educational needs of incarcerated
individuals in a timely and comprehensive manner at intake but to take advantage of the
opportunity to provide educational programming throughout an individual's incarceration.
Said LoBuglio: "Over the past 20 years, interest and innovation in reentry services for
incarcerated individuals has risen dramatically in this country, yet ironically, correctional
education — the mainstay of correctional rehabilitation since the founding of jails in this
country in the late 1700s — has not ridden this increased wave of support."
LoBuglio also argued that there is a "mistaken perception that correctional education is
mainly a long-term strategy," while "reentry requires shorter term interventions focused on
more immediate concerns of housing, employment, drug treatment, mental health care,
family engagement, and programs to address 'criminal thinking' — often called cognitive
behavioral programs." Education, stated LoBuglio, is perceived as more expensive than other
programs because of the space, credentialed personnel, materials, and technology involved.
In other words, he argued, it seems that short-term budget difficulties, not long-term
program savings from the impact on lower recidivism, often determine how correctional
administrators make program choices.
Given the PIAAC data, though, it's clear that more attention needs to be paid to helping
prison and jail administrators and staff understand educational needs more deeply,
particularly the skill deficits among inmates. That information, in turn, can be used to develop
programs that will help improve the skills needed for successful reentry. Thus, it is critical to
collect better educational and skill background information in correctional databases. To
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons

14

facilitate this, LoBuglio recommended "that correctional institutions screen and assess all
individuals for their educational needs at intake and immediately place them in appropriate
educational programs. This screening and assessment process would align with screenings
and assessments for criminogenic risk and needs, mental health, and substance-use
disorders that have been implemented as the cornerstone of all effective reentry strategies."
LoBuglio recommended use of a brief, targeted 10-question education and skill reentry
screening tool included in the reentry planning process, one that is much like the widely used
Brief Jail Mental Health Screen.47 Such a tool would provide crucial information about an
inmate's school experience, employment history, skill level, and educational needs. He said it
could be given as part of the initial classification and orientation given when individuals enter
a correctional institution.
LoBuglio also urged the development of a workforce "preparedness index" to rate an
individual's preparation to enter the workforce. He recommended that the new federal First
Step Act screening requirement specifically include education/skills and career information.48
From my viewpoint, an "educational preparedness index" should include information about
completion or dropout history; learning disability history; current math, reading, and
computer-skill levels; previous part-time or full-time jobs; job or career interests; and so on.
Educational skill assessment should not be done right at the beginning of incarceration
because those test scores are not reliable. I believe it best to wait to conduct formal
assessments after the initial traumatization of an individual from incarceration has receded.
To be successful, information gathered by these tools, along with service plans, progress
reports, and performance metrics, must be shared appropriately and electronically among
correctional agencies and service providers involved in carrying out reentry plans.49

Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons
The payoff in terms of reduced recidivism for the initiatives discussed here are potentially
large. By reviewing the primary empirical studies over the past couple of decades and ranking
them by statistical rigor, RAND was able to show that inmates who participated in
correctional education programs had 43 percent lower odds of going back to prison than
inmates who did not.50 RAND's conclusion was based on a review of the best studies of
recidivism and employment success. On the downside, it found only 8 of 68 studies met the
highest quality research standards used in criminal justice to qualify as evidence-based
research.
Significant barriers to implementing a systemic approach to prison education remain, and
from a professional vantage point, each is rooted in a lack of understanding of the nature of
the problem. Below, based on the RAND research and PIAAC data, as well as discussions with
the experts interviewed for this study, are several key barriers that must be overcome to
improve educational and skill levels for the incarcerated population. Doing so would be
beneficial not only for those in our prison systems as they return to civilian life but to society
in general because lower recidivism means less crime; reduced burdens for police, courts
and prisons; and safer communities.

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15

Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons

Bureaucratic and Associated Obstacles
Overall, based on the PIAAC and RAND research, the correctional population is among the
least equipped group for success in the market for jobs requiring good literacy skills.
However, funding such programs is a bigger obstacle than ever. As discussed in the 2014
RAND study, substantial cutbacks in state and federal funding for correctional education have
been widely adopted, triggered in large measure by the 2008 recession. This, I believe, is in
stark contrast to what we should be doing. Instead of cutbacks, we should be making
meaningful, strategic investments in remedial programming that raises the levels of skills
among the incarcerated population and can, in turn, improve reentry success and reduce
recidivism.
Unfortunately, there are additional obstacles as well. Due to the lack of standardization
among the various empirical studies reviewed by RAND, the researchers were not able to
identify the most effective educational programs, only that educational programs were
effective in the aggregate.51 The PIAAC study does, however, offer insights on how to address
and develop sensible solutions for improving outcomes. By providing information on the key
skill domains of literacy and numeracy, PIAAC data can provide valuable guidance for
correctional organizations wanting to develop robust and relevant programming that
addresses deficits where they exist.52
The two stories provided here are examples of the kinds of obstacles that play out in prisons
today. In both instances, there are individuals who are blocked from developing the skills
they need.
Joel is like many incarcerated individuals with very
low skills. No one would have known that Joel, who
came into jail with a high school diploma, had lowlevel reading and mathematics skills if it weren't for
his failing a simple in-house reading screen needed
to qualify for the nationally recognized ServSafe
culinary course. Passage is required to work in a
prison kitchen or any restaurant in the community.
Commonly used standardized measures of
readability indicate the ServSafe textbook was
written at a 9th- to 10th-grade reading level. Many, if
not most, incarcerated individuals do not read at a
12th-grade level, let alone 10th. Yet these individuals
often spend their time in prison without the
educational remediation that could potentially
qualify them for career education that leads to
decent paying jobs outside the walls.
Joel is an example of offenders with a high school
diploma who need remediation to even qualify for
job training. However, since he has a verified high
school diploma, he is unlikely to be placed in such a
program. As a result, if he is placed in reentry
programs that require good reading and
mathematics skills, his struggles upon release likely
will continue.

Emily is a 23-year-old bilingual woman (English
and Spanish) with a high school equivalency
credential, plus a year and a half of community
college credits. She has been in and out of juvenile
and adult facilities.
She was interested in retaking the the high school
equivalency mathematics exam, which she had
barely passed on her first attempt, because of the
difficulty she had in trying to pass college-level
mathematics-related courses for jobs she would
like. However, the case manager told her and me
that high school equivalency classes were only open
to those who did not have an equivalent credential.
In other words, an institutional policy prohibited her
placement in the class. It did not matter that there
was room in the class and Emily had time after her
job to attend.
In many facilities, there are no education classes
beyond high school equivalency courses, and
certainly no remedial classes for students who
barely pass high school equivalency tests.
Emily typifies a large percentage of people who are
not yet ready for success in academic or technical
college courses because of their low skills, even
when they have passed a high school equivalency
exam.

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Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons

16

Correctional Prison Standards
Another issue affecting efforts to improve education for the imprisoned are the inadequately
enforced standards for such programs. The correctional accreditation process is managed by
the American Correctional Association (ACA), endorsed by the U.S. Department of Justice and
many state public safety and justice departments, and regularly cited by an array of state and
federal courts in legal decisions. Basically, most state and federal correctional systems
attempt to adhere to these performance-based standards for adult correctional and juvenile
institutions as well as community corrections. In practice, adherence varies widely.
Generally, the only mandatory ACA standards relate to health and safety.53 Among the many
nonmandatory ACA standards are 14 that govern academic and vocational education
programs. While any institution with an inmate education program will have to undergo an
ACA audit, it is possible to become ACA accredited without meeting any of these education
standards. The most that can happen is for an auditing team to issue a recommendation for
an institution to improve its education program.
Within the ACA standards, there are essentially two important ones for education: teacher
certification and state certification of the educational programs, according to Jon Galley, a
former Maryland commissioner of corrections and a lifelong ACA auditor and trainer (who
was interviewed for this paper). In both Galley's experience and my own, however, many
teachers in American prisons are not certified in the state where they teach. In other words,
they would not be qualified to teach in public or private school systems but can teach in a
prison.
The subset of teachers certified in special education is even smaller, which is a particular
problem when considering the large number of correctional education students with learning
disabilities. By law, under IDEA, the federal requirement must provide inmates in juvenile
institutions (through age 21) with special education services. In practice, with so few certified
special education teachers, this legal requirement is not met. As far as it relates to the ACA,
it's yet another nonmandatory standard. For adult facilities, there is no ACA standard for
special education services even though these facilities hold many youths who should be
covered. Youth who were tried as adults and incarcerated in adult facilities are still eligible for
special education services as if they had been identified under IDEA before going to prison.
There has been a great deal of litigation over the years in many states on special education
services.54
The Correctional Education Association (CEA), a national group of teachers, created education
standards about 40 years ago that were subsequently endorsed by ACA around 1995 (I was
the executive director of CEA then). This meant that if a correctional institution had been
audited and accredited by CEA, ACA would accept the more extensive CEA certification in lieu
of having to meet the 14 ACA standards for education. Unfortunately, few states endorse
these more stringent CEA standards.

Failure to Incentivize Education Participation
While there are obstacles toward improving correctional education, a movement to offer
incentives to incarcerated students to participate in education programs has gained some
momentum. This is reflected in statistics published by the National Conference of State
Legislatures, which has published a chart summarizing the "good time" earned that has been
established by law in all 50 states.55 John Nally, who is the director of education for the
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Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons

Indiana Department of Correction and was interviewed for this paper, has worked diligently
to encourage educational participation in Indiana, a state with a strong system of incentives
for those participating in and completing education programs.
Nally believes his state's low rate of recidivism is clearly tied to its award of 1 to 6 months off
a sentence for completing a vocational educational program, with a high school equivalency
degree cutting 6 months off a sentence, and an associate or bachelor's degree reducing a
sentence by a full year. There are 17 other states with similar incentives. "All the research
shows that as education (completion) goes up, recidivism goes down," said Nally, referring to
the 2014 RAND study. "So why not guide them with incentives to get into school? When they
do pass their program, they are starting to think differently. Our low recidivism rate (34
percent) probably has to do with incentivizing education. ... We can recruit people more
easily."
However — and this is a key caveat — although these incentives may result in a degree or
certificate, without a systematic understanding and collection of the education and skills
acquired along with recidivism data, the overall reentry payoff from participation of
incarcerated students cannot be clearly measured.
Even in the absence of federal requirements, many correctional systems do offer adult basic
and high school equivalency education as well as a number of career technology programs.
However, there are usually more inmates than program slots available. "Most systems say
they need more programs, but others complain of low enrollment," Nally said. "The reasons
vary, but the lack of self-motivation and system incentives have been cited by a number of
systems. A final thought: For many, even before winding up in prison, confidence about
finding a good job was low. They lacked credentials, skills, or both, so the only jobs open to
them were in less desirable positions where they earned little money. Training behind bars
that leads to higher paying jobs might encourage enrollment. Unfortunately, many lack the
mathematics, reading, and computer skills needed to succeed in these career-level classes.

Reentry and Job Acquisition
As the studies show, many people will leave prison as they entered it: with low mathematics,
reading, and writing skills, and little or no computer skills.
These individuals will struggle to find a living wage and employment after release, said
Michelle Tolbert, an expert on correctional education from RTI International who was
interviewed for this paper and is the author of an RTI study on reentry that provides
guidelines for education.56 Many, if not most, employers will not even consider hiring a
formerly incarcerated individual, but especially one who cannot read well, do basic
mathematics, or apply basic computer skills.
Many of those who were able to obtain a high school equivalency while incarcerated still will
likely face other impediments to obtaining gainful employment and therefore face a higher
risk of recidivism.57 Often, state and federal laws include "punitive blocks"—restrictions that
keep inmates from receiving essential social services, housing support, medical aid, and job
services after release. Frequently, these laws block exoffenders from even applying for a job
despite having all the other essential skills and qualifications; professional and business
practices toward exoffenders frequently have the same effect. This situation persists despite
a strong national effort to eliminate these blocks. For example, the federal Second Chance
Act has gone a long way toward revealing how unfairly exoffenders are treated in the job
market and other areas; it provides new resources to expand opportunities.58
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Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons

18

There is an effort at most prisons to provide at least minimal prerelease information to help
formerly incarcerated individuals find financial resources and job opportunities as well as
ways to deal with their criminal record in the face of these multiple roadblocks and general
prejudice. Normally, however, this vital information never gets to many of those being
released. Furthermore, all too often, parole authorities do not follow up with support services
for former inmates in the community trying to get by, a time when these exoffenders most
need the help that could be the difference between them committing another crime or not.
While there is a strong state and federal effort to create better reentry programs, most are
weak or nonexistent. For example, only a handful of local jails offer one-stop career centers
sponsored by state departments of labor throughout the United States.
Lois Davis and Michelle Tolbert , coauthors of the RAND report Evaluation of North Carolina's
Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education Program, indicate that North Carolina has
seen success in reducing recidivism. In an interview for this paper, Tolbert stated that success
has come "through more coordinated support from reentry staff and enhanced community
resources. This resulted from the state providing local reentry council with funding and other
support to work directly with incarcerated students six months prior to release and for up to
two years post-release." Housing, employment, and transportation had been the three pillars
of North Carolina's reentry program, but now education is the fourth.59 This model may hold
valuable insights for prison systems across the country.

Educational Technology
In addition to correctional departments not investing enough in traditional classroom
instruction, another barrier for the success of incarcerated individuals is a lack of up-to-date
instruction on the use and application of technology. Most are prohibited from using the
internet to communicate with the outside world and, as a result, cannot keep up with the
rapid changes in technology that affect the lives of everyone in the free world. Many
correctional administrators are afraid of how those in prison will use technology, including to
communicate with gang members or view pornography. This paper's opening quote from
Justice Burger clearly implied that there was a strong public belief that incarcerated
individuals did not deserve the same education as others. The lack of insufficient funding and
technology in recent decades indicates that this attitude is still strong. The unfortunate result
is that when they are released from prison, they are at an even greater disadvantage when
searching for jobs, most of which now require high levels of technology skills. 60
Davis and Tolbert highlight the North Carolina Pathways program as one example of
technology in education that can be a catalyst for change. With technology an integral piece
of postsecondary education in general, North Carolina has made the internet an integral
piece of college programs. In fact, North Carolina staff developed their own intranet platform
(called i-Net) to support education in prison and provide limited but crucial internet access.61
There are other successful programs and projects that provide examples of the great
potential of educational technology as well. The Center for the Application of Instructional
Technologies at Western Illinois University developed i-Pathways to provide adult basic and
high school equivalency education for the free adult education community.62 Many
community college systems adopted this internet-based program for their college computer
laboratories. Also, the Illinois Department of Corrections made use of the program upon
initiating a statewide secure intranet connection in its correctional facilities. The i‑Pathways
program contains its own instructional management system with individual assessment,
progress reports, and tracking so each student can save and continue work as he or she
progresses from one facility to the next through the Illinois correctional system. The lack of
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19

Barriers to Educational Reform in U.S. Prisons

security issues and i-Pathways' long-term educational success have made it a model for other
states to develop secure instructional and record-keeping systems. The i-Pathways program
has also been deployed in some other state and local facilities.
But there are issues related to i-Pathways that remain. For example, the Howard County
Detention Center in Maryland created its own firewalled connection to i-Pathways four years
ago for its educational computer lab.63 Unfortunately, neither i-Pathways or the data
generated by Howard Community College, which has a teacher on site four days a week for a
high school equivalency program, were connected directly to the reentry planning process.
These barriers are typical of most prisons and jails across the country.
Outside of correctional systems, there is an unlimited digital treasure of high quality and free
open-source books, educational materials, and software. The installation of such digital
educational materials in prison computer labs, tablets, and secure laptops could provide an
excellent cost-free opportunity for correctional education programs. For example, for many
years, a large number of private companies have been contracting with correctional agencies
to provide recreational and educational technology directly to inmates for MP3 music players
and tablets. Unfortunately, these resources usually have to be downloaded by inmates from
proprietary kiosks onto their portable devices for a fee usually borne by the inmate or
family.64 The costs include telephone calls, secure emails, and banking services. State
correctional education directors indicate that private contractors are beginning to charge
inmates a fee for otherwise free, open-source education materials and books.
One example of how these fees could be eliminated comes from World Possible,65 which has
developed laptops stripped of internet capability and provides secure plug-and-play servers
that have been deployed in correctional settings. The program provides access to free opensource software programs and digital materials. World Possible charges a reasonably low
rate for the laptops and servers but does not charge for the materials. However, state
correctional education directors like John Nally of Indiana point out that many correctional
systems have exclusive contracts with private technology companies to run their secure
technology service and charge significant user fees for the books and materials.66 In addition,
some contracts restrict the content of stand-alone computer labs not connected to the
internet and also prohibit secure internet connections to conduct online exams for high
school equivalency assessment, career credentials, and college courses.
Fortunately, the increased awareness of the integrity of firewalls and other security
application is helping to reduce the fear and reluctance of correctional agencies to provide
secure technology and internet access to incarcerated students (and, hopefully, these fees
will start to go by the wayside).
Finally, just prior to publication, internet connectivity and online courses became even more
crucial due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to reports from most states, correctional
systems have temporarily closed down nonessential programs, particularly those that require
inmates to meet with institutional staff and outside program providers, while K–12 and
college programs in the general community are adding online instruction at almost all levels.
Without a change in attitude and the introduction of secure online instruction, federal and
state prisons will fall even further behind students in the free community.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Recommendations

20

Postsecondary Education Issues
There is a bright spot in correctional education. In fact, John Linton, who was director of the
Office of Correctional Education at the U.S. Department of Education and was interviewed for
this paper, called new support for increased postsecondary education funding for college a
promising development. Since the elimination of Pell grants for inmates in 1994, only a small
number of states had continued limited support for postsecondary education. In the last few
years, however, there has been a noticeable shift in attitude about providing college
education for offenders. Experimental Pell grant projects (so-called X-grants) started during
the second Obama administration and were due to expire at the end of three years. But they
have continued under the Trump administration and are being expanded by the U.S.
Department of Education.
As a result of this explicit support, these "Second Chance Pell grants" have been increasing,
with more money being given to current college programs and some new ones. At the same
time, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) has been building bipartisan support for the
Restoring Education And Learning (REAL) Act, which would fully restore Pell grants for
inmates.
Meantime, Congress has been talking about the proposed Job Opportunity and Business
Services (JOBS) Act, which could make Pell grants available to a host of new and short-term
career-oriented postsecondary educational programs. Such programs would be helpful for
inmates preparing to leave and join the workforce.67 Expanding Pell grants to short-term job
training is supported by community colleges and business groups, but controversial in the
larger college community. Correctional institutions, however, would benefit if such programs
were funded.68
Whatever the outcome of these legislative efforts, the fact that Pell grants for incarcerated
individuals are under consideration and that there is growing support for postsecondary
education in prisons overall indicates an important positive shift in public attitudes toward
correctional education. As with educational technology, however, any efforts to improve
outcomes for the incarcerated population must be rooted in improving skills. The PIAAC
studies have demonstrated that most incarcerated people have serious deficiencies in
literacy and numeracy skills required for success at the college level. In order for these
potential students to enroll in and be successful in postsecondary education, more programs
must be available at the adult basic and secondary level to remediate and bring these skills
up to adequate levels.

Recommendations
The following recommendations are based on the decades of experience of the experts
interviewed, as well as my own experiences working in various U.S. prison systems. They also
reflect findings from key sources such as PIAAC data and RAND's study. Taken together, I
believe these recommendations can help lead the United States toward providing the means
and access for more of the incarcerated populations to gain the education and skills they
need for successful reentry and lives beyond the prison walls.

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21

Recommendations

Training and Programs
The correctional profession needs to expand its own standards to include education and job
training as crucial elements in the rehabilitation effort. Unfortunately, educational
professionals and their program standards have not been widely recognized and need to
become more involved with the development of national education standards in the
accreditation process.
1. Improve the quality and quantity of educational services available to the
incarcerated population. The percentage of the incarcerated population
participating in educational programs has dropped in most states and in the
federal system over the last 20 or more years. As a result, many of them are
never able to obtain a high school equivalency, a job training program, or basic
computer skills, let alone a postsecondary education, required in order to
survive in society.
2. Advocate for mandatory standards for special education to be created by
the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections for rehabilitative
programs such as education and career preparation. Currently, this
commission deals with life-and-safety issues only. But it is the best suited
option to handle the job regarding special education, and having discussion at
this level would highlight the importance of having mandatory standards for
longer term goals in addition to the current standards for the immediate
health and safety of the incarcerated population. A first step would be to
require special education programs for those who fall under the federal legal
mandate for education. The federal IDEA law is mandatory for correctional
institutions as well as public and private schools. Court decisions have
enforced special education laws in juvenile facilities and have done the same
for a number of adult facilities.
3. Strengthen professional correctional standards to increase the
importance of evidence-based practices such as correctional education.
The current Commission on Accreditation for Corrections education standards
were developed by correctional professionals, not educators. Professional
standards in most fields lead to changes in policy and practice. Research on
the effectiveness of substance abuse and mental health programs has led to
the growth of these programs and their inclusion in reentry planning. Why
haven't the professional standards for correctional education influenced the
professional standards of corrections as a whole? If corrections collected and
published more and better data on the education history and current levels of
incarcerated students, educational deficits would become more evident and
useful in justifying education program improvement. In making changes, the
Commission should consider requiring a minimum number of educational
standards be met.
4. Update digital and computer skills instruction in all academic and career
programs for the incarcerated population in order for them to compete
when they are released. Correctional educational programs lag far behind
community education programs in the quality and quantity of digital
resources. By the time incarcerated citizens are released, the gap in their
knowledge and skills has widened much further and handicaps their ability to
apply and compete for jobs that are becoming increasingly digitized. The lack
of instructional computer technology overall indicates a need for additional
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Recommendations

22

assistive technology used widely in public school settings.
5. Improve the training of teachers, with a focus on the unique educational
history and needs of the offender population. At the very least, correctional
teachers need more instructional strategies and skills to individualize
instruction for the many students who do not easily benefit from large-classcentered instruction. Optimally, correctional teachers, in addition to being
certified as secondary teachers in the state where they teach, would receive
additional training in special education and working with students with
learning disorders. Most correctional teachers are trained in a public school
model that does not necessarily prepare them to work in a prison setting. Most
states provide training for teachers who work in adult education and
community colleges for adults with learning deficits and correctional teachers
would benefit greatly from inclusion.

Correctional-Education Legislative/Policy Recommendations
Many of the recommendations on correctional-education legislative and policy
recommendations have been, or are being, implemented in a number of states where
leaders are finding ways to assist the incarcerated population to rejoin society as productive
citizens, workers, and parents. Hopefully, Congress and other states will follow that trend.
1. Amend federal and state laws, or propose new ones, to increase funding
to improve the number of academic, career education, and work
preparation programs, with particular emphasis on skills development
that leads to employment. For example, I recommend at least doubling the
amount of funds in the WIOA and Perkins Acts for the incarcerated population
by either increasing the total budget or by doubling the percentage of funds
allowed for prisons and jail.
Rationale: Correctional education is clearly an evidence-based practice that is
associated with reductions in recidivism and the cost of incarceration as well as
future crime.
Discussion: National correctional professional organizations representing
leadership in the correctional community have hosted numerous
presentations of the RAND studies, and correctional leaders have accepted the
findings as valid and have begun to develop political support for correctional
education program improvement. A number of politicians now openly endorse
the RAND conclusions, and some have actually cited them to justify support for
more funding for correctional education in existing legislation, including WIOA
and the Perkins Act, as well as the Second Chance Act and the full restoration
of Pell grants as proposed in the bipartisan REAL Act bill. PIAAC data cautions
us to focus carefully on the skills of inmates. Getting more politicians, both
state and national, to see prison education and skill development as a priority
for funding is a major issue for advocacy.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

23

Recommendations

2. Restore Pell grant eligibility for the incarcerated population.
Rationale: To survive and thrive in today's world, individuals need job training
and education beyond the high school level, which in today's society is no
longer the minimum benchmark for educational achievement and does not
guarantee that an individual has the skills to succeed in the labor market. The
RAND study and PIAAC data support the need to increase education and skills
for the incarcerated population, including advanced computer literacy skills.
Discussion: There are many education and job barriers that hinder formerly
incarcerated individuals from enrolling in education programs or applying for
jobs. The loss of Pell grants for inmates is the most obvious educational
restriction that needs to be eliminated. There are many other barriers,
including those from some colleges themselves, which use criminal history as a
criterion in the application process. If Pell grants become available for the
shorter term, postsecondary nondegree career programs become a possibility.
The restoration of Pell grants should be considered along with addressing
some of the technological educational barriers like computer access and the
availability of textbooks and other resources.
These nondegree certificate skills programs are a controversial issue for the
use of Pell grants. In all cases, care must be taken that incarcerated students
are able to choose careers and courses for which there are real jobs with few
barriers and that these programs are shown to impart skills.
3. Reduce barriers and restrictions keeping formerly incarcerated
individuals from applying for education and career training programs.
Rationale: In addition to the restrictions and exclusions imposed by some
colleges, there are many more workplace and societal issues regarding hiring
formerly incarcerated individuals. Many are blocked from applying for training,
a job, or financial support. Frequently, businesses and professional careers
exclude formerly incarcerated people for reasons that have nothing to do with
their crime.
Discussion: There are efforts nationally in many states to "ban the box," which
refers to the checkbox on hiring applications where applicants are asked if
they have a criminal record, as well as similar questions that disqualify
someone for housing or education opportunities. There are many other laws,
policies, or practices that exclude formerly incarcerated individuals from even
beginning the application process, not to mention the attitudes of many who
simply don't believe in offering opportunities to exoffenders.
4. Add robust education and career information to the reentry databases
used by corrections to help individuals set their future personal goals
during incarceration and parole.
Rationale: Information on education, skill levels and proficiencies, and work
history of people is as important as their criminal, drug, and social history in
reentry planning. Currently most reentry programs do not include sufficient

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Recommendations

24

educational and job history, constraining both educational planning and
individualized reentry plans. Better intake data is needed, including data on
skill proficiency.
Discussion: Previous public school records and even current correctional
education records are usually kept in separate databases, so they cannot be
integrated into reentry plans. Reentry success depends on adequate diagnostic
screening and the use of historical education and job data integrated into a
reentry plan assembled by a team of program professionals. More information
on education and training must be integrated into plans for the returning
citizen, which typically contain only substance abuse, mental and physical
health, and community resources for the returning citizen. There is a need for
an "education preparedness index" to include more education and career
information. The Council of State Governments also is developing a reentry
tool kit and should be part of a national effort to ensure such databases are
created and connected to correctional databases used for reentry planning.
Finally, many inmates have a disability and/or special education history that is
a major reason for noncompletion of school and for their social-criminal
problems. Unfortunately, most public school special education records are
sealed or archived and not accessible to corrections. The incarcerated
population also has a higher than normal proportion of individuals with visual
and hearing problems, which are easily overlooked. All of these issues need to
be considered in the reentry plans for individuals. In the 1990s, many states
like Maryland made cooperative agreements with public schools to share past
records as long as the student gives written permission.
5. Improve the motivation of incarcerated individuals to participate in
quality education by offering incentives to reduce their sentences for
reaching educational milestones.
Rationale: The emphasis in corrections has changed over the years from
punishment more toward rehabilitation. Yet there are historically high
numbers of individuals behind bars, with insufficient programs to rehabilitate
them. The incarcerated population often feel discouraged and lack motivation
for self-improvement. Getting them into programs in the first place is an
important step. Mandatory education has been helpful to many, but in the
long run they need a reason to stay and continue to improve. Incentives to
enroll often lead to program completion and success which, in turn, becomes a
strong motivator.
Discussion: The success of mandatory education is limited, and even when
coursework is mandatory, there's no guarantee that such programs impart
skills. However, over the last several decades, the federal system and many
states have made education-program participation a requirement in order to
access other programs. For example, many states require high school
completion in order to enroll in career education or work in prison industries.
Furthermore, reductions of sentence for successful program completion is
now being given in many states, resulting in higher rates of program

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

25

Recommendations

completion while lowering the cost of incarceration and reducing recidivism. In
the end, this means more people are leaving prison prepared to lead positive
lives by working and taking care of their families.
6. Convene a consortium of corrections and education experts to develop a
set of national guidelines to expand secure access to free, quality opensource digital educational resources.
Rationale: Technology is no longer a luxury since it is now a part of everyday
life at home, in the community, at work, and in school. Corrections has
traditionally shied away from giving inmates access to computers and internet
for security reasons, but private correctional companies have found viable
ways to allow educational access while guarding against gang communication.
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need for technology in the face of
massive shutdowns where prison educators can no longer provide traditional
instruction based on face-to-face instruction.
Discussion: Some states, partially as a result of lawsuits, are adopting their
own guidelines to reduce the high cost for telephone, commissary, banking,
and digital services for the incarcerated population that have resulted in
excessive profit making. Most of the companies providing these services have
created proprietary "free" inmate tablets to download their approved books
and videos. At the same time, some states are resisting these restrictions by
buying higher quality, secure Chromebooks™ and tablets and working with
education providers to load them with high-quality resources, many of which
are free for educational purposes.

National Research Recommendations
Lastly, significant strides must be made in research about education programs if there is to
be any significant chance to draw attention to the issue.
1. Conduct additional research to determine the effectiveness of various
education programs and strategies in the reduction of future crime and
recidivism. The current level of research has been relatively sparse and not
specific enough to measure the impact of such common programs as basic
literacy, high school equivalency, career/vocational education, postsecondary,
and reentry education. Additionally, more studies like the ones from RAND and
PIAAC are needed to demonstrate more precisely the power of education and
its cost effectiveness. The RAND recidivism research has changed the way the
corrections profession values education. Most professionals now understand
that education more than pays for itself in terms of reduced recidivism.
However, additional studies would not only reinforce this conclusion but also
begin to clarify the extent of the impact and the relative value of various
education programs. This would lead to more effective programs. The National
Institute of Corrections (NIC) just received a federal grant to conduct a study of
the research that has been done on correctional education. At the time of this
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Conclusion

26

writing, NIC indicated it had not yet been given specific guidance by the Senate
on conduct and development of this study. The RAND study on the
effectiveness of correctional education provides a good framework for
improving research. In order "to improve the evidence base, state and federal
policymakers and foundations should invest in well-designed evaluation for
correctional education programs. ... Funding grants and guidelines can help
further the field by requiring the use of more-rigorous research designs. ... A
study registry of correctional education evaluations would further aid in
developing the evidence base."69
2. Create a list of critical research topics for correctional education. Many
programs have been implemented with little research or data. Currently, there
has been great interest in postsecondary education because of the debate
about restoring Pell grants for those in prisons. At the same time, it is known
from PIAAC data that a large majority of the incarcerated population does not
have sufficient skills to do postsecondary school work. Data are needed to
determine what programs are most important and effective. Additionally,
there are other important research areas such as ascertaining the impact of
the revised 2014 GED exam and the new HiSET and TASC high school
equivalency exams on correctional education and the impact on job skills.
What is the relative value of the various types of educational programs such as
basic literacy, computer literacy, high school equivalency, vocational, and
career courses and postsecondary education? What are the important
elements and processes to assess the education history and needs of each
individual? What questions are needed to collect important data in an
interview tool and protocol as part of the overall correctional database and
reentry process? These are some of the questions that need answers.

Conclusion
As a result of the "get tough on crime" movement in the 1990s and severe national budget
problems that began with the 2008 recession, correctional education opportunities and
resources have been drastically reduced despite research clearly showing the payoff to a
bigger and better investment in prison education programs at the local, state, and federal
levels.
There are, however, some positive signs. Education is now firmly recognized as one of the
most important factors in reducing future crime and recidivism. There are also some positive
program improvements in some states that are using educational technology, improving
reentry planning, and developing academic and career postsecondary programs. Pell grants
have been available on an experimental basis for several years, and new legislation has been
proposed to improve reentry and fully restore those grants. Overall progress, however, is
slow and the obstacles are many. Much more work needs to be done.
Since the professional correctional field and society in general do not seem ready to
recognize the social or moral imperative for correctional education, it is incumbent upon
correctional educators — as I seek to do here — to promote educational research and
publicize the critical value of education to change the lives of offenders and reduce crime.
This research-based argument should underlie a well-defined set of policies as the rationale
for the improvement of correctional education nationally.
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

27

Experts Interviewed

In advocating for prison education, it is important to remember that citizens who break the
law tend to have a cluster of personal, emotional, and social problems. Many come into the
criminal justice system with a history of poverty and substance abuse, live in dangerous
neighborhoods, and are from single-parent families. They usually have lower education levels
and frequently have special learning needs. As adults, their problems are complicated by
significant skill and career deficits. Many artificial barriers impede their effort to find
employment and keep them from becoming successful. Although, for many, these problems
started when they were children and were not adequately addressed, there is an opportunity
to try again during their time in our federal, state, and local institutions.
Despite some small steps, as shown in this review of correctional education, Justice Burger's
exhortation to improve lives has generally not been heeded. We are not committing the
resources to meet the "moral obligation" to provide an adequate and reasonable amount of
educational services to the incarcerated population as well as a mechanism to help the
incarcerated individuals to begin planning for their release the day they enter prison.
Education has been proven to be a cost-effective and research-based tool in the effort to
positively change behavior in those who have committed crimes. The benefits of correctional
education accrue to society as well as to incarcerated individuals themselves.
We have the research on our side to support more and better education programs. Now, we
have to act on it. In short, as one saying in the correctional industry goes, "Doing time does
not have to be a waste of time."

Experts Interviewed
Lois M. Davis is a senior policy researcher at RAND with more than 25 years research
experience in the areas of public safety and public health with expertise in health disparities,
justice-involved populations, and health care and social services delivery and
implementation. Davis currently is leading an outcomes evaluation of the "Pathways from
Prison to Post-Secondary Education" demonstration project in Michigan and North Carolina
funded by Arnold Ventures. She also is leading a process and outcomes evaluation of the
Minnesota Department of Corrections' Career Navigators Program that provides employment
and reentry supports to career technical education students funded by Ascendium. She led
the national evaluation, funded under the Second Chance Act, of the effectiveness of
educational and vocational training programs for incarcerated adults and juveniles in the
United States.
Past research includes development of the national evaluation framework for implementing
the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards, a multiyear study
on the public health implications of reentry in California; and a National Institute of Justicefunded study on prisons closures. Davis has a Ph.D. in public health from UCLA. She is a
professor of the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Davis is a former Bureau of Justice Statistics
fellow, National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral fellow, and a former Pew Health
Policy fellow.
Jon P. Galley served as the Maryland Western regional commissioner of corrections as well
as the warden of the Montgomery County Diagnostic and Reception Center. Previously, he
was a teacher, having risen through the ranks of the Maryland Department of Corrections in
the late 1960s to become the assistant warden, warden, and commissioner of corrections.
His major passion was the development of professional standards for corrections. He was
involved in the start of the accreditation movement nationwide, serving on the first team to
audit an adult correctional facility, the Vienna Correctional Center in Illinois, in 1979, and
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Experts Interviewed

28

auditing more than 100 facilities throughout the United States and Canada. Galley received
his master's degree from Southern Illinois University and his bachelor's from Frostburg State.
He passed away in July 2019 at age 75.
John Peter Linton was the director of the Office of Correctional Education in the U.S.
Department of Education's Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, where he
provided leadership for the department's work involving educational services for the U.S.
corrections population from 2000–2015 He represented the department on the work group
supporting the federal Reentry Council and worked to reestablish postsecondary educational
opportunities funded by Pell grants in adult federal and state prisons. Previously, he was the
director of the Office of Correctional Education at the Maryland State Department of
Education, a program that enrolled nearly 2,000 students at the time of his departure. He was
recently commended by the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education, Dr. John B. King Jr., as having
displayed "tireless and determined leadership." Following his retirement from the
department, he continued to have a nationwide presence through professional writing,
participation in professional organizations, and involvement with prison reform and advocacy
programs.
Linton received his bachelor's degree from Kalamazoo College, where he majored in
philosophy and his master's from Harvard University. He passed away in September 2019 at
age 72.
Stefan LoBuglio has worked in corrections for nearly three decades as a practitioner, policy
advocate, and consultant. Currently, his firm Justice Innovations LLC provides assistance to
jurisdictions in the United States and internationally to strengthen their justice systems
through the implementation of innovative and evidenced-based practices. Before that, Stefan
was the director of reentry and corrections for the Council of State Governments Justice
Center, where he oversaw federally funded efforts to promote successful adult reentry and
improve correctional practices inside and outside of local, state, and federal institutions. At
the Justice Center, he led the National Reentry Resource Center, which is a project of the U.S.
Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance.
From 2005–2015, Stefan served as chief of the Pre-Release and Reentry Services Division for
the Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. In this
position, he oversaw the Montgomery County Pre-Release Center (PRC) — a 171-bed, fully
accredited correctional facility — which provides comprehensive reentry programs for people
incarcerated in the county jails, Maryland state prisons, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons
and who are within six months of release. During his tenure, he developed and tracked
performance metrics which showed that 90 percent of individuals were released from the
PRC with jobs, savings, homes, and family connections and recidivated at a rate of 25 percent
less than state and federal rates. He began his correctional career in 1992, developing
education, reentry, and community correctional programs at the 2,000-bed House of
Correction in Boston for more than 12 years, eventually rising to the position of deputy
superintendent of community corrections for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department. In
addition to his operational experience, he has served on statewide correctional reform task
forces in Maryland and Massachusetts, participated as an expert adviser on a number of
reentry projects, testified before Congress, assisted in changing state legislation, and
coauthored publications on reentry and recidivism.
In 2007, LoBuglio received his doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education,
where he focused his studies on the evaluation of correctional reentry programs. He earned
a master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University and a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Duke University.
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

29

Experts Interviewed

John Nally is the director of education for the Indiana Department of Correction. He is a past
president of the Council of State and Federal Directors of Correctional Education and has
served on the Executive Board of the Correctional Education Association (CEA). He received
the CEA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. He has a bachelor of science and master of
science degree from Indiana State University and a doctorate from Oakland City University.
Michelle C. Tolbert, M.Ed., is the director of workforce development at RTI International. She
specializes in correctional education and reentry, adult education, college and career
readiness, career pathways, and educational policy. Currently, Tolbert is overseeing a training
and technical assistance (TTA) project supporting 16 state and local partnerships that are
providing justice-involved young adults with education and workforce development
alternatives to incarceration. She is also providing TTA to two sets of Second Chance Act
grantees to support their adult reentry, education, and employment strategies and serving as
the coevaluator of the Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education initiative and
Minnesota's Career Navigator initiative. Her experience also includes developing various
toolkits and resources for the U.S. Department of Education (e.g., Reentry Education Tool Kit
and Take Charge of Your Future: Get the Education and Training You Need) and providing TTA
to a range of stakeholders such as correctional education programs implementing the
reentry education framework, adult education state agencies and programs implementing
new requirements under Title II of WIOA, and regional partnerships and community colleges
developing career pathway programs.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Appendix A: About the Profiles in This Report

30

Appendix A: About the Profiles in This Report
Three individuals were selected for profiles in this report. Pseudonyms have been used to
protect privacy. However, even though I could not include their actual names, I felt the stories
they tell were important to provide as they put a face to understanding the issues and
obstacles related to prison education. I have personally worked with all three
individuals—Anthony, Joel, and Emily—in correctional education programs that I taught.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

31

Appendix B: PIAAC Proficiency Levels

Appendix B: PIAAC Proficiency Levels
Table B-1: Score Boundaries and Task Descriptions for PIAAC Proficiency Levels on the
Literacy Scale
LITERACY
PROFICIENCY
LEVELS AND
SCORE
BOUNDARIES
BELOW LEVEL 1
(0 to 175)

LEVEL 1
(176 to 225)

LEVEL 2
(226 to 275)

LEVEL 3
(276 to 325)

LEVEL 4
(326 to 375)

LEVEL 5
(376 to 500)

LITERACY TASK DESCRIPTIONS
The tasks at this level require the respondent to read brief texts on familiar topics to locate a
single piece of specific information. Only basic vocabulary knowledge is required, and the reader is
not required to understand the structure of sentences or paragraphs or make use of other text
features. There is seldom any competing information in the text and the requested information is
identical in form to information in the question or directive. While the texts can be continuous, the
information can be located as if the text were noncontinuous. Tasks below Level 1 do not make
use of any features specific to digital texts.
Most of the tasks at this level require the respondent to read relatively short digital or print
continuous, noncontinuous, or mixed texts to locate a single piece of information which is
identical to or synonymous with the information given in the question or directive. Some tasks
may require the respondent to enter personal information into a document, in the case of some
noncontinuous texts. Little, if any, competing information is present. Some tasks may require
simple cycling through more than one piece of information. Knowledge and skill in recognizing
basic vocabulary, evaluating the meaning of sentences, and reading of paragraph text is expected.
At this level, the complexity of text increases. The medium of texts may be digital or printed, and
texts may comprise continuous, noncontinuous, or mixed types. Tasks in this level require
respondents to make matches between the text and information and may require paraphrase or
low-level inferences. Some competing pieces of information may be present. Some tasks require
the respondent to
• cycle through or integrate two or more pieces of information based on criteria,
• compare and contrast or reason about information requested in the question, or
• navigate within digital texts to access and identify information from various parts of a
document.
Texts at this level are often dense or lengthy, including continuous, noncontinuous, mixed, or
multiple pages. Understanding text and rhetorical structures become more central to successfully
completing tasks, especially in navigation of complex digital texts. Tasks require the respondent to
identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of information and often require varying levels
of inferencing. Many tasks require the respondent construct meaning across larger chunks of text
or perform multistep operations in order to identify and formulate responses. Often tasks also
demand that the respondent disregard irrelevant or inappropriate text content to answer
accurately. Competing information is often present, but it is not more prominent than the correct
information.
Tasks at this level often require respondents to perform multiple-step operations to integrate,
interpret, or synthesize information from complex or lengthy continuous, noncontinuous, mixed,
or multiple type texts. Complex inferences and application of background knowledge may be
needed to perform successfully. Many tasks require identifying and understanding one or more
specific, noncentral ideas in the text in order to interpret or evaluate subtle evidence claim or
persuasive discourse relationships. Conditional information is frequently present in tasks at this
level and must be taken into consideration by the respondent. Competing information is present
and sometimes seemingly as prominent as correct information.
At this level, tasks may require the respondent to search for and integrate information across
multiple, dense texts; construct syntheses of similar and contrasting ideas or points of view; or
evaluate evidence-based arguments. Application and evaluation of logical and conceptual models
of ideas may be required to accomplish tasks. Evaluating reliability of evidentiary sources and
selecting key information is frequently a key requirement. Tasks often require respondents to be
aware of subtle, rhetorical cues and to make high-level inferences or use specialized background
knowledge.

Source: Claudia Tamassia and Mary Louise Lennon, "PIAAC Proficiency Scales (Chapter 21)," Technical Report of the Survey of Adult
Skills (PIAAC) (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2013), http://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/_technical%20report_17oct13.pdf.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Appendix B: PIAAC Proficiency Levels

32

Table B-2: Score Boundaries and Task Descriptions for PIAAC Proficiency Levels on the
Numeracy Scale
NUMERACY
PROFICIENCY
LEVELS AND
SCORE
BOUNDARIES
BELOW LEVEL 1
(0 to 175)
LEVEL 1
(176 to 225)

LEVEL 2
(226 to 275)

LEVEL 3
(276 to 325)

LEVEL 4
(326 to 375)

LEVEL 5
(376 to 500)

NUMERACY TASK DESCRIPTIONS
Tasks at this level are set in concrete, familiar contexts where the mathematical content is explicit
with little or no text or distractors and that require only simple processes such as counting,
sorting, performing basic arithmetic operations with whole numbers or money, or recognizing
common spatial representations.
Tasks in this level require the respondent to carry out basic mathematical processes in common,
concrete contexts where the mathematical content is explicit with little text and minimal
distractors. Tasks usually require simple one-step or two-step processes involving, for example,
performing basic arithmetic operations; understanding simple percents such as 50 percent; or
locating, identifying, and using elements of simple or common graphical or spatial
representations.
Tasks in this level require the respondent to identify and act upon mathematical information and
ideas embedded in a range of common contexts where the mathematical content is fairly explicit
or visual with relatively few distractors. Tasks tend to require the application of two or more steps
or processes involving, for example, calculation with whole numbers and common decimals,
percents, and fractions; simple measurement and spatial representation; estimation; and
interpretation of relatively simple data and statistics in texts, tables, and graphs.
Tasks in this level require the respondent to understand mathematical information which may be
less explicit, embedded in contexts that are not always familiar, and represented in more complex
ways. Tasks require several steps and may involve the choice of problem-solving strategies and
relevant processes. Tasks tend to require the application of, for example, number sense and
spatial sense; recognizing and working with mathematical relationships, patterns, and proportions
expressed in verbal or numerical form; and interpretation and basic analysis of data and statistics
in texts, tables, and graphs.
Tasks in this level require the respondent to understand a broad range of mathematical
information that may be complex, abstract, or embedded in unfamiliar contexts. These tasks
involve undertaking multiple steps and choosing relevant problem-solving strategies and
processes. Tasks tend to require analysis and more complex reasoning about, for example,
quantities and data; statistics and chance; spatial relationships; change; proportions; and
formulas. Tasks in this level may also require comprehending arguments or communicating wellreasoned explanations for answers or choices.
Tasks in this level require the respondent to understand complex representations and abstract
and formal mathematical and statistical ideas, possibly embedded in complex texts. Respondents
may have to integrate multiple types of mathematical information where considerable translation
or interpretation is required; draw inferences; develop or work with mathematical arguments or
models; and justify, evaluate and critically reflect upon solutions or choices.

Source: Claudia Tamassia and Mary Louise Lennon, "PIAAC Proficiency Scales (Chapter 21)," Technical Report of the Survey of Adult
Skills (PIAAC) (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2013), http://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/_technical%20report_17oct13.pdf.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

33

About the Author

About the Author
Stephen Steurer was the executive director of the
Correctional Education Association, a national teacher
organization advocating for the education of incarcerated
youth and adults in the United States, from 1986–2015. He
was coordinator of correctional academic programs (literacy
through high school) from 1973–2004 for all adult prison
education programs and juvenile justice education under the
authority of the Maryland State Department of Education.
He has written extensively in correctional and educational
journals and consulted on many federal- and state-funded
projects, including the 2014 RAND Corporation correctional
education recidivism studies. He worked as a consultant to
the RAND Corporation for best practices research funded by
the U.S. departments of Justice and Education, the Council of
State Governments Reentry Resource Center, and the Vera
Foundation for Pathways postsecondary education project in
New Jersey, North Carolina, and Michigan. He was also a
professor of criminology at the University of Maryland from
2010–2015. Additionally, Steurer is an education/reentry
advocate for CURE National, associate advocate for Maryland
Correctional Education Enhancement Associates, chairperson
of the Criminal Justice Education Working Group for the
Barbara Bush Foundation, and a correctional education
consultant evaluating and creating education programs for
the incarcerated population. He was an original founding
member of the Barbara Bush Foundation in 1990.
Steurer's career began as a teacher in middle and high
schools in Chicago and Washington in reading, history,
English, and Italian. Steurer received his bachelor's degree
from Loyola University of Chicago, his master's from
Georgetown University, and his doctorate from the University
of Maryland in Secondary Education, Reading Disabilities.

How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Endnotes

34

Endnotes
1 Mariel

Alper, and Matthew R. Durose, 2018 Update on Prisoner Recidivism: A 9-Year Follow-up Period (2005 – 2014),
Report No. NCJ 250975 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Systems, 2018), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/18upr9yfup0514.pdf

2

Bobby D. Rampey, Shelly Kelper, Leyla Mohadjer, Tom Krenzke, Jianzhu Li, Nina Thornton, Jacquie Hogan, Holly
Xie, and Stephen Provasnik, Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills, Work Experience,
Education, and Training: Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies: 2014 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/
2016040.pdf.

3

Lois M. Davis, Jennifer L. Steele, Robert Bozick, Malcolm V. Williams, Susan Turner, Jeremy N. V. Miles, Jessica
Saunders, and Paul S. Steinberg, How Effective Is Correctional Education, and Where Do We Go from Here? The Results
of a Comprehensive Evaluation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2014), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR564.html.

4

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 1.1.

5

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 1.1.

6

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 1.2.

7

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 1.2.

8

Davis et al., How Effective.

9

Danielle Kaeble, Probation and Parole in the United States, 2016, Report No. NCJ 251148 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2018), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ppus16.pdf.

10

Kaeble, Probation and Parole.

11

U.S. Department of Education, "12,000 Incarceration Students to Enroll in Postsecondary Educational and
Training Programs Through Education Department's New Second Chance Pell Pilot Program," press release (June
24, 2016), https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/12000-incarcerated-students-enroll-postsecondaryeducational-and-training-programs-through-education-departments-new-second-chance-pell-pilot-program.

12

Council of Economic Advisers, Returns on Investments in Recidivism-Reducing Programs (Washington, DC: Executive
Office of the President, 2018), 1, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Returns-on-Investments-in-Recidivism-Reducing-Programs.pdf.

13

Lois M. Davis, Jennifer L. Steele, Robert Bozick, Malcolm V. Williams, Susan Turner, Jeremy N. V. Miles, Jessica
Saunders, and Paul S. Steinberg, How Effective Is Correctional Education, and Where Do We Go from Here? The Results
of a Comprehensive Evaluation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2014), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR564.html.

14

Bobby D. Rampey, Shelly Kelper, Leyla Mohadjer, Tom Krenzke, Jianzhu Li, Nina Thornton, Jacquie Hogan, Holly
Xie, and Stephen Provasnik, Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills, Work Experience,
Education, and Training: Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies: 2014 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/
2016040.pdf.

15

Davis et al., How Effective.

16

For more, see the Experts Interviewed section of the report.

17

World Economic Forum, Towards a Reskilling Revolution: Industry-Led Action for the Future of Work (Geneva: World
Economic Forum, 2019), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Towards_a_Reskilling_Revolution.pdf; Edward
Alden and Laura Taylor-Kale, The Work Ahead: Machines, Skills, and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century (New
York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2018), https://www.cfr.org/report/the-work-ahead/report/; David Autor, David
A. Mindell, and Elisabeth B. Reynolds, The Work of the Future: Shaping Technology and Institutions (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Work of the Future, Fall 2019), https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2019-09/WorkoftheFuture_Report_Shaping_Technology_and_Institutions.pdf.
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

35

Endnotes

18

Irwin Kirsch, Henry Braun, Mary Louise Lennon, and Anita Sands, Choosing our Future: A Story of Opportunity in
America (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 2016). https://www.ets.org/research/report/opportunity/
choosing-our-future.

19

Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, Captive Students: Education and Training in America's Prisons (Princeton, NJ:
Educational Testing Service, 1996), https://www.ets.org/research/policy_research_reports/publications/report/
1996/bvqv; Richard J. Coley and Paul E. Barton, Locked Up and Locked Out: An Educational Perspective on the U.S.
Prison Population (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 2006), https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICLOCKEDUP.pdf.

20

Barton and Coley, Captive Students, 5.

21

Coley and Barton, Locked Up, 30.

22

Davis et al., How Effective.

23 In

an interview, Michelle Tolbert of RTI International, who works closely with Lois Davis of RAND on correctional
education studies, underlined the need to continue to do more impact studies to demonstrate and clarify the
cost-benefit of education to the public, correctional leadership, and legislators.

24

Davis et al., How Effective.

25

In some states, the correctional education director is a high-level position at the assistant commissioner level.
California and Georgia are two examples of this structure. In others, there might be no central education
authority, leaving each prison to decide how education is provided in its facility. Delaware, Massachusetts, and
Washington states are decentralized in this manner. In some instances (again including Washington), states
contract with local community colleges to provide some or all educational services and focus almost entirely on
academic and career education. In a few states, a state agency provides prison education under the authority of
an independent director or superintendent, much like a public school system. The Ohio Central School System
and the Windham School District in Texas are the two largest models.

26

As a disclaimer, this is an ETS product.

27

See Appendix A for information on the individuals profiled in this and two other vignettes in this report.

28

See U.S. Prison Study Data Collection at https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/prison.asp.

29

See the U.S. Prison Study Data collection: 2014 at https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/prison.asp.

30

Overall results for PIAAC are at https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/household.asp. For the PIAAC U.S. Background
Questionnaires, see https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/questionnaires.asp.

31

See the U.S. Prison Study Data Collection at https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/prison.asp. In this report, I focus
primarily on the results in the literacy domain.

32

OECD, OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2013)
https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264204256-en; OECD, Time for the U.Sto Reskill?: What the Survey of Adult Skills Says
(Paris: OECD Publishing, 2013),https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264204904-en; U.S. Department of Education, Office
of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, Making Skills Everyone's Business: A Call to Transform Adult Learning in the
United States (Washington, DC: Author, 2015); Kirsch et al., Choosing our Future, 39.

33

Bobby D. Rampey, Shelley Keiper, Leyla Mohadjer, Tom Krenzke, Jianzhu Li, Nina Thornton, Jacquie Hogan, Holly
Xie, and Stephen Provasnik, Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills, Work Experience,
Education, and Training. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies: 2014, NCES 2016-040
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), Table 1.2,
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016040.pdf. Difference is statistically significant at the .05 level.

34

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 1.2.

35

OECD, OECD Skills Outlook 2013, 28.

36

Madeline Goodman, Robert Finnegan, Leyla Mohadjer, Tom Krenzke, Jacquie Hogan, Eugene Owen, and Stephen
Provasnik, Literacy, Numeracy, and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among U.S. Adults: Results from
the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012: First Look, NCES 2014-008 (Washington,
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

Endnotes

36

DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics), B-3, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/
2014008.pdf. For more description of the levels, see Appendix B of this paper or refer to the NCES website at
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/litproficiencylevel.asp.
37

Outcomes on the PIAAC numeracy domain are even worse. Forty-three (43) percent of the incarcerated
population with a high school degree or equivalent score at or below level 1 on the PIAAC numeracy scale, which
measures basic mathematical and computational skills that are considered fundamental for functioning in
everyday work and social life. See Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 1.3. Also, refer to Appendix B
for a description of PIAAC proficiency levels by domain.

38

For more information on this topic, refer to Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults.

39

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 2.1.

40

Rampey et al, Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 2.2.

41

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 2.5.

42

Neeta Fogg, Paul Harrington, and Ishwar Khatiwada, Skills and Earnings in the Full-Time Labor Market (Princeton, NJ:
Educational Testing Service, 2018), https://www.ets.org/s/research/pdf/skills-and-earnings-in-the-full-time-labormarket.pdf.

43

Average scores for incarcerated adults on the PIAAC literacy scale by whether they currently have a prison job
were 252 versus 245 for those without a prison job. This is a statistically significant difference of 8 points. See
Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Table 2.6.

44

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, 30.

45

Rampey et al., Survey of Incarcerated Adults, Figure 3.3.

46

While almost all of the prison population who do not have a high school credential lack the level of skills deemed
critical for today's labor market, nearly two-thirds of those who have obtained a high school credential are
similarly positioned. This is a significant challenge for these individuals upon reentry and for our society overall.
For a thoughtful discussion of the paradox between educational attainment and skills in the household
population, see Neeta Fogg, Paul Harrington, Ishwar Khatiwada, Irwin Kirsch, Anita Sands, and Larry Hanover, If
You Can't Be With the Data You Love: And the Risks of Loving the Data You're With (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing
Service, 2019), https://www.ets.org/research/report/love-the-data.

47

See the Brief Jail Mental Health Screen at https://www.prainc.com/?product=brief-jail--mental-health-screen.

48

The assessment can be found at https://apps.nd.gov/dhs/owra/faces/faces/About.htm.

49

More jurisdictions, such as California, are attempting to build such reentry sharing systems that would have
safeguards built into the sharing of medical records.

50

Davis et al., How Effective, 14.

51

Davis et al., How Effective, 11.

52

In order to measure the difficulty of reading materials, common formulas are used to calculate grade levels such
as the Fry Graph, Spache Formula, New Dale-Chall Formula, and Flesch Reading Ease Formula, all available for
free on the internet. See Lois M. Davis and Michelle C. Tolbert, Evaluation of North Carolina's Pathways from Prison
to Postsecondary Education Program (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2019), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2957.html.

53

The only broad exception for mandatory education requiring educational programs is by federal special
education law for youthful offenders, although some states do have regulations that require educational
participation for those who have not graduated from high school. The ACA auditors do not conduct an
examination of the programs against quality standards, but simply attest to whether the programs exist. I was
one of the first correctional educators to become an ACA auditor. After being recommended as an auditor by Jon
Galley, an ACA auditor and trainer, Galley and I worked closely with ACA's standards commission and advocated
to have more educators included in the evaluation process. However, the vast majority of auditors remain higher
level correctional administrators, not educators.
How to Unlock the Power of Prison Education

37

Endnotes

54

I have served as an expert witness in juvenile and adult lawsuits in Washington, DC, New Mexico, and Maryland
related to this issue.

55

National Conference of State Legislatures, Good Time and Earned Time Policies for State Prison Inmates (as
Established by Law) (Washington: Author, February 2019).

56

Michelle Tolbert and Laura Rasmussen Foster, Reentry Education Framework: Guidelines for Providing High-Quality
Education for Adults Involved in the Criminal Justice System (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Career, Technical, and Adult Education, 2016), https://learner.lincs.ed.gov/reentryed/files/tools_pdf/Reentry-EdFramework-Report.pdf.

57

Nancy G. La Vigne, Tracey L. Schollenberger, and Sara A. Debus, One Year Out; Tracking the Experiences of Male
Prisoners Returning to Houston, Texas (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2009), https://www.urban.org/research/
publication/one-year-out-tracking-experiences-male-prisoners-returning-houston-texas/view/full_report.

58

Rebecca Beitsch, To Reduce Recidivism, States Scrap Barriers for Ex-Offenders (Pew Trusts, July 27, 2017),
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/07/27/to-reduce-recidivism-statesscrap-barriers-for-ex-offenders.

59

Davis and Tolbert, North Carolina's Pathways.

60

Emily Mooney and Arthur Rizer, "Let's Train Inmates for Success in the High-Tech Economy," The Crime Report
(February 1, 2019), https://thecrimereport.org/2019/02/01/lets-train-inmates-for-success-in-the-high-tech-economy/; Justice in Action, Computers in Cells: Maintaining Ties and Reducing Recidivism (Sydney: Author, 2011),
http://justiceaction.org.au/cms/images/stories/CmpgnPDFs/computersincells.pdf.

61

Davis and Tolbert, North Carolina's Pathways.

62

See the Center for the Application of Instructional Technologies at Western Illinois University's website at
https://www.i-pathways.org/public/ourStory.jsp. Also, for a discussion of i-Pathways in the Illinois Department of
Corrections, see https://www.i-pathways.org/public/correctional.jsp.

63

I ran a volunteer tutoring program utilizing the i-Pathways program at Howard County for four years. More than
70 students had used the program successfully with no security issues upon my departure in March 2019.

64

Nicole Lewis and Beatrix Lockwood, "How Families Cope with the Hidden Costs of Incarceration for the Holidays,"
New York Times (December 17, 2019); Stephanie Clifford and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, "In Prisons, Sky-High Phone
Rates and Money Transfer Fees," New York Times (June 26, 2014).

65

See https://worldpossible.org.

66

These officials have requested anonymity due to political reasons within their own agencies.

67

Bureau of Justice Statistics, "U.S. Correctional Population Declined for the Ninth Consecutive Year," press release
(April 26, 2018), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/cpus16pr.cfm.

68

Andrew Kreighbaum, "Brewing Battle Over Pell Grants," Inside Higher Ed (July 8, 2019), https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/08/debate-over-proposed-expansion-pell-grants-short-term-job-training.

69

Davis et al., How Effective, 87.

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