Lifelong Learning: State Policies

Recent years have seen increasing activity on the part of adults involved in more or less formal learning situations. Government agencies have shown increasing interest in attempting to describe and analyze that activity and to develop new policies to support planning, coordination, and facilitation of lifelong learning. The Lifelong Learning Act (Education Amendments of 1976) authorized the assistant secretary for education to assist federal and state agencies in their planning activities concerning lifelong learning as well as to review and research lifelong learning in terms of its participants, providers, means of financing unmet needs, and planning and coordination. The purpose of this paper is to examine state policies and practices with respect to lifelong learning. Federal activity, because it is described in detail elsewhere in this volume, is touched on only briefly. It must be borne in mind, though, that the magnitude of federal activity and the significance of its potential is such that state policies cannot be planned or executed without close attention to federal initiatives. At the same time, the principle underlying the discussion is that federal policies should not be made without close attention to what is done at the state level or what could be done there.