KMUW | By Anavi Prakash
Studies show that about one in five adults in Kansas can decipher letters and even read simple words. But they can’t read well enough to understand instruction manuals, healthcare forms or safety warnings.
Editor’s note: This story was produced as part of “Beyond Words: Wichita’s Reading Crisis,” a new initiative by the Wichita Journalism Collaborative exploring adult literacy in the Wichita area.
Imagine you work in a meatpacking plant and operate heavy machinery. But the safety labels on those machines look like gibberish.
Your chances of getting injured are suddenly much higher.
Hector Martinez, director of adult education for the Kansas Board of Regents, saw that play out in Garden City.
He said being able to read plays a direct role in people’s ability to develop other skills.
“If we don’t have an adult able to read, they’re not going to understand math because math starts with some reading and comprehension,” Martinez said.
Almost one in five adults in Kansas read without understanding the meaning of the words, according to a 2017 study by the federal government. The technical term is “functionally illiterate.”
That means a large percentage of adults can decipher letters and even read simple words. But they can’t read well enough to understand instruction manuals, healthcare forms or safety warnings.
In Garden City, Martinez said, workers who took English acquisition classes or GED diploma courses greatly reduced their risk of getting hurt on the job. Learning to read and comprehend also meant they could follow a recipe, read medicine labels, fill out a job application, and understand road signs to get around without help.
“At the end of the day, it’s the ability to function in society through numeracy, literacy, and now technology,” said Shaketta Thomas, president of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education.
Defining adult literacy
At its core, adult literacy is functional literacy, Thomas said. But adult education aims to teach people something more.
The U.S. Department of Education and Kansas Board of Regents puts adult education under the umbrella of workforce development. Its focus is helping people develop essential skills, including financial and digital literacy, and earn key credentials, Martinez said.
Without a high school diploma, job prospects are scarce. It’s a reality facing one in 12 Kansans, according to data from the 2024 American Community Survey.
Martinez added that alongside GED certification classes, “contextualized learning” allows people to develop math and reading skills for a specific career.
For immigrants and refugees, adult education may also include English as a second language courses.
Chrissy Unruh, a teacher at the Wichita International Language and Learning Center and Butler Community College, said classes include information on how American systems work.
“It’s also writing, and then workplace literacy — helping them, especially on the immigrant and refugee side, just better understand American culture, what’s expected from them in the workplace, in the classroom, how they can help their kids at home,” Unruh said.
Thomas, with the national nonprofit Coalition on Adult Basic Education, added that people who are incarcerated and enroll in GED and work certification programs reduce their likelihood of going back to prison.
“We give them not just a second chance, but a new way of living,” she said.
Accessing adult education
The challenge for literacy advocates is reaching people who can’t read. Promotional flyers and other text-based marketing strategies don’t work, so they depend on word-of-mouth.
“The community finds adult education when they need (it),” Martinez said. “If someone in the community needs a high school diploma, they’re gonna find adult education. If someone needs to go and learn English, they will find the center.”
Nicholas Lynch sought out Sedgwick County’s adult education center, NexStep Alliance, because it was known as “the place to go” to get a GED diploma.
Lynch has learned six different trades in his lifetime. He cut trees. He laid concrete. He welded, landscaped and repaired HVAC systems. Now he’s a carpenter.
“While that’s good, and I have at least learned something, that doesn’t put that piece of paper in my hand, which then allows my personal economy to kind of raise itself,” Lynch said. “I stay capped.”
It’s hard to find jobs that pay more than $24 an hour, he said.
This year, Lynch challenged himself to complete the “hardest thing (he’s) ever done” — get that vital piece of paper, his GED diploma.
More education will open doors, he said.
“It’ll open up my jobs, thus opening up my wallet, thus opening up my opportunities with my kids, thus opening more opportunities for a relationship,” he said.
Lynch takes evening classes at NexStep so he can also keep working full time.
That’s common for many adult students, said NexStep Director Yamir Lozada. He said the goal is to meet students where they are.
“It’s all about trying to do our best to flex and accommodate the Wichitans that we have here, whether they’re working first, second, or third shift,” Lozada said. “We understand it’s hard work, and we want to do the best thing we can do to listen and provide them guidance and help.”
NexStep’s academic year aligns with the Wichita school district’s calendar to help parents get childcare, Lozada said. Another common barrier, he said, is transportation.
The adult education center has spots for just over 1,000 students, new and returning. During a four-day enrollment event in July, 438 new students, including Lynch, joined NexStep.
The organization has four campuses across north, south and east Wichita. Some campuses are more popular than others, creating waitlists for their seats, Lozada said. Prospective students can get off the waitlist if an enrolled student doesn’t attend class. They can also choose to attend a different campus.
The only other option is for people to attend the next enrollment period, Lozada added.
Funding challenges
Across Kansas, adult education classrooms are full and waitlists are extensive, said Martinez, with the Board of Regents. In fiscal year 2024, more than 500 students never made it off a waitlist because adult learning centers lacked funds to expand programming, according to a Board of Regents report.
Part of expanding programs is adding more staff. Statewide, there are 450 people who work in the adult education system. Only 150 are teachers, and many work part-time, Martinez said. The rest are administrators, support staff or volunteers.
NexStep has 40 classroom instructors, and all are part-time. Many also work full time as K-12 teachers for Wichita Public Schools.
Adult education is often overlooked, Martinez said.
A big reason is funding, he added. The 18 adult education centers in Kansas will get less than $1.6 million in state funding during the 2026-27 school year — that’s around 0.03% of the $6.2 billion Kansas spent on K-12 schools that year. With federal funding, adult education will get just over $6 million total.
The Board of Regents has requested a $1 million increase in state funding for adult education over the past few years, citing the overwhelming need for adult classes and the payoff for students. The state has yet to give it to them.
Kansas ranks second among all states for academic and technical success through adult education, according to a Board of Regents report. But during the 2024-25 school year, it ranked 44th for state funding. Martinez said adult education centers must diversify their funding sources.
At NexStep, the cost to students in the GED diploma or ESL programs is a $50 supply fee. Everything else is covered, primarily by federal grants and Goodwill Industries, the organization that runs NexStep in collaboration with WSU Tech.
Lozada said funding and more awareness about the importance of adult literacy are key to helping people access adult education.
“Adult literacy in general is something that needs to continue … to be supported, because we’re doing a lot,” he said. “There’s a lot of need, not just here in Wichita, not just in Sedgwick County, but in the state and the nation.”
Anavi Prakash is the 2026 Korva Coleman Journalism intern at KMUW. She is passionate about telling immersive stories through the combination of text, audio, video and photo. Anavi is a rising senior at Northwestern University studying journalism and social policy. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of The Daily Northwestern.
This article was republished here with the permission of: KMUW
