This Tuesday (5/5), Columbia Nashville artist Gretchen Wilson will travel to Capitol Hill to hand deliver nearly 10,000 letters from volunteers across the nation to both Tennessee congressmen and senators urging them to increase funding for adult education programs. For Wilson, the issue of adult education is very personal. Until last year, she was one of the millions of Americans who hadn’t finished their high school education. A dedicated mother, it was important for Wilson to earn her diploma not only for herself, but to prove to her 8-year old daughter Grace how important education is.
Wilson had the financial resources to pick up where she left off at the age of 15, but the majority are dependent on federally funded public education programs. Because those programs are so underfunded, 80,000 adults were waitlisted for federally funded programs last year. Wilson will testify in a hearing before the Subcommittee on Higher Education about her experiences in earning her G.E.D., urging Tennessee legislators to support adult education on the state and national level. She will testify alongside Dollar General President and adult literacy advocate David Beré, to help rally support and awareness for the cause. “I truly believe that we can be better parents and better Americans if we make adult education more accessible,” Wilson said.
It is Wilson’s hope that by sharing her success story, she will be able to help those parents in similar situations to get the resources to gain the education they need to be their child’s first and most important teacher. To learn more about adult education, click here.
