U.S. citizens can get two to three times the educational and employment benefits now being obtained if all government funding for youth and adult basic education and job skills training is required to be directed to two investment strategies. The first is to increase intergenerational transfer of cognitive skills. Evidence from studies suggests that focusing funds on the education of the children's parents will lead to better educated, more employable parents, and more educable children. Findings are the following: (1) better educated parents produce better educated children; (2) the parents', and especially the mother's, education level is one of the most important determinants of school participation and achievement; and (3) better educated adults demand and get better schooling for children. The second strategy is to teach using a functional context education approach to instructional design. Studies indicate that workplace literacy programs increase productivity not only at work, but also at home and in the community and schools, and that better educated adults produce safer communities conducive to learning. Youth and adult education and employment training programs should be required to obtain accountability data on the extent to which their programs improve adult participation in programs, improve achievement in functional context programs, improve prevention of future learning problems of adult students' children, and show how "double duty dollars" are being obtained. (Contains 21 footnotes.) (YLB)