This report provides a 5-year perspective on the adult literacy education (ALE) system in the inner city of San Diego, California. Chapter 1 introduces the research. Chapters 2-5 in part 1, "The Struggle To Learn," contain the following: information about the difficulties of determining how many adults might benefit from basic skill education; introduction of the practice of having adult literacy students perform as researchers to discover barriers to and ways to increase participation in ALE; what happens after adults decide to go back to school; and how various instructional factors affect learning and the transfer of learning to the home and community. Chapters 6-8 in part 2, "The Struggle To Teach," include the following: reports by two teacher researchers on hardships of teaching and learning and insights of 17 teachers about the educational system; a teacher researcher's experiences in trying to change instruction in an English as a second language class and how the dynamics of students' lives and classroom turbulence affected her work; and challenges to teaching posed by diversity in a classroom due to cultural factors and different language and literacy skill levels. Chapters 9-11 in part 3, "The Struggle To Be Better," cover the following: activities federal policy makers and officials have undertaken to try to improve the ALE system nationally; activities in California to improve the ALE system; and rebuttals to news stories about the low intellectual abilities of disadvantaged youth and adults. (YLB)