Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id e6521Hv01959; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 22:01:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 22:01:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <6f.72f7b97.2693f00d@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: PDRNRI@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:1091] RI/EFF study circle meeting II X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Mac - Post-GM sub 66 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: O Content-Length: 6248 Lines: 113 Hello everyone, Here is a summary of the second of four meetings linking EFF to the development of Adult Ed standards in RI. We continued to examine the articles assigned to the first meeting (an abridged version of Ivor Pritchard's Judging Standards in Standards-Based Reform (available at www.ecs.org), Sondra Stein's Focus on Basics article Equi pped for the Future: The Evolution of a Standards-Based Approach to System Reform, and Regie Stites' FOB article, A User's Guide to Standards Based Educational reform.) in addition to a piece written by Tom Sticht and posted to the NLA listserv, Research Note 11/15/99 - Accountability in Adult Literacy Education II: There Are No Adult Literacy Levels To Be Directly Assessed . Our first meeting had set group goals and purposes, and discussed the groups own views of what was/wasn't working in our standards development process. Our second meeting's purpose was to examine the idea of content vs. performance standards, and discuss the validity of standards in general. As with the first meeting, this session dealt with EFF in a relatively small way; EFF becomes pretty much the exclusive focus of the third and fourth meetings. The first activity of the meeting aimed at clarifying an issue which had been raised by particpants earlier. Particpants had agreed that they were unclear on the distinction between the idea of content standards and performance standards. The standards drafted by participants and other RI practitioners had been called content standards by the Department of Education's Adult Ed. specialist, who pointed out that what he actually needed to develop the state plan were performance standards. Some practitioners who'd volunteered to work on developing the standards admitted that they were unclear on the distinction. In our first activity, definitions of both content and performance standards were drawn from all of the assigned readings and from additional sources and pasted together on a worksheet. Participants were asked to discuss the distincitions between the different definitions and then develop a pair of definitions of their own. Once the definitions were developed and posted, practitioners discussed the two types of standards, their functions, their imprecise nature, and the field's need for them. Following is summary of the major points agred upon through discussion. *** Our Rhode Island Standards are not performance standards. They are closer to content standards in that they describe what we want learners to know how to do. They have overlaps - similar or same standards written into different levels. To make performance standards, we would need to describe the degree of proficiency or "competence" with which the skills are performed. (the term "mastery" was originally used, but an arguement arose suggesting that terms such as "mastery" and "expectations" were K-12 terms, in which the end goal of the process is more uniform) These standards would ideally be as "fluid" a measurement of content benchmarks as possible. Ultimately, though, such measurements would need to be subjective at least to some degree, such as the A-F grading system is subjective to some degree. *** Pressure from funders has deeply impacted the standards movement. Accountability is married to standards, but standards need to be there first. While the funders job is (understandably) to demand accountability, the scramble to create an accountability system results in a weak system in which standards are developed to meet accountability demands rather than being based in sound educational practice. Much in our move to develop standards has come with the sense of "develop them yourself, or have something else imposed upon you" attached to it. *** Different funders have impacted our move to develop standards in different ways. The RI Foundation, for example, has offered workshops, evaluations, etc. The Dept. of Ed has offered verbal support for the development process. The United Way has applied great pressure to "develop funds or else". Recipients of United Way funding who were once able to use internal testing processes to measure progress now must use standardized tests. Such pressure places a different burden on practitioners and affects what happens in the classroom. *** Tom Sticht's arguements against the idea that literacy development can be "measured" using standardized tests was examined in depth. It was acknowledged that Sticht's persepctive had merit, but it was agreed to by all that it was not a rationale for discarding all efforts to measure perofrmance. Rather, it was interpreted as a call for balance in approaching the issue. A crucial point agreed to by all participants was that while some things can not be measured or even implemented with perfect uniformity, if those things were going to be connected to money, which is a uniform system of support, they would need to be measured in a uniform way. Thus, the best we could draw from Sticht was a certain degree of balance - a caution that while we try to be as precise as possible we should know that absolute precision is not possible. It should be openly acknowledged that the measurement construct is imprecise but with a valid purpose and place. *** The idea of using other, previously developed standards from other states was discussed at various points. Briefly, the discussion suggested that while it was true that different state's populations had different needs (Maine's remote, rural poor vs. Rhode Island's urban immigrants, etc.) it was probably also true that a good portion of what was written into one states work would be applicable to another state and that minor adjustments could be made. At the close of the meeting, practitioners were asked to read the opening chapters to the EFF content standards book and examine the standards. It was explained that meetings 3&4 would focus on EFF content standards, and on the progression through the performance framework to performance standards. A summary of the third meeting will appear here within the next week. David Hayes NCSALL PDRN Rhode Island
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