Hello everyone - 

I'm pleased to join the list this week for a discussion about adult
education content standards and the U.S. Department of Education's recent
efforts to promote the implementation of state-level standards.  I'd like to
begin by looking at the validation of standards. 

Are developers of standards conducting reviews of their draft standards to
confirm that they target the appropriate content?  If yes, how are the
reviews conducted?  Validity reviews can be conducted in different ways for
different purposes, engaging a wide range of participants.  For example, has
anyone conducted field reviews as well as external, expert reviews?  Used
surveys or focus groups?

Last week, I heard from one subscriber who is especially interested in the
validation of education standards. He thinks it tends to be overlooked by
standards developers.  I'm interested in what other folks think about this,
because I believe it's a critical step to finalizing standards. Validity
reviews help ensure standards are understandable and acceptable to the folks
who will be charged with standards' implementation.   

For some background information on this topic please refer to "Conducting
Reviews to Improve Draft Standards," Chapter 4 in "A Process Guide for the
Establishment of Adult Education Content Standards"
{http://www.adultedcontentstandards.org/howto.asp}. Pages 85-92 cover what
the validation of standards is and why it's important, as well as,
strategies for conducting validation reviews and how to use the feedback
from reviews to finalize standards.

I think this discussion list has numerous subscribers who have hands-on
experience in the validation of standards. A number of states that
participated in the State Standards Consortia Project are working, or have
worked, through this stage of the standards development process.  Equipped
for the Future's standards, as another example, supported field reviews to
validate the frameworks and standards.

So, in your opinions, to what degree are developers of standards conducting
reviews of their draft standards to confirm that they target the appropriate
content?  How?  Finally, are there any other questions about standards you'd
like to cover this week? 

Thanks.    

Ronna

Ronna Spacone
Education Program Specialist
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Vocational and Adult Education
(202) 245-7755