Hello David -- thanks for your questions. I hope other subscribers will
weigh in on these subjects, but here are my thoughts:

Regarding your first question: the U.S. Department of Education (ED) doesn't
endorse national content standards, because ED is not in the business of
endorsing educational products. This includes products like tests,
textbooks, curricula and content standards. The relationship between the
states and ED allows for the states to decide what programs can or cannot
teach. To the best of my knowledge, there's been no movement on the parts of
states for ED to change in that way. 

As for your second question: is there a set of adult education standards
that are common to several of the best sets of state standards or common to
all the state standards? Not that I know of, no. I received a related
question last week: Does ED have any plans to analyze how disparate the
standards (in the warehouse) might be from state to state. That too would be
interesting, though ED has no plans to do that type of analysis. Nor can I
say which adult education standards are the best standards. Unlike K-12,
there are no report cards that rank/rate state standards or reports like the
"2006 The State of State Standards" published by the Thomas Fordham
Foundation {www.edexcellance.net/institute}. 

I think it's important for people who are using the Adult Education Content
Standards Warehouse to understand that it doesn't identify what's best or
vouch for the quality of the standards posted there. The warehouse was
developed to be an electronic repository for all existing adult education
standards in the areas of reading, mathematics and English language
acquisition (ELA). The standards posted in the warehouse serve as examples
for states and programs to study to help inform their own standards efforts,
but "buyer beware." 

I've learned it's important to critically review other standards documents
using a set of criteria for quality standards. Look, for example, at the
criteria included in Exhibit 3.3 on page 60 of "A Process Guide for
Establishing Adult Education Content Standards"
{http://www.adultedcontentstandards.org/howto.asp}. It shows elements to
consider when reviewing standards documents.

Thinking about David's questions and the commonalities of adult education
content standards reminded me of the three content frameworks located
developed for the standards warehouse
{http://www.adultedcontentstandards.org/Source/ExploreDiscipline.asp}. The
details on their development are described in the "About the Warehouse"
section of the site, but, basically, in order to determine a structure for
presenting standards in the "search portion" warehouse -- the staff
identified a framework or set of skills and knowledge for each subject area
(reading, math, and ELA) 

The set of skills and knowledge determined for each framework is not
intended as the only perspective on the content area, nor are the related
terms and definitions meant to be seen as prescriptive; rather, they
represent a consensus of expert opinion based on current research and
practice. Many knowledgeable people were involved in developing them. Has
anyone used these frameworks to consider what content might be appropriate
for your standards?

Ronna

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