I am writing in response to questions raised by Ronna Spacone and David
Rosen relative to content standards.

The first question concerns a set of common adult education content
standards.  The Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS),
at the request of the approximately 30 states comprising the National
CASAS Consortium, has undertaken a content standards project to develop
content standards in reading and math for ABE and ASE and in reading and
listening for ESL/ELL populations.  Reading standards have been
finalized and listening standards, still in draft form, are undergoing a
final review. Math standards are still in early draft stages.  The
primary purpose of developing these standards is to assist states adopt,
and where necessary adapt, a set of common content standards for local
adult education agencies to use.  While these standards are not intended
to be national standards, they nevertheless provide for greater
consistency among states that use the CASAS basic skills remediation and
assessment system. 

The second question concerns the validation of content standards.  The
CASAS National Consortium Content Standards Project has used a series of
formative and summative validation processes in the development of its
standards.  First of all, CASAS formed a 13 state technical work group
to assist in the initial drafting and review of content standards.
Technical work group representatives reviewed draft standards with local
adult education agencies in their states and provided ongoing feedback
into the development and refinement of standards.  Once draft standards
were developed, they were formally pilot tested in the classroom,
reviewed and evaluated by practitioners in two states against a set of
criteria for quality standards development.  Finally, the set of reading
content standards were reviewed again by an external reading expert.
Modifications have been incorporated at each major juncture along the
way.  CASAS intends to have an external reviewer examine the listening
and math standards before they are finalized as well.  

CASAS reading and listening standards are posted on the CASAS web site
(www.casas.org) and on the AIR Warehouse
(www.adultedcontentstandards.org).
 

Thank you.  

Jim Harrison
CASAS
Senior Research Associate
Strategic Planning, Policy, and Implementation
45 North Mill Circle
Guilford, CT 06437
858-292-2900 X191 

-----Original Message-----
From: contentstandards-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:contentstandards-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Spacone, Ronna
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 2:58 PM
To: The Adult Education Content Standards Discussion List
Subject: [ContentStandards 285] Set of Common Standards

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
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