Jackie and the list-- my experience with standards is that it is hard to know in the abstract whether standards help or not. Sometimes standards are so general and loose that they hardly serve any purpose despite a lot of time and money spent on developing them. For example, in one of the states I work with there are adult ESOL learning standards: These read " Learners will improve ability to understand spoken English";  "Learners will write in English," etc.  This is pure foolishness.  What were such "standards" developed for?  What English class would not have these as goals?  Is it really necessary to codify basic outcomes such as these?  Any increase in comprehension or any ability to write a word in English would satisfy such goals.  

Conversely, standards can be too prescriptive, limiting creative approaches to a highly fluid, very human process.
By their nature, standards would have to either be the consolidated ideas of some group assigned to write them, or a compromise between those wanting nothing and those wanting rules and guidelines, which could mean the standards cannot really meet the needs of those who will provide PD and those who will be recipients of it.  

A comment I read some months ago on very highly prescriptive standards being developed for adult ESOL indicated that the purpose of the standards seemed to be mainly to provide a roadmap for teachers who have no idea how to direct the direction of a class.  I wondered what well-trained veteran ESOL teachers would make of such standards.   I would want a pretty clear picture of what purpose PD standards were intended to serve.   

Robin Lovrien Schwarz
  

 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Taylor, Jackie <jataylor at utk.edu>
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:16 am
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1737]  Considerations with PD standards






















PD List Colleagues,



Janet Isserlis has been very patient with me in allowing
me to hold a question of hers until our discussions began. I’ll be
sending it through in a few moments. Like Janet, I would like to revisit some
of the questions that Claire raised in her posting last week regarding issues
with professional development standards. From your perspective in general, what
are the benefits and drawbacks of having a set of quality standards for
professional development? Will having a set of standards really make a
difference in the professional development we provide? In what ways will they
matter? In what ways may they present drawbacks or even barriers to our work?



 



I look forward to hearing from you.



 



Warm regards, Jackie



 



~ Jackie Taylor, jataylor at utk.edu




 






 





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