Thank you, David, for inviting me to represent the Texas adult education
content standards experience.  Sorry to all who may read this a day
late, as I was not able for personal and work reasons to post earlier
today as it had been my intention.  I apologize.  

Below you will see answers to the five questions David has asked me to
answer for the standards implementation effort in Texas.  I will admit
that for the most part I am not the one writing these answers.  I am
quoting, paraphrasing, and to a great extent copying straight from our
Texas Adult Education Standards and Benchmarks for ABE ASE and ESL
Learners Implementation Guide which you can find on the web at:


http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/index.htm


I encourage you to read the Implementation Guide which, not to brag, is
one of the most complete documents on using content standards that I
have seen.  If its being complete does not entice you sufficiently, you
should take a look at the guide because it was written by people a lot
more eloquent and with a lot more knowledge of the standards than me.
The staff of the Texas Adult Education Standards Project, TAESP, at the
Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning (TCALL) of
Texas A&M University wrote the implementation guide to serve as a
professional development tool for teachers and administrators alike.
Within the introduction to the guide you will find a history and
overview of the project and the standard adoption process in Texas.  You
will also find each of the standards we adopted, the strands and
benchmarks our writing teams developed, the sample activities, and a
wealth of resources, links, and other helpful implementation ideas. 

Now, for the answers: 

1.	Why did Texas choose to adopt content standards?
We wanted to develop standards to accurately describe what adult
learners should know and be able to do as a result of instructional
content and delivery, as well as to develop the statements of how well
learners need to be able to demonstrate levels of proficiency.   We
believe that standards provide a foundation for developing curricula,
learning activities, and individualized instruction without being
prescriptive. 
Collectively these standards can:
	1.                  Ensure consistency; 
	2.                  Assist in meeting state performance
measures; 
	3.                  Link assessments to curriculum and
instruction; 
	4.                  Orient new adult education practitioners;
and 
	5.                  Serve as a reference for experienced
instructors. 
The standards, in the words of Dr. Dominique Chlup, who led the content
standards team after 2005, represent new possibilities in the dimensions
of teaching, administration, program development, and student growth.


2.	What standards has your state adopted?

During the process of reviewing different standards from around the
nation, the staff of TAESP conducted focus groups around the state
engaging not only 75 adult education instructors, but also nearly 100
students!  There were more focus groups with students than teachers to
help us decide what content students need to master in Texas.  The
results of the focus groups indicated that the EFF standards would best
match the needs identified by the participants in the focus groups.
Thus we adopted the following five EFF standards:
*	Listen Actively, 
*	Speak So Others Can Understand, 
*	Read With Understanding, 
*	Convey Ideas in Writing, and 
*	Use Math to Solve Problems and Communicate. 
Even though reviewing standards and conducting the focus groups took the
better part of a full year, selecting the EFF standards was the easy
part.  Three groups of standards writers devoted the next two years to
writing benchmarks and activities for each of the standards we had
selected.  Originally we intended the same standards and benchmarks for
both the ABE/GED student and the English Language Learner.  After an
initial pilot of the first document, it was decided that we would write
different benchmarks for the Reading and Writing standards for ABE and
for ESL.  The links below take you directly to each of the standard
documents that appear within our implementation guide:

*	Read with Understanding Standards and Benchmarks
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/guide/2readabe.html> 
*	Convey Ideas in Writing Standards and Benchmarks
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/guide/2writeabe.html> 
*	Use Math to Solve Problems and Communicate Standards and
Benchmarks
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/stylesheets/taesp/guide/2mathabe.html> 
*	Listen Actively for ESL
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/guide/3listenesl.html> 
*	Speak So Others Can Understand for ESL
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/guide/3speakesl.html> 
*	Read With Understanding for ESL
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/guide/3readesl.html> 
*	Convey Ideas in Writing for ESL
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/guide/3writeesl.html> 

The benchmarks are separated into different strands - each standard has
a different number of strands.  Each strand represents a set of
benchmarks that increase in difficulty as the learner progresses through
the levels in the strand.  The order of the strands is not an indicator
of greater or lesser importance, and not all students will fit into
exactly the same level throughout all the strands.  The benchmarks are
written for instructors, not learners.  Examples found within each
benchmark help to clarify the meaning.  Text in Bold indicates words
that can be found in the Glossary.
The description of the benchmarks' levels follows the Educational
Functioning Level Descriptors that have been designed by the National
Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS).  The Texas Adult Education
Benchmark levels are written as exit levels, not entry levels.  In other
words, the levels represent what learners should be able to do upon
exiting the level and moving to the next level.  
3.	What has been the process of moving from official adoption to 
actual implementation?

We have yet to fully implement the standards.  At the launch of the
standards the state office (Texas LEARNS) made a commitment not to make
them mandatory yet but to give people the opportunity to try them out,
to become comfortable with the new standards.  Everyone has access to
the document, thousands have had professional development, hundreds
participated in our official launch, yet the state office has never
mandated the adoption.  Programs have not been pressured one way or the
other.  We believe that this approach has allowed programs to experiment
with standards-based-education without feeling an imposition.  Slowly
programs are asking for more help and more professional development
because they don't see the standards as a threat anymore.  An interest
(and somewhat surprising) development during our launch conference is
that the teachers who had piloted the standards before adoption came to
us to ask us to please make the standards mandatory.  The teachers felt
a sense of ownership of the document and contended that the only way
they would have the full support of program administrators for the
implementation of the content standards was to make them mandatory.

This year, Texas joined the Standards in Action project, SIA, project
that has developed materials to help us implement our standards and has
served us to see where our document may need adjustments and our
professional development re-energized.  I will let my colleagues comment
on the success of our participation in SIA.  

4.	What successes and challenges have you found in implementing 
the content standards?

This is a question that I would rather invite my colleagues in the
trenches to answer.  They are the ones with first hand knowledge of the
successes and the challenges.  If any of you, Texans, is reading this,
please chime in.  

We have just started to implement the standards and have not completed
yet the first year of implementation.  We have no data to show success
in terms of student performance.  But an anecdotal indicator of success
is the unexpected number of trainings of teachers to implement standards
at the local level that our regional training centers, the GREAT Project
Centers, have received during this year.  Over 3,700 implementation
guides were printed and distributed prior to training over the last
year.  The greatest success was the significant support from the field
for our standards launching conference a year ago, Texas...Reaching New
Standards.  The finalized standards and benchmarks were unveiled and
professional development on how to teach using the standards and
benchmarks was provided at this statewide conference held at the Austin
Convention Center in downtown Austin, Texas, June 24-26, 2007.  Over 500
instructors and 200 adult education administrators participated in three
days of PD on the standards. 


One of our earliest challenges was not, interestingly enough, to
convince teachers but in many cases to convince administrators.  During
the June 07 conference, there were two PD tracks, one for instructors
and one for administrators.  Many administrators thought the standards
were great but insisted that teachers didn't need "an additional burden"
added to their already heavy load.  Teachers, on the other hand,
particularly newer or less experienced instructors, were overwhelmingly
appreciative of a document that gave them a point of reference, a
framework for their teaching, and access to a number of resources. 

5.	What do you recommend happen at the federal level to support the
development of standards-based adult basic education by states?

Obviously, additional funding for adult education in general would go a
long way in supporting the development of standards-based adult
education in the states.  Also, the renewed support not only for the
Standards Warehouse (http://www.adultedcontentstandards.ed.gov/) but
also, particularly to revive the now defunct Adult Education Content
Standards Consortium which was a project instrumental in providing the
type of support that Texas needed in the process.  The consortium worked
for three years with a small number of states, and it should be brought
back to life to continue supporting other states.  The warehouse alone
cannot accomplish the in-depth level of professional development,
networking, and coordinated support that the American Institutes for
Research provided during the life of the consortium.  

The SIA (Standards in Action) project needs to continue fully supported,
as it is the kind of approach that can really help states in the process
of implementing the standards.  However, I think that states "sitting on
the fence" and not sure if they should pursue the development of
standards, or states that had a negative experience in their attempt to
implement and wish to start again will benefit more not from SIA but
from a comprehensive approach as that offered by the old consortium. 

Thanks for your patience.  I invite you wholeheartedly to visit our
website  <http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/index.htm>
http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/index.htm
<http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/index.htm and>  
and become acquainted with our implementation guide.  

Federico Salas-Isnardi


federico

Federico Salas-Isnardi, Assistant State Director
Texas LEARNS
6005 Westview Dr.
Houston, TX 77055
Direct: 713-696-0719
Toll Free: 866-696-4233
Fax: 713-696-0797
 
The State Office of Adult Education and Family Literacy

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