Colleagues,

Today our last guest, Philip Anderson, will tell us about how Florida  
implements its adult education content standards.

It's great to hear from Catherine Porter, describing what Illinois  
has done, and from Cheryl Thornett, describing implementation of  
standards in the U.K. I would like to hear from colleagues in other  
states and countries describing their experiences, too.

I have three questions for all our subscribers and guests:

1. What do you see as the themes or "take-aways" from this discussion  
that you can use in your own work?
2. What are the similarities and differences with how content  
standards are being implemented where you are?
3.  A subscriber interested in research on whether implementation of  
content standards leads to improvement in instruction asks: "Over the  
past decade the [U.S.] federal government has been encouraging the  
development of content standards for adult education (even though  
there is no requirement for content standards mandate in WIA [ the  
U.S. Workforce Investment Act] ) yet it is unclear what local, state- 
level or federal data supports the connection between the use of  
content standards and improvement in instruction and or student  
performance.  If this body of research does not currently exist, is  
there anybody out there trying to establish this connection?”

I hope these questions intrigue you.  Let's hear from everyone!

David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net