David,

In response to your question about developing assessments that are
aligned to our standards, Florida has looked into developing its own
tests for all of its adult education content standards.  Several reasons
this has not happened are: 1) The cost of developing a test that would
have a chance of being accepted for NRS reporting purposes is quite
high.  2) The long-range maintenance and updating work to keep a test
current, valid and relevant are not tasks that a state adult education
office can easily commit to, given the frequent turnover of state staff
and the changes in budget from one legislative cycle to the next. 3) The
state adult education office in Florida is an executive/administrative
arm of the governor's office, and this role makes it difficult for state
staff to become highly knowledgeable in any one aspect of program
implementation, especially to the level it would take for staff to
manage the design, implementation and maintenance of a standardized test
tailored to the state's content standards.

Another comment I might add is that in the workshops sponsored by USDOE
and in our workshops contracted with Susan Pimentel, I didn't get the
impression that we were being encouraged to develop widely different
standards.  We were encouraged to pay close attention to the
characteristics of our student population, and to make sure we were
addressing their needs.  Broad standards have guidance built in that
ensures teachers will cover the same content as those that are
prescriptive in their presentation.  An observation made by one of
Florida's practitioners has stuck with me through this process, "The
standards need to be packaged in a way that makes it easier for part
time teachers to read them quickly and use them right away in the
classroom!'"   Since hearing that, we were reminded frequently to be
careful about the "packaging" that carries the standards to the
teachers.  What Florida has today reflects the input of a group of about
40 practitioners that have prepared a document that they believe will
work well for their fellow teachers. 

Philip Anderson
Adult ESOL Program
Florida Department of Education
Tel (850) 245-9450


 

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 -----Original Message-----
From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of David J. Rosen
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 9:50 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 996] Content Standards: More questions, more
answers,more discussion

Colleagues,

Our Content Standards discussion continues through Friday.  I have  
some more questions (see below) for guests and subscribers. I wonder  
if there are some people with questions that they feel are "too  
basic" such as "How do I find out what my state's Content Standards  
are, or if my state even has them?"  No question about content  
standards is too basic. This is the place to ask it.

I want to hear from teachers and administrators who are (or are not)  
implementing content standards. Jon Engel (Thank you, Jon) spoke for  
teachers who might be skeptical. Perhaps there are some teachers who  
are skeptical that would be willing to speak for themselves now that  
Jon has broached this.

Here are three more questions that were sent to me, for our guests  
and others :

"Part-time teachers and planning time:  Teachers tell us that  
developing lesson plans from standards takes more time because they  
have to spend time learning the standards, aligning their activities  
to those standards, and filling out more paper work to demonstrate  
compliance.  What are states implementing standards doing to  
alleviate the pressure on already burdened adult education teachers  
(low wages, low job security, part-time, no benefits, little or no  
prep time, etc.)?"

"National standards: As a standards writer, I was struck by the wide  
diversity of approaches to adult education content standards across  
states (ranging from the very prescriptive and specific to the very  
broad and general).  While I understand we live in a federal system  
in which states can do whatever they deem best for their students,  
isn't there a value in having a broader national discussion about  
what our adult students should be able to know and do in order to be  
successful members of society or, at a very minimum, shouldn't we  
have a common understanding about how content standards are going to  
be used?"

"Assessment:  While states have been encouraged to develop widely  
different content standards, the majority continue to use a very  
limited set of approved standardized assessments that may or may not  
be very closely aligned to those standards.  If due to increasingly  
tight financial constraints states are generally unable to develop  
NRS-approved standardized tests that are aligned with their  
standards, is it reasonable to expect that their content standards  
will have an impact on instruction and student performance?  Do  
teachers really have an incentive to teach from those standards if  
what they are teaching is not going to show up in the TABE or BEST  
Plus or CASAS?  Are there plans to develop such tests?"

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



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