Thank you, Mr. Mechem, for saying it as it is; thank you also to Ms.
Rinderknecht for reminding us that adults are individuals, each with
different needs.  Also, congratulations on your students' excellent
passing rate on the GED test!

 

Now, I agree with both of you and I still am a proponent of standards
based education (to a certain extent).  As I said yesterday referring to
the issue of resistance, I think that in adult education we are at risk
of becoming standardized; and yet, I still believe that a well defined
set of content standards are not a bad idea to offer teachers,
particularly new teachers, a framework of reference for their teaching
while offering programs a reference against which to compare teaching
materials before making decisions on new curriculum.  Our standards are
for the teachers, Mr. Mechem.  We agree that the best way to help a
student is to know what that person needs, not to teach to someone
else's idea of what all adults should know.  That's why in writing
benchmarks in Texas we asked for the input of students selected from all
over our diverse state.  That's why with that input as a reference it
was teachers who wrote the benchmarks. 

 

As for "faceless bureaucrats" making teachers and programs "jump through
hoops" or adding to the burden of paperwork, in Texas nothing of the
sort has happened (and it will not as long as the state director and I
can help it from where we are today.)  The standards and benchmarks have
been used in the last year as instruments for professional development;
as aides in learning how to teach, as reminders of what students told us
they need to learn.  Nothing coming from our state office has indicated
that there is new paperwork to be filled out, new requirements of proof.
What we want is to give teachers an opportunity and a tool.  As a
teacher I didn't have time to write lesson plans everyday (and I never
did) but I am glad I learned over the years what components or
activities make for a good lesson; and after I learned that there were
different models for a lesson plan I realized that I could combine
things from one or another that worked for me.  That's the freedom we
want to give our teachers.  The state office will continue visiting
classrooms and students (we do at each program we visit) and one of the
things we look for is evidence that the standards are used not by
requiring a prolix checklist filled out for our benefit but by observing
the teaching/learning interaction in the class. 

 

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 

________________________________

From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Rinderknecht, Gail
A.
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 1:38 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: RE: [SpecialTopics 999] Re: Content Standards: More
questions,more answers, more discussion-TM

 

HURRAY!

 

Thank you, Mr. Mecham!.  You said it all.  For the past three years, I
have worked in two prisons in Iowa, and getting the men to read at a
level of speed and comprehension in order to pass the GED test, is my
first concern.  I have many high school "graduates" in my literacy
classes.  In Iowa, all inmates must be in literacy classes if they
cannot demonstrate the ability to read and comprehend at a 6th grade
level.  This is the main "standard and benchmark" that I have to work
with.  A man must be able to pass the Test of Adult Basic Education
(TABE) with a 6.0, or he is in literacy class.  A man without a high
school diploma or GED must attend GED classes although they can "age
out" with staff consent.

 

I taught special education in the public schools for 16 years and have
seen the rise and use of standards and benchmarks.  Although these are
wonderful guidelines for schools to help their teachers cover
appropriate subject matter at different ages to ensure a well-rounded
education for all students, I believe that at the adult level, teachers
need to test, assess and determine needs and deficits for individuals
and proceed from there.  Each of my students is an individual.  Each
class is full of individuals working on appropriate assignments for him.
Very rarely do I have a "class" where more than one man is working on
the same thing.  I treat my classroom as an old-fashioned resource room
where each person is receiving instruction and practice on the skill
that he needs to achieve his GED or increase his literacy.  

 

By advocating standards and benchmarks for adult learners, I believe
that we will just be adding to the burden of paperwork to "prove" that
we are teaching.  Looking at the results of the teaching method is a far
better way to examine teaching success and learning.  My students, in
the first five months of this year, passed their GED tests with a 96%
success rate.  My little "resource" room seems to work fine without
standards and benchmarks other than those needed to pass the GED.

 

Gail A. Rinderknecht

Newton Correctional Facility

GED instructor/Des Moines Area Community College

Box 218

Newton, IA

 

________________________________

From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Mechem, Thompson
Sent: Wed 6/18/2008 8:19 AM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 999] Re: Content Standards: More questions,more
answers, more discussion-TM

I suppose in the abstract I have no objection to the Standards and
Benchmarks described in the various posts this week, but who are they
for? Certainly not the teachers. To take an example from my area of
alleged expertise, if students are studying to pass the GED test, then
it is the specific skill sets needed to pass the test that must drive
the curriculum and the teaching. There's a lot of math you can teach,
but what math will actually carry our students towards passing the GED
tests? You can't figure that out from any Standards document or
Curriculum Frameworks or whatever; you can know that only by learning
better what literacy skills and knowledge resonate on the tests (the GED
Testing Service helps us with that), and then developing the teaching
techniques to bring the students to that level. Our state GED Office and
our Professional development unit do a lot of work with Massachusetts
GED teachers in this regard. The same principle applies if you are
helping Transitions students do better on the AccuPlacer test or
preparing immigrants to pass the citizenship test (nice going, Big
Papi!) or raising a grandmother's literacy level so she can read the
Bible.

Now, it probably takes a higher literacy level to pass the GED tests
than it does to graduate from high school, so a successful GED class is
certainly going to adhere to any legitimate set of Standards and
Benchmarks that a state could come up with. I guess what I am asking of
all the faceless bureaucrats (of which I am now one myself, I admit) is
to be able to see that for themselves instead of making teachers and
program directors jump through hoops with all kind of trumped-up
documentary "proof" that they are using the Standards. Just as you can
see a gorgeous-looking Lesson Plan without having any idea in the world
whether any learning is actually taking place in that class, so the kind
of thing often required for Standards-Based documentation, "I have
such-and-such Learning Objectives, which correspond to Benchmark 3.1.5
blah blah blah..." doesn't tell you anything about what's really
happening in the classroom. I would like the monitors and evaluators to
be able to observe a classroom and know for themselves that high
standards are being adhered to so that the teachers and program
directors can focus on the learning needs of the students with no wasted
motion.

Tom Mechem
GED State Chief Examiner
Department of Elementary & Secondary Education
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
781-338-6621
"GED to Ph.D."


-----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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