Federico, I think you have expressed the ideas of many of us who have worked on standards and who have seen teachers use them as a tools and "jumping off points for creative, yet targeted teaching for learners.  When we started our standards initiative in Arizona, one of the primary goals was to not limit the teaching to the GED.  We wanted to be sure that learners had opportunities to learn so that if they chose to go to higher education, or they chose to go to training programs, or chose to be a carpenter or a mechanic, our standards would help them and teachers know what was available and to provide pieces of the puzzle to complete their goal.  We can't afford to short-change our learners.  I'm sure many have seen the quote  " a high school diploma is the new eighth grade".

As for "paperwork" for teachers - I'm rather glad that Betty Crocker, Julia Childs, Rachel Ray, and even Martha, took the time to complete the paperwork.  How about the guy who took the time to figure out the circuitry for your computer?  Of course if someone had not written down how two toggles up and one toggle down on some humongous board with wires draped on the back, and a room filled with oversized reel-to-reel- tape recorders became a hand-held blackberry, we mgiht still be using an abacus!    I would hope that with guides such as standards and tools to help us and learners know where they are in the process, teachers would see that they have more time to be creative in their teaching, and to write down the treasures of their creativity (aka, a lesson plan).  If they take the time to write it down once, they have it the next time they need to teach it, along with the insights they discovered, or a learner pointed out the first time they taught it.   We used to use maps when we traveled, now we have our nav systems, and Tom-Toms and Garmins.    Of course you usually have to read something about these tools before you start to use them, and the more you use them, the more proficient you become with them.

Finally, just as we want our learners to be responsible for their choices, and come to think of it, they have demonstrated this responsibility by making a choice to attend adult education, our teachers must be responsible for their choices.  They choose to be adult educators; they choose to work part-time in the field; with choice comes responsibilities.  As an educator I have a responsibility to my learners and to the program for whom I have chosen to work.  My program has a responsibility to the entity that funds it; hmmm - how is my program funded? - My tax dollars - so - it comes back to me - I have a responsibility to myself.  What will I think of how I have spent my money, my time, my creativity?

And thank you, Nancy, too.  Standards are broad statements - how they are implemented in the classroom by the teacher is how they are tied to what you teach. That's one good reason why we developed our sample activities for our standards and levels and contextualized them for family, workplace or community.   Sampel acitivities can be a starting point for new teachers, or a new adventure for "experienced" ones.

-Miriam

Miriam A. Kroeger, Education Program Specialist
Arizona Department of Education/Adult Education
1535 W. Jefferson  Bin 26
Phoenix, AZ 85007
Phone:    (602) 364-2703
FAX:     (602) 258-4986
miriam.kroeger at azed.gov<mailto:miriam.kroeger at azed.gov>

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From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Federico Salas
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 12:40 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 1001] Re: Content Standards: More questions, more answers, more discussion-TM

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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