David, I think this is an intriguing idea.  Lots of issues are whirling 
around in my head, but let's deal with this one first:

Are you proposing the development of national standards or federal 
standards?  It is possible to have a set of national standards, supporting 
curriculum, and standardized assessments--developed and referenced by the 
field as a whole because of the collaborative nature of their development or 
adoption--without having these codified within the federal bureaucracy.  In 
this scenario, the federal government could even provide support through 
funding.  Is this what your getting at, or are you seeing a more hands-on 
role being played by the federal government?

Amy

Amy R. Trawick, M.S. Ed.
North Wilkesboro, North Carolina
atrawick at charter.net



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net>
To: <hdooley at riral.org>; "The Assessment Discussion List" 
<assessment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 1:09 PM
Subject: [Assessment 239] Re: : A National System of Adult Education 
andLiteracy


Howard,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.  See my replies below.  I hope
others will join in this discussion, too, from the Assessment list
and from the Content Standards list.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net

On Mar 15, 2006, at 10:44 AM, Howard L. Dooley, Jr. wrote:


> I think David has a good, basic overall plan here.  I wouldn't say the

> plan is top-down either.  I think it recognizes that there is push

> today

> to be able to look at success across states and throughout the

> country,

> and for that we need a way to connect our local efforts into a

> national

> system.  Think globally; act locally -- as always the best politics

> and

> the best basis for a system of adult ed.  But my sense is that, right

> now, funders are in favor of such a national system, but most

> practitioners are not.


I wish that funders _were_ in favor of this.  The largest adult
education funder, the U.S. Department of Education, is reluctant to
establish a set of national curriculum standards.  I am not sure why,
but guess that it is because a long-standing tradition that
curriculum standards  in American Education are in the control of
local school committees and state boards of education.  The closest
the USDOE has come to this is funding the development of a
"warehouse" of state curriculum standards,
[ http://www.adultedcontentstandards.org/Source/GetStandard.asp ] and
(through the National Institute for Literacy) supporting the
development -- but not the endorsement as national curriculum
standards - of Equipped for the Future. (I am not sure I have that
exactly right so if someone has better information, please let us
know.) The problem, as many people have said, is not that we lack
standards in the U.S., but that we have too many competing sets of
standards.  We lack a set of national standards that everyone uses.


> Because, really, the benefits of such a system

> are largely for the funders, policy makers, and big-picture people;

> for

> the instructor and learner in the classroom, what is the impact of it?

> How does it matter that what I need to learn and am mastering to get a

> job in RI is also what someone needs to learn and master to enter a

> community college in AL?  It may be interesting, but what does it

> matter?


I agree that a system such as I propose would benefit funders.
However, it would also benefit teachers and learners.  A lot of
curriculum -- often very good curriculum -- is developed in programs
and states across the country.  But much of it is not published, and
if it is, is not easily accessed.  It is possible to find some good
curriculum through NIFL LINCS, and in other places on the Web, for
example, but this takes time, a lot of time.  Teachers don't have
much time to search for curriculum.  It would be of great interest to
most teachers if high quality curriculum --ready to download and use
-- and adapt to local needs -- in class tomorrow could _easily be
found_.

Let me give you an example.  As I understand it (folks from Arizona
correct me if I got this wrong) Arizona has a set of state ESOL
standards that are widely used, and respected by ESOL teachers
there.  A couple of ESOL teachers at Pima County Community College
decided that they were useful as far as they went, but they wanted to
have good web-based instruction linked to those standards.  So they
spent hours and hours finding -- and linking -- instruction on a Web
page that they call The Splendid ESOL Web [ http://cc.pima.edu/
~slundquist/index.htm ] When I was doing workshops in Arizona a
couple of years ago, ESOL teachers popped up from across the state to
tell me about The Splendid ESOL Web and how useful it is to them.
This is instructional for us all: a set of standards developed by and
respected by teachers, a set of online instructional resources found
and organized/linked by ESOL Teachers, and widely used by other ESOL
teachers.  This sounds like a model to emulate in national curriculum
development.

Take this a step further.  Suppose we had an agreed-upon format for
developing instructional resources, nothing fancy, one that most
teachers found easy to understand, easy to use, and that was linked
to national standards.  Suppose further that the format referenced
national curriculum standards, that every lesson or module or
learning object built by a teacher referenced a national curriculum
standard.  Then suppose the modules teachers developed were peer-
reviewed and those that were approved were stored in an easily-
accessible Web-based instructional lesson/module/learning objects
database where other teachers could access them by standard, topic,
level, etc.  Some of the elements of what I have described are in
place. For example, the Lesson Plan Builder, developed by OTAN in
California
[ http://www.lessonplanbuilder.org/lessons/ ], has a practical format
for creating lesson plans online, and links them to California (and
nationally used) standards.  OTAN  plans to store these lessons in an
accessible database. When that's done, the teacher's chore of finding
good lesson plans will be easier. Also, I very much like that these
are lesson plans created "bottom up" by teachers (or perhaps even by
teachers and their students together.)


> I also think that many of the standards, curriculum and assessment

> pieces already exist.  If one has the time -- and right now it takes

> time, believe me -- to peruse and ferret the web, you can find a

> wealth

> of excellent curricula that is the start of a "comprehensive,

> modularized [curriculum], available in generic as well as

> work-contextualized units, in English".


Yes, much of it is there -- and it's hard to find.  Some of it is not
there, however.  Try to find work-contextualized online lessons which
students can access directly (not teacher lesson plans but student
lessons online.) I have been searching high and low for these -- in
health care work -- but haven't found much.  Yet, given the good jobs
going begging in health care in New England -- and elsewhere --
wouldn't it be useful if health care workers could do some of their
basic skills learning online and if the instruction were
contextualized or embedded in health care work?


> Much of it "available in free

> online in units that teachers could download and use in their

> classrooms, that tutors could use with their one-one-one or smallgroup

> instruction".  We use several items for our EL Civics, ESL

> listening and

> ABE math curriculua that are from the web.  The weakest link for us is

> "material in self-instructional formats that adult learners can use

> directly online."


Yes, that is the weakest link.


> There's a lot of print stuff that's been transferred

> to the web, put it's not exciting or constructivist enough to engage

> self-directed learners, unless they are high level readers and highly

> self-motivated.


Right you are.


> So, I think we could get there more quickly than we might think, but

> only if most of us really want to get there at all.


Your state, Rhode Island, the first wireless Internet access state,
border-to-border, would be a perfect "testbed" for a system such as I
am proposing.  I think if teachers and tutors understood how useful
this could be they would clamor for it.  Maybe you could get teachers
in Rhode Island to think about this.


>  From a sincere, big-picture kind-of-guy,

> Howard D.




>

>

>

>

>

>

>

> David Rosen wrote:

>

>> Assessment Colleagues,

>>

>> Marie wrote:

>>

>>

>>> What do we need?  National standards?  Is that the most important

>>> thing that will help combat these issues?

>>>

>>> A different way to capture learning?  What would that look like?

>>> Remember that the needs of the funder and public are quite

>>> different than the needs of the teacher and student – and both are

>>> legitimate needs.

>>>

>>> What are your thoughts on these issues?

>>>

>>>

>>

>> Ignore for the moment the current political political realities, and

>> consider just the merits and faults, not the practicalities, of what

>> I propose, a national System of Adult Education and Literacy which

>> has three aligned components: National Curriculum Standards, (Free)

>> National Curricula, and Standardized Assessments.  Such a system

>> could have other components, but for now, I suggest we look at these

>> three.

>>

>> 1. Sets of national curriculum standards for: a) adult ESL/ESOL/ELL,

>> b) ABE (including adult basic education) c) ASE (adult secondary

>> education/GED/EDP/ADP) and d) Transition to College programs ,

>> developed through a process which is widely respected by the field.

>> (Some would argue that we already have that in Equipped for the

>> Future.)

>>

>> 2. National curricula developed based on those standards and

>> available for states to adopt (or adapt) as they choose.  The

>> curricula need to be comprehensive, modularized, available in generic

>> as well as work-contextualized units, in English but also bilingual

>> in Spanish and possibly other languages.  It needs to be available

>> free online in units that teachers could download and use in their

>> classrooms, that tutors could use with their one-one-one or small

>> group instruction, and in self-instructional formats that adult

>> learners could use directly online.  (Yes I know how big a task all

>> this is.)

>>

>> 3. Standardized assessments developed against the national curriculum

>> standards (tests, but also performance-based, direct assessments)

>> which have a high degree of validity for measuring the national

>> standards.

>>

>> Some might think that what I propose is too top-down.  I would argue

>> that it could be very bottom-up if the field -- and adult learner

>> leaders -- are/have been/will be well-represented in setting the

>> standards, and if the modules can be be selected to meet specific

>> learner goals and contexts as well as to the standards.  A national

>> curriculum could be made up of a database of thousands of units of

>> instruction (modules, learning objects) which could be very easily

>> found and in minutes organized/reorganized to fit learners' goals and

>> contexts.  An adult learner or a group who need to improve their

>> reading skills and who are interested in the context of parenting

>> could easily access standards-based modules on parenting issues with

>> reading materials at the right level(s).  A teacher whose students

>> worked in health care and who needed to improve their math skills

>> could quickly find and download materials/lessons for using numeracy

>> in health care settings. A student who wanted to learn online and who

>> wanted a job in environmental cleanup work could access standards-

>> based basic skills/occupational education lessons in this area,

>> accompanied by an online career coach and and online tutor.  These

>> examples just hint at the complexity and sophistication of what I

>> propose, and will have some shaking their heads at the cost.  But,

>> consider that if this is a national curriculum, the costs of

>> developing such modules have the benefits of scale, that those

>> curricula could be widely used -- and freely available.  (Sorry

>> publishers, this could eat into your profits.)

>>

>> There is more, but I'll stop with this.

>>

>> Okay, let the questions and brickbats fly.

>>

>> David J. Rosen

>> djrosen at comcast.net

>>

>> -------------------------------

>> National Institute for Literacy

>> Assessment mailing list

>> Assessment at nifl.gov

>> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

>> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/assessment

>>

>>

>>

>

> -------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Assessment mailing list

> Assessment at nifl.gov

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/assessment


-------------------------------
National Institute for Literacy
Assessment mailing list
Assessment at nifl.gov
To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to 
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/assessment