I agree with Melinda.  While the NRS does require that AEFLA-funded programs report on educational functioning level completions, the NRS also requires states to report on the number of participants who have other significant reasons for entering adult education programs as well as the number and percentage of participants who achieve the following outcomes:  entering employment, retaining/improving employment, passing the GED, and entering post-secondary education and training.  While this list does not include all the goals that adult learners have, it certainly reflects the primary goals that adult learners in Kansas identify as their reasons for participating in adult education.

In addition, DAEL encourages states to identify and collect data on other goals that adult learners may have.  In Kansas, AEFLA programs report on the following additional goals and outcomes:  acquiring the skills necessary to become a United States citizen, participating in children's (pre-school age children) literacy activities, and participating in children's (pre-K - Grade 6 age children) educational activities.  Not only do Kansas programs encourage participants to identify and work toward these goals if they are appropriate, adult education programs are rewarded when learners achieve these outcomes just as they are when learners achieve the other outcomes listed above.

Kansas has a performance-based funding formula, and the secondary outcomes that are specific to Kansas are "worth" just as much as educational level completion.  Contrary to some of the opinions expressed during this discussion, the NRS system is simply a mechanism for collecting, reporting, and analyzing data.  As a tax payer, I personally hope that every federal (and state) funded program holds grant recipients to some level of accountability.  

Dianne S. Glass
Director of Adult Education
Kansas Board of Regents
1000 SW Jackson, Suite 520
Topeka, KS 66612-1368
785.296.7159
dglass at ksbor.org
 


>>> "Melinda Hefner" <mhefner at cccti.edu> 10/18/2007 10:22 AM >>>

I hope that this post will not be perceived as being disrespectful because it's certainly not intended to be; however, there are some slight but noteworthy inaccuracies in the NRS outcome measure descriptions and requirement that were in the original post.  While there are certain NRS requirements that all states must meet, there are also optional requirements or outcome measures that states may choose to include for determination of performance among its local programs.  NRS guidelines, when adhered to, are quite supportive of student and instructor led educational plans where instructional goals are dynamic, meet student needs, and drive instruction.  To say that nothing else matters other than level completion is not entirely accurate although I'm certain that there may be some administrators around the country who make it appear that way.  Fortunately, in North Carolina our state leadership, while taking NRS guidelines very seriously, use them to support instruction not impede it.
 
Additionally, while I obviously support GED completion as a goal, unfortunately GED completion alone does not assure that a student functions at an adult secondary high level in math, reading, and/or language which has been problematic in a number of ways particularly for students transitioning into post-secondary training.  Although there are similar transitioning issues among underprepared students who graduate from high school in the traditional fashion, adult literacy providers should make successful transition into post-secondary training a high priority for students as applicable.  One of the many ways to do this is to assure and validate via pre-testing and post-testing that students do, indeed, function at the adult secondary high level and have not merely gained sufficient information and skills to have passed a GED test(s).
 
Melinda


>>> On 10/17/2007 at 8:26 pm, in message <059c01c8111d$85f2ba20$0402a8c0 at LITNOW>, "Marie Cora" <marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com> wrote:


This email is cross-posted for your interest.
 
Marie Cora
Assessment Discussion List Moderator
 
**********
 
-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org [mailto:aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org] On Behalf Of andresmuro at aol.com 
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 20073:23 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org 
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] level movement
 

Daphnee:

I think that the USDE and WIA-NRS look at a minimum of 66% that will complete a level. Supposedly a program has to base test 90% of students who enroll in program within the first week of instruction. Of those that have a base test they expect that 66% show progress. In other words, 66% should be able to go from one of the levels to the next one. WIA-NRS has a bunch of levels. for example, the have beginning literacy ESL, beginning ESL, Intermediate ESL, Advanced ESL. They also have beginning literacy, intermediate literacy, advanced, and GED. May be I have the names of the level wrong, but it is something like that. So, if a student starts at beginning literacy ESL, s/he has several levels to move through to get to GED. While there are few students getting to the GED level, WIA-NRS allows ABE programs to show higher success rates than before. However, the number of GED completers over the total number of students in ABE has gone down. ABE programs are only evaluated on the % of students that show progress in the TABE, BEST, etc. So, if students use language to access health care, enroll in college, help their kids with homework, build computers, publish stories, etc all that is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is if students  show progress in the BEST or TABE. In fact, if a students is enrolled in a beginning ESL class and the student decides to go  take the GED on her own, that would not be considered progress based on WIA-NRS unless the student declares beforehand that GED is a goal. So, teachers are under pressure to have the students show progress in these tests and nothing else matters.

I run a GED program with high completion rates. it is not a WIA-NRS ABE program. So, we don't have to pretest,  and assess the students every five weeks. We are under no pressure to show intermediate outcomes outside from GED completion. In addition to GED instruction we discuss health literacy, nutrition, legal issues, etc. We have very high GED completion numbers. Our students also publish stories. We had an ABE- grant. We could only measure success rates from one level to the next. It was an insane bureaucracy. We don't have the ABE program anymore. 

Andres

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Daphne Greenberg <ALCDGG at langate.gsu.edu>
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org 
Sent: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 8:49 am
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] level movementForgive my cross posting to a few electronic lists, but I received the following question, and I am hoping that someone has good advice that I can share with the person who asked me.If you were to review a program's "graduation" or "completion" rates from one level to the next (for example from ESL to ABE or ASE/GED or ABE to ASE/GED) what would you consider a  "good" rate?Thanks,Daphne GreenbergGeorgiaStateUniversity_______________________________________________AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.orghttp://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nlaLiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacyhttp://literacytent.org

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