David, 

 

An independent study of adult education students over a longer period of
time sounds like a great way to evaluate the adult education system from
a national or state perspective, even though, like you said, there are
some methodological challenges.  It will certainly provide more valid
and reliable data than we get from NRS.  However, it still leaves
unresolved the issue of evaluating individual programs.  Like Diane
said, states have been using NRS data to allocate funding and target
technical assistance.  How would a longitudinal study meet this need?  

 

Venu Thelakkat

Director of ASISTS/Data Analysis

Literacy Assistance Center

32 Broadway, 10th floor

New York, NY 10004

(212) 803-3370

venut at lacnyc.org

www.lacnyc.org

________________________________

From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov]
On Behalf Of David J. Rosen
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 8:38 PM
To: The Assessment Discussion List
Subject: [Assessment 984] Re: level movement

 

Assessment Colleagues,

 

On Oct 18, 2007, at 7:00 PM, Venu Thelakkat asked:

	I am told that standardized assessments, especially those used
in adult literacy, have many problems.  But what is the alternative?
Policy makers and funders (private or public) want accountability for
the money they disperse and there is very little else that has been
proposed.  Even in NRS, educational gain is the only measure that has
some validity as a program outcome.  The other measures such as getting
a job or entering post secondary education are very unreliable given the
wide variety of methods used to collect and report the data. 

 

Great question, Venu. 

One alternative that makes sense has been proposed, but I am told that
Congress so far has been unwilling to accept it. Instead of reporting
outcomes for every student in every federally-funded program, OVAE
should each year pick a random sample of federally-funded programs and
measure attainment of student goals over a multi-year period, that is,
measure impact.  Some would argue that measuring impact is not possible,
that adult education students are too hard to track over time, but the
Longitudinal Study of Adult Literacy, now in its eighth year in
Portland, Oregon, has shown that it is not impossible. 

 

Isn't impact more useful to policy makers than outcomes? Does anyone in
Congress really care how many level gains students make? Some policy
makers may care about how many program participants -- especially over
time -- have improved their employment status, can read to their
children, can use  a computer, now have a diploma or GED, and have
succeeded in their education beyond secondary level.  Of these goals,
only the GED and high school diploma (for now at least) require a
standardized test.

 

David J. Rosen

djrosen at comcast.net

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