TEXAS Adult & Family Literacy QUARTERLY

Updates on State Initiatives

The Texas Content Standards’ First Year

by Eduardo Honold

As we celebrate the Texas Adult Education Content Standards’ first year of implementation, it is hard not to feel like a proud parent of a toddler who has taken her first steps and is slowly making her way down a rocky path. We have come a long way in the implementation of the Standards, but there is still a lot of work to be done and many more lessons to be learned.

Let’s look at the basic facts. When the Standards were launched in June 2007, about 500 teachers and administrators received the initial introduction to using the Standards. Since then, another 1,539 teachers have been trained by Standards specialists in all eight GREAT Center regions. Considering there are about 2,500 adult education teachers statewide, this is quite an accomplishment.

While many teachers across the state have some basic information on the Content Standards, the extent to which they are being used in a meaningful way is still quite mixed. During the last Adult Education Director’s meeting in Fredericksburg in July 2008, only a few directors reported fully implementing the Content Standards in their programs. Most program directors are either slowly beginning to think about how to implement the Standards or seem to be waiting for more information. This is understandable considering this year was supposed to be one of voluntary implementation with no strings attached.

All this progress, however, has not come without some bumps in the road. One big issue has to do with the effectiveness of the Content Standards training itself. Those of us that have been involved in the Standards process recognize that the existing training does a good job of presenting the basic information teachers need to know about the Standards, but that it may not do enough to help teachers use them in the classroom. Not surprisingly, a recent survey of Standards Specialists revealed that they would like to have a follow-up to the Content Standards training that would give teachers an opportunity to share their own experiences in using the Standards in the classroom. It has also come to our attention that the lesson plans that were generated during the Standards trainings have not been very consistent or always useful to other teachers, which is understandable considering the limited time provided for that activity during the workshop.

So clearly there is room for improvement. Currently, a committee of the GREAT Centers and TCALL staff is working on revising the Standards training to make it more meaningful for teachers and to maximize the impact they can have in the classroom. The committee has also relied heavily on the lessons learned from the Standards-in-Action Pilot, a federally supported effort to improve standards instruction in Texas. (See my article in the November 2007 edition of the Literacy Links) Among the recommendations from this pilot is a greater emphasis on using the Standards to plan coherent units of instruction, that is, connected lessons or activities over a longer period of time rather than individual lessons. Another of the insights of the Pilot is that teachers need tools to help them decide how to prioritize among the standards and benchmarks that they choose to teach. Ultimately, we hope that the revised training will empower adult education teachers to use the Standards to make better choices about what they want their students to learn.

Revising the standards training is a necessary first step in a comprehensive strategy for getting the most out of standards-based education in Texas. Programs and teachers need to realize that meaningful change based on standards takes time, extensive professional development, and yes, resources. But the payoff is worth it: common high expectations for our students, rigorous academic work, and adult students who are better prepared to meet the challenges of work and post-secondary education.

Summarized versions of the Texas Content Standards and Benchmarks created by the Far West GREAT Center’s Mary Jo Ochoa can now be found at www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/westsum/index.html
You may also request a copy of the Standards-in-Action report and recommendations by emailing me at ehonold@sisd.net.

About the Author

Eduardo Honold is the Coordinator for the Far West Project GREAT. He was a member of the Texas Content Standards writing team, is an active Standards trainer, and is currently the state liaison for Standards-in-Action, a federally supported pilot program designed to help states improve the implementation of state standards.