The Process Guide:
How Texas Developed its State’s Content Standards and Benchmarks

The Texas Adult Education Standards and Benchmarks Project

by

Dominique Chlup
Lesley Tomaszewski

August 2007

Introduction
Since 2001, a number of adult education practitioners in Texas have been hard at work to develop: (1) standards that accurately describe what adult learners should know and be able to do and (2) benchmarks that describe how well learners need to be able to demonstrate levels of proficiency. An initial endeavor was to adopt and implement Florida’s Department of Education Adult Basic Education Curriculum Standards. This endeavor yielded the Texas Standardized Curriculum Framework (TSCF).

In early 2004, Texas LEARNS, the administrative oversight of Texas’ adult education programs, funded the Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning (TCALL) at Texas A&M University to (1) gauge the adoption and implementation efforts of the TSCF across Texas and (2) convene a taskforce meeting to assess the TSCF in its current form and recommend future directions for Texas LEARNS as they considered adopting standards statewide. TCALL, in turn, formed the Texas Adult Education Standards Project (TAESP) and assigned staff members to the project to accomplish the charges set forth by Texas LEARNS. From March 2004 to June 2006 the TAESP was comprised of four phases.

Phase 1: March 2004 – August 2004
There were two major activities that occurred during this phase: (1) conducted a survey regarding the TSCF, and (2) convened a taskforce meeting assessing the usefulness of the TSCF.

March – May 2004: Conducted TSCF Survey
From March to May of 2004, the TAESP staff conducted a survey of 32 adult education instructors and administrators with a working knowledge of the TSCF. The goal of the survey was to acquire from practitioners data regarding:

• advantages/disadvantages of the TSCF,
• users' perceptions of how the TSCF should be used,
• its impact on instructional planning and delivery,
• users' concerns about time and effort, and
• availability and/or development of instructional materials responsive to the TSCF.

Upon analysis of the data, the TAESP staff found that there were many advantages and disadvantages mentioned by the respondents who had used the TSCF. Table 1 lists the advantages and disadvantages of using the TSCF mentioned by the survey respondents.

June 2004: Convened TSCF Taskforce Meeting

The findings from the TSCF survey were presented at the TSCF taskforce meeting held in July 2004. In total, there were 34 individuals that participated at this meeting: 18 instructors and five administrators and programs directors were identified and invited to the taskforce meeting based on their prior involvement with the TSCF implementation and their involvement with the TSCF survey conducted in March. Four consultants were invited to the meeting based on their expertise in adult education and recommendations from local practitioners. These consultants were: Brenda Bell, Roberta McKnight, Heide Spruck Wrigley, and Peggy Suefert. Seven representatives from the Getting Results Educating Adults in Texas (GREAT) centers participated in the meeting. The GREAT centers are state funded centers that provide professional development to adult education and family literacy practitioners in Texas, so they would have an ongoing involvement in providing trainings to the local programs regarding standards implementation. Figure 1 shows the distribution of taskforce members based on their self-identified roles in adult education.

Figure 1: TSCF Taskforce Meeting Participation

The taskforce participants were directed to:

• examine progress to date on the development of adult education standards in Texas,
• discuss reactions to using the standards by local program staff members,
• explore, in small groups, future directions for further standards development, and
• develop a schedule for field-testing the revisions recommended by taskforce members.

To accomplish this, the 34 practitioners were assigned to small groups that focused on Adult Basic Education (ABE), Adult Secondary Education/General Educational Development (ASE/GED), or English as a Second Language (ESL) based on the subject area(s) they taught plus their preferences. See Table 2 for small group participation.

Table 2: TSCF Taskforce Assigned Groups

Assigned Small Groups	Instructor	Administrator	Consultants	GREAT Center Representatives	TOTAL
ASE/GED	6	2	1	3	12
ABE	5	2	1	2	10
ESL	7	1	2	2	12
TOTAL	18	5	4	7	34

After reviewing the feedback acquired from the taskforce meeting, several questions emerged: What are adult learners' needs? Does the TSCF adequately address these needs? What changes are needed to align the TSCF and learners' needs? To answer these crucial questions, which are fundamental to standards development and implementation, the TAESP staff moved to the second phase of the project.

Phase 2: September 2004 – June 2005
Four major activities occurred during this phase: (1) conducted focus group interviews, (2) participated in the Adult Education Standards Consortium, (3) adopted five Equipped for the Future (EFF) content standards, and (4) formed writing teams to write benchmarks for the standards.

September 2004 – December 2005: Conducted Focus Group Interviews
To determine the needs of adult learners in Texas, the TAESP staff conducted focus group interviews from September to December of 2004. In total, 96 adult learners enrolled in adult education programs and 75 adult education practitioners were interviewed.

There were 13 focus group interviews conducted with adult learners. At times, ABE and ASE/GED learners were interviewed together because they were both taught by the same instructor. Out of the 96 adult learners, 35 were enrolled in an ESL class, 25 were enrolled in an ABE class, and 36 were enrolled in an ASE/GED class. All of the adult learners were at various stages of their course work. Table 3 summarizes how many adult learners participated in each of the focus group interviews.

Of the 75 adult education practitioners interviewed, seven were Texas GREAT center representatives and the other 68 were a mix of adult education program administrators and adult education instructors. The adult education practitioners who participated in the focus group interviews can be found in Table 4.

The findings from these focus group interviews were similar to the findings of a national survey conducted by EFF (http://eff.cls.utk.edu/default.htm). In 2000, EFF published 16 content standards that help prepare adults in adult education programs to become proficient family members, workers, and citizens. They developed these content standards from a national survey conducted in 1994 with over 1,500 adult learners. They wanted to find out what adults needed to know to become literate in all facets of their lives both publicly and privately. They found that adult learners want: (1) to learn foundation skills such as reading, writing, mathematics, science, speaking, and listening, (2) to learn interpersonal skills such as interacting with others, (3) to undergo personal development such as the attitude they had about themselves and others, and (4) to exercise academic and personal (experiential) knowledge. As mentioned earlier, these findings were similar to the findings the TAESP staff collected from its statewide focus group interviews.

September 2004 – August 2005: Participated in Adult Education Standards Consortium
The TAESP staff participated in a federally funded national consortium of states developing ESL adult education content standards. Participating in this consortium enabled the project staff to work collaboratively with other states around issues regarding the development, alignment, and implementation of state content standards.

April 2005: EFF Standards Adopted
In April 2005, adult education practitioners who participated in the focus group interviews and/or in the July 2004 taskforce meeting were invited to a follow-up meeting to discuss standards-based education in Texas. At this meeting, the findings from the focus group interviews were presented and the participants discussed the different elements and characteristics of content standards.

Additionally three content experts were invited to present how their states developed adult education standards and how they implemented the standards. Theses content area experts were identified and invited to this meeting based on their expertise in adult education and their experience with standards implementation. They were: Peggy Suefert, Patrica deJesus-Lopez, and Traci Lepicki.

After hearing from the content area experts and reviewing the focus group interview findings, which indicated that EFF’s standards would address the needs of the adult learners in Texas, the group agreed to adopt the following five EFF standards:

• Listen Actively,
• Speak So Others Can Understand,
• Read With Understanding,
• Convey Ideas in Writing, and
• Use Math to Solve Problems and Communicate.

Once it was agreed that these five standards would replace the TSCF, the group along with Texas LEARNS renamed the new content standards the Texas Adult Education Content Standards (TAECS). Writing teams would be formed to develop the benchmarks for the five EFF standards. Applications to become a writing team member were distributed at the meeting and posted on the TCALL website. Those individuals interested in participating on a writing team needed to be from the field of Texas adult education and have the support of their supervisors.

June 2005 : Writing Teams Formed
By June 2005, 28 out of 36 applicants were placed into three writing teams—speaking/listening, reading/writing, and math. They met for the first time in June during a 2-day workshop and volunteered to work on one of the three teams. There were 14 practitioners that volunteered to write benchmarks for the standards Speak So Others Can Understand and Listen Actively; eight practitioners volunteered to write the benchmarks for the standards Read With Understanding and Convey Ideas in Writing; and six practitioners volunteered to write benchmarks for the Use Math to Solve Problems and Communicate standard. Each of these groups was assigned a nationally recognized content area expert who facilitated the teams in developing benchmarks. Andy Nash facilitated the speaking/listening team; Mary Dunn Seidow facilitated the reading/writing team; and Nancy Markus facilitated the math team. All three of these experts attended the writing team member workshops during the fall of 2005. Figure 2 summarizes how many writing team members where in each of the three writing teams.

Figure 2: Distribution of writing team members

Next