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Adult Education Administrator's Manual

Accountability

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[The following information was retrieved from the National Reporting System website http://www.nrsweb.org/ ]

Educational Functioning Levels

"The NRS approach towards measuring Educational Gain is to define a set of Educational Functioning Levels in which students are initially placed, using NRS assessment guidelines, based on their ability to perform literacy-related tasks in specific content areas."
Retrieved July 22, 2005 from the National Reporting System for Adult Education, Core Outcome Measure #1: Educational Gain.

"Students are initially placed in to one of 6 levels of ESL or ABE. Students are then assessed again after a certain number of classroom hours or a set time period, determined by state policy. If their skills have improved enough to be placed in a higher level, an "advance" is recorded for that student. States and local programs may use additional or different skills and levels if desired, as long as these skills and levels can be matched to the NRS levels and skills."
Retrieved July 14, 2005 from the National Reporting System for Adult Education database, Educational Functioning Levels.

Core Outcome Measure #1: Educational Gain

Definition: Learner completes or advances one or more educational functioning levels from starting level measured on entry into the program.

Entry-level descriptions for the educational functioning levels are available. The descriptions are located in the appendix.

Applicable Population: All learners.

Collection Procedure: At intake, an individual learner’s educational functioning level is determined within the functional level descriptors, using a uniform, standardized assessment procedure approved by the state. The assessment procedure may be a standardized test or a performance assessment with standardized scoring protocols. (Note that learners designated as work-based project learners need not be assessed in this way).

The functional level descriptors describe what a learner entering that level can do in the areas of reading and writing, numeracy, speaking and listening and/or functional or workplace skills. The local program need not assess the learner in all areas, but the assessment should be in the areas in which instruction will be focused. If the learner is functioning at different levels in the areas, the lowest functioning level should be the basis for initial placement. Test benchmarks are provided for each level as examples only and these tests do not need to be used when assessing the learner.

To determine gain , the learner should be assessed again at least once after a standard, instructional period, at the end of the class or at the end of the program year, as determined by state policy. If more than one assessment is given, the latest assessment should be used to determine advancement. An "advance" or "completion" is recorded if, according to a subsequent assessment, the student has entry level skills corresponding to one or more levels higher than the incoming level in the areas initially used for placement. The lowest functioning level should again be used to make this determination.

State and local programs may use whatever additional level descriptors desired, as long as these descriptors can be matched to the NRS definitions. States and local programs may also use any assessment procedures desired, as long as the procedures are standardized for all programs in the same way (i.e., used consistently and reliably across programs and produce observable measures).

To assist in, test benchmarks are provided for the levels. Tests included are the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS—Life Skills or Employability); Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE, Forms 5-6 and 7-8), total reading and total math scale scores and grade equivalents; the Adult Basic Learning Examination (ABLE, Forms E–F), reading and math; the Adult Measure of Educational Skills (AMES, Forms 1 and 2), reading, computation and communication; Student Performance Levels (SPL) for ESL in both speaking and reading; and oral scores of the Basic English Skills Test (BEST) for ESL. These benchmarks are provided only as examples of how students functioning at each level would perform on the tests. Their inclusion in no way is meant to imply that the tests are equivalent or that they should be used as the basis for assessment. In addition, the tests do not necessarily measure the same skills.

Federal Reporting: Total number of learners who complete one or more levels during the program is reported and a rate or percentage of level completion can be computed. The number who continue in the program after completing a level, the number who fail to complete a level and leave the program and the number who remain in the same level are recorded to obtain a fuller picture of student flow and retention.

Retrieved July 14, 2005 from the National Reporting System for Adult Education database, Core Outcome Measure #1: Educational Gain.

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