Appendices

Coordination of Adult Literacy Programs Final Report

Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee

December 2006

APPENDIX A

Agency Responses

Appendix B. Adult Literacy Acronyms and Definitions

Appendix C. State And Federal Adult Literacy Laws: Major Provisions

Connecticut State Statutes

In Connecticut, all school districts are statutorily required to offer adult education instruction to eligible residents that includes: Americanization and United States citizenship; English for adults with limited English proficiency; and elementary and secondary school completion programs and classes. Districts may provide adult education classes on any subject and vocational education area included in their elementary and secondary school curriuculum as well as adult literacy, parenting skills, and any other subject or activity.

Credit requirements. Districts may award adult education diplomas to students who have satisfactorily completed a minimum of 20 adult education credits in certain academic and elective areas. As of July 1, 2004, the credit requirements by statute are: four credits in English; three credits in mathematics; three credits in social studies including one credit in American history and at least one-half credit in civics and American government; two credits in science; and one credit in the arts or vocational education. State law specifically allows adult education credits to be awarded for the following:

District authority. Each school district must determine the minimum number of weeks per semester for an adult education program. The district is further required to provide certified counseling staff to assist adult education program students with educational and career counseling. Local and regional boards of education providing adult education classes and activities are required to provide rooms and other facilities and employ necessary personnel. The boards have the same powers and duties in relation to adult education classes as with other public schools.

Students. Adult students may be admitted to any public elementary or secondary school to attend adult education classes. Persons enrolled in a full-time educational program in a local or regional school district must obtain the approval of the school district principal to enroll in an adult education activity.

An adult resident is statutorily defined as: (1) any person 16 years or older who in not enrolled in a public school program; (2) a student expelled from a public school for seriously disruptive conduct involving the use of alcohol and subsequently assigned to an adult class; or (3) a public school student who is under 16 and a mother and requests permission from the local or regional board of education to attend adult education classes.

Adult education providers. All local and regional boards of education are required to establish and maintain adult classes or provide through cooperative arrangements with other boards of education, cooperating eligible entities, or regional educational service centers for participation in adult classes for adult residents. A cooperating eligible entity is defined by statute as any corporation or other business entity, nonprofit organization, private occupational school, licensed or accredited institution of higher education, regional vocational-technical school, or library that enters into a written cooperative arrangements with a local or regional board of education or regional educational service center to provides adult education classes or services.

Regional educational service centers (RESCs) are education agencies formed by four or more local or regional boards of education in a state regional planning area to cooperatively provide services and programs. ¹ RESCs often provide special education services, while some operate inter-district magnet schools and adult education programs for their member districts.

Fees and charges. Required adult education classes and programs in Americanization and United State citizenship, ESL, and elementary and secondary school completion programs must be provided free of charge to eligible adults. However, a providing school district can charge a registration fee to a cooperating district for that district's residents registered for required adult education classes. Further, adult students may be charged registration fees for nonrequired classes; for these classes, providing school districts may charge a higher registration fee for residents of a cooperating school district than it does for its own residents.

A board of education for any providing school district may also set and collect student fees for books and materials or require a refundable deposit for the lending of books and materials for an adult education classes, activities, or programs. Fees may be waived for a handicapped adult or elderly person (at least 62 years) enrolled in adult education classes, activities, and programs in any subject provided by the elementary or secondary school including vocational education, adult literacy, parenting skills, and any other subject or activity. A board of education providing adult education may establish and maintain an adult education school activity fund to handle the finances of the program.

State grants. To be eligible for reimbursement through a state grant, school districts and RESCs are required to annually submit an adult education proposal to the Department of Education. SDE determines the format of the proposal, including a description of the program and an estimate of the eligible costs for the upcoming fiscal year. Local and regional school districts and RESCs are reimbursed a percentage of their eligible adult education expenses based on a statutory formula.

Eligible expenditures for adult education are broadly defined in statute as those directly attributable to the required adult education program including teachers and teacher aides, administration, clerical assistance, program supplies, facility rentals other than rooms and facilities specifically for adult education classes and activities, staff development, counselors, transportation, security, and child care services.

The percentage of eligible costs for adult education is determined based on a ranking for all towns in a descending order from 1 to 169. All towns are ranked based on their adjusted equalized net grand list per capita. A reimbursement percentage on a continuous scale of 0 to 65 is determined for each town. Priority school districts have a guaranteed floor (not less than 20 percent) built into their reimbursement formula and large schools and those providing basic adult education to Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services clients are given inceases up to a certain ceiling.

Federal Law

Federal legislation concerning adult literacy was first enacted in the mid-1960s as part of the national anti-poverty programs initiated during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Recognizing the link between economic success, effective community participation, and an individual's literacy level, Congress created a grant program to support state adult basic education activities under P.L. 88-452, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The current federal adult literacy law, The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), was enacted as Title II of The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), Public Law 105-220.

Purpose. The main purposes of AEFLA, according to Section 202 of P.L. 105-220, Title II, are to: “…

Under AEFLA, “literate” means an individual is able to read, write, and speak in English, compute, and solve problems, at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in his or her family, and in society. The federal definition does not establish any specific educational competency level or single, national literacy standard for adults.

Funding. Federal AEFLA funds are distributed to states according to a formula based on census data on the number of adults age 16 and over who lack a high school diploma and are not enrolled in school. In FY 05, all state Adult Education and Family Literacy Act grant awards totaled nearly $560 million and Connecticut received almost $5.8 million

A 25 percent state match (state and local monies combined) is required and states must also sustain their overall level of spending (maintenance of effort) on adult literacy services. The maintenance of effort requirement applies to aggregate and per-pupil spending and states can face reduced funding allocations for noncompliance.

Most states exceed the 25 percent matching level and Connecticut's state-local contribution typically is among the highest in the country. In FY 02, Connecticut's nonfederal share of total spending on adult education and literacy was 85 percent.

States must award at least 82.5 percent of the federal grant on a competitive basis to local providers of adult education and literacy services. The federal law prohibits states from using more than 10 percent of their AEFLA funding for the education of correctional facility or other institutionalized populations.

The local provider network may include local education agencies (LEAs)/school districts, community colleges, and a variety of community- and faith-based organizations and nonprofit agencies that provide literacy services. In awarding local funding, states must consider 12 statutory criteria that include factors such as: past effectiveness, commitment to serving those most in need, measurable goals, program intensity and duration, high-quality management information, flexible schedules, support services, and coordination with other available community resources.

States are allowed to establish additional criteria and set funding priority areas for their program activities. Currently, Connecticut has identified six federal funding priority areas that include, among others, projects related to workforce preparedness, programs to improve family (parent and child) literacy, and services that promote the transition from adult education to post-secondary education and training.

The state administrative agency can retain up to 17.5 percent of the federal grant, with a maximum of 5 percent for administration and 12.5 percent for leadership activities, which are statewide program improvements such as professional development and technical assistance. In Connecticut, the State Department of Education (SDE) is the agency authorized to administer AEFLA. As the administering and supervising entity, SDE must prepare a state five-year plan for providing adult education and literacy services, monitor and report on program performance, distribute funds to local providers and provide statewide leadership.

Activities. Providers must use federal AEFLA funds to operate programs that provide services or instruction in one or more of the following categories:

Under the federal law, adult education is defined as instruction below the postsecondary level for persons age 16 or older and not enrolled in secondary school who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent level of educational skills, or competency in reading, writing, or speaking English. Workplace literacy services are basic skill and ESL instructional activities offered with the purpose of improving worker productivity through improved English literacy skills. Family literacy programs integrate parent and child literacy activities including early childhood and adult education programs, parent training, and interactive literacy activities between parents and their children.

In addition to literacy programs, local providers may, and many do, offer a variety of related support services such as job placement, child care, and transportation assistance. However, such activities are usually funded from sources other than AEFLA grant money.

Performance standards and reporting. Improving accountability for the results of publicly funded employment, training, and literacy programs was a central goal of the 1998 federal workforce investment reform legislation. Under the provisions of AEFLA, there are three core indicators for assessing state performance of adult literacy activities on an annual basis:

The federal adult education law required the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), to create a National Reporting System (NRS) on outcomes from state adult education and literacy activities. The reporting system developed by OVAE, which became effective in July 2000, establishes five core measures for assessing the AEFLA performance indicators as well as standardized definitions and data collection methodologies states must use to ensure comparable and reliable information. (The core NRS measures, their working definitions, and the assessement method and reporting process used in Connecticut are described in Appendix D).

Each year, states must negotiate targeted levels of performance for each NRS measure and report progress toward their goals to the U.S. DOE. States that meet or exceed their adult literacy activity goals as well as their performance goals for other WIA-funded employment and training programs can qualify for federal incentive grant funding.

The federal core indicators for WIA Title I employment and training programs that serve adults, youth, and dislocated workers are listed in Table 1. For the most part, they focus on employment rates, credential rates, and changes in the earnings of individual participants. The indicators regarding skill attainment and high school completion, which are comparable to AEFLA core measures, were recently added for the WIA programs that serve youth age 14-18.

Required coordination. Another central goal of the 1998 WIA reforms was to integrate workforce development services through a system of community-based “one-stop” career centers. The centers were intended to give jobseekers and employers in a local labor market area access to many employment, training, and education resources at one site.

To promote collaboration and coordination, WIA requires certain federal programs, including those funded under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, to be mandatory “one-stop” system partners (see Table 2). By law, mandatory partners are required to: make their core services available at the one-stop centers; use portion of their funding to support the one-stop system; provide representation on the local workforce investment board; and enter into formal agreements (written memoranda of understanding, MOUs) with the local boards concerning these activities.

APPENDIX D: National Reporting System and CASAS Overview

All states are required under the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act to report on five core measures of the effectiveness of their adult literacy activities. The mandated measures and their working definitions are shown in Table 1.

States are required to use the National Reporting System (NRS), the AEFLA accountability process developed by the U.S. Department of Education, to report their core measures and other adult literacy activity data. NRS incorporates standard definitions and data collection methodologies to help ensure reliable, comparable performance data is gathered from all state programs

For the all but the first core measure, states can meet the NRS requirements by compiling outcome data based on program records (e.g., diplomas awarded, GED examinations passed), follow-up survey results, or cross-matches of different databases (e.g., adult education and labor/employment databases). Regarding the literacy skill improvement measure, states are required to establish standardized assessment procedures to identify the initial student proficiency as well as to measure gains from program participation. NRS defines six levels of levels of proficiency (Educational Function Levels) for adult basic and secondary programs, and another six levels for ESL programs. The ABE/ASE levels are based on reading, writing, numeracy and functional and workplace skills while the ESL levels also incorporate speaking and listening skills.

The NRS Educational Function Levels for adult basic and secondary programs and for ESL programs are shown in Table 2. According to the U.S. DOE, one NRS level is roughly equal to two grade levels. The literacy skill improvement represented by advancing on Educational Function Level, therefore, is significant.

The NRS levels are benchmarked to common adult literacy assessments, such as the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) used by Connecticut, so that how students function at each level corresponds to their performance (score range) on such standardized tests. The CASAS test scores that correspond to each NRS level are also shown in Table 2. The highest number in each CASAS range is the benchmark test score used to identify learners who complete an NRS level.

CASAS. The Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System is one of several nationally recognized tools for measuring adult literacy levels.² CASAS is approved by both the federal and state education departments for assessing the needs of adult learners and is widely used by state and local education agencies as well as many training program operators across the country. Connecticut is one of at least 30 states that uses CASAS for reporting on the federal core measures of adult education program performance.

CASAS assessment instruments measure literacy levels in terms of defined sets of critical skill sets (competencies) adult need in different contexts. There are about 180 different instruments available for a wide variety of assessment purposes including initial skill appraisal, course and program placement guidance, and diagnosis of instructional needs as well as to monitor and document learning gains and other student outcomes.

A general description of the literacy levels in terms of reading, writing, computational, and functional/workplace skills that correspond to CASAS test scores for both ABE (which CASAS uses to refer to both adult basic and adult secondary education programs) and for ESL students is attached. The five CASAS levels shown in the attachment, which range from A to E for adult basic and secondary education as well as English as Second Language, do not directly relate to the National Reporting System levels. However, federal educational function levels for adult basic and secondary education can be matched to the subcategory descriptions within all five CASAS skill levels for ABE. Similarly, the subcategories for the CASAS skill levels A through C for ESL also match up with the six NRS levels for English language proficiency.