An overhaul of Rhode Island’s adult education oversight system in the fall of 2005 has paid big dividends, state officials say, standardizing how students are taught and assessed and providing, for the first time, detailed information on each program’s effectiveness.
The R.I. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has set up a full-fledged Office of Adult Education – before, it was a one-man office – and has hired Johan Uvin, a veteran in adult literacy and work force development, to run it as part of an effort to expand and improve such programs in the state and ensure that funds are spent as well as possible.
The 34 agencies that provide adult education in the state serve about 8,000 people per year, Uvin said, far fewer than would like to enroll. “There are about 1,000 people who have been waiting for more than one year to get into one of our programs,” he said.
For those who do enroll, Uvin and his staff last June implemented a Web-based tracking system to assess their progress, whether they are taking English as a second language, GED preparation or adult basic education classes.
Each agency now must enter data about its students, including who they are, what services they receive and the outcomes. The information has to be updated every 15 days.
Pheamo Witcher, executive director of the Genesis Center in Providence, which serves 500 students a year and with a budget of $600,000, said the system has helped her agency function better.
“Now that we report outcome information on students and their progress, we’re much more on top of what’s going on, and we’re doing much more testing of our students,” she said.
In addition to the monitoring system, Uvin and his team have created policies for assessment, enrollment, intake, orientation and goal-setting.
“We’re beginning to bring some uniformity to the way our local programs are operating,” said Uvin.
One of the new policies limits the range of approved standardized tests that can be used by the agencies, which the state had never done before. Soon that may be taken even further, with new content standards in math, reading, writing, listening and speaking.
“The content standards are statements of what participants should know and be able to do when they leave these programs,” Uvin said. “We will have them before the end of June.”
In an effort to further the standardization, the office also established the first set of performance standards and reviewed each agency based on the new standards, classifying them in four categories: no risk or effective, moderate risk or moderately effective, at risk or ineffective and results not demonstrated.
According to Uvin, one-third of the agencies are currently considered effective based on that round of reviews. (Forty-three percent were considered “adequate,” 13 percent were considered “ineffective” and 11 percent did not demonstrate results.) The Genesis Center rated “quite well,” Witcher said, “between effective and very effective.”
A second round of reviews is now being performed.
“We now have for the first time a good sense of how the programs are doing,” Uvin said. “Those that were doing a good job, we’ve asked to share their best practices. Those that were moderate have put together an improvement plan, and those at risk are facing corrective action.”
Brenda Dann-Messier, president of Dorcas Place in Providence, which last year served 1,100 students, said Uvin’s efforts have “helped all of us to focus more cohesively on increasing student achievement.”
As for the ratings, she said: “It’s good for the students, it’s good for the staff, and it’ll be good for the public to pinpoint where the effective programs and practices are.”
To further ensure that the agencies offerings are consistent with the office’s standards, Uvin’s office is doing comprehensive on-site reviews. And it’s more than the agencies’ reputation on the line: Funding is now being tied to outcomes.
“One of the things we did this year was to make the transition from enrollment-based to outcome-based funding, because outcomes are what the state is increasingly interested in,” Uvin said. “It used to be ‘I’m going to serve this many people, and I think it’s going to cost this much.’ Now you say, ‘I think I’m going to get this many people a GED.’ ”
“I think it’s a good move,” said Witcher. “The important thing is we’re looking at the adequacy and the true cost of services, and I think as the support and funding increases, adult education will improve significantly.”
She added: “I like what [Uvin] talks about in terms of rewarding those programs that are doing well. It’s motivational.”
Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the Department of Education, said the system and the Office of Adult Education’s work with the agencies have “brought things to the attention of the department and the Board of Regents that we were not focused on before.”
“Now more than ever they’re looking at expanding access to these programs and making sure they are standards-based,” he said. “I think we just never had the capacity to monitor that the way we can now and to look at the outcomes of who’s graduating and how they are doing.”
But despite all the progress, Uvin said there is still much to accomplish. Some goals are short-term, such as completing the professional development center for teachers and school administrators, but others are long-term, such as integrating work force development programs with adult education.
“There are always things left to do, but we are now positioning ourselves for growth,” he said. “We’re trying to create real pathways for people to develop not just basic skills but also job skills. We can take this all the way into integration. We’ll give you the basic education, the job skills and the support.”
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