Below are some beginning resources to review and discuss with your colleagues, for understanding the Adult Education College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS) . Please check the PDC Calendar of Events at left for workshops, or contact the PDCenter with questions or requests for support.
The CCRS were adopted in 2013 by the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE) of the federal Office of Education. They are a subset of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), defining in 5 levels (A-E) what the CCSS covers in 13 levels (K-12). Both sets of standards use the same Anchor Standards as the descriptors of the end points of what a learner should know and be able to do by graduation/exit.
The College and Career Ready Standards is a 150 page document that lists the Standards, as well as the history, process of development and suggested use of them.
The Anchor Standards documents are an Index to finding the specific Standards within the larger document.
English Language Arts (ELA) Anchor Standards the Math Anchor Standards
Instructors also need the NRS/CCRS Chart that aligns learners’ test scores with the A-E levels of the CCRS. This Chart can help with the alignment of skills/curriculum expectations with the actual Educational Functioning Level of learners.
Implications for Adult Education:
Nationally, Adult Education is responsible for Educational Functioning Level Gains (i.e. improvement in standardized literacy tests approved by the National Reporting System (NRS)). In Rhode Island, these tests are CASAS, BESTPlus, and TABE, and individual learner results are posted and tracked in a NRS-compliant RI database called CALIS. [note: AE is also responsible for Outcomes measuring Employment, High School Equivalency attainment and Entering Postsecondary Training or Education, but this discussion only refers to the EFL gains)
Both the descriptions of the Educational Functioning Levels (EFL’s) and the tests that will be used to measure them are changing: both are to be based on the College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS). In OCTAE’s 2015 Regulatory Guidance for implementing the new federal law governing Adult Education (WIOA: Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the reauthorization of WIA), there are explicit references to CCRS, the new EFL descriptors, and the tests that will be approved to measure EFL Gains. They expect that this transition to new tests ‘may take years’.
- Instructional Advances in 4 units of the “shifts” in CCRS ELA
- Instructional Advances in 4 units of the “shifts” in CCRS Mathematics
- Developing Writers in 8 units for Hi Intermediate to Hi ASE Learners
- Teaching Channel: 19 minute video on Text Complexity, one of the ELA Advances/Shifts-must have log in for this site
- Text Complexity from Achieve the Core:
- Professional Development for both ELA and MATH from Achieve the Core: (great resources to support CCRS implementation and lesson creation—will need grade level equivalency translation to adult equivalency levels)
- PD on Deep Dive into the Math Shifts/Advances
- PD on Understanding Text-Dependent questions
- 12 minute video on Text-based questions and answers:
- Susan Finn Miller gives resources through LINCs for designing and scaffolding instruction while addressing the standards (Stanford U site)
- Nevada has begun posting CCRS-based Lesson Plans to share on this site.
- West Virginia’s Live Binder of materials for the Adult Education Teacher
NELRC is offering a 4 month, blended learning professional development initiative: FASt (Formative Assessments of Standards) Project. see link for full details and application. Due December 3, 2015.