Adult Education and Family Literacy Act Program

• Alignment of adult and literacy activities with other one-stop required partners to implement the strategies in the Unified or Combined State Plan as described in section 223(l)(a).

  Since moving from IDOE to IDWD, Indiana Adult Education has worked to align adult education and literacy activities with those provided by the one-stop system. WIOA allowed this work to deepen and expand to include additional partners. Throughout PY 16 local eligible providers and adult education state staff participated in the work of WIOA implementation through state and local partner meetings. Much of the work in PY 17 year focused on developing MOU’s and infrastructure funding agreements and the changes needed to implement strategies identified in the state plan. Additional work has been done around the delivery of employment and training services and development of career pathways using multiple funding sources

• Establishment or operation of a high quality professional development program as described in section 223(1)(b).

  Indiana continues to provide high quality professional development in through new and existing initiatives. Adult educators have a variety of online options as well as professional development conferences available to fulfill the Indiana requirement of 10 hours of professional development for all instructors teaching over nine hours a week.

  A strategic plan for professional development was developed based on a careful analysis of state and local program data. The delivery system currently covers four pillars - Professional Development Facilitator (PDF) Network; Basics and More; Struggling (Low Performing) Programs; and Professional Development Federal Initiatives.

  Several activities were representative of a high quality professional development program as described under State Leadership Activities.

  ? Professional Development Staff - Employed a full time, state-level professional development manager and utilized an existing Adult Education Coordinator (AEC) as a professional development lead to advance a strategic plan to:

  (1) Develop a professional development plan to target focused instruction for low to mid-level skill gainsin reading, writing, and math integrated with employability and workforce prep skills;

  (2) Create a Professional Development Facilitator (PDF) Network that will work at local and regional levels to design professional development targeting individual program needs based on data analysis;

  (3) Designate the professional development lead to work with struggling and low performing programs to increase performance that is aligned more closely to federal and/or state benchmarks; and

  (4) Utilize content experts to design and deliver targeted professional development in the priority areas of Adult Numeracy, Evidence-based Reading Instruction, Standards-based Education, Staff Effectiveness, English Language Acquisition, and Instructional Leadership.

  ? Professional Development Facilitator (PDF) Network - A network of the best-performing instructors in each program (approximately 30) were recommended and selected to coordinate and provide just-in-time training locally and regionally, and to provide professional development planning and mentoring.

  In order to be selected as a PDF, candidates were required to possess adult education teaching experience; demonstrated performance in the adult education classroom on NRS Tables 4 and 5; schedule flexibility - approximately five hours a month; and knowledge of career awareness and workforce prepactivities.

  Duties include the formulation of new teacher training; delivery of NRS/TABE training; development of a new teacher handbook; delivery of accommodations training; and to model effective teaching strategies. Instructors will receive ongoing training to deliver the highest quality professional development both locally and regionally, all of which are directly tied to federal and/or state performance measures.

  ? Spring IAACE Conference - DWD partners with the Indiana Association of Adult and Continuing Education (IAACE) to offer a variety of professional development opportunities at its annual conference.

? COABE Virtual Conference - IAACE partnered with COABE to offer members the opportunity to participate in the COABE Virtual Conferences.

• Provision of technical assistance to funded eligible providers as described in section 223(1)(c).

Indiana continues to utilize six regional AECs to provide technical assistance and professional development to local program providers. AECs assist with the development of local program professional development plans, and are a liaison between eligible providers and WIOA partners. AECs interpret performance data for local programs and determine areas for improvement with significant input from the professional development team.

• Monitoring and evaluation of the quality and improvement of adult education activities as described in section 223(1)(d).

In order to monitor and evaluate the quality of adult education activities, program management, fiscal management, data management, and performance measures are continuously assessed. Informal monitoring, desk audits, data checks, and program visits were conducted by state central office staff, AECs, and the InTERS data team. Ongoing technical assistance and professional development were provided as required. Likewise, a comprehensive risk assessment was performed on all successful grantees from the PY 2017-2018 Adult Education Grant Competitive Application Ongoing technical assistance and professional development will be provided in based on models of proven and promising practices.

Elements of the risk assessment included key questions.

• Is the organization being awarded funds by the DWD for the first time?

• Does the organization have a limited history of managing grant history?

• Does the organization have administrative leadership with less than three years in adult education?

• Are there significant gaps in the organization's submitted itemized budget?

• Does the organization's budget fail to include maintenance of effort?

• Are one-stop partners missing from the organization's plan?

• Are supportive services by partners missing from the organization's plan?

• Does the organization contract for services?

• Has there been audit or monitoring findings within the last three years?

• Does the organization's performance data fail to show demonstrated effectiveness in providing adult education and literacy activities with respect to - Academic skill gains (reading, writing, mathematics, or English language acquisition skills), employment outcomes, family literacy, attainment of secondary school diploma or its equivalent, entry into postsecondary, and workforce training?