Adult Education and Family Literacy Act Program

f. Assessing Quality. Describe how the eligible agency will assess the quality of providers of adult education and literacy activities under title II and take actions to improve such quality, including providing the activities described in section 223(a)(1)(B) of WIOA.

Maryland assesses the quality of adult education providers using a combined desk and onsite monitoring approach. Each grantee is assigned to an Adult Education Program Specialist whose role is to provide monitoring and technical assistance to the grantees. Grantees analyze their program progress on a trimester basis and submit trimester data review reports to the Specialist. The reports include an analysis of data on enrollment, contact hours, student retention, and progress toward meeting performance goals. Specialists review the reports and provide follow up to the grantees. Technical assistance is offered as needed and professional development is recommended where indicated.

All AEFLA funded programs are required to review performance annually, identify any challenges that prevented meeting performance targets, and propose strategies to address these challenges. Proposals are reviewed by State Staff who provide technical assistance and make recommendations for additional strategies and professional development. Low performing programs may be assigned to a mentor from a high performing program. A Performance Based Funding formula provides a system to incentivize high quality programming using available instructional funding.

The LACES data system captures information on student demographics, enrollment and student progress and meets the requirements of the National Reporting System. Annual sampling of data from LACES is verified in onsite student records to ensure the validity of data entered at the program level. In the event that errors or inconsistencies are found, programs submit a Corrective Action Plan. Subsequent monitoring and technical assistance from state staff is provided to ensure that the required changes are implemented. Program leadership members work as a team to ensure compliance with the Data Quality Checklist, and meet with staff to review new procedures. A fiscal monitoring is conducted for all grantees using a risk analysis model. All programs are monitored over a three-year cycle; however, those with risk factors are prioritized for immediate review.

State staff regularly meet onsite with key local staff, provide timely technical assistance and ensure that state and federal regulations are adhered to in program practice. Assessing the quality of professional learning at both the state and local level supports high quality instruction and is essential to the operation of high professional development programs. The AELS office is responsible for implementing, and maintaining standards for professional learning and using standards to assess and evaluate state funded professional development for adult education.

The tools that AELS staff employ to ensure that professional development programing is addressing the targets for improving instruction in the local activities {required under section 231(b)} are based on Guskey’s model for Five Critical Levels of Professional Development Evaluation. The five levels include, but are not limited to the following: annual needs assessment, state and local evaluation of materials, presentation and objective completion, workgroups for feedback and information in the field, state and local observation (program operation and instruction) and program outcome data.

Local programs submit a plan for professional development with their grant application detailing selection criteria, delivery method, target audience and method for evaluation. Documentation of local professional development is submitted and maintained on the state online file sharing system and reviewed by state staff. Documentation for all professional learning activities at the state and local level is maintained to ensure that programs are in compliance with all state required professional development. The State also serves as a resource for information on best practices, program models and uses a variety of methods to disseminate information. Aside from tradition email distribution, AELS has a centralized online repository for programs to access resources and information, as well as a monthly conference call or Webinar to communicate promising practices, activities and initiatives.

In evaluating the quality of professional development programs it is important to collect data using a variety of tools both quantitative and qualitative. Feedback from the State delivered foundation trainings and State facilitated sharing sessions for local programs’ leadership team members provide data for evaluating the effectiveness of professional development activities.

1. An emphasis on professional learning will be placed on local adult education providers incorporating the research-based components of phonemic awareness, system phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension. Reading test scores will be analyzed and evaluated at the state and local level to determine the impact, quality and need for changes in professional learning and adjustments will be made according to the results.
2. Adult learning theory and the needs of adult learners will be the foundation of local adult education instruction. Professional learning activities will be planned and implemented to assist local programs in designing instruction with a basis in Knowles principles of andragogy, the learning needs specific to adult learners: need to be involved in planning and evaluation of instruction, experience as the basis for learning activities, immediate relevance and impact on work and life and problem-centered. Adult learner goal attainment and student education gain will be used to measure if students’ involvement in planning and evaluation has been incorporated in the classroom. Additionally those measures are also used to address the instructor’s practice of designing instruction that is relevant to the student’s life and work and based on students life experiences. Classroom observation can also demonstrate whether instructors using student experience as the basis for learning activities and is putting problem-centered instruction into practice. Data collected from observation, student goal attainment and educational gain will be used to analyze need and make changes and improvements future professional learning activities.
3. Personnel both paid and volunteers are afforded foundation professional learning activities in accordance with state required topics/subject areas. These activities include but are not limited to, assessment, College and Career Readiness standards, ESL content standards, essential components of reading, and numeracy. Instructors will be prepared in these core areas in order to implement instruction to support student educational gain and goal attainment. Program and State staff review program data to evaluate the pre/post-test match, as well as student test score gains in reading, math, English language skills to evaluate the quality of the activities, this data will be used for continuous improvement for the foundation professional learning activities.
4. AELS disseminates information on promising practices and instructional models to local programs and stakeholders in adult education using a variety of methods. Professional learning sharing sessions, leadership team workgroups, meetings, email, as well as centralized online repository help programs access current adult education programing and instruction information. All meetings and sharing sessions are evaluated not only by participant evaluation but also feedback and observation on models or practices that have been implemented as a result of the receiving the information. The results of the evaluation and observations determine the effectiveness of the dissemination processes, adjustments are made as necessary to ensure that all relevant information is being distributed efficiently and effectively.