Toward Defining and Improving Quality in Adult Basic Education

This volume revisits, problematizes, and expands the meaning of quality in the context of adult basic education. Covering a wide range of relevant topics, it includes contributors from the realms of both policy and practice and encompasses both the major instructional areas-reading, writing, and mathematics-as well as larger issues of literacy, learning, and adulthood. Each chapter focuses on what improving quality in the field might look like through the particular lens of the author's work. As a whole, the broad scope of topics and ideas addressed will raise the level of discussion, knowledge, and practice regarding quality in adult basic education. In this book, the term adult basic education refers to the broad range of services for adults who wish to improve their literacy and language skills, including beginning and intermediate writing, writing and numeracy, preGED, GED/Adult Secondary Education, and ESL instruction that takes place in a range of contexts including schools, community-based programs, and workplace development programs. The volume is organized around three themes: *Accountability, Standards, and the Use of Documentation and Research; *Program Structures and Instruction; and *Rethinking Our Assumptions and Concepts. Coming at a time of increasing pressure to standardize, to be accountable, and to improve outcomes, and when calls for evidence-based practice are fueling stakeholders' interest in the relationship between research and practice at all levels of the system, Toward Defining and Improving Quality in Adult Basic Education is particularly timely for scholars, graduate students, and professionals in the field of adult basic education.

Alisa Belzer

Contents: Preface. Part I:Accountability, Standards, and the Use of Documentation and Research.A. Belzer, Introduction: Why Quality? Why Now? L. Condelli, Accountability and Program Quality: The Third Wave. S.G. Stein, Equipped for the Future and Standards-Based Educational Improvement: Achieving Results That Matter for Adult Learners. D. Greenberg, Tales From the Field: Struggles and Challenges of Conducting Ethical and Quality Research in the Field of Adult Literacy. M.B. Bingman, C. Smith, Professional Development and Evidence-Based Practice in Adult Education. Part II:Program Structures and Instruction.H. Beder, Quality Introduction in Adult Literacy Education. A. Belzer, Volunteer One-to-One Tutoring: Critical Factors in Providing Quality Instruction. J.P. Comings, S. Cuban, Supporting Persistence of Adult Basic Education Students. J.P. Gee, Learning to Read as a Cultural Process. M.K. Gillespie, The Forgotten R: Why Adult Educators Should Care About Writing Instruction. M.J. Schmitt, M. Merson, The EMPower Project: Connecting Curriculum Development and Research. Part III:Rethinking Our Assumptions and Concepts.E. Hayes, Reconceptualizing Adult Basic Education and the Digital Divide. H.S. Wrigley, Beyond the Life Boat: Improving Language, Citizenship, and Training Services for Immigrants and Refugees. E.N. Askov, C. Kassab, E.L. Grinder, L.M. Semali, D. Weirauch, E.L. Saenz, B. Van Horn, Filling in the "Black Box" of Family Literacy: Implications of Research for Practice and Policy. S. Reder, Giving Literacy Away, Again: New Concepts of Promising Practice. V.L. Gadsden, The Adult Learner in Adult and Family Literacy: Gender and Its Intersection With Role and Context. G.A. Hull, M. Jury, J. Zacher, Possible Selves: Literacy, Identity, and Development in Work, School, and Community.