The National Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS) is an outcomes-based reporting system for the federal adult education and literacy program in the United States.
There was a trend towards greater accountability for educational and employment programs in the United States in the early 1990s and federal agencies were required to develop strategic plans to demonstrate that they were reaching their goals. In 1995, the adult education program faced the possibility of being integrated into a general system of workforce development as they had difficulty providing data on their program’s effectiveness.
In response, the Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL) developed an accountability system that includes measures to describe adult education students, program participation numbers, and the impact of adult education instruction. Methodologies for collecting the measures, reporting forms and procedures, training, and technical support for collecting the measures were also developed as part of this project. Endnote 24
State adult education directors and DAEL work together to manage the NRS. The NRS was successfully implemented in 2000 and provides adult education agencies with the means to collect data that effectively demonstrates their impact in the education system.
For more information on the NRS, please visit www.nrsweb.org.
The National Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS) is an outcomes-based reporting system for the State-administered, federally funded adult education program. Developed with the support of the U.S. Department of Education’s Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL), the NRS continues a cooperative process through which State adult education directors and DAEL manage a reporting system that demonstrates learner outcomes for adult education. The project is being conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Washington, DC.
The NRS established a national accountability system for adult education programs by identifying measures for national reporting and their definitions, establishing methods for data collection, developing software standards for reporting to the U.S. Department of Education, and developing training materials and activities on NRS requirements and procedures. The NRS meets the accountability requirements for the adult education program in Title II of the Workforce Investment Act.