States also may identify additional performance indicators for adult education and literacy activities and incorporate these indicators, as well as corresponding annual levels of performance, in their state plans.
To measure educational gain within the NRS, States are required to have a written assessment policy for its local programs. The assessment policy must identify 1) the tests to be used to measure educational gain for both ABE/ASE and ESL students, 2) when pre- and post tests are to be administered, and 3) how tests scores are to be tied to the NRS educational functioning levels for initial placement and for reporting student advancement across levels. The assessments allowed by the State must conform to standard psychometric criteria for validity and reliability and must meet the standards provided by DAEL.
The NRS requires that local programs assess and place all students into an educational functioning level at intake and at least one other time during the program year. Programs should administer the initial assessment at intake or within a short period thereafter and administer follow up or post test assessments according to State policy. The follow up assessment should occur after a set instruction time, either in hours (e.g., after 50 hours of instruction), or months (e.g., the last 2 weeks of November or the last week of instruction), and should conform to the test publisher’s guidelines for the amount of time needed for a student to show a meaningful gain. If more than one assessment is administered, then the program should use the last assessment given as the basis for determining the educational level.
The federal government has a Results-Based Management and Accountability Framework (RMAF) that specifies that public service managers are expected to define strategic outcomes, continually focus attention on results achievement, measure performance regularly and objectively, learn from this information and adjust to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Endnote 27
The RMAF encourages a consistent collection of information for the purposes of monitoring ongoing performance measurement, developing performance indicators and implementing ongoing evaluation.
Quebec’s Public Administration Act (2000) established a new results-based management framework that is very similar to the Service Charters being used by departments within the Australian government.