[AAACE-NLA] RE: AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 21, Issue 17
Moore, Bonnie P.
Bonnie.Moore at fcps.edu
Mon Feb 7 18:48:33 EST 2005
Thank you for sharing this information. It's very helpful!
Any suggestions for building a fact sheet that interested stakeholders can forward to our congressional delegations? There is a lot of (understandable) emotion attached to these responses, but we need to present a swift, strong message to head off this potential disaster. Thanks.
Bonnie Moore
Bonita M. Moore, Ph.D.
Director, Adult & Community Education
Fairfax County Public Schools
www.fcps.edu/adult.htm
Building Community through Lifelong Learning Since 1955
-----Original Message-----
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Today's Topics:
1. RE: President's FY06 budget for AELS (Bickerton, Robert P)
2. President's Budget (Sondra Stein)
3. Re: President's FY06 budget for AELS (Amy R. Trawick)
4. RE: President's FY06 budget for AELS (DJRosen at TheWorld.com)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:00:42 -0500
From: "Bickerton, Robert P" <RBickerton at doe.mass.edu>
Subject: RE: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
To: "'National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE'"
<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Message-ID: <DE4FCD18CD7FD4118C8C00D0B774DDA411F8ACAC at doe.mass.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
David and Tom, et al,
We need to put the "PART" (program performance) numbers for adult education
into context. They did NOT arrive at most of these ratings by evaluating
the performance data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education by the
state ABE programs. In several cases they simply gave the ABE program a
zero rating on the criteria leading to the scores David lists below because
the Department's strategic plan does not provide a specific numeric target.
For example, they mention that state's report: of the students who had the
goal of obtaining a high school diploma or its equivalent, that 1/3 did so.
So, some might be tempted to ask, is this "good" or "bad" performance? The
rating authority never dealt with this question, instead assigning a "0"
because the strategic plan for adult education, also developed by the feds,
does not have an "established target."
In other words, what some are billing as "data based evidence" of inadequate
performance is nothing more than a bald attempt to stack the deck against
many programs to justify budget cuts. To put it mildly, the claims are
incredibly misleading -- they buried state performance under a thinly
disguised "technicality" to force an alleged finding of inadequate
performance.
We cannot and will not let this stand.
bob bickerton, MA director of adult ed & NCSDAE chair
-----Original Message-----
From: DJRosen at TheWorld.com [mailto:DJRosen at TheWorld.com]
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 3:54 PM
To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
Tom, and other colleagues,
It looks like the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) thinks Adult
Education State Grants have a very strong purpose and design, but don't
demonstrate good results.
Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)
2006 Budget
Department of Education Adult Education State Grants
Section
Score
1: Program Purpose and Design (20% weight) 100%
2: Planning (10% weight) 29%
3: Management (20% weight) 67%
4: Results (50% weight) 0%
Total Score %: 36%
Total Score:
36 Results Not Demonstrated
Source: http://www.transparentgovernment.org/tg/news/totalPART.htm
David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net
> Aaace-NLA colleagues: According to the U. S. Department of Education, the
> budget for the State Grants program that funds the Adult Education and
> Literacy System (AELS) for FY 2006 is $200million, a drop of some
> two-thirds from $570 in FY 2005. According to the message posted on the ED
> web site, this was done because the State Grants programs failed the PART
> analysis, which stands for Program Assessment Rating Tool. Following is a
> brief note about the PART analysis. More can be found online at
> www.transparentgovernment.org/tg/fyo5budget.htm.
> Tom Sticht
>
>
>
>
>
>
> What is PART?
> At the center of the Administration's approach to "performance budgeting"
> is the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The PART is a
> methodological, standardized and evidence-based evaluation - offering hard
> data on whether federal programs are doing what taxpayers are paying for
> them to do and assessing whether they are being managed properly.
>
> It investigates the most important aspects of performance... from
relevance
> to results. By focusing on these various characteristics, managers can
> paint an in-depth picture of just what exactly they are achieving, or if
> they are achieving anything at all! The results are presented by OMB as
> four different percentages (one for each section of the PART) and as a
> categorical assessment ("Effective," "Moderately Effective," "Adequate,"
> "Ineffective" or "Results Not Demonstrated").
>
> Each section of the PART is assigned a value at which it is weighted.
>
>
> Purpose: 20 percent
> Planning: 10 percent
> Management: 20 percent
> Results: 50 percent
>
>
> By focusing on these various characteristics, managers can paint an
> in-depth picture of just what exactly they are achieving, or if they are
> achieving anything at all. Across the board, the PART asks the same 25
> questions of each program. This standardization reduces the
> apples-to-oranges challenge of other evaluation systems and creates a
> wider source of management guidance for managers to take back and
> implement in their own programs. And the fact that PART is evidence-based
> - requiring proof of the results claimed by program officials -
> demonstrates to Congress the successes of the programs and justifies every
> penny of the budget allocation.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
> http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org
>
_______________________________________________
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------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:28:11 -0500
From: "Sondra Stein" <sondragay at verizon.net>
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] President's Budget
To: <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Message-ID: <NDBBLHCPEABBELGPEPCKGELCDNAA.sondragay at verizon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I just want to affirm Art Ellison's analysis of the source of the problem:
"We are dealing with an administration which is willing to sacrifice a high
quality educational program for a political goal: maximizing available
resources for the war and present/future tax cuts for the rich, while
cutting domestic spending to meet the goals of those who think that the
federal government should drastically reduce its commitment to programs that
support the poor. " Art Ellison
I spent two years at NIFL dealing with PART and can assure you that the
criteria in PART are not designed for educational programs. I am afraid
this is another case of "evidence" or the "lack of evidence" in the service
of ideology.
I think we are living through a time, like the 18th and early 19th centuries
in England when there was a belief that you could make a clear distinction
between the deserving and undeserving poor - and only widows and infants fit
into the deserving category. Right now, the administration philosophy seems
to be that if you need government services (education, health care, pension)
it's because you have failed (morally as well as materially) to provide for
your self and family. Let's hope that our Senators and Congress people
remember that the purpose of government is to serve all the people.
Sondra Stein
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:33:12 -0500
From: "Amy R. Trawick" <atrawick at charter.net>
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE"
<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Message-ID: <026801c50d65$01eb4120$3002a8c0 at ben2ut66kkx7o3>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
At
http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget06/summary/edlite-section2c.html,
there is a statement that reads: "A PART analysis of the program carried
out as part of the fiscal year 2004 budget process produced a Results Not
Demonstrated rating. The program was found to have a modest impact on adult
literacy, skill attainment and job placement, but data quality problems and
the lack of a national evaluation made it difficult to assess the program's
effectiveness."
The analysis itself is reported on a worksheet found at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/pma/adulteducation.xls.
Question: It seems to me that the analysis for Adult Education was carried
out several years ago--reported in Feb. 2003, using what seems to be 2001
data. The worksheet indicates that that the problem was that there were no
numerical targets, so although numbers were available regarding gains,
employment, etc., there were no targets to compare them to determine whether
these were "good" numbers or "bad" numbers. But since it has been several
years since the report first came out, surely targets have been developed at
OVAE, and a new analysis would improve the PART scores. Is there a later
PART analysis that I'm not seeing?
Amy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ellison, Art" <AEllison at ed.state.nh.us>
To: "'National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE'"
<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 4:31 PM
Subject: RE: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
To the list,
It is clear from the PART review that OMB never understood the Results
portion of their work. All of conclusions in that section of their report
rely on a staff person's judgment that "without established targets, it is
impossible to assess progress".
There are two relevant points here: one, there are 16 established targets
for every state, and two, each target is stated in a percentage rather than
a total number of students who will reach that goal. It appears that OMB
does not accept percentages as targets, only numbers.
There have been a great number of disagreements over the past few years
between adult educators and OMB on this matter however, it is clear to me
that the numbers, percentages are not the issue in this case.
We are dealing with an administration which is willing to sacrifice a high
quality educational program for a political goal: maximizing available
resources for the war and present/future tax cuts for the rich, while
cutting domestic spending to meet the goals of those who think that the
federal government should drastically reduce its commitment to programs that
support the poor. Art Ellison
-----Original Message-----
From: DJRosen at TheWorld.com [mailto:DJRosen at TheWorld.com]
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 3:54 PM
To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
Tom, and other colleagues,
It looks like the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) thinks Adult
Education State Grants have a very strong purpose and design, but don't
demonstrate good results.
Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)
2006 Budget
Department of Education Adult Education State Grants
Section
Score
1: Program Purpose and Design (20% weight) 100%
2: Planning (10% weight) 29%
3: Management (20% weight) 67%
4: Results (50% weight) 0%
Total Score %: 36%
Total Score:
36 Results Not Demonstrated
Source: http://www.transparentgovernment.org/tg/news/totalPART.htm
David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net
> Aaace-NLA colleagues: According to the U. S. Department of Education, the
> budget for the State Grants program that funds the Adult Education and
> Literacy System (AELS) for FY 2006 is $200million, a drop of some
> two-thirds from $570 in FY 2005. According to the message posted on the ED
> web site, this was done because the State Grants programs failed the PART
> analysis, which stands for Program Assessment Rating Tool. Following is a
> brief note about the PART analysis. More can be found online at
> www.transparentgovernment.org/tg/fyo5budget.htm.
> Tom Sticht
>
>
>
>
>
>
> What is PART?
> At the center of the Administration's approach to "performance budgeting"
> is the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The PART is a
> methodological, standardized and evidence-based evaluation - offering hard
> data on whether federal programs are doing what taxpayers are paying for
> them to do and assessing whether they are being managed properly.
>
> It investigates the most important aspects of performance... from
relevance
> to results. By focusing on these various characteristics, managers can
> paint an in-depth picture of just what exactly they are achieving, or if
> they are achieving anything at all! The results are presented by OMB as
> four different percentages (one for each section of the PART) and as a
> categorical assessment ("Effective," "Moderately Effective," "Adequate,"
> "Ineffective" or "Results Not Demonstrated").
>
> Each section of the PART is assigned a value at which it is weighted.
>
>
> Purpose: 20 percent
> Planning: 10 percent
> Management: 20 percent
> Results: 50 percent
>
>
> By focusing on these various characteristics, managers can paint an
> in-depth picture of just what exactly they are achieving, or if they are
> achieving anything at all. Across the board, the PART asks the same 25
> questions of each program. This standardization reduces the
> apples-to-oranges challenge of other evaluation systems and creates a
> wider source of management guidance for managers to take back and
> implement in their own programs. And the fact that PART is evidence-based
> - requiring proof of the results claimed by program officials -
> demonstrates to Congress the successes of the programs and justifies every
> penny of the budget allocation.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
> http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org
>
_______________________________________________
AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
http://literacytent.org
_______________________________________________
AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
http://literacytent.org
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:33:09 -0500 (EST)
From: DJRosen at TheWorld.com
Subject: RE: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE"
<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Cc: "'National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE'"
<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Message-ID: <49832.65.96.107.184.1107815589.squirrel at www.TheWorld.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
Thanks Bob and Art,
So the OMB analysis is a red herring* . As we -- adult learners and
practitioners together -- build an avalanche of responses it will be
helpful to have some talking points like this which help us to explain
what has actually happened.
David J. Rosen
djrosen at theworld.com
* From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
red herring
1 : a herring cured by salting and slow smoking to a dark brown color
2 [from the practice of drawing a red herring across a trail to confuse
hunting dogs] : something that distracts attention from the real issue
> David and Tom, et al,
>
> We need to put the "PART" (program performance) numbers for adult
> education
> into context. They did NOT arrive at most of these ratings by evaluating
> the performance data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education by the
> state ABE programs. In several cases they simply gave the ABE program a
> zero rating on the criteria leading to the scores David lists below
> because
> the Department's strategic plan does not provide a specific numeric
> target.
> For example, they mention that state's report: of the students who had
> the
> goal of obtaining a high school diploma or its equivalent, that 1/3 did
> so.
> So, some might be tempted to ask, is this "good" or "bad" performance?
> The
> rating authority never dealt with this question, instead assigning a "0"
> because the strategic plan for adult education, also developed by the
> feds,
> does not have an "established target."
>
> In other words, what some are billing as "data based evidence" of
> inadequate
> performance is nothing more than a bald attempt to stack the deck against
> many programs to justify budget cuts. To put it mildly, the claims are
> incredibly misleading -- they buried state performance under a thinly
> disguised "technicality" to force an alleged finding of inadequate
> performance.
>
> We cannot and will not let this stand.
> bob bickerton, MA director of adult ed & NCSDAE chair
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: DJRosen at TheWorld.com [mailto:DJRosen at TheWorld.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 3:54 PM
> To: National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE
> Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] President's FY06 budget for AELS
>
>
> Tom, and other colleagues,
>
> It looks like the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) thinks Adult
> Education State Grants have a very strong purpose and design, but don't
> demonstrate good results.
>
> Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)
> 2006 Budget
>
> Department of Education Adult Education State Grants
>
> Section
> Score
>
>
>
> 1: Program Purpose and Design (20% weight) 100%
> 2: Planning (10% weight) 29%
> 3: Management (20% weight) 67%
> 4: Results (50% weight) 0%
>
> Total Score %: 36%
> Total Score:
> 36 Results Not Demonstrated
>
> Source: http://www.transparentgovernment.org/tg/news/totalPART.htm
>
> David J. Rosen
> djrosen at comcast.net
>
>> Aaace-NLA colleagues: According to the U. S. Department of Education,
>> the
>> budget for the State Grants program that funds the Adult Education and
>> Literacy System (AELS) for FY 2006 is $200million, a drop of some
>> two-thirds from $570 in FY 2005. According to the message posted on the
>> ED
>> web site, this was done because the State Grants programs failed the
>> PART
>> analysis, which stands for Program Assessment Rating Tool. Following is
>> a
>> brief note about the PART analysis. More can be found online at
>> www.transparentgovernment.org/tg/fyo5budget.htm.
>> Tom Sticht
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> What is PART?
>> At the center of the Administration's approach to "performance
>> budgeting"
>> is the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The PART is a
>> methodological, standardized and evidence-based evaluation - offering
>> hard
>> data on whether federal programs are doing what taxpayers are paying for
>> them to do and assessing whether they are being managed properly.
>>
>> It investigates the most important aspects of performance... from
> relevance
>> to results. By focusing on these various characteristics, managers can
>> paint an in-depth picture of just what exactly they are achieving, or if
>> they are achieving anything at all! The results are presented by OMB as
>> four different percentages (one for each section of the PART) and as a
>> categorical assessment ("Effective," "Moderately Effective," "Adequate,"
>> "Ineffective" or "Results Not Demonstrated").
>>
>> Each section of the PART is assigned a value at which it is weighted.
>>
>>
>> Purpose: 20 percent
>> Planning: 10 percent
>> Management: 20 percent
>> Results: 50 percent
>>
>>
>> By focusing on these various characteristics, managers can paint an
>> in-depth picture of just what exactly they are achieving, or if they are
>> achieving anything at all. Across the board, the PART asks the same 25
>> questions of each program. This standardization reduces the
>> apples-to-oranges challenge of other evaluation systems and creates a
>> wider source of management guidance for managers to take back and
>> implement in their own programs. And the fact that PART is
>> evidence-based
>> - requiring proof of the results claimed by program officials -
>> demonstrates to Congress the successes of the programs and justifies
>> every
>> penny of the budget allocation.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
>> http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
>> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
>> http://literacytent.org
>>
> _______________________________________________
> AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
> http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org
> _______________________________________________
> AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
> http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org
>
------------------------------
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