In the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District has achieved a startling success over the last two years: it has recovered and graduated over 600 dropouts and put them on a clear pathway to college. Just a few years ago, low graduation rates, struggling high schools, and poor staff and student morale…

Boston's Diploma Plus program helps 16- to 22-year-old dropouts gain the skills and confidence necessary for graduation, continued education, and work. The program establishes high expectations, enlivens teaching and learning, measures progress by actual performance, and builds in continuous assessment and challenging postsecondary experiences.…

This report details the development of a program for the short-term training of security guards, including conceptual, instructional, and administrative concerns. It is designed to serve as a model for other similar retraining programs. The original objectives of the program were outlined as being (1) the removal of persons from the category of…

Outcomes of the Performance-Based Diploma (BPD) Program, a program implemented at a high school in the southeast United States, are described in this paper. The basic elements for success are people, program design, and product. Staff function on the belief that teachers exist to meet students' needs. The program includes the following components:…

This paper describes the conduct and the results of an evaluability assessment of the Adult Education Program, PL 91-230. It presents the findings on the intended program, the actual program, the plausibility of the objectives, the measurement of the objectives, and the program evaluability and options for improvement. (Author/LMO)

One of four products of the 1984-85 National Evaluation Project to compile baseline data on characteristics and impacts of High School Equivalency Programs (HEP) and College Assistance for Migrants Programs (CAMP), this report presents a brief overview of the goals, basic research design, and summary of the evaluation project products and a…

The Adult Performance Level (APL) Competency-Based High School Diploma (CBHSD) Program in Texas is briefly described. The program was developed as a flexible and effective alternative to a conventional high school diploma program and to the General Educational Development (GED) test. Program goals are expressed as competency outcomes which are…

The University of Texas Pilot Program was operated in five sites in Texas (Abilene, Brownsville, El Paso, Houston, and Temple) to demonstrate the utility of competency-based high school diplomas for Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) clients. Included among the program features common to all five sites were the following: (1) the…

Designed to provide mature adults in an urban setting with an alternative to the high school diploma, the External High School Diploma Program of the District of Columbia is a systematic assessment of an individual's demonstrated competencies in the four generalized life skills areas of health, social/political, consumer/producer, and career…

When it was discovered that fewer than 75 residents in urban subsidized housing communities were enrolled in the adult programs at Pensacola Junior College, it was decided to develop an outreach program to extend the college's services to 650 illiterate, indigent, and unemployed adults in these communities. The program was operated out of mobile…

This paper is a descriptive presentation of the state-of-the-art of competency-based adult education (CBAE). Readers are provided first with a brief history of the development of the concept and are presented with basic terminology. Then, because CBAE is multi-dimensional, varied notions of functional adult education are discussed and major…

This report presents findings regarding design and implementation of school-to-work (STW) efforts in Job Corps Model Centers. Following an introduction, Chapter two argues that Jobs Corps constitutes a natural context for implementing STW systems because its traditional practices to some degree provide a solid foundation on which to lay STW…

The New York Public Library Centers for Reading and Writing developed a Saturday writing class for adult literacy students. The class design also provided an opportunity to train volunteers and professional teachers in this model of writing instruction. One project goal was to formulate suggestions for others setting up such courses, which follow.…

The Orange County, Florida, Corrections Division provides unusually intensive educational and vocational programs to most inmates in its 3,300-bed jail. A staff of 70 full-time instructors provide the following services: adult basic education, preparation for the general equivalency diploma, vocational training, life skills development, women's…

Despite the fact that, of all the 50 states, Utah has the highest percentage of state and local government expenditures for education and the highest proportion of adults who have graduated from high school, one out of every five adults in Utah lacks basic literacy skills. At present, the following adult literacy programs offer instruction in…