The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) recognizes the role that its Comprehensive After School System (COMPASS) programs can play in supporting the educational success of youth, including literacy development. Since 2011, DYCD has required COMPASS programs to offer at least two hours a week of either literacy or…

This document describes the procedures for and results of the external evaluation of the workplace literacy program for underemployed garment industry workers with low English skills at Chinatown Manpower Project, Inc. in Chinatown in New York City. The document describes the evaluation design and methodology as well as the evaluation results,…

An outgrowth of several previous projects conducted by the Illinois Literacy Resource Development Center (ILRDC), the Quality Programs Project is a collaborative effort to improve the quality of literacy services in the Chicago area. A long-term investment in quality programming at the local level, the Quality Programs Project has as its primary…

The Chinatown Manpower Workplace Literacy Program was funded by the United States Department from November 1, 1993 to April 30, 1995. The program consisted of three 18-week cycles, each comprised of 50 hours of instruction of garment-related English and English as a Second Language aimed at upgrading the literacy level of Chinese workers;…

The study described in this issue of "Look at Even Start" evaluated the Staff Mentoring Sites program, a mentoring program provided as technical assistance in Even Start family literacy programs. Staff from five Even Start programs with successful family recruitment and retention records were selected as mentors. Requests for nominations…

This paper reports results of a research study linked to the effort of preparing teachers involved in literacy programs for a large adult population of non-native speakers of English in the state of Texas. Because of a state-initiated plan in Texas, the "Indicators of Program Quality for Adult Education and Literacy," extensive…

Illinois received one of six 2-year National Institute for Literacy grants to create statewide interagency staff development systems for literacy. After a staff development plan has been developed/implemented, a needs assessment process is developed that entails the following five steps: determine indicators of program quality and develop…

In its third year of funding, Project VITAL (Volunteers In Training Act and Learn) was designed to provide literacy training to 500 librarians, coordinators, and volunteers working in literacy programs. Through the techniques of improvisational theater, structured scenarios were enacted dealing with illiteracy, women's concerns of domestic…

A workplace literacy project to prepare Houston Lighting and Power Company employees for the commercial driver's licence (CDL) exam was evaluated. The following four components of Steele's (1990) evaluation model were used to evaluate the project: proof of effect, judgment against criteria, critical questions, and valuing. The evaluation revealed…

EQUAL (Educational Quality or Adult Literacy) is Pennsylvania's program improvement initiative that measures performance by the quality of education learners receive. For 3 years, Project EQUAL was piloted in adult education agencies throughout the state. Beginning in 1997, the pilot projects helped to develop a process for continuous program…

Basic issues in workplace education evaluation can be structured into five discussion questions. The first is who wants to know what information for what purpose. The "who" constitutes the program's stakeholders both at and beyond the program level. Further inquiry is then needed to determine what kind of information these stakeholders typically…

Intended for use by individuals involved in the operation of adult literacy programs, this handbook is a compilation of the successful operational procedures that some of the directors of the Right to Read Reading Academies have used in administering their respective programs. It also attempts to address the programmatic concerns that program…

This guidebook presents a collaborative or team-based model of workplace basic education. It is written particularly for practitioners--the adult educators and company and union representatives who do the work of planning, carrying out, and evaluating basic skills-related activities in the workplace. Chapter 1 provides background, assumptions that…

This guidebook highlights important components involved in establishing and monitoring a successful workplace education program (WEP). Chapter 1, Workplace Education, addresses the changing educational workplace; recognizing need for workplace education; and a new educational model for workplace learning that focuses on integration of basic…

This handbook (in English and French editions) presents training in its broadest sense, highlighting its function of providing trainees both with theoretical foundations and with instrumental competencies to carry out the roles and duties of middle and grassroots level adult educators. It constitutes an attempt to present various experiences and…