Measures and Methods for the National Reporting System for Adult Education

For more than 15 years, AIR has led the National Reporting System (NRS) for Adult Education for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE). AIR developed the adult education accountability system—the NRS—and from its inception developed a parallel line of technical assistance activities to ensure its effective implementation and use. This work included the development of measures; reporting forms, specifications, and guidelines; instructional guides on all topics related to the forms; and significant training around the system, which recently received the highest rating of any ED program for customer satisfaction.

As part of the third phase of the NRS, the Enhancing Performance through Accountability project, beginning in 2008, AIR continued to improve data quality, use, and monitoring through the NRS, and helped implement federally-mandated changes to the NRS. AIR assisted the Division of Adult Education and Literacy, OVAE, in managing the NRS and supported states with training and technical assistance on NRS. This work included training states and local programs to effectively use performance data to evaluate and improve the delivery of instructional services to adults. Furthermore, AIR analyzed annual state performance data to assist OVAE in determining how well states performed on core measures.

NRS provides national and regional training institutes, hosts webinars for state and local program providers, supports the development of learning communities, develops resource guides and “how to” manuals, and offers technical assistance to states via on-site and distance communication on a range of topics related to data collection, quality, monitoring, and use.