In March 2021, the National Reporting System (NRS) for Adult Education published the Technical Assistance Guide for Performance Accountability under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

Appendix B of this document contains the New Educational Functioning Level Descriptors for Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language.* 

These level descriptors are intended to guide teaching and assessment. They form the basis of the NRS standardized assessments, which are used to measure learner gain.

This resource is specifically provided for participants in the Foundations for New Staff online course; however, it is an equally valuable resource for all adult educators.

*Note: In Massachusetts, we use the term English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) rather than English as a Second Language (ESL) to acknowledge that many students are already multi-lingual when they come to our programs, and thus English is not necessarily their "second" language.