Until recently a crosswalk was something I instructed my children to be sure to use when going from one side of a busy street to another. Traffic laws assure me that pedestrians poised at a curb before the painted bar on the pavement are guaranteed safe crossing.

Now, it seems crosswalk has gone the way of eyeball and impact. It has become a verb, and a transitive one at that. Recently, ABE and adult ESOL practitioners needed to crosswalk the results of their students' assessments. Simply put, they needed to compare the results of their own assessments with the proficiency levels described by the National Reporting System (NRS). The comparison is the crosswalk and by using it one can demonstrate compliance with federal regulations while at the same time evaluate learners' strengths and weaknesses in meaningful ways.

For both ABE and ESOL the NRS describes six "educational functioning levels" in three categories. For ABE those categories are Basic Reading and Writing, Numeracy, and Functional and Workplace Skills. For ESOL, Speaking and Listening replace Numeracy. A chart describes each level in terms of a learner's general abilities and weaknesses. The levels range from Beginning ABE Literacy to High Adult Secondary Education and from Beginning ESL Literacy to High Advanced ESL. For each level the chart also lists correlating scores for several standardized tests.

But assessment and the NRS don't have a copyright on crosswalks. In fact, the term has become useful with regard to a number of teaching elements. Recently, for example, Central SABES offered a series of workshops that crosswalked the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks to the national standards initiative, Equipped for the Future. Participants engaged in identifying and comparing the common ground between the two, as well as their uniqueness.

The next step in the assessment crosswalk adventure will be undertaken by the working group that the DOE will convene in January 2001. For 18 months the prac-titioners and other stakeholders in the group will thoroughly explore a range of standardized procedures that appropriately crosswalk to the NRS proficiency levels. The crosswalks of the individual programs in recent months was a preliminary stroll. Now ABE in Massachusetts stands poised on the curb of a busier street, determined to traverse safely to the other side with an assessment that enables funders to justify their investment, programs to continuously improve their services, and learners to observe their progress in a meaningful way. Controlling the traffic is the crosswalk talk. The time has come to walk the walk and talk the talk, the crosswalk talk.

Jeri Bayer is the Curriculum Coordinator for Northeast SABES. She can be reached by email at jeribayer@aol.com