LACES Overview

Uniquely suited to the needs of literacy providers, LACES pulls together the many variables that impact your program’s effectiveness and support its financial footing.

Literacy, Adult and Community Education System (LACES) software is a completely new application designed for the particular needs of state-level and local providers of volunteer literacy programs, adult basic education programs, and correctional education.

For example, the task of data entry has long been major issue for local agencies. LACES permits simultaneous data entry by multiple staff. LACES is interoperable with other systems and allows data to be imported or exported. LACES is designed to work with technologies that can improve the speed of data entry, including telephone touch-key, voice recognition, bar coding, and scannable forms.

Both state agencies and local providers are concerned with the quality of their data. LACES includes validation of data entry that goes beyond simple numerical range-checking. LACES has a business rules engine that encodes and enforces institutional/organizational policies. Aside from common-sense rules like preventing double enrollment in classes, LACES is designed to provide users with feedback designed to ensure:

• Proper student eligibility
• Appropriate short- and long-term goals for participants
• Tracking of participant activities spanning multiple activities
• Appropriate assessments are given
• Outcome reporting

LACES measures program performance outcomes, including:

• Retention of participants in programs as measured by contact hours
• Employment of participants
• Reduction in public aid to participants
• Increase in pre- to post-test score of participants
• Attainment of GED
• Discipline referrals
• Partnerships with, referrals to other programs, certified service providers
• Meeting local, state, federal educational standards
• “Side” metrics: drop out, graduation rates