	November/December, 2005
NCLB Requirements Prompt Changes in ELL Assessment By Ines Alicea, ELL Outlook™ Staff Writer As the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) enters its fifth year, many states grapple with the drastic changes they have undergone in order to comply with the law and look ahead at what still needs to be done to ensure that English Language Learners (ELLs) develop language proficiency and succeed academically. Prior to NCLB, individual states decided whether and how to assess ELLs. Dr. Margo Gottlieb, director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center in Des Plaines, Illinois, which provides professional development and technical assistance to school districts, describes the situation: ELLs were often exempted from state academic testing, and the few commercial tests for English proficiency available from publishers were dated and not based on the current population of ELLs in the United States. Moreover, when English proficiency testing was done, it often did not address all four areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Test scores for listening and speaking might be combined into one score, which failed to let educators know if an ELL needed help in one or both areas. Few states had English language development standards prior to 2001, and educators focused on the "social language" proficiency of ELLs rather than on their proficiency in academic English. "There was a wide variety of tests and accountability wasn't well defined," said Gottlieb. The passage of NCLB required states to take numerous steps to ensure that all students were succeeding academically. States were called upon to create English language development standards and English language proficiency assessments to annually assess the English language proficiency gains of ELLs in reading, writing, speaking, and listening as separate skills. States were pushed to teach ELLs both conversational and academic English. Under the law, states are held accountable for the English language proficiency and academic achievement of ELL students. State educational agencies (SEAs) are required to establish annual measurable objectives (annual goals that states and districts set for achievement) for English language proficiency and report gains in a consistent manner to demonstrate that students are meeting those objectives. Moreover, all students, including ELLs, must participate in state assessments for academic proficiency. Gottlieb said that more changes lie ahead for states in this arena. The movement toward standards and assessments for ELLs is pushing states to consolidate their efforts, a step that Gottlieb said can be positive because it allows states to work together, pool human and financial resources, create "the same yardstick" for measuring growth in the language proficiency of ELLs, and provide more of a national perspective on educating ELLs. Some of the other trends Gottlieb sees include: •a stronger focus on explicitly teaching the academic language of literature, mathematics, science, and social studies, which will encourage all teachers to undertake professional development training so they understand how to educate ELLs; •a push toward endorsing fewer English language proficiency tests so ELLs are exposed to a similar academic experience across the country; •an effort to align English language proficiency standards with grade-level and academic content standards. One group of states has joined forces to create English language proficiency standards and an assessment system that could revolutionize how language progress is measured. The World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium is a group of 9 states (Wisconsin, Delaware, Arkansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Illinois, and Alabama) plus the District of Columbia that has developed English language proficiency standards and an English language proficiency test, titled Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners (ACCESS for ELLs). Gottlieb is lead developer of standards for the consortium. "We go way beyond what is required under No Child Left Behind," she said. "We go beyond testing. We have developed a comprehensive assessment system. We have developed our own English language proficiency standards. Our goal is to provide information and feedback to the teachers to improve the curriculum and instruction." WIDA's work is indeed groundbreaking because it addresses academic proficiency in content areas for English language learners. Moreover, it is driving the national dialogue on what English learners are taught and how they are assessed. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), the international organization of ELL teachers, created its own Pre-K-12 English Language Proficiency Standards in the Core Content Areas, using the framework developed by WIDA. TESOL expects to publish the document in January. "This standards framework is a model for states and districts to use in how to address the additional academic language requirements English language learners need to succeed in school," said Dr. Timothy J. Boals, WIDA consortium director, in an interview with TESOL. "I hope that, in providing staff development for all teachers, the new TESOL standards, like our WIDA standards, can guide the teaching of language through content and with content, allowing regular classroom teachers to develop the high-level awareness of language necessary to assist their English language learners with the English of their specific academic subjects." The WIDA consortium was established through a federal enhancement grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to develop a K-12 English proficiency test. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in turn invited other states to participate in this effort. WIDA's member states represent nearly 270,000 ELLs in kindergarten through grade 12, and include about 1,200 school districts. Many organizations and universities have also been involved, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Language Testing Division at the Center for Applied Linguistics, the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, the Beta Group, and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. ACCESS for ELLs is a large-scale test that reflects standards established by the member states. These standards incorporate a set of model performance indicators that describe the expectations educators have of ELL students at four different grade-level clusters and in five different content areas. The grade-level clusters are K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The five content areas are English language arts, math, science, social studies, and social and instructional language, which incorporates proficiencies needed to deal with the general language of the classroom and the school. "The assessments provide more targeted information on the student's performance," said Gottlieb. For each grade level, the standards specify one or more performance indicators for each content area within each of the four language domains: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. Students are assessed for their proficiency level in each of these domains along a continuum of language development that WIDA created: Level 1 (Entering,) Level 2 (Beginning,) Level 3 (Developing,) Level 4 (Expanding), and Level 5 (Bridging). There is also a Level 6 for students who are considered to have exited ELL status. According to the document "Understanding the ACCESS for ELLs English Language Proficiency Test" on WIDA's Web site (http://www.wida.us/ACCESSForELLs/), "These levels describe the spectrum of a learner's progression from knowing little to no English to acquiring the English skills necessary to be successful in an English-only mainstream classroom without extra support. . . . In this way, we can better assure that as a child progresses through the grades and in English proficiency, we get an accurate picture of his or her real advances from year to year." The ACCESS for ELLs test battery is a collection of assessment instruments administered to all ELL students across all grades and all proficiencies. Based on the information they have about students' language proficiency, including performance on other language tests, teachers will place students into the test tier that best matches their current language proficiency. To facilitate this process, the WIDA consortium is completing a screener that will become part of the full test battery when the test becomes operational. Each test form centers on a theme and three to six test items. The test is arranged in this way to give students a context for the items they are presented with and to minimize the cognitive leaps they have to make in transitioning from math items to language arts items to science items, and so on. "Students see questions that are related," said Gottlieb. "No items are unrelated." While each test instrument targets a certain grade-level cluster and range of proficiencies, each test instrument also aligns with all the other instruments in the battery through the sharing of some items across the different grade-level clusters. Each instrument thus measures a certain segment of a common academic English proficiency measurement scale. Gottlieb said the assessment system developed by WIDA offers several benefits. With the prior generation of language proficiency tests, the same test was given to students repeatedly, and tests were not secure because access to them was readily available. WIDA plans to revamp their tests annually, and also wants to secure the assessments so they are accessible only to those states giving the tests. NCLB requires that students make adequate yearly progress in meeting state educational standards at the school, district, and state levels. WIDA argues that ACCESS for ELLs is a good instrument to measure and report ELLs' growth in English language proficiency and academic achievement in a consistent manner. In addition to English language proficiency testing, ELLs are required to participate in the same annual academic testing that is mandated for all students. The results of this testing are reported not just in the aggregate, but also within designated subgroups defined by race, socioeconomic status, disability status, and limited English proficiency. Since each subgroup is required to meet annual yearly progress goals, the attainment of English language proficiency to successfully take and pass the state's mandated academic achievement tests in English is essential. ACCESS for ELLs will be a tool to measure ELLs readiness to take part in large-scale state assessments in English with or without accommodations. Development of the ACCESS for ELLs test began in the fall of 2003, following the completion of the standards. Teachers from consortium states contributed items that eventually formed pilot tests. Those pilot tests were administered in Wisconsin, Illinois, and the District of Columbia. After the pilot tests, each item on the tests was reviewed for content accuracy and appropriateness and for cultural and linguistic bias. According to WIDA's Web site: "The purpose of piloting is to establish whether and how well the test procedures work. It also serves to give the test developers an idea of how different types of items perform and whether the test, as designed, shows a good likelihood of successfully discriminating language proficiency." Gottlieb said that three states launched the testing in the spring of 2005, and six more are scheduled to use the tests in the spring of 2006. That, she hopes, is only the beginning. The consortium would also like to develop an assessment for academic achievement of ELLs, an assessment for disabled ELLs, and an assessment for students who have exited language proficiency programs for ELLs, since NCLB requires that students be monitored for two years after they have exited a program. "There will be glitches along the way," said Gottlieb. "We're not a testing company. We're a consortium. We're involved in a paradigm shift. We're adopting new policies. Everything we did was groundbreaking." If you have any comments about this article or questions for for the author, please send them to: alex@coursecrafters.com.
Copyright © 2005 Course Crafters, Inc.® All rights reserved.

November/December, 2005

NCLB Requirements Prompt Changes in ELL Assessment

By Ines Alicea, ELL Outlook™ Staff Writer

As the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) enters its fifth year, many states grapple with the drastic changes they have undergone in order to comply with the law and look ahead at what still needs to be done to ensure that English Language Learners (ELLs) develop language proficiency and succeed academically.

Prior to NCLB, individual states decided whether and how to assess ELLs. Dr. Margo Gottlieb, director of assessment and evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center in Des Plaines, Illinois, which provides professional development and technical assistance to school districts, describes the situation: ELLs were often exempted from state academic testing, and the few commercial tests for English proficiency available from publishers were dated and not based on the current population of ELLs in the United States. Moreover, when English proficiency testing was done, it often did not address all four areas of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Test scores for listening and speaking might be combined into one score, which failed to let educators know if an ELL needed help in one or both areas. Few states had English language development standards prior to 2001, and educators focused on the "social language" proficiency of ELLs rather than on their proficiency in academic English. "There was a wide variety of tests and accountability wasn't well defined," said Gottlieb.

The passage of NCLB required states to take numerous steps to ensure that all students were succeeding academically. States were called upon to create English language development standards and English language proficiency assessments to annually assess the English language proficiency gains of ELLs in reading, writing, speaking, and listening as separate skills. States were pushed to teach ELLs both conversational and academic English. Under the law, states are held accountable for the English language proficiency and academic achievement of ELL students. State educational agencies (SEAs) are required to establish annual measurable objectives (annual goals that states and districts set for achievement) for English language proficiency and report gains in a consistent manner to demonstrate that students are meeting those objectives. Moreover, all students, including ELLs, must participate in state assessments for academic proficiency.

Gottlieb said that more changes lie ahead for states in this arena. The movement toward standards and assessments for ELLs is pushing states to consolidate their efforts, a step that Gottlieb said can be positive because it allows states to work together, pool human and financial resources, create "the same yardstick" for measuring growth in the language proficiency of ELLs, and provide more of a national perspective on educating ELLs.

Some of the other trends Gottlieb sees include:
•a stronger focus on explicitly teaching the academic language of literature, mathematics, science, and social studies, which will encourage all teachers to undertake professional development training so they understand how to educate ELLs;
•a push toward endorsing fewer English language proficiency tests so ELLs are exposed to a similar academic experience across the country;
•an effort to align English language proficiency standards with grade-level and academic content standards.

One group of states has joined forces to create English language proficiency standards and an assessment system that could revolutionize how language progress is measured. The World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium is a group of 9 states (Wisconsin, Delaware, Arkansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Illinois, and Alabama) plus the District of Columbia that has developed English language proficiency standards and an English language proficiency test, titled Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners (ACCESS for ELLs).

Gottlieb is lead developer of standards for the consortium. "We go way beyond what is required under No Child Left Behind," she said. "We go beyond testing. We have developed a comprehensive assessment system. We have developed our own English language proficiency standards. Our goal is to provide information and feedback to the teachers to improve the curriculum and instruction."

WIDA's work is indeed groundbreaking because it addresses academic proficiency in content areas for English language learners. Moreover, it is driving the national dialogue on what English learners are taught and how they are assessed. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), the international organization of ELL teachers, created its own Pre-K-12 English Language Proficiency Standards in the Core Content Areas, using the framework developed by WIDA. TESOL expects to publish the document in January.

"This standards framework is a model for states and districts to use in how to address the additional academic language requirements English language learners need to succeed in school," said Dr. Timothy J. Boals, WIDA consortium director, in an interview with TESOL. "I hope that, in providing staff development for all teachers, the new TESOL standards, like our WIDA standards, can guide the teaching of language through content and with content, allowing regular classroom teachers to develop the high-level awareness of language necessary to assist their English language learners with the English of their specific academic subjects."

The WIDA consortium was established through a federal enhancement grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to develop a K-12 English proficiency test. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in turn invited other states to participate in this effort. WIDA's member states represent nearly 270,000 ELLs in kindergarten through grade 12, and include about 1,200 school districts. Many organizations and universities have also been involved, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Language Testing Division at the Center for Applied Linguistics, the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, the Beta Group, and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

ACCESS for ELLs is a large-scale test that reflects standards established by the member states. These standards incorporate a set of model performance indicators that describe the expectations educators have of ELL students at four different grade-level clusters and in five different content areas. The grade-level clusters are K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The five content areas are English language arts, math, science, social studies, and social and instructional language, which incorporates proficiencies needed to deal with the general language of the classroom and the school. "The assessments provide more targeted information on the student's performance," said Gottlieb.

For each grade level, the standards specify one or more performance indicators for each content area within each of the four language domains: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. Students are assessed for their proficiency level in each of these domains along a continuum of language development that WIDA created: Level 1 (Entering,) Level 2 (Beginning,) Level 3 (Developing,) Level 4 (Expanding), and Level 5 (Bridging). There is also a Level 6 for students who are considered to have exited ELL status.

According to the document "Understanding the ACCESS for ELLs English Language Proficiency Test" on WIDA's Web site (http://www.wida.us/ACCESSForELLs/), "These levels describe the spectrum of a learner's progression from knowing little to no English to acquiring the English skills necessary to be successful in an English-only mainstream classroom without extra support. . . . In this way, we can better assure that as a child progresses through the grades and in English proficiency, we get an accurate picture of his or her real advances from year to year."

The ACCESS for ELLs test battery is a collection of assessment instruments administered to all ELL students across all grades and all proficiencies. Based on the information they have about students' language proficiency, including performance on other language tests, teachers will place students into the test tier that best matches their current language proficiency. To facilitate this process, the WIDA consortium is completing a screener that will become part of the full test battery when the test becomes operational.

Each test form centers on a theme and three to six test items. The test is arranged in this way to give students a context for the items they are presented with and to minimize the cognitive leaps they have to make in transitioning from math items to language arts items to science items, and so on. "Students see questions that are related," said Gottlieb. "No items are unrelated."

While each test instrument targets a certain grade-level cluster and range of proficiencies, each test instrument also aligns with all the other instruments in the battery through the sharing of some items across the different grade-level clusters. Each instrument thus measures a certain segment of a common academic English proficiency measurement scale.

Gottlieb said the assessment system developed by WIDA offers several benefits. With the prior generation of language proficiency tests, the same test was given to students repeatedly, and tests were not secure because access to them was readily available. WIDA plans to revamp their tests annually, and also wants to secure the assessments so they are accessible only to those states giving the tests.

NCLB requires that students make adequate yearly progress in meeting state educational standards at the school, district, and state levels. WIDA argues that ACCESS for ELLs is a good instrument to measure and report ELLs' growth in English language proficiency and academic achievement in a consistent manner. In addition to English language proficiency testing, ELLs are required to participate in the same annual academic testing that is mandated for all students. The results of this testing are reported not just in the aggregate, but also within designated subgroups defined by race, socioeconomic status, disability status, and limited English proficiency. Since each subgroup is required to meet annual yearly progress goals, the attainment of English language proficiency to successfully take and pass the state's mandated academic achievement tests in English is essential. ACCESS for ELLs will be a tool to measure ELLs readiness to take part in large-scale state assessments in English with or without accommodations.

Development of the ACCESS for ELLs test began in the fall of 2003, following the completion of the standards. Teachers from consortium states contributed items that eventually formed pilot tests. Those pilot tests were administered in Wisconsin, Illinois, and the District of Columbia. After the pilot tests, each item on the tests was reviewed for content accuracy and appropriateness and for cultural and linguistic bias.

According to WIDA's Web site: "The purpose of piloting is to establish whether and how well the test procedures work. It also serves to give the test developers an idea of how different types of items perform and whether the test, as designed, shows a good likelihood of successfully discriminating language proficiency."

Gottlieb said that three states launched the testing in the spring of 2005, and six more are scheduled to use the tests in the spring of 2006. That, she hopes, is only the beginning. The consortium would also like to develop an assessment for academic achievement of ELLs, an assessment for disabled ELLs, and an assessment for students who have exited language proficiency programs for ELLs, since NCLB requires that students be monitored for two years after they have exited a program.

"There will be glitches along the way," said Gottlieb. "We're not a testing company. We're a consortium. We're involved in a paradigm shift. We're adopting new policies. Everything we did was groundbreaking."

If you have any comments about this article or questions for for the author, please send them to: alex@coursecrafters.com.