English Learners (EL) Support and Assessment Process

The purpose of assessment should be to help schools know exactly how every individual English learner is progressing. Assessment systems should help us determine the following:

• Are English learners meeting the grade level standards (i.e. learning all core curriculum)?
• Are English learners acquiring English?
• Are English learners learning academic language to take them successfully to the university?
• Are English learners developing their primary language?
• Are English learners attaining multicultural knowledge?
• And, are schools doing all of this in a systematic, well-articulated manner aligned with their responsibilities for assisting English learners in reaching or surpassing grade-level standards?

True assessment of English learners' progress must include multiple measures and on-going assessment. Data on English learners must be collected from a variety of sources: from both standardized and non-standardized measures (i.e. authentic assessments).

The CELDT and Aprenda 3 tests, the state-adopted assessments for English learners, are both standardized assessment instruments that provide general information about student progress. They are instruments for holding school systems responsible for student learning, however, they cannot inform instruction on a daily basis.

Authentic assessments, on the other hand, are more closely linked to classroom instruction. They include multiple measures such as: teacher observation and anecdotal records, portfolios with actual student work, interviews, criterion-referenced tests, reading/writing inventories, rubrics and benchmarks.

Authentic assessments provide feedback which teachers can immediately apply to their teaching. They empower both the teacher and the English learners themselves to know exactly how close they are to meeting the identified standards.