FYI, the Institute on Community Integration Staff Newsletter

June 2011

NCEO Improving Validity of Assessment Results for ELLs with Disabilities

State departments of education are making an effort to improve the ways in which English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities are included in state accountability tests. However, they still struggle with a variety of issues that affect the validity of assessment results for these students. The issues include test accessibility, appropriate assessment participation and accommodations decision-making, and accurate score interpretation. Using federal funding, a consortium of education departments from five states has awarded a $1.6 million, 17-month subcontract to the Institute on Community Integration’s National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) to address the validity of those test results in a project known as Improving the Validity of Assessment Results for English Language Learners with Disabilities (IVARED).

Principal investigators for the project, which began April 1, 2011, are Martha Thurlow, Laurene Christensen, and Kristi Liu of NCEO, along with Cheryl Alcaya from the Minnesota Department of Education, which leads the consortium of states. Staff from the Maine, Michigan, Arizona, and Washington state departments of education also work on the project. “This project emphasizes a rapidly growing population of students with disabilities whose unique needs are often overlooked in educational improvement efforts,” says Kristi. “More accurate test results for ELLs with disabilities will provide educators with better information that they can use to increase access to the grade-level curriculum.”

The IVARED team will examine state data, policies, and practices for ELLs with disabilities to achieve these objectives:

  • Identify and describe each state’s population of ELLs with disabilities and relate those descriptions to students’ assessment performance.
  • Describe students’ inclusion in state assessment policies.
  • Identify, via expert panel, promising practices for participation, accommodations, and test score interpretation decisions.
  • Strengthen the knowledge base of assessment decision makers to improve assessment decisions.
  • Disseminate project results within states and nationally.

Through these activities, the five consortia states will be able to develop improved validity arguments for their assessments and assessment practices for ELLs with disabilities. This will improve the assessment systems that measure these students’ achievement.

The materials developed by the team will become the basis for an online training module on large-scale assessment of ELLs with disabilities that can be customized to each partner state’s requirements. The online training module and other project materials will be shared with other state departments of education through publications and presentations at professional meetings.

IVARED is funded as part of an Enhanced Assessment grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, to the Minnesota Department of Education. FFI about the project, contact Martha at thurl010@umn.edu, Laurene at chri1010@umn.edu or Kristi at kline010@umn.edu.