No Child Left Behind and WIDA

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) and corresponding state statutes mandate that states annually administer a standards-based English language proficiency test to all English language learners (ELLs) in kindergarten through grade twelve in public schools. Further, State educational agencies (SEAs) are responsible for reporting student English language proficiency levels to the United States Department of Education and, in some states, SEAs must report to their respective governors, legislatures, and school districts the results of this English language proficiency test with data presented for each school and district as a whole.

Most states currently have policies regarding the assessment of students' English language proficiency and their subsequent placement into ESL or bilingual services as needed and/or available. However, many commercially available tests do not meet the stringent requirements of NCLB whereas the WIDA Consortium's ACCESS for ELLs^® test not only meets, but exceeds, these requirements. The WIDA Consortium member states, therefore, have adopted the ACCESS for ELLs^® as the instrument to annually assess ELLs for the purposes of measuring annual gains in English language proficiency--Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAOs)--and for accountability. The WIDA Consortium has established proficiency definitions and levels from 1 - 6 with level 6 representing a student who is no longer an English language learner. Most states currently use level 5 with multiple confirmatory measures as their standard for "Exit" from program services. Since the test is linked to these levels, all WIDA states use the same levels and definitions. States are free to set their own Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAOs) in English from the WIDA levels.

The ACCESS test is vertically scaled, tests the four required domains, and reports in a fifth domain known as comprehension which is a composite of reading and listening. It is aligned with standards that reflect the classroom language of mathematics, science, reading and language arts subjects. It is also aligned to the language of social studies although this is not required under NCLB.

In addition, NCLB requires that all students, including ELLs, in grades 3-8 and once in high school be assessed for academic achievement. The results of these assessments are also reported to federal and state governments as key factors in determining Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Furthermore, because all students must be assessed for academic achievement, the Consortium states are developing a system to assess students whose level of English language proficiency is too low to meaningfully participate in regular state assessments. In most states, the results of this assessment - ONPAR™ - will be reported for determining Adequate Yearly Progress for accountability purposes