We used to think...
acquiring separate performance measures for both languages - often captured in a singular literacy assessment - was sufficient to measure student achievement.
Now we know...
teachers use concrete, actionable, and relevant data from a wide array of assessments (diagnostics, screeners, formative, student interviews and observations etc.), and assessments analyze the intersection of the students’ languages, including the strategic use of assessments in each language.
Best Practice Strategies
To cultivate a supportive multi-language learning environment:
School Leaders
Foster a culture of actionable data analysis. Data is leveraged to identify strengths, set goals, determine trends, and prioritize and plan supports. District literacy data review protocols triangulate literacy data with ML and English language proficiency data, including students EL typology.
Understand literacy data and how it can or cannot be used for MLs. Invest in school-wide data teams with high quality protocols that drill down specifically to look at MLs. Data is reviewed routinely for vertical alignment.
Create an assessment calendar that supports teachers. Schools support teachers to integrate any additional assessments for MLs in ways that are manageable within the assessment calendar
Teachers
Maintain appropriate pacing and accountability through predetermined data/assessment review checkpoints.
Resources
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Video・Transforming High School
This video highlights the importance of engaging students through texts that are relatable and tied to their culture, in order to develop a love of reading.
Websites
Biliteracy and Assessment Podcast
Podcast・Amplify Education, Inc.
Measuring What We Value (While Valuing What We Measure)
Article・Jesse Markow and Sarah Ottow/Confianza LLC
English & Spanish Phonemic Awareness & Progress Monitoring Assessments
Assessments・Heggerty/Literacy Resources, LLC
This resource contains diagnostic assessments for phonemic awareness, available in both English and Spanish so that teacher can assess and progress monitor and/or compare a student’s ability in both languages.
Artifacts
Schoolwide Literacy Midyear Data Analysis Protocol
Checklist・Teaching Lab
Curious if your midyear data analysis is high quality? Instructional leaders can use this checklist to self assess the quality of their midyear data analysis protocols, uncovering the best practices that should be embedded in reviewing data at a schoolwide level.
MTSS for ELs
Rubric・United States Department of Education
The MTSS for ELs: Literacy Implementation Rubric is intended to be used by individuals or teams who are responsible for monitoring school-level fidelity of a multitiered system of supports (MTSS) for English learners, including MTSS, bilingual, literacy, and English language development specialists or coaches; school principals; and teacher leaders.
The rubric is aligned with the essential components of MTSS for literacy and the infrastructure that is necessary for successful implementation. It is accompanied by a worksheet and action planning document with guiding questions.
The worksheet can be used to record ratings and notes for each section, and the action planning document can be used to summarize strengths, areas of need, and goals, and to track progress.
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) for English Learners (Draft)
PDF Framework・Boston Public Schools
Meeting the Needs of English Learners
Project Briefs・Project Lee
Equity and Assessment: Moving Towards Culturally Responsive Assessment
Paper・National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
This paper explores the relationship between equity and assessment, addressing the question: how consequential can assessment be to learning when assessment approaches may not be inclusive of diverse learners? The paper argues that for assessment to meet the goal of improving student learning and authentically document what students know and can do, a culturally responsive approach to assessment is needed.
In describing what culturally responsive assessment entails, this paper offers a rationale as to why change is necessary, proposes a way to conceptualize the place of students and culture in assessment, and introduces three ways to help make assessment culturally responsive.