Best Practices for State Content Assessment Policies for English Language Learners (ELLs): Handbook Development Project

SEAs represented at the LEP Partnership meeting in October 2006 agreed that it would be beneficial to collaborate in the refinement of appropriate test accommodations to be offered to ELLs and to develop a handbook that can be used to refine and update individual state policies.

To develop this handbook, the MACC project team will work with a panel of SEA and LEA Title I and Title III Directors and technical experts, among them, Jamal Abedi, a leading expert on ELL accommodations, who will serve as Senior Advisor to the project.

Together, the panel will review current SEA inclusion and accommodation policies, help refine the number of accommodations that SEAs might include in their policies, and determine which accommodations would most benefit students depending on their level of English language proficiency.

The results of these discussions will also be communicated on a regular basis to SEA Title III and Assessment Directors for feedback.

The MACC project team will use the working group discussions and feedback to develop a working paper to create an idealized policy handbook which SEAs might use to refine their own policies. The handbook will be available June 2008.

-----------------------------
Charlene Rivera will serve as Principal Investigator for the project. Email requests for additional information about the project should be sent to the Project Manager, Lynn Shafer Willner (lwillner@ceee.gwu.edu).