A recent Education Week article highlights New York’s decision to join a growing number of states using a WIDA assessment to measure English learners’ language proficiency.
Beginning next school year, New York will transition from its state-developed test to WIDA ACCESS, a digital assessment currently used by 35 states, the District of Columbia, and five federal agencies and U.S. territories.
According to the article, experts are calling the move a “win” for data collection on English learners’ language proficiency, and also for New York’s multilingual students with disabilities.
By joining the WIDA consortium, New York will add nearly 260,000 English learners to the national pool of students taking the same assessment. Existing member states, in turn, are expected to benefit from New York educators’ extensive experience working with large, culturally and linguistically diverse student populations, WIDA leaders said.
“New York has a long track record of really serving multilingual learners across their state in some really fantastic ways,” said Jenni Monie De Torres, the executive director of WIDA, which is housed in the UW–Madison School of Education. “(They have) lots of research and information that they’ll be able to also share with the rest of our consortium and vice versa.”
The article also notes that another key factor in New York’s decision was WIDA’s availability of an alternate assessment for English learners with significant cognitive disabilities.
“We knew we needed one, and that is just not something that we felt we could provide for students ethically, equitably,” said Zachary Warner, the assistant commissioner in the state’s office of state assessment.
Read the full article in Education Week.