Education Week - September 18, 2013 - 17

EDUCATION WEEK
team’s discretion. Those supports
would have to be identified for students
ahead of any test administration.
All the language supports
available for English-learners fall
into that category.
• “Documented accommodations”
are for students whose individualized
education or Section
504 plan calls for their use. That
would include reading aloud text
passages for middle and high
school students, Braille, or closed
captioning for hearing-impaired or
deaf students.
Not every English-learner in the
Smarter Balanced states will have
access to the full range of available
language supports. Member
states with laws and regulations
that restrict or prohibit the use of
languages other than English to
teach or assess ELLs do not have to
offer such translation options for
test-takers.
California, a Smarter Balanced
state that is home to about 1.6 million
English-learners, will offer the
full array of language supports,
said Deborah Sigman, the state’s
deputy superintendent of education
and a co-chair of Smarter
Balanced’s executive committee.
The state has offered a similar
lineup of language supports to
English-learners on its content
assessments.
“At this point, we don’t see any
conflicts with current law, but
obviously, we will review as we
begin our implementation of the
Smarter Balanced assessments,”
Ms. Sigman wrote in an email.
Translation Options
Among the language supports
that ELLs may encounter on the
Smarter Balanced math tests:
translated test directions; translated
glossaries for select words
in math test items that help students
understand specific terms;
and complete or “stacked” translations
of test items that will appear
above the original English
item.
All of those translation tools
will be embedded in a test’s digital
platform and can be turned on
or off by test administrators. In
addition, ELLs may also use nondigital
translated glossaries to
understand selected math terms
on some test items.
For the English/language arts
assessment, English-learners may
have access to a bilingual or duallanguage
word-to-word dictionary
for the extended writing portions
of an ELA performance task.
All the translation supports will
be available in Spanish, the predominant
native language of students
who are English-language
learners in Smarter Balanced
states. But the test consortium
will also offer translations in
other languages, as determined
by member states’ needs. So far,
it has committed to providing the
glossary translation tools in Vietnamese
and Arabic, the next two
most widely used languages in
those states.
Gabriela Uro, the director of
English-language-learner policy
and research at the Council of
the Great City Schools, said the
language supports will help even
the playing field for English-
learners to demonstrate what
they have learned.
And if scores for English-learners
in states that offer the full array of
language supports are better than
for students who don’t get the tools,
“it might open the door” for states
with more restrictions around the
language of instruction to think
about how they can also offer the
tools without violating their laws,
Ms. Uro explained.
The other big group of states designing
assessments—the Partnership
for the Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers, or
PARCC—approved its first edition
of testing supports for ELLs and
students with disabilities in June.
PARCC, which received hundreds
of comments on its proposed accommodations
policy—many relating
specifically to read-aloud
accommodations—decided in June
that students with persistent textdecoding
difficulties can have text
passages read to them, but a notation
will be made on their score report
indicating that no claims can
be made about the student’s ability
to demonstrate foundational
print skills.
Timothy Shanahan, a professor
of urban education at the University
of Illinois at Chicago and a
former president of the International
Reading Association, offered
a scathing assessment of PARCC’s
read-aloud accommodations policy
in his blog, saying it was an example
of “dopey doings in the annals
of testing.”
The Smarter Balanced approach
to read-aloud accommodations is
a better option, he said, though
he would rather not see its use for
text passages.
“The purpose of the test is to
find out how well these kids can
read,” Mr. Shanahan said. “If for
whatever reason they can’t do it,
that’s what we want to know.”
Policy ‘Disappointing’
Lindsay E. Jones, the director of
public policy and advocacy for the
National Center for Learning Disabilities
in New York, said she was
“stunned” at Smarter Balanced’s
blanket prohibition of read-aloud
accommodations for students at
the elementary level.
“Smarter Balanced has been
inclusive in the discussions up to
this point. That’s why I think this
is so disappointing,” Ms. Jones
said. She acknowledged concerns
that read-aloud accommodations
could mask inadequate instruction,
but said the data that states
will be able to collect through
those tests will help pinpoint areas
of concern or potential overuse.
“This conversation is not over,”
she said.“We view this as the first
step in what will hopefully be a
long dialogue.”
The supports will be field-tested
with student test-takers next
spring. The full rollout of the
Smarter Balanced exams will be
in the 2014-15 school year.
Scan this tag with your
smartphone for a link to
“Smarter Balanced
Assessment Consortium:
Usability, Accessibility, and
Accommodations Guidelines”
at www.edweek.org/links.
INTRODUCING
n
SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.edweek.org
n
17
Answers You Need from Voices You Trust™
Choose From
Two Value-
Priced Formats:
Print or LowCost
eBooks
answ NOW!ers
ASCD Arias™provide you with answers to
challenging questions that you need to solve today—
in a convenient format you can read in one sitting
and immediately put into practice. ASCD Arias are
new publications brought to you by ASCD, the leader
in K–12 professional development for educators.
Perfect for anyone who needs concise answers to
the challenges faced by all educators. It’s the nextgeneration
immediate-need resource for everyone
committed to the success of every learner.
START NOW!
www.ascdarias.org
http://www.edweek.org http://www.ascdarias.org http://www.ascdarias.org http://www.edweek.org/links
Education Week - September 18, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - September 18, 2013
