Education Week - November 17, 2021 - 9

state education agencies that the
most vulnerable English-learners
weren't tested, said Amaya Garcia,
deputy director of preK-12 education
at the think tank New America.
In the Roseville district there was
a 17 percent drop in the number of
English-learners taking the 2021
WIDA test from the year before, and
that's despite outreach efforts such as
providing transportation to school for
the test during their remote learning
year, said Robertson.
While she can't definitively say why
these students didn't participate, she
identified possible disconnects.
" It's not a test that they need to
graduate. And parents are sort of,
like, why am I sending my kid to take
this test when they're not even coming
to school to learn? " she said.
English-learner advocates in some
states last year were pushing for parents
to be able to opt-out of the inperson
test, or for tests to be delayed
due to COVID-19 safety concerns.
The federal government encouraged
this testing to proceed in 2021,
even if it meant extending the testing
window.
School closures forced some
schools to administer the test well
into the current academic year as opposed
to the traditional spring testing
window, Cook said, possibly giving
some students more time than others
to develop their language skills before
being assessed.
Robertson said bringing students
into school buildings may also have
affected their performance. Many
students who had been stuck at
home for remote learning were
seeing their peers for the first time in
a while on test day, which was likely
exciting and distracting.
Even with the caveats in mind, the
2021 test results do have one potential
use, said Derek Briggs, a University
of Colorado Boulder professor and
president of the National Council on
Measurement in Education, whose
members design and study K-12 assessments:
They're a tool for helping
figure out where individual students
are with English proficiency, and
what their needs are moving forward.
But because of the major changes
in who got tested overall, you can't
make inferences about English-learners
as a population, even at a district
level, he added.
What do we know from the
results?
Amid all the caveats, aggregate
student data from 2021 revealed an
overall downward trend in language
proficiency and growth compared to
2020 and 2019.
The pandemic's impact as seen in
the 2021 scores varied by grade and
each of the four language domains.
There were relatively larger declines
in speaking, according to WIDA's report,
and in 1st and 6th grades.
Garcia, with New America, found
it concerning that there were more
declines in language growth in the
younger years since there's the hope
that children will become proficient
early enough to exit out of an English-learner
program by 4th grade to
avoid the risk of becoming a longterm
English-learner, who may end
up stagnated academically.
And while Garcia was surprised
that the decline in reading wasn't as
big as in the other domains, opening
up the question of how much reading
was involved in virtual learning, the
decline in speaking wasn't a shock.
" Virtual learning didn't necessarily
lend itself to a lot of speaking and
practicing talking, " Garcia said.
While the return to in-person
school itself can address the need for
more opportunities to develop speaking
skills, the decline is of note considering
how key speaking is to learning
a language overall, she added.
Educators should look at multiple
factors
As Robertson's team in Minnesota
reviews local English-learner assessment
results, they're keeping in mind
that students can do more in a classroom
setting than they can in a standardized
testing situation.
Standardized tests can't, for instance,
track advances students
make in their home languages, Robertson
said. And the test results alone
shouldn't be used to make assumptions
on student progress.
" I just think there has to be a
broader conversation about triangulation
of data, how we look at the
multiple factors that go into this, " she
said.
Robertson is also mindful of the
continued outreach staff within her
district are doing to determine how
the pandemic impacted students
beyond academics. She's aware, for
instance, that there were several
COVID-19-related deaths in their
English-learner community.
29%
24%
36%
29%
24%
29%
24%
> 50% Black
> 50% Black
> 50% Black
Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics
36%
31%
> 50% Latino
School demographics
> 50% Latino
School demographics
> 50% Latino
School demographics
Average of Fall 2017, 2018, 2019
Average of Fall 2017, 2018, 2019
Average of Fall 2017, 2018, 2019
Fall 2021
Fall 2021
Fall 2021
> 50% White
> 50% White
> 50% White
31%
What New Data Reveal About Students' Math and
Reading Performance Right Now
The results of a new study show the magnitude of the task
schools have ahead of them.
3rd Grade Students on Grade Level by
Demographic Group
> edweek.org
3rd Grade Students on Grade Level by
Demographic Group
3rd Grade Students on Grade Level by
Demographic Group
Reading
Reading
Reading
Average of Fall 2017, 2018, 2019
Average of Fall 2017, 2018, 2019
Average of Fall 2017, 2018, 2019
36%
31%
54%
50%
Fall 2021
Fall 2021
54%
Fall 2021
54%
50%
50%
22%
17%
13%
9%
4%
13%
> 50% Black
4%
9%
9%
> 50% Black
4%
> 50% Black
School demographics
> 50% Latino
> 50% Latino
13%
8%
8%
SOURCE: Curriculum Associates
SOURCE: Curriculum Associates
SOURCE: Curriculum Associates
School demographics
> 50% Latino
School demographics
> 50% White
17%
22%
> 50% White
> 50% White
8%
22%
17%
of assessment: Whether a student
takes a test online or with paper and
pencil can influence the results.
nDid we use the same test as in 2019?
If you switched tests, or changed the
length or frequency of your test, a detailed
expert analysis could be needed
to confirm the validity of the 2021
results-were there enough questions
in each strand of the academic
standards, for instance, to generate
a valid score-and to establish that
those results can be compared with
2019 results.
nHow many of our students-and which
ones-took the test? This " participation
rate, " experts say, is very important in
understanding what state tests say-
or can't say-about student learning.
They urge educators to dig deeper
than the overall state or district participation
rate and find out who took
the test and who didn't.
Imagine that an analysis shows that
the students who skipped the test
were disproportionately those who
scored low in previous years. That
would skew test results artificially
high, and stalled progress might appear
less severe than it actually is.
That isn't just speculation, either.
It's likely that remote learners account
for many missed tests and it
became increasingly apparent during
the pandemic that low-income, Black,
and Latino students were far likelier
to be learning remotely than other
students. And emerging multistate
research on state test results is finding
that COVID-19's impact on learning
isn't concentrated just in elementary
schools, or among traditionally
low-performing students, as early
analyses of interim tests suggested;
it's broader, affecting students at all
grades and achievement levels.
Enrollment declines, widely docuStay
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mented in many grades, can also play
havoc with sound interpretations of
test scores. Again, it's important to
understand the academic and demographic
profiles of who stopped coming
to school, experts say.
" If you aren't paying attention
to how the population is changing,
you're misinterpreting your scores, "
said Andrew Ho, a Harvard University
professor of education who focuses
on assessment. He urges state leaders
to perform a three-dimensional
analysis of their test scores to ensure
valid comparisons. This is done by
separately comparing each group-
the students who took tests and those
who didn't-only to groups who performed
similarly in the past.
" We've just got to avoid a naïve
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% of students on grade level
% of students on grade level
% of students on grade level
% of students on grade level
% of students on grade level
% of students on grade level
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Education Week - November 17, 2021

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