OCR Self-Assessment Guide - Student Assessment
This assessment guide is to assist school systems to voluntarily comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding equal educational opportunities for ELL students. The guide is part of OCR's Region VII office's pilot program to encourage partnership approaches to civil rights compliance. School districts are not required to provide data to OCR in this format. This section of the guide focuses on student assessment.
OCR Self-Assessment Guide - Student Identification
"This assessment guide is to assist school systems to voluntarily comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding equal educational opportunities for ELL students." The guide is part of OCR's Region VII office's pilot program to encourage partnership approaches to civil rights compliance. School districts are not required to provide data to OCR in this format. This section of the guide focuses on student identification.
Standards and Assessments
This document offers the U.S. Department of Education's draft guidance on the assessment requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act addressing ELL students. The sections provided pertain to ELL and migrant students as well as flexibility and accountability for ELL students.
Standards for Test Administration
This ETS 2014 resource contains excerpts from the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education which lists obligations for informing test takers and/or their parents and guardians about the assessment to be given and the use of the data gathered from the assessment process.
Source: Excerpts from the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing prepared by the Committee to Develop Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education, 1985. The purpose of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing is provide criteria for the evaluation of tests, testing practices, and the effects of test use. Part VI contain standards regarding test administration, scoring, and reporting, as well as standards for the protection of test takers' rights. This excerpt is taken from Chapter 15, Test Administration, Scoring, and Reporting.
In typical applications, test administrators should follow carefully the standardized procedures for administration and scoring specified by the test publisher. Specifications regarding instructions to test takers, time limits, the form of item presentation or response, and test materials or equipment should be strictly observed. Exemptions should be made only on the basis of carefully considered professional judgment, primarily in clinical applications.
The testing environment should be one of reasonable comfort and with minimal distractions. Testing material should be readable and understandable. In computerized testing, items displayed on a screen should be legible and free from glare, and the terminal should be properly positioned.
Testing sessions should be monitored where appropriate both to assist the test taker when a need arises and to maintain proper administrative procedures. Among the conditions that should be avoided in testing situations are:
- Noise
- Disruption in the testing area
- Extremes of temperature
- Inadequate work space
- Illegible material, and so forth.
In the context of computer-administered tests, the novelty of the presentation may have an unknown effort on the test administration.
Standards for Testing Bilingual Persons
Originally produced by the Evaluation Assistance Center-West, the Standards for Testing Bilingual Persons is a useful resource to share with the school staff members responsible for testing ELL students. Refer to the ERIC/CUE Digest No. 65.
