Equity for Multilingual Learners during Language Testing

Schools are required to provide annual language testing. If you're in IL, we belong to the WIDA Consortium, so we take the ACCESS Test. This is time-intensive as it spans across 4 assessments, one each in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Your school's Multilingual (or EL, ELL, or ESL) Teacher is busy with scheduling each of these assessments, often across multiple grade levels. They have yellow boxes all over their spaces and testing tickets and student rosters and angry emails and tired students and they're just trying to keep their heads above water!  What really makes this season extra difficult is when teachers are trying to do all of this- plus their other duties - and their school is not supportive of the time, care, and energy needed. This is inequitable.

ACCESS is a schoolwide assessment. It is a districtwide assessment. It is a school and district assessment, even if there are only a handful of students taking it! This means it must be supported by the whole school and the whole district. How is this demonstrated in schools?

This schoolwide assessment should be treated with as much attention and care as all other schoolwide assessments, like IAR. Are we ensuring that all teachers, including leadership, are giving frequent reminders about mindful behavior in the hallway in terms of noise levels? Are we ALL offering care and stress-reducing opportunities throughout the day? Are ALL adults invested in the positive and supportive learning environments needed during this testing window?

Let's also address our school policies around excused work. Does your school have a policy around missed work during their ACCESS Test Sessions? If not, it's time to consider one. This is the perfect opportunity for schools and districts to put into place the words that are present in their District Strategic Plans around equity for students. Multilingual students (and their teachers) must take these assessments every year  until they reach a certain level of English language proficiency. In IL our exit critiera as of 1/11/24 is a composite of 4.8, but in other states their exit criteria is different. If students are stressed over these assessments, and then they return to their classrooms and are hounded about the work they've missed, this is not equitable. It's time for schools to engage in this dialogue if we are serious about equity for multilingual students.

This is also a great time to remind everyone that ACCESS data (and other language data) is SCHOOL DATA. It is not the EL Teacher's data. Students are languaging across their entire school day, with every content area teacher and specialist. This test assesses students' overall languaging skills across content areas. ACCESS data provides all of us a window into how students are currently doing, and how the entire school system is supporting languaging across content areas. Does the whole staff review ACCESS data as a school, or is it reserved for just the EL teacher? 

The Multilingual Teacher should not be the only ones helping students to feel prepared or supported. Consider how your school prepares and supports students through other testing windows. Is there the same level of care given? If not, let's get to work.